To be sure, this picaresque tale [The Jerk] is far from a classically constructed comedy. There are gags that might work as blackout sketches on Saturday Night Live that merely interrupt the story line of The Jerk…. There are narrative gaps and illogical thrusts that, I fear, were unintentional. But even some of the irrelevant material is strangely entertaining.

After Navin meets his true love, Marie …, he excitedly writes his mother: "Dear Mom, she looks just like you—except she's white and blonde." Later, the two lovers stroll along a moonlit beach, singing "Tonight You Belong to Me" in a pleasantly off-key duet, accompanied by ukulele and, of all things, cornet. The scene could have been nothing more than the kind of blatant lampooning of movies of the past that runs throughout [Steven Spielberg's] 1941. Instead, it is an oddly touching romantic interlude, a pleasant contrast to the rest...