The Nutty Professor

Surreal off-the-wall masterpiece, with Lewis again playing 7-stone cretin, this time a campus chemistry professor who woos his dream girl by inventing a magic potion that turns him (on and off) into a he-man of the Dean Martin school (hip, brylcreemed, offensive). The Technicolor blazes and swirls with manic energy, while the Jekyll-and-Hyde plot hustles its way through a minefield of gags, and sneers eloquently at the joys of the New America (a popular off-limits bar called The Purple Pit). Parody and nostalgia: pure alchemy.