They don’t make ‘em like this anymore—probably because Hollywood can no longer afford to bankroll a movie that looks like a nuclear explosion of Technicolor, slapstick, and mid-century paranoia. Artists and Models (1955) is Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis at their most unhinged, a film that tries to be a musical, a satire, a romance, a buddy comedy, and a spy thriller—all at once. The result is dazzling, exhausting, and oddly prophetic. It’s a movie that mocks comic book hysteria, only to become one. And in case you’re wondering, yes, it’s still better than Morbius.
A Little History, A Lot of Madness
By 1955, Martin and Lewis were kings of Hollywood—America’s favorite odd couple. Martin played the smooth-talking crooner with a drink in his hand, and Lewis was the human sound effect machine, an adult toddler in suspenders. But Artists and Models was different. This wasn’t just another wacky comedy; it was their first film with director Frank Tashlin, a former Looney Tunes animator who saw Lewis and thought, “This man should be a cartoon.”
And so, Tashlin leaned in. Hard. Every scene pops like a Tex Avery short: people stretch, explode, shriek, and zip across the frame at physics-defying speeds. It’s also packed with the director’s not-so-subtle vendetta against comic books, which he loathed with the passion of a 1950s PTA mom. The film is stuffed with jabs at the industry, inspired by the real-life Senate hearings on whether comics were turning America’s youth into violent lunatics. (Spoiler: they weren’t. They were turning them into Stan Lee.)
Ironically, Artists and Models loves comics too much to really kill them. The best parts of the film—Jerry Lewis’s delirious dreams of Vincent the Vulture, the absurdity of secret rocket formulas hidden in bedtime stories, the entire Bat Lady subplot—are a celebration of everything wild, weird, and wonderful about pulp fiction. Tashlin set out to make a takedown. He accidentally made a love letter.
The Stars, The Sidekicks, and the Scene-Stealers
Let’s be clear: Shirley MacLaine steals this movie.
Her character, Bessie Sparrowbush (who named these people?!), is a whirlwind of energy, throwing herself at Jerry Lewis with the force of a thousand exclamation points. This was only MacLaine’s second film, and she got the role because Lewis saw her understudy in The Pajama Game and thought, “That one.” He was right. She’s a walking, talking firecracker.
Dean Martin is, well, Dean Martin. He spends half the movie looking amused, the other half crooning his way into women’s hearts. His character, Rick Todd, is a struggling artist who finds success by stealing ideas from Jerry Lewis’s nightmares—because ethics were looser back then. Meanwhile, Lewis’s Eugene Fullstack (again, these names) is a man-child obsessed with comic books, whose dreams contain classified government secrets. Nobody questions this because, again, the ‘50s.
The supporting cast is stacked with scene-stealers: Dorothy Malone as the frustrated comic book artist-turned-activist, Jack Elam as a cartoonishly evil spy, and Anita Ekberg in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role that exists mostly to make men say, “Wow.” The film also features a spaceship model repurposed from Conquest of Space (1955), because nothing in Hollywood ever goes to waste, not even props.
Over Budget, Over the Top, and Just Right
Artists and Models was one of the most expensive Martin and Lewis movies, costing $1.7 million—$103,083 over budget, thanks to Jerry Lewis’s “meddling” (according to producer Hal B. Wallis, who must have had a migraine by the end of this shoot). It was shot in VistaVision, Technicolor, and Perspecta Stereo Sound, which means it looks and sounds better than half the movies made today.
Tashlin’s signature blend of slapstick and innuendo is all over this thing. The censors cut some of his more outrageous gags, but the film still gets away with plenty of eyebrow-raising moments. There’s a scene where Dorothy Malone is almost wearing a towel. There’s a joke about a character’s last name being “Fullstick” that had to be changed because—well, you get it. The film was marketed as family-friendly, but in reality, it’s a winking, self-aware send-up of 1950s pop culture, packed with jokes that flew over kids’ heads but landed directly in their parents’ cocktails.
The Cult Classic That Keeps On Giving
When Artists and Models hit theaters, critics weren’t sure what to make of it. Was it a comedy? A sci-fi movie? A political satire? A fever dream? The answer was “yes.” It was a box office hit, but like all Martin and Lewis films, it was dismissed as fluff—until later generations realized, hey, this thing is actually brilliant.
It found new life as a cult classic, helped along by its inclusion in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (because apparently, you can’t die without seeing Jerry Lewis scream about birds in space). It’s also loaded with Hollywood inside jokes, including a sly reference to Rear Window (1954) when Secret Service agents complain about their bad vantage point.
Over the years, it’s gained a reputation as one of the best Martin and Lewis films, and one of the sharpest comedies of the 1950s. It’s been released on DVD, Blu-ray, and is probably lurking on some streaming service right now, waiting to baffle a new generation.
Final Verdict: Four Stars for Madness
Artists and Models isn’t a perfect film. It’s too chaotic, too long, and too in love with its own zaniness. But that’s exactly why it works. It’s a time capsule of mid-century Hollywood at its most extravagant, a satire that can’t help but adore the thing it’s satirizing, and a showcase for a young Shirley MacLaine proving she’s going to be a star. It’s funny, weird, messy, and kind of brilliant.
If comic books were really corrupting youth, what movie today would be the Artists and Models of our time—satirizing pop culture while secretly loving it?
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4/5)
#DeanAndJerry #OldHollywood #TooMuchEnergy #ArtistsAndMadness #BatLadyForever
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