Artists and Models (1955)

Rick Todd uses the dreams of his roommate Eugene as the basis for a successful comic book.

Director:

Frank Tashlin

Writers:

Herbert Baker (screenplay), Michael Davidson (play)

Stars:

Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Shirley MacLaine

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Dean Martin	...	Rick Todd
Jerry Lewis	...	Eugene Fullstack
Shirley MacLaine	...	Bessie Sparrowbrush
Dorothy Malone	...	Abigail 'Abby' Parker
Eddie Mayehoff	...	Mr. Murdock
Eva Gabor	...	Sonia / Mrs. Curtis
Anita Ekberg	...	Anita
George Winslow	...	Richard Stilton (as George 'Foghorn' Winslow')
Jack Elam	...	Ivan
Herbert Rudley	...	Secret Service Chief Samuels
Richard Shannon	...	Secret Service Agent Rogers
Richard Webb	...	Secret Service Agent Peters
Alan Lee	...	Otto
Otto Waldis	...	Kurt

Storyline

Rick Todd and Eugene Fullstack share an apartment and have dreams for the future. Rick is an aspiring artist looking for a break. Eugene loves comic books, especially The Bat Lady series. He is so engrossed with her stories that he has nightmares and dreams of his own comic book characters. Their luck begins to change when Abby Parker is fired as the artist for the Bat Lady. Rick pitches his own comic book series and Eugene gets to meet Bessie Sparrowbrush, who, unbeknown to him, is the artist's model the Bat Lady. Rivalry and romance ensues for all four of them, with several song and dance numbers along the way.

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Plot Keywords:

comic book | dream | roommate | nightmare | artist | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Musical | Romance

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 November 1955 (USA)

Also Known As:

Artistes et modèles

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,500,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$9,350,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Wallis-Hazen

Technical Specs

Runtime:

109 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Shirley Maclaine and Dean Martin appeared in Some Came Running (1958), Ocean's Eleven (1960), Career (1959), All in a Night's Work (1961), What a Way to Go! (1964), and finally in Cannonball Run II (1984) which also included their co-star in this movie, Jack Elam.

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Goofs

When Rick is painting the lips on the billboard, he looks down to answer his boss, and when he looks back the lips are fully painted.

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Quotes

Eugene Fullstack: They wanted to have me drowned when I was born, but the SPCA stopped them.

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Connections

Referenced in Happy Days: A.K.A. the Fonz (1976)

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Soundtracks

Artists and Models
Lyrics by Jack Brooks
Music by Harry Warren
Sung over the credits by Dean Martin
Reprised during the finale by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis

User Reviews

Dino Puts Jerry On Canvas

One 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.