John Chard
Lewis and Tashlin Open Up Their Cartoon Book.
A loose remake of Preston Sturges' wonderful The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, Rock-a-Bye Baby is safe entertainment for the Jerry Lewis fans. Here he plays Clayton Poole, a small town guy whose childhood sweetheart, Carla Naples (Marilyn Maxwell) is now a big film star. When she finds she is pregnant, the problems it will cause her career prompts her to coerce Clayton into looking after what turns out to be triplets! Much prat-falling and high energy chaos ensues.
As befitting the Tashlin/Lewis combination, it's all very cartoonish in visual presentation. Narratively outside of Lewis' mad-cap rearing of the babies, there's a running thread of Carla's sister, Sandra (Connie Stevens), being hopelessly in love with Clayton - who of course has no idea, while the sentimental strings are pulled as Clayton fights to not lose the kids to a shifty legal guardian.
The musical numbers start to grate on the nerves after a bit, with them feeling like attempts to show off something that isn't there, and the running time is too long to sustain this type of comedy. But once a Lewis fan then always a Lewis fan, with that in mind Rock-a- Bye Baby still has enough fun and frothery to make it above average entertainment. 6.5/10
