Enfant Terrible! : Jerry Lewis in American Film

The one thing everybody knows about Jerry Lewis is that he is beloved by the French, those incomprehensible hedonistic strangers across the sea.

The French understand him, while in the US he is at best a riddle, not one of us.

Lewis is someone Americans take profound pleasure in excluding, if not ridiculing. "Enfant Terrible! Jerry Lewis in American Film" is a comprehensive collection devoted to one of the most controversial and accomplished figures in 20th-century American cinema.

A veteran of virtually every form of show business, Lewis's performances onscreen and the motion pictures he has directed reveal significant filmmaking talents, and show him to be what he has called himself, a "total filmmaker." Yet his work has been frequently derided by American critics.

This book challenges that easy reading by taking a more careful look at Lewis's considerable body of work onscreen in 16 diverse and penetrating essays.