Well it looks like I will be the first reviewer to give Artists and Models a lukewarm opinion. Saw this on the big screen today at a downtown theater. With Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine,Dorothy Malone and Eva Gabor and the most fun I wind up having is with Eddie Mayehoff! Loved his portrayal of publisher Murdock. I don't know...to me, this movie just got more boring as it dragged on. While I do love all the vintage set designs, vintage wardrobe and remembrances of how things used to be-one pay phone in the hall for an apartment building, Dean scrubbing up in a bathtub before a shower became common and the historical fact that comic books were once decried as evil by the bastions of society, I still had to fight off massive amounts of sleepiness as this grinded to its conclusion. I don't know...maybe it was just the mood I was in. It WAS very colorful and Martin can't keep from smiling even when he's supposed to be mad which is amusing but, Gabor was a disappointment and Malone was kind of blah and Jerry, I was just kind of bored with his schtick today. But yes the highlight for me was Mr. Murdock played by Eddie Mayehoff.
... View MoreOne of the best of the Martin&Lewis films is Artists And Models where Dean and Jerry play a pair of roommates. Dino is a struggling artist and Jerry just struggles. Jerry also dreams out loud and his wild imaginings in the arms of Morbeus give Dean an idea for comic strip characters which he draws. It makes them both quite successful. When they accidentally print the part of a secret rocket formula that is destined to launch a proposed space station into orbit, he arouses both the interest of our Secret Service and the Russians. They send a beautiful spy in the person of Eva Gabor and her scenes trying to vamp Jerry are a scream.Two things struck me about Artists And Models. One was that Dino seemed less abusive of Jerry in the relationship. It was something different coming out of the pair. Secondly Paramount hired songwriters Harry Warren and Jack Brooks to write a really outstanding score for Dean to sing, one of the best in a Martin&Lewis film. In fact I'm surprised that such songs like Innamorata, When You Pretend, You Look So Familiar, and The Lucky Song, that not one of them merited an Oscar nomination. All are very big favorites with Dean Martin's legion of fans. The team of Warren and Brooks was responsible for Dino's biggest hit from a motion picture, That's Amore.Jerry occasionally gets a girl as well in some of their films and in this one he got Shirley MacLaine who was doing just her second film, having made her debut in Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry also done at Paramount. She also gets to vamp Jerry with a hysterical obbligato of Innamorata. She proves his equal in the mugging department, no mean feat.In fact the film is populated with beautiful women besides MacLaine and Gabor, Anita Ekberg is also a model and Dorothy Malone is an artist who rooms with MacLaine and has a relationship roughly parallel. Malone looks a whole lot like Jeanne Martin in my humble opinion and in the Nick Tosches biography of Dean Martin, she speaks warmly about working with him in a couple of films, saying he was one of the easiest going people to work with and in fact on another film, helped her over a rough patch because Malone had just lost a brother.Artists And Models shows Dean and Jerry at their best and musically it might just be the best of the scores Dean Martin ever got in any of his films.
... View MoreI first saw this movie in the 90's with my mother, a huge Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis fan. To this day it is my favorite movie from their pairing. The two play roommates who sing, dance, and at one point consider getting a divorce while trying to pay the rent on their NYC flat. They have a run-in of sorts with their upstairs neighbors and of course, all hilarity ensues. One of my favorite parts of the movie, however, is Shirley MacLaine, in her second movie role. She steals scenes from Lewis every chance she gets and is simply hilarious! The scene between her and Lewis on the stairs is one of my favorite movie moments of all time! I only wish MacLaine had gotten to make more movies with Lewis; they make for a pretty funny pair on screen! Watch for the scene between Martin and the little girl on the street; its a great song with some pretty impressive dancing on both parts. A great movie to watch if you're a fan of Lewis, Martin, or MacLaine.
... View MoreA crazy film for devotees of the super-hero comic book. Shirley MacLaine was both wacky and alluring as Bessie, who is the inspiration of the Bat-Lady, a character of the comic book which Dorothy Malone draws(?) Jerry is his usual self, while Dean Martin turns up a one-note performance as the typecast Lothario who tries to romance Dorothy who at first would have nothing to do with him. Eva Gabor(before Green Acres), cast as the seductress who tries to worm spy secrets out of Jerry is excellent.I remember seeing the movie years ago and there was a scene where Jerry paints faces and puts little dresses on the knees of a young blonde actress in one scene. The actress bared a slight resemblance to Anne Bancroft. Is this correct? Brian T
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