Three on a Couch
Three on a Couch
NR | 01 March 1966 (USA)
Three on a Couch Trailers

An artist has an opportunity to go to Paris and wants to bring his fiancee along. However, she's a psychiatrist who currently has three female patients who don't like men. So, he guises himself as three different men to gauge their trust and hopefully cure them so that his fiancee can go with him.

Reviews
Irishchatter

I honestly didn't think Jerry Lewis was himself on this one. He normally would make you laugh with his clumsiness and his silly antics! He just had his normal voice and like, he even began to be pretty whiny in this. I mean, there are other movies that I didn't like of his but this one is tragically worse then I thought!I did laugh only a little when he was trying to 'cure' the 3 girls that his therapist girlfriend is dealing with. He did this by dressing up as 3 personalities- a cowboy, a nerd and a fitness lover guy. To be quite honest with you. I thought it really was too much and unflattering. I think Lewis should never have done the film if he couldn't step up a notch! Yeah he probably thought by doing this would make him still funny but honestly, it didn't turn out that way for me I'm afraid..I'm really disappointed with this, it's just so crap!

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preppy-3

Jerry Lewis plays Christopher Pride. He's an artist who's being paid $10,000 (which was big bucks back in 1966) to go to France and paint a mural on a wall. He tells his girlfriend Dr. Elizabeth Acord (Janet Leigh) because he wants to take her with him to propose and get married. However she's a psychiatrist and is treating three women (Leslie Parish, Gila Golan and Mary Ann Mobley) who hate men and she can't leave till they're cured. Pride and his best friend (James Best) come up with the "brilliant" idea of him romancing all three of the women separately, have them fall in love and "cure' them of hating men! No it makes no sense to me either. Predictable and stupid complications ensue.I'm not a fan of Jerry Lewis. I find his humor shrill, loud and painfully unfunny. I only saw this because it was in the book "The 50 Worst Films Of All Time" and I was curious if it was really THAT bad. Sadly it is. There's not one funny joke or routine--not ONE! I never even smiled! Also the jokes ran on twice as long as they should have or were repeated nonstop (Lewis walks into an elevator door THREE times in 10 minutes). The story is stupid and its grasp on feminine psychology is questionable. According to this all a girl needs is to fall in love and she's fine! Lewis produced and directed this one and the direction is off badly. Some curious camera angles or setups just don't work.The acting varies wildly. Lewis is frantic (as usual) and incredibly unfunny. None of his getups work. Seeing him in drag is actually scary! Leigh is excellent in a worthless role. She's basically the straight man (so to speak) to Lewis' jokes. She gives this movie a better performance than it deserves. Parrish, Golan and Mobley was beautiful women with zero acting ability. Best is pretty good and has a few great moments but the script is against him. Unfunny, offensive and just plain dull. To be avoided at all costs.

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vchimpanzee

Artist Christopher Pride has won a contest to paint a mural in Paris. He shows up to collect his award from the diplomats in an office, with the nervous energy one would expect from Jerry Lewis. Just one problem: he's about to get married to Elizabeth, a psychiatrist in a Los Angeles office building which must be about the size of the Empire State Building, judging from the number of psychiatrists in the building directory. If they get married, Elizabeth will have to accompany Christopher to Paris.Elizabeth can take time off from some of her patients, but three of them will be devastated if she has to leave them. Mary Lou has a Southern accent and likes insects. Anna sounds European and sells perfume in a department store, but she likes cowboys. Susan is an exercise nut (she can't just lie on the couch; she must always be working out). All three have problems with men and need to talk to Elizabeth constantly about them.Christopher's best friend Ben, an obstetrician, comes up with an interesting idea. What if Christopher goes out with each girl, portraying their ideal man? It might work. I know it'll work for the audience.Ringo Raintree shows up at Anna's workplace with a cigar in his mouth. The poor man struggles with that cigar but somehow always manages to keep it in his mouth while talking up a storm about being the greatest rancher west of Chicago. Let's just hope he never has to prove his ability in, say, a rodeo.Warren tries to keep up with Susan on the jogging trail. I wasn't aware people jogged in 1965, but Susan is kind of unusual.And one of the movie's funniest scenes, and certainly one of Lewis' most hilarious moments, comes when Heather persuades Mary Lou to visit her very shy zoologist brother Rutherford. Heather is actually Christopher in drag, but she uses the key to her brother's apartment, goes in and discovers him hiding out in the bedroom, terrified of meeting this woman. As they argue, Mary Lou listens from the living room, but Christopher is actually taking off his dress and female underwear (lots of it in those days--and grapefruits in his bra) to get dressed as Rutherford. Heather is quietly washing her hair when her extremely nerdy brother finally meets Mary Lou, and he's not nearly as shy as she expected. He's about as goofy as Julius Kelp, though.So will the plan work? Well, there are many funny moments. One of the best that I haven't mentioned is Warren's attempt to hit a board in Susan's karate class. But there's much more that you can probably guess will happen.There was one scene that didn't make a lot of sense to me. After all ... well, I won't give that away. Let's just say there's a lot of excitement at the end. Particularly funny are the elevators.I was surprised at first, because this didn't seem to be the wacky, zany comedy typical of Jerry Lewis. I've only seen a handful of his films only because I waited for them to show up on broadcast TV, which this one did. But it took time to set up the situation, and I worried this would actually be a comedy-drama. No, once the scheme began, it was everything one would expect from Jerry Lewis. Maybe not his best work, but he certainly shows his talent here.James Best even sounded a little like Sheriff Rosco at times. Those noises he made when Ben was nervous must have originated with Best and not Rosco.Kathleen Freeman was very good as Elizabeth's secretary. The poor woman, but she handles herself very professionally. The other actresses did a pretty good job too. And there's a drunk who is entertaining.I enjoyed the music a lot. Jerry Lewis must enjoy big band jazz as much as I do. And there's quiet jazz in restaurants as well as straight elevator music. No, not in the elevator. The elevator scenes are too wacky for that.A great job.

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Isaac5855

One of my first exposures to Jerry Lewis as a child was the 1966 comedy THREE ON A COUCH in which Jerry played a nebbish engaged to marry a beautiful psychiatrist (Janet Leigh) who feels spends entirely too much time obsessing over three of her female patients (Leslie Parrish, Mary Ann Mobley, Gia Golan) who all have serious hang-ups regarding men and dating. In order to free up his fiancée so she'll have more time for him, Chris, Jerry's character, pretends to be three different guys and initiates a romance with all three women so that they'll gain some self-esteem where men are concerned and his fiancée will have more time to plan their wedding. I remember, even as a child, thinking to myself, "Does he really think he can get away with this?" but I guess Jerry thought like I did, he'd have no career. The three imaginary suitors border on cartoon characters and the lovely Leigh is wasted in thankless role, but there are scattered laughs throughout and Jerry has made worst movies, but it's better than a route canal.

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