I first heard of Frank Tashlin when I was starting to get into the Warner Bros. cartoons. I was intrigued when I found out that after his two directorial stints at the studio (one during the '30's and the other during the '40's) he became a director of live-action comedies, and was interested in the prospect of seeing a live-action feature from the director of "Porky Pig's Feat" (1943) and "Swooner Crooner" (1944). The first live-action film of his I watched was Artists and Models (1955), the first of his two collaborations with Martin and Lewis. It more than lived up to my expectations: there's no way I'd describe it other than as one of the greatest comedy films ever made. It's a perfect starting point for Tashlin's live-action comedies of the '50's and '60's, as well as for Jerry Lewis' filmography.
Tashlin is unique among American directors in that he has considerable bodies of work in two different mediums (animation and live-action film). His cartoons are known for having a cinematic quality (unusual angles and shot compositions, use of techniques more commonly associated with live-action film), and his live-action films have wild, cartoon-like gags that stretch the laws of reality (Bob Hope's head spinning around in Son of Paleface [1952]). While his black and white Warner Bros. cartoons are the best-looking monochrome ones the studio produced, most of his live-actions films feature bright, vivid Technicolor (De Luxe color in his Fox films).
Another thing that distinguishes Tashlin's live-action films is their penchant for satire: there are satirical gags even in films that aren't predominately satirical (the gags lampooning TV advertising in Rock-a-Bye Baby [1958]). Indeed, many film critics have called Tashlin one of the most underrated satirists of the '50's. His most overtly satirical films lampoon specific aspects of American society and culture during the '50's: The Girl Can't Help It (1956) targets rock n' roll, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) advertising. This film skewers comic books (as well as the moral panic against them), and also ribs Cold War espionage.
The plot centers on roommates Rick Todd (Dean Martin) and Eugene Fullstack (Jerry Lewis). Rick is an aspiring artist, and Eugene an aspiring children's author. Eugene is obsessed with comic books, particularly the one about a superhero called the Bat Lady. Their neighbor, commercial artist Abigail Parker (Dorothy Malone, Written on the Wind), draws the comic, and her roommate Bessie Sparrowbrush (Shirley MacLaine) serves as her model. When Abigail's publisher, Mr. Murdock (Eddie Mayehoff), tries to pressure her into including more violence in her comics, she quits and joins the anti-comics crusade, recruiting Eugene to her cause.
Looking for a ticket to success, Rick creates a comic book based on Eugene's comics-inspired dreams about a superhero called "Vincent the Vulture." However, said comic accidentally reveals half of a top secret rocket fuel formula, and Rick and Eugene are drawn into a battle between the FBI and foreign spies.
Tashlin's perspective on comic books is that of an amused outsider, as with his view of rock n' roll in The Girl Can't Help It. He clearly finds them ridiculous, but regards them as a joke rather than a menace. One of the aspects he latches onto the most is the violence of the EC horror comics: Mr. Murdock chastises Malone for her comics' lack of blood, stranglings, and decapitations. Murdock is clearly an analogue for EC Comics publisher William M. Gaines, and has the air of a huckster or used car salesman. (Tashlin also skewers merchandising, with Murdock hawking Vincent the Vulture brand brass knuckles and atom guns.)
Tashlin finds the anti-comics panic to be as ridiculous as the comics themselves, if not more so. He's also willing to call out the hypocrisy of moral guardians, and make them the target of ridicule. At one point a woman brings her son to Murdock, blaming his comics for his misbehavior. When he questions her decision to go out and leave him with him, she responds by threatening him.
Tashlin's satirical bent is also evident in other areas of the film. Murdock mentions competition with television, a medium which is ribbed a number of times in Tashlin's '50's film. He treats Cold War spying as ridiculous farce, and rather than portraying the conflict in black-and-white terms he has both side manipulate Martin and Lewis in different ways. (In the case of the enemy they try to seduce them with a sexy agent played by Eva Gabor.) At one point an FBI agent even tells Martin that it's his duty to the United States to take Gabor to the Artists and Models Ball rather than Malone, his love interest by this point in the film.
The film also displays Tashlin's fondness for metafictional humor. When Malone asks who's singing while Martin unknowingly rubs lotion on her back (thinking she's listening to the radio), MacLaine responds that it's "the guy who had that big record on 'That's Amore.'" There's also a nifty Hitchcock parody involving FBI agents spying on Martin from the building across the street, with a photographer with a Jimmy Stewart-esque voice saying, "I can't see so well from this rear window."
Another thing the film displays is Tashlin's fascination with sexuality and appreciation of the female form. The opening credits feature a variety of sexy women posing, Gabor plays a sexy femme fatale, and there are shots where only the legs of Malone, MacLaine, and Gabor are shown. (Tashlin's sense of deviousness is also on display: near the end of the film MacLaine is seen bound and gagged in her lingerie.)
Tashlin tends to feature a number of sexy women in his films- Jane Russell in Son of Paleface, Anita Ekberg in Hollywood or Bust (1956), Jayne Mansfield in The Girl Can't Help and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? Shirley MacLaine is one of these sexy women, is allowed some of the most visceral displays of sexual desire in any Tashlin film. In a scene where she backs Lewis against a water tank and kisses him, she causes the water to bubble and boil in a moment that also doubles as one of Tashlin's best cartoon-like gags. She tries to come on to Lewis after he goes gaga at her in her Bat Lady costume, but he's respectively oblivious and intimidated. When she puckers her lips at him in a not-so-subtle attempt to get him to kiss her, he responds, "What's wrong with your mouth? Is it sore?"
This film marked the beginning of Tashlin's long and fruitful collaboration with Jerry Lewis. which stretched over seven subsequent films. He was a perfect match for Tashlin's style and sensibility, and during the '50's and '60's he gravitated toward him just like he'd gravitated toward Daffy Duck during his '40's stint at Warner Bros. Lewis was a master of physical comedy: his facial expressions and body language are both incredibly expressive and uproariously funny. His style of comedy has a great sense of physicality and doesn't really rely on verbal humor as much as comedians like Groucho Marx and Bob Hope: many of his vocalizations consist of loud shouting, and much of what he says is either rambling or incoherent. A great example of his comic gifts occurs in the scene where Gabor drugs him, with him screaming and convulsing on the floor before passing out.
Lewis has the same sense of madcap energy as the '40's incarnation of Daffy Duck, and feels like a 10-year old boy in a 29-year old man's body. This can be seen in a scene where he sticks his tongue out at a literal 10-year old who does the same do him. He also uses his imagination in a way similar to Stan Laurel in Block-Heads (1938), lighting candles without a match and playing an imaginary piano.
By the end of his partnership with Lewis Dean Martin felt overlooked and underappreciated, so it's worth pointing out that he's very funny as well. Although best-known for his self-assured sense of cool, he was also a very gifted comedian, and he and Lewis play very well off each other. He's vital to a lot of the humor in many scenes with Lewis, and is also very funny playing against Malone.
Martin and Lewis' best scene together, and one of the best of the film, involves one of those great routines you often see in classic comedies (the mirror scene in Duck Soup [1933], the hat-eating scene in Way Out West [1937]). Murdock has his secretary (MacLaine) call Martin, but since he's in the bathtub and the phone is downstairs, Lewis has to go up and down the stairs to tell Martin what Murdock wants. Lewis starts out bouncy and energetic but becomes progressively more tired with each trip, until by the final time he's so exhausted he can't even speak. When he gets back to Martin he has to tell him what Murdock wants via pantomime, and this scene is a great display of Martin's comedic gifts. (I love the way Martin goes cross-eyed when he screams, "WHAT DOES HE WANT??!!!")
Another highlight of the film, and one of the scenes that best utilizes Lewis' gift for physical comedy, is the scene where he's taken to a chiropractor. The way the chiropractor unstiffens his body is hilarious, as is the way she twists and contorts his legs. The best part of the scene starts when she gets her leg stuck under Lewis' body, and the efforts of Martin and two assistants to help only gets them tangled up as well. Eventually Lewis is able to pull himself free, leaving everyone else stuck together.
Other comic highlights include a scene where Lewis and his comics are sucked into a suction tube, with the comics pages are blown out of the mouth of a billboard, and one where he's so shocked at seeing MacLaine dressed as the Bat Lady that when he rushes downstairs to tell Martin he runs into the wrong apartment. Another great scene is the one where the boy dumped in Murdock's office plays the role of a rude, obnoxious comedic heckler, biting Murdock's thumb and insulting MacLaine's appearance. Lewis gets the worst of it: he throws a knife at him, then topples the water tank on him and laughs as water runs down his pants.
In addition to the comedy Tashlin does a great job with the musical numbers, as he also would with The Girl Can't Help It and Hollywood or Bust. The best is the one where Martin dances in the street after selling his comic book to Murdock, set to a ditty called "The Lucky Song." It's the best display of Martin's singing talent in the film, and is livelier and more energetic than most of the musical numbers in Martin and Lewis' films. The credits say that the musical numbers were "created and staged by Charles O'Curran," so I'd guess that he deserves a lot of the credit for it as well.
