Pardners (1956) Online

Martin and Lewis are seen as old men in the beginning of the film.They are these ranch partners who are brutally murdered.Their sons ought to revenge for their death.In 1910 their sons are fully grown men, at least Martin's character Slim Mosely Jr. is.Lewis' Wade Kingsley Jr. is a rich momma's boy.But together they head back for the old west where they meet a gang of outlaws called "masked raiders".Norman Taurog is the director and Sidney Sheldon is behind the screenplay of Pardners (1956).It's a western comedy that stars the comedy team Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.Actually this was the second last picture they made together before their break-up.The collaboration between them still works even though this isn't the best picture they did together.But still pretty funny.Just watch Jerry Lewis learn how to be a real cowboy.And how he's in the saloon acting tougher than he actually is.The rest of the cast does good job, too.Lori Nelson plays Carol Kingsley.Agnes Moorehead is Mrs.Matilda Kingsley.Jeff Morrow plays Pete Rio and John Baragrey is Dan/Sam Hollis.Lon Chaney Jr. is Whitey.Lee Van Cleef plays Gus while Jack Elam is Pete.I became an admirer of Jerry Lewis movies, with and without Dean 10 years ago.They showed all these great and funny movies during the summer that made me laugh.Lewis and Martin worked great together.Just like Laurel and Hardy did, or Hope and Crosby and the Marx brothers.What ever happened to great comedy teams?

This is a great Martin and Lewis Comedy from 1956, which is the same year that they broke up as a Comedic Duo, and this film "Pardners," was the second to their last that was made. Jerry's father and Dean's father were the best of friends, and died together in the hopes of saving their land. And of course, the story picks up with the children fully grown and ready to go back get some justice in the western town in which they were both born. Dean has some great singing numbers in this film, and Jerry's special brand of physical comedy is very effective in a number of saloon fight scenes. A very entertaining comedy!

RIDE ALONG WITH THESE TWO COMEDIC COWBOY LEGENDS - 8 out of 10 rating

I love Jerry Lewis films so when I popped in this DVD which is classified as a Western/Comedy I was hoping to see a film that may provide a few chuckles. Much to my surprise for a picture that was released almost 60 years ago the picture quality was in pristine Technicolor, the tandem of Martin and Lewis and a strong supporting cast that included Agnes Moorehead kept me entertained throughout the film from beginning to end.

Lost in the production values of today's films is that combination of a simple but effective plot, the bantering between the two co- stars Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, the slapstick comedy of the King of Comedy of the 1950's and 1960's Jerry Lewis, and the film also threw in a few cowboy songs that were sung by swooner Dean Martin. Heck even Jerry and Dean sung a few numbers together.

I keep hearing that life was much simpler back in the 1950's than it is now 60 years later. Although in my humble opinion if there were more family oriented films such as this classic comedy "Pardners" that were more readily available for families to sit down and watch together as a family unit rather than today's generation of laptop, tabloid and android users who prefer to watch films in isolation that are saturated with Computer Generated Imagery more commonly known as CGI the family unit would be stronger today with a lot less violence in the world.

Pardners has everything this moviegoer demands. It has a simple plot with great comedy relief and a few light songs to go along with the cowboy's journey. The two old cowboys from the late 1800's played by Dean Martin and Lewis die together at the hands of an evil desperado but leave behind their sons (also played by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis) who 25 years later in the early 1900's join forces together once again to take down the evil banker who also happens to be the son of the rustler who killed their daddies 25 years earlier.

Jerry Lewis plays the bumbling heir apparent to mom's (Agnes Moorehead) industrial revolution fortune who runs away to reunite with real life cowpoke Dean Martin to save the ranch that Jerry's and Dean's daddies died trying to save many years ago. It is a wonderful family film that has endured the test of time. I urge families to sit back and relax with a bowl of popcorn and just enjoy this comedy western classic.

I give the film a strong 8 out of 10 rating

It was always interesting to me how the writers at Paramount managed to rework some of the plots of their old classics to fit Martin and Lewis. In this next to last film Pardners, it's taken from the old Bing Crosby classic Rhythm On The Range. They even managed to get the old director of Bing's film Norman Taurog to direct.

Dean and Jerry are the sons of a pair of ranchers who were both killed in a range war. Dean's parents stayed west, but Agnes Moorehead as Jerry's mom, went East, made a ton of money and raised Jerry as the tenderest tenderfoot ever. Dean's now gone east and entered rodeo competition to win money for a prize bull named Cuddles. He meets up with Jerry who 'helps' him out in his usual manner.

Most of Rhythm on the Range involved Bing Crosby on the journey back west with Cuddles the bull and Frances Farmer where some romance develops. Since no one would confuse Frances with Jerry, the love interest has to be supplied elsewhere. Jerry's cousin Lori Nelson does this for Dean. In fact according to the Nick Tosches biography on Dean Martin, the interest was off the screen as well.

Jerry doesn't do too bad in this film either. He gets saloon girl and former Miss USA Jackie Loughrey. By that time Jerry's been made the sheriff and he's gotten the ire roused of one particular bad guy Jeff Morrow who thinks of Loughrey as his own. But in the end all's well and even the intergenerational range war has finally ended. Not without the usual broad comedic gags that are a Martin and Lewis specialty.

Bing made out miles better in his film than Dino did in the song department. Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn wrote the score for Pardners and it's definitely not up to their usual standards. In Rhythm on the Range Bing got to sing, Empty Saddles and introduced I'm An Old Cowhand. Since they owned the rights, why didn't Paramount just let Martin have some of these to do. In fact I'm An Old Cowhand would have been a great comic duet for both Dino and Jerry.

Still the accent was on comedy rather than romance in Pardners and that is what Martin and Lewis do best.

This Martin & Lewis film is beautiful in full-color Vista-Vision! It's set in the Old West, where Dean is managing a ranch and Jerry wants to be a cowboy...like their fathers, who were pals in the Old West at the same ranch. Of course, in the old days and the new days there's a villain attempting to take over the ranch, and it's up to the boys to save the day.

Dean has several great songs here. "The Wind! The Wind!" is probably one of his best recordings during the Capitol years, and "Me 'n You 'n the Moon" is a very nice up-temp love song. For Jerry there's "Buckskin Beauty", and for the boys together there's the title song...which is very nice, though ironic since this film was playing in theaters just about the time the duo had split up. By the way, the songs were composed by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy VanHeusen.

I found Jerry a little more tolerable here...the screechy voice mostly gone...a bit more mature acting (mature?). Dean was very laid back and fit the role. In terms of supporting actors, Agnes Moorehead is good as Jerry's mother, and Lori Nelson fine as Dean's love interest (though this is not big speaking part). There are a number of familiar faces among the cowboys -- Jeff Morrow, Lon Chaney, Jr., Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam, and Bob Steele.

Incidentally, if you have a chance to watch "The Caddy" and "Pardners" in succession -- which I did yesterday and today -- wow, what a difference in Dean's body language and facial expressions. In the earlier film, there's a look that sort of says, "I'm having fun". You don't see that in "Pardners".

All in all, a rather pleasant effort, and in my view one of the better of the Martin & Lewis pics.

It is one of the Best ones that Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin ever did. If you can rent or buy a copy do it,(VHS or DVD) you won't be sorry. It's the Best! It's about the west back when your great great great grandfathers were ranchers, and these two Lewis & Martin are so funny in this one. If you get the chance to watch this, do it! Also is: Your never to young. Lewis & Martin are great in this one. It's about Lewis trying to get away from a thug, and in doing so ends up posing as a teenager and going to the school that Martin is a teacher at... then things get crazy! I laugh so hard, I cry. I can't wait for these two movies to come out on DVD so I can buy them! I hope you'll get them too.

Pardners is the 15th of the 16 feature length pictures that Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis made together. It'a a reworking of the 1936 Bing Crosby film, Rhythm On The Range, which just like this remake was directed by Norman Taurog. Plot sees the comedy duo playing sons of one time wild west partners. Brought together by accident 25 years later, the boys head out west and get into all sorts of scrapes; with Jerry even becoming sheriff! It was inevitable that Martin & Lewis would end up out west playing cowboys since all the comedy duos do it. The timing here was perfect since the 50s was the most prolific decade for the genre. On the list of their collaborations Pardners probably sits some where in the middle, it's a safe mix of songs and buffoonery, with pretty girls represented by Jackie Loughery & Lori Nelson. It's a VistaVision/Technicolor production and songs featured are "Me 'n You 'n the Moon," "The Wind! The Wind!" "Buckskin Beauty" and "Pardners," (music by Jimmy Van Heusen, lyrics by Sammy Cahn).

Safe & colourful comedy fare for fans of the successful duo. 7/10

I never thought that both of them will be starring in a western movie. They would normally have films based on show business but this is definitely different from their other stuff. I honestly thought at the beginning, Lewis and Martin were gonna look like old bucks throughout the whole movie but when they were suppose to be killed, I actually nearly cried. However it wasn't the case after all because the old bucks were meant to be their father's and they just suddenly changed into their regular selves.

I really loved the scenes of the old West, it does take you right back in time when cowboy movies were increasingly popular in the 50's and 60s. It's a really nice feeling but unfortunately, cowboy movies nowadays aren't shown much anymore!

This movie is such a gem, I honestly loved Lewis and Martin teaming up on this one!

After years of just seeing parts of this Martin & Lewis movie, I finally watched the whole thing on YouTube. As you can discern from the title, Dean & Jerry are in the old west. First, as their fathers from the previous century. Then, as their sons with the mother of Lewis (Agnes Moorehead) raising him back in New York to marry some Amazon woman but that son will have none of it. I'll stop there and just say that while I enjoyed Pardners, I did feel that some of the plot points and characterizations seemed rushed in order to parody certain clichés. Still, Jerry's as funny as he can be doing what he does here and Dean seems quite comfortable in his first of many times he would wear cowboy duds. The leading ladies of Lori Nelson and Jackie Loughery sure look good and nothing more. The villains of Jeff Morrow and John Baragrey provide good enough menace. So on that note, I recommend Pardners. P.S. Despite the team mentioning at the end they plan to stay together in movies for years, by the time this was released in August of '56, they had already done their last performance in tandem the previous month. It would be 20 years before they would publicly reunite on Jerry's telethon with Frank Sinatra doing his bit...

I'd heard a lot of great things about the comedy pairing of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. I'd seen Jerry Lewis in some other films before this (such as "The Nutty Professor" and "Rock-A-Bye-Baby") where he didn't really stand out as being a comedy legend, if anything he just seemed really annoying at points.

However I wasn't going to let that get in the way of enjoying what I had heard was a great double act.

But... this movie kind of sucked.

The most important thing that a comedy needs is to be funny, and unfortunately this doesn't quite hit the right mark. Jerry Lewis screaming and whining in that voice of his gets irritating after a while, and pairing him with the rather subdued and (in my opinion anyway) boring Dean Martin doesn't help as there's no one around to rein him in.

The story of this film feels like it was thought up five minuted before shooting began. It's the standard "there's a new sheriff in town and some criminals are trying to get rid of him" state of affairs that we've all seen about one hundred times before. However I will give the writers some credit as they did try to add a little twist to it, but ultimately it doesn't work because you don't really care about what's happening.

There's also this weird thing about an inter-generational family war which means that Dean Martin's character (a cowboy) and Jerry Lewis' character (a spoiled socialite who has always dreamed of being a cowboy) have to team up to stop the bad guys who are... doing something bad.

However this just means that it takes about 40 minutes for the two main characters to team up which means the rest of the movie feels incredibly rushed, so I wish they'd structured the movie better in that regard.

Oh yeah, also it's a musical? That was something I only figured out about 30 minutes in, which is when the first musical number appears. I can't actually remember any other songs after that though, so maybe there was only one? Either way, it was unnecessary and pointless and only served to waste time.

Overall, this movie was a pretty big disappointment, but it wasn't completely awful. Hopefully my future attempts to watch some Lewis and Martin will yield greater results.

Pardners (1956)

*** (out of 4)

Our film starts off with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis playing Slim Moseley and Wade Kingsley who die protecting their ranch. Moseley, Jr. (Martin) stays out West where he eventually tries to save the ranch and he goes out East to track down Wade, Jr. (Lewis) who he discovers is quite the weak nerd. Wade, wanting to become a cowboy, follows Moseley out West and soon they are going up against a crooked gang who wants their land.

I really wasn't sure what to expect from PARDNERS but it turned out to be one of the better Martin & Lewis movies even if it does borrow quite heavily from their film THAT'S MY BOY. This film here benefits greatly from the beautiful Technicolor plus the fact that the two leads are surrounding by a very good supporting cast. Plus, you can't help but enjoy seeing Martin in his first Western and especially when you consider the great things he did for the genre after the duo's split.

As far as this film goes, Martin & Lewis were just built for the Western setting and both of them do a very good job here. I really liked Lewis' character here because he wasn't nearly as whiny or as annoying as the actor would sometime go. This character seemed like a legit one and I thought Lewis did a very good job. One of his highlights deals with him trying to roll a cigarette without much luck. Martin was perfect here as he gets some very good numbers throughout the picture including the title track, which is done with Lewis on a good Western set.

The supporting cast includes fun performances from Lori Nelson, Jackie Loughery, Agnes Moorehead, Jeff Morrow, Lee Van Cleef and Lon Chaney in a small role. You also have Jack Elam and Bob Steele appearing in small roles. The film has a lot of funny moments here including one very good sequence where Martin is having to fill in for Lewis during a fight while making sure the weak one gets the credit for it. As I said, the Technicolor here looks terrific and I liked how the film played well as not only a comedy but also a Western.

1956's "Pardners" showed how the partnership of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis was not only fraying at the edges, it was beginning to crumble, with only "Hollywood or Bust" ahead before they finally split. Here they finally turn to a Western spoof, and gather together an impressive cast of veteran heavies, such as Lon Chaney, Bob Steele, Lee Van Cleef, Douglas Spencer, and Jack Elam (relegated to a single line), all of whom are grievously wasted with virtually nothing to do but watch the gyrations of the tiresome Jerry Lewis. A straight prologue depicting the demise of Dean and Jerry certainly sets a grim tone for the dreary remainder, as poor Dean has to try to save Jerry's hide whenever he gets into trouble, eventually made sheriff by the main bad guy, out to steal the heroine's ranch by marrying her as a last straw. By the time the duo arrive out west to the ranch where their fathers died the picture is already half over, though not soon enough for this viewer. With really no character to play, Chaney's Whitey occasionally strokes his chin as he did opposite Bob Steele in 1939, surely a long way from "Of Mice and Men."

The plot is quite simple: Dean Martin is the rodeo riding, singing cowboy, and foreman of a ranch. Jerry Lewis is a rich kid who wants to become a real cowboy, and hence he becomes the clumsy (unwanted) sidekick of Dean Martin. Oh, and for good measure there's some bad guys trying to take over the ranch, as well...

If you expect "Cat Balou", don't watch this. This is no comedy for adults, as its slapstick humour is horrendously outdated, and the set-pieces are all too cliched. This movie is fun for kids, because it is so naive and harmless, and the violence is never serious. Also, the characters are just as simple as Stan and Ollie, just as loveable if you're a kid.

As adult, I'd recommend to grab a "Cat Balou" tape instead, for a good classic western comedy.

This is the second to last film starring Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis--and so the title does seem a bit ironic! The film begins with Dean and Jerry's fathers (played by them with powdered hair) dying in a shoot out with baddies. However, both men had sons. One was a capable and manly cowboy (Martin) and the other a pampered mama's boy (Lewis) and they grow up not knowing each other. However, when Martin meets with his old partner's widow (Agnes Moorehead) to try to get money for a prize bull, she refuses but her son (Lewis) decides to go west with Martin and learn to be a real he-man. Plus, his mother has plans for him that include marriage to an amazon--and he wants no part of it. The rest of the film consists of Jerry acting wimpy and very goofy (perhaps too much so at times) and Martin being exasperated but loyal to his new friend who makes everyone (including Jerry) think he's a lot more rugged and brave than he really is.

If you think about it, this plot is basically "That's My Boy" (an earlier and better Martin & Lewis film) all over again. The locale is different, but the rest is basically the same formula. It's a pleasant formula, but also shows lazy writing as well and the film could have benefited from more originality. Plus, in a few scenes Jerry really does ham it up too much (even more than normal) and there are just too many "ooooo, oooohs" and "whoo-oooaa" moments in the otherwise pleasant but unremarkable film. And, as a result of so much screen time for Jerry, Martin is mostly relegated to the background--and you can see how films like this ultimately pushed them to their dissolving their pardner-ship.

By the way, this film also bears a strong similarity to the Bob Hope films "The Paleface" and "Son of Paleface". See them all and you'll probably agree.

Like every other comedy team, even the decidedly city-fied Martin & Lewis eventually had to put on chaps and kick up the sawdust. And like most of these mergers of western and comedy teams, it doesn't generate much entertainment. Also, it was nearly their last gasp as a partnership and the rot had set in. This is a mirthless comedy clumsily written and directed. Lewis is no longer the squawky scrawny mutant comic force from earlier---here he is chubby and annoying. Of course he plays the doofus, but magically and without cause, he becomes an adept fighter in the final fight scene. That's an example of the clumsiness of this film. Martin goes through the motions looking seriously bored. Lon Chaney Jr. is wasted---in fact he's almost an extra. Lee Van Cleef is also in the cast, but he gets only a few unimportant lines. The ending tag of the film has Martin & Lewis speaking directly to the audience---pleading with their fans to keep coming to their movies (obviously the world knowing at the time that the pair were practically falling apart). No matter: They only made one more movie after this junk, the equally second-rate 'Hollywood or Bust' (in which Martin no longer looks bored but actually angry).

Pardners is a comedy set in the western. The story starts in the old west when Slim and Wade is forced to defend, well not before they finish their checkers game ,their ranch and families from masked raiders. During the fight Wade's wife Matilda takes Wade Jr and runs off to New York. Slim's wife with Slim Jr stays but both Slim and Wade are shot and killed. The Juniors are raised separately, Slim in the west and Wade in New York. The two don't meet until 25 years later, Slim is a capable foreman at the ranch but Wade is just a big kid ruled by his dictator (and successful businesswoman) mother. Coincidentally they both end up at the ranch, yet again attacked by masked raiders. Can Slim save the ranch and the accident prone Wade from himself?

Supposed to be funny, a comedy based on the incompetent Wade, who can't help trip over himself. Problem is, it isn't. The character of Wade is too over the top, too clumsy and frankly too stupid to be any fun.

The tandem of Martin and Lewis certainly performed as they was directed to, but the character Wade is just too ridiculous. And the tempo killing singing, mostly Dean's, even though beautiful, isn't helping. Wade and the singing kills any tempo, any humor and any exciting twists.

So, it isn't funny, it isn't much of a western. It isn't much of anything. Unfortunately.

The only fun part was to spot Lee van Cleef in a small role.

3/10