Artists and Models

Artists and Models (1955)

Martin and Lewis run amok with spies, models and Shirley MacLaine!

A struggling painter begins taking inspiration from the dreams of his friend and roommate, a comic book fan who narrates an adventure story while he sleeps, but unbeknownst to the latter, the artist of his favorite comic book lives in the same building as they do with the model for her drawings.

Date of release
1955-11-07
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (146)
Runtime
1h 50m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Frank Tashlin

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Los Angeles

Artists and Models is a 1955 American musical romantic comedy film in VistaVision directed by Frank Tashlin, marking Martin and Lewis's 14th feature together as a team. The film co-stars Shirley MacLaine and Dorothy Malone, with Eva Gabor and Anita Ekberg appearing in brief roles.

Production

Martin and Lewis' 14th feature, Artists and Models, was filmed from February 28 to May 3, 1955, at Paramount Studios. The film was released on November 7, 1955, by Paramount Pictures, and was one of the team's highest-budgeted pictures at $1.5 million ($12,589,869.40 in 2011 dollars). The film was shot in VistaVision and Eastmancolor, with prints by Technicolor, and stereophonic sound by Perspecta.

Artists and Models marked the first time Lewis worked with former Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin, whom he admired greatly. Martin and Lewis would reunite with him on their last film, Hollywood or Bust, and Lewis would then work with Tashlin on six of his solo films.

Producer Hal B. Wallis chose Tashlin for Artists and Models on the basis of his background as a cartoonist, and the film contains many gags influenced by the director's animation work. When MacLaine kisses Lewis in front of a water cooler, the water steams up; in another scene, a massage therapist bends Lewis's leg all the way towards his head. Artists and Models is considered a milestone in movie satire for its mockery of mid-1950s pop culture.

Tashlin brought a lot of sexual innuendo to Artists and Models, making it more adult in content than most previous Martin and Lewis movies and indulging his own fetishistic fascination with female characters in revealing costumes. Some of his most suggestive ideas were disallowed by the Production Code; in Tashlin's original script, Lewis's character was named "Fullstick", but the censors ordered the removal of this phallic joke.

Longtime Martin and Lewis writer Herbert Baker worked on the script, which had the original title Rock-A-Bye Baby; the title later being used for a 1958 Jerry Lewis film.

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