Hook, Line & Sinker (1969 film)

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Hook, Line & Sinker
Hookline.jpg
Lobby card
Directed by George Marshall
Screenplay by Rod Amateau
Story byRod Amateau
David Davis
Produced by Jerry Lewis
StarringJerry Lewis
Cinematography W. Wallace Kelley
Edited byRussel Wiles
Music by Dick Stabile
Color process Technicolor
Production
company
Jerry Lewis Productions
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date
  • April 2, 1969 (1969-4-2)(United States) [1]
Running time
92 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office395,484 admissions (France) [2]

Hook, Line & Sinker is a 1969 American comedy film produced by and starring Jerry Lewis. This was the final film for director George Marshall, whose career dated back to 1916, and Lewis' last film for Columbia Pictures.

Contents

Plot

Before undergoing an operation at a hospital in Chile, Peter Ingersoll explains the origin of his unusual condition with a marlin in his chest.

Peter, a California insurance salesman, learns that he only has a short time left to live. With his wife's encouragement, Peter embarks on an epic fishing excursion, accruing $100,000 of charges on his credit card. However, Dr. Carter contacts Peter to inform him that he was misdiagnosed and is not dying. Peter is urged by Dr. Carter to fake his death to avoid paying the large debt and to permit his wife to collect a $150,000 life-insurance policy. After seven years, when the statute of limitations expires, Peter can reappear. So Peter's doctor has an idea to fake Peter's death and has Peter go to Israel. Peter comes back to Chile and discovers his wife being married to his doctor. Meanwhile back in California Peter has a scheme of his own. He has a doctor press on a court order to check out by the confederate army if the dead body in Peter's Peter's coffin is actually Peter. The police discover that the dead body is actually a dead colonel. There is an upoar over insurance fraud by Peter's wife and a malpractice suit over Peter's doctor.

Peter discovers that the entire plan was a scheme concocted by his wife and Dr. Carter, who are having an affair. He is determined to sabotage their plans. He breaks into hiswife and doctor 's hotel room. Peter instead finds himself on the operating table in Chile with a marlin piercing his chest. Peter tells the operating team to tell everyone that if he doesn't survive that he died a happy man

Cast

Production

Hook, Line & Sinker was filmed under the working title Kook's Tour. [4]

The film was shot from April 1 to June 20, 1968 at the Columbia Ranch in Burbank using the exterior of the same house seen in the television series Gidget (1965–66). The interior scenes were filmed on the same sound stage, including the interior and back yard of the home, that had been used for the television series Bewitched (1964–72), although the color scheme was substantially altered.

Release

Hook, Line & Sinker opened nationwide on April 2, 1969. [1] It was the first Jerry Lewis film released under the MPAA's new film rating system and was assigned a G rating.

Home media

The film was released on DVD on November 6, 2012. [5] It was rereleased on DVD in a Jerry Lewis Triple Feature collection with Three on a Couch (1966) and Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1968) on January 16, 2018. [6]

Reception

In a contemporary review for The New York Times , critic Vincent Canby wrote: "[T]here is simply too much of the straight Jerry Lewis, a suburban husband who learns that he has only a few months to live and goes off on a credit card binge. Lewis's all-too evident arrogance and self-assurance are best hidden behind the masks of characters who make no call on pathos." [7]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Six Movies Opening This Week". San Francisco Examiner . 1969-03-31. p. 33.
  2. ↑ Jerry Lewis films French box office information at Box Office Story
  3. ↑ Hook, Line, and Sinker (1969) - "Complete cast" section on IMDb
  4. ↑ Neibaur, James L and Ted Okuda (1995). The Jerry Lewis Films: An Analytical Filmography of the Innovative Clown. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc. pp 206.
  5. ↑ "Amazon.com DVD release data". Amazon. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  6. ↑ Amazon.com DVD release data, retrieved Nov. 19, 2018
  7. ↑ Canby, Vincent (1969-05-08). "Screen: 'Hook, Line & Sinker' Opens". The New York Times . p. 54.
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