Rock-a-Bye Baby

Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958) is a Jerry Lewis comedy directed by Frank Tashlin that you can watch online on iFILM. Lewis plays Clayton Poole, a small-town TV repairman who has been hopelessly in love with his childhood sweetheart since grade school. She went on to become a Hollywood star named Carla Naples. He stayed in Midvale.

Then she calls in a favor. While filming her next picture, she needs someone trustworthy to look after her newborn children — triplets, as it turns out — in complete secrecy. Clayton says yes before fully processing what he's agreed to, and the film is entirely built around watching him figure out what comes next.

Tashlin directed cartoons before he directed people, and it shows. The gags have a mechanical precision that suits Lewis perfectly — his brand of controlled-chaos physical comedy, part mime, part walking accident, lands cleanly inside a film that never pretends to be anything except a cheerful farce. Stream Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958) online on iFILM.