Visit to a Small Planet (1960) ** (out of 4)Kreton (Jerry Lewis) is an alien who has always been fascinated by Earth. Whenever he gets a chance he breaks away from his people to take a closer look. Finally, he's allowed to stay on Earth and ends up inside the home of a man who doesn't believe there's anything out in space.Apparently this Gore Vidal script was originally meant for the television and it's easy to see that. VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET is a pretty forgettable film on many levels, although I'm sure die hard fans of Lewis will still want to check it out. Sadly, the interesting premise is pretty much ruined by a film without too many laughs and an overall cheap look.As I said, it's clear that this was meant to be something for television and what really hurts the picture is the fact that it just runs out of gas around the thirty-minute mark and things can never pick up. The film goes on way too long and that's a problem when it clocks in at just 85-minutes. There are a few funny moments with the alien experiences a few things for the first time but this isn't enough to carry the picture.Lewis is fairly bland and boring in the role of the alien. He really keeps it low-key and just never builds up any energy in the role. IT's pretty easy to see why VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET has been forgotten over the years.

I remember seeing this move in it's original rum in the Central Square Theatre when I was a kid, but I read the play years later in my high school library in a book of plays from that year.I still remember Fred Clark as the Dad whom I knew from TV shows like The Burns and Allen Show. There where many sight gags in the movie which made me laugh uproariously at the time, and I remember sharing many scenes to old friends in the projects just afterwards.One I remember particularly was when Kreton (Lewis) played some bongos without touching them as the drummer(Buddy Rich, whom I didn't know THEN) angrily played the drum.I also remember Joan Blackman's boyfriend as Earl Holliman. He was one of those who I knew better in television on a lot of westerns and an early Twilight Zone episode, and a character part in Forbidden Planet.Many actors I learned about much after the fact from TV versions or reruns.I loved this movie then, and I love it even more now.I still don't understand or get those who hate Jerry Lewis in films, but I certainly understand those who didn't like him as a person.Having met him one time in a local TV Show when I brought him a portrait I had done, he didn't look at me much as he told me his wife took those. Her name was Patty and she was wonderful though, as she loved my drawing and thanked me profusely. She even introduced me to her son, whom I believe is now working for Jerry's business answering fan mail.I think this is one of his best, and it only gets better with each viewing. I don't think Gore Vidal's play would work since it was more of a satire of the McCarthy hearings, and wouldn't hold as well as this movie.

Back in 1955 Gore Vidal wrote a television play that later went to Broadway for 388 performances and starred Cyril Ritchard and Eddie Mayehoff. It was meant to be a satire on McCarthyism with an alien miscalculating a visit to Earth's American Civil War and arriving in Virginia a century later. So what must he have thought when his Broadway play wound up a vehicle for Jerry Lewis. Not that it's a bad Jerry Lewis, not his best to be sure, but surely not what Vidal intended.Jerry plays a most innocent alien with powers akin to what Ray Walston had in my favorite Martian. His people from way the other side of the galaxy have progressed to not only having powers beyond mortal men, but have dispensed with emotions. His people like his mentor John Williams are just below the Organians from Star Trek in that they still have corporeal bodies. Jerry wants to feel some earth like experiences so Williams gives him a chance.He experiences emotions all right, but a little too much for one Visit To A Small Planet. How he copes with Earth and its Earthlings is for you watch the film for.I can see that the characters that are played by the cynical Fred Clark and the excitable and paranoid Gale Gordon might have made great counterpoints for satire. But Jerry Lewis never has done satire and I doubt at his age he'll try it. Lee Patrick plays a role modeled on what she did as Leo G. Carroll's wife in the television version of Topper.It's jealousy that does Jerry in, mainly the jealousy that Earl Holliman feels as his girl and Clark and Patrick's daughter Joan Blackman starts taking an interest in their outer space visitor. Truth be told I can't see what Blackman sees in Holliman's lunkhead character. Holliman must have felt ridiculous doing the part.Best sequence in the film is Lewis and Blackman's visit to a beatnik joint and the impression he makes on all those cool cats. You'll get a chance to see ace drummer Buddy Rich in that scene and that should never be passed up.Visit To A Small Planet is a decent enough Jerry Lewis film, but far from whatever Gore Vidal had in mind.

Although somewhat funny because of the typical Jerry Lewis antics, it bears very little resemblance to the original TV and Broadway plays which was supposedly the basis for the film. I was lucky enough to see the original TV broadcast and read the play. Personally, I found the TV version to be the best. The premise is that an alien (of superior intelligence) comes to earth and makes rather scathing comments and conclusions from his observations about American (and world) cultures and societies. Most likely rather accurate reflections of the author's (Gore Vidal) thoughts on the subjects and issues. It was a very socially relevant portrayal of the time period. The film version vaguely touched on some and made the alien a very naive buffoon which turned a great satire into a comic farce for laughs only and of little intellectual value.I keep hoping that someday a video version of the TV broadcast will be released. I believe that the UCLA archives does have a kinescope copy on file.JGB in Massachusetts