Three on a Couch

Three on a Couch
Directed by	Jerry Lewis
Screenplay by	Bob Ross Samuel A. Taylor
Story by	Arne Sultan Marvin Worth
Produced by	Jerry Lewis
Starring	Jerry Lewis Janet Leigh Mary Ann Mobley Gila Golan Leslie Parrish James Best
Cinematography	W. Wallace Kelley
Edited by	Russel Wiles
Music by	Louis Brown
Color process	Pathécolor
Production company	Jerry Lewis Productions
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	March 1966 (1966-03)
Running time	109 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$2,875,000 (est. US/ Canada rentals)[1] 464,995 admissions (France)[2]

Three on a Couch is a 1966 American comedy film directed by Jerry Lewis and starring Jerry Lewis and Janet Leigh.

Plot

Christopher Pride wants to marry his girlfriend, Dr. Elizabeth Acord. However, she is too involved with her patients and she doesn't think that she would be able to leave them to live in Paris for a year. Pride decides to solve her patients' problems after finding out that most of them are merely despondent after having relationships go bad. Therefore, he decides to "date" these women, without Acord's knowledge, and give them back their self-esteem so that they will be less dependent on their doctor.

Pride adopts a separate persona for each woman, targeted to be their ideal partner. Ringo Raintree the millionaire cowboy woos Anna Jacque, a French patient. For southern belle Mary Lou Mauve he becomes Rutherford the zoologist (and Rutherford's twin sister, Heather) and for passionate athlete Susan he becomes Warren, also an athlete.

The film comes to a climax when all the women, including the psychiatrist, assemble at a party with Pride present. He quickly switches from one character to the next depending on which woman is present.

Cast

• Jerry Lewis as Christopher Pride / Warren / Ringo / Rutherford / Heather
• Janet Leigh as Dr.Elizabeth Acord
• Mary Ann Mobley as Susan Manning
• Gila Golan as Anna Jacque
• Leslie Parrish as Mary Lou Mauve
• James Best as Dr. Ben Mizer
• Kathleen Freeman as Murphy
• Jesslyn Fax as Rich Lady
• Buddy Lester as The Drunk
• Renie Riano as Old Woman
• Renzo Cesana as The Ambassandor
• Fritz Feld as The Attache

Production

This was the first film that Lewis made for Columbia after ending a 17-year long association with Paramount Pictures. This is also the first film that Lewis directed in which he did not receive a screenwriting credit. Three on a Couch was listed in the 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time.^[3] It was filmed from September 13 - December 1, 1965, it was released on July 7, 1966.

Comedians Buddy Lester and Fritz Feld have cameos. Janet Leigh previously co-starred with Lewis and Dean Martin in Living It Up (1954).

Reception

The film was included in the 1978 book, The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and How They Got That Way), by Harry Medved, Randy Dreyfuss, and Michael Medved.^[4]

Home media

Three on a Couch was released on DVD in a Jerry Lewis Triple Feature collection with Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River, and Hook, Line & Sinker on January 16, 2018^[5] and own its own on December 8, 2019.

See also

• List of American films of 1966

References

1. "Big Rental Pictures of 1966", Variety, 4 January 1967 p 8
2. Box office information for film in France at Box Office Story
3. "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (And how they got that way)". Archived from the original on 2012-01-29. Retrieved 2013-07-20.
4. Medved, Harry (1978). The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time (and how They Got that Way) (First ed.). Angus & Robertson. p. 288. ISBN 9780207958915. Retrieved 16 May 2021.
5. "Jerry Lewis Triple Feature: Jerry Lewis, Janet Leigh, Terry-Thomas, Peter Lawford, Anne Francis, Mary Ann Mobley, Various: Movies & TV". Amazon. Retrieved 2018-02-16.

External links

• Three on a Couch at IMDb
• ‹The template AllMovie title is being considered for deletion.› Three on a Couch at AllMovie