
Artists and Models. 1955. USA. Directed by Frank Tashlin. 109 min.
With Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Shirley MacLaine, Dorothy Malone. Lewis worked with his most sympathetic director, Frank Tashlin, for the first time on this Technicolor/VistaVision extravaganza. With his unerring sense of the zeitgeist, Tashlin combines two of the era’s obsessions, comic books and Commie spies, into a comedy with generous musical interludes. Lewis finds his ideal mate—a 21-year-old Shirley MacLaine—while Martin makes do with sultry, irresistible Dorothy Malone. All this, and Anita Ekberg, too.