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10 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
The Best From Dino and Jerry, 7 May 2003
Author: Brian Washington (Sargebri@att.net) from Los Angeles, California

This is probably the best of the films featuring Martin and Lewis. This film is also a fine parody due to the fact that this film was shot during the period when there it was being debated over how the comic books that were out during that time were affecting children (those arguments would lead to the "comics code"). The other highlight of this film was looking at Shirley MacLaine was chasing after Jerry (the girl must have needed glasses). These scenes provide much of the humor as Jerry's character Eugene is scared to death of the aggressive Betsy. Its also interesting to note that MacLaine's character Betsy is interested in astrology and MacLaine would later become known for her new age interests, including astrology.

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6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
The best Martin and Lewis movie!, 10 December 2005
9/10
Author: munkeylove18 from New York, United States

I first saw this movie in the 90's with my mother, a huge Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis fan. To this day it is my favorite movie from their pairing. The two play roommates who sing, dance, and at one point consider getting a divorce while trying to pay the rent on their NYC flat. They have a run-in of sorts with their upstairs neighbors and of course, all hilarity ensues. One of my favorite parts of the movie, however, is Shirley MacLaine, in her second movie role. She steals scenes from Lewis every chance she gets and is simply hilarious! The scene between her and Lewis on the stairs is one of my favorite movie moments of all time! I only wish MacLaine had gotten to make more movies with Lewis; they make for a pretty funny pair on screen! Watch for the scene between Martin and the little girl on the street; its a great song with some pretty impressive dancing on both parts. A great movie to watch if you're a fan of Lewis, Martin, or MacLaine.

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7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Very funny, if you can stand Jerry Lewis, 14 September 2002
8/10
Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN

I had never seen a Jerry Lewis vehicle before this one (not counting Scorsese's King of Comedy), and I was annoyed as hell for the first fifteen minutes. I even considered walking out, that's how irate I was getting at Lewis' mugging. But then there was a scene in which he was hilarious, so I hung onto it a bit. And it got funnier and funnier. Jerry Lewis isn't getting a clean bill of health from me; he still annoyed me once in a while. But in at least an equal amount of scenes, and probably a bit more, he was very funny. He and Dean Martin play "roommates" who met each other way back when they were Boy Scouts, sleep in separate twin beds in the same room, take baths with the door open, and at one point talk about getting a divorce. At one point the semi-retarded Lewis (and he admits as much himself) says to Martin: "I can't keep my dickie down, Ricky." Um, he's putting on a tuxedo I think. Similarly, Dorothy Malone lives in the apartment directly above them, unmarried with thick, black glasses and earning a good living on her own. She spends her time dressing the barely adult Shirley MacLaine, who has a cute little butch cut, up as the Bat Lady. The homosexual content seems to me almost too obvious to be meant. It's usually much subtler in Hollywood movies of the era. Then again, it's impossible to miss it, even you're a 1950s housewife. Eventually, the two gay couples meet and change partners, Martin getting Malone and Lewis MacLaine. MacLaine, in her second (or maybe third) role, is probably the film's standout, but Eddie Mayehoff, playing a comic book publisher who wants ever more violent comic books to sell, lands the highest percentage of the laughs. Eva Gabor has a decent part as a Soviet spy (a Cold War plotline appears out of thin air in the latter half of the film), and Anita Ekberg, later to co-star in Fellini's La Dolce Vita, also has a tiny role as a model. The non-Lewis related comedy is frivolous but excellent. The film also contains several great musical numbers. Dean Martin at one point starts dancing with a little girl on the street in a scene stolen from An American in Paris. The girl, though, is an excellent back-up singer and the song itself - I believe it's called "The Lucky Song" - is quite entertaining. 8/10.

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5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Have fun with Dino and Jerry, 21 July 2005
10/10
Author: Petri Pelkonen (petri_pelkonen@hotmail.com) from Finland

Dean Martin plays an artist named Rick Todd and Jerry Lewis is his buddy Eugene Fullstack.Eugene happens to be obsessed with comic books and has very bad dreams because of those.Rick gets an idea to make a comic book from Eugene's dreams.In the same building there lives Abigail Parker (Dorothy Malone), who's the author of Eugene's favorite comic book The Bat Lady and the model Bessie Sparrowbrush (Shirley MacLaine).Rick likes Abby and Bessie likes Eugene.Eddie Mayehoff is a little weird publisher Mr Murdock.Frank Tashlin's Artists and Models (1955) is an awfully funny picture from Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.These two were magnificent together.Also other actors support the main clowns very well.Maclaine and Malone are very pretty and great actresses.Eddie Mayehoff is just hilarious as the publisher.There are also people like Eva Gabor (Zsa Zsa's sister), Anita Ekberg, Jack Elam and Kathleen Freeman.The movie is filled with great actors and funny scenes.There's one where Jerry has to keep running downstairs all the time for the telephone and Jerry on TV with many others.There are also some wonderful musical numbers, like where Shirley sings Innamorata very loud making Jerry freaked and Dean singing with the little girl.There are many scenes to remember.This movie is fifty years old (where did the time go), but it hasn't aged a bit as Jerry Lewis movies never will.Jerry never will.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Happiness is just a state of mind my friend........ when you pretend., 20 October 2008
9/10
Author: JohnRouseMerriottChard from United Kingdom

Happiness is just a state of mind my friend........ when you pretend.

Rick Todd and Eugene Fullstack share an apartment, Rick is a struggling artist and Eugene is a comic book fan with very few marbles!. Both men are struggling to earn money, but when Eugene starts telling the comic book adventures of Vincent the Vulture in his sleep, Rick spies an opportunity to make some money. Trouble is is that the gorgeous Bessie Sparrowbrush and Abigail Parker are about to enter the boys lives, and with the secret services from different countries interested in Eugene's dreams as well, love and government interests are going to meet head on, with the result being chaos!.

Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis were a double act that had as many ups as they did downs, but something about their partnership tapped into the fluff entertainment market that entertained millions with a blend of crooning and idiotic pratfalling. Here with Artists And Models they manage to create an ode to joy that positively quakes with fun from the very first tremor of the opening sequence. If we were to dissect the film and analyse it piece by piece it would probably come up short of being a technical wonder and a genius smart piece of film making, but really why would anyone want to do that?, surely we enter a film like this in the hope of being taken away from the world?, and few films in this genre can better lay claim to being odes to joy, love, friendship and care free abandon, all in one foul swoop. To me personally there is only Singing In The Rain that can portray better the beauty of living your life, Artists And Models has everything one needs to cure the blues.

Sparkling as it does in Vistavision, Artists and Models delights the eyes as much as it lifts the heart, technically it actually does score high and it's boosted by a cast on optimum form. Jerry Lewis is hated as much as he is adored, i guess his bumbling buffoonery annoys if taken in regular doses, but when he was on form he is nothing short of a comic genius. Witness here in this film the quintessential Jerry Lewis turn, from a quite brilliant telephone to bath sequence via mime, to an interplay musical sequence with the fabulous Shirley MacLaine, that could surely make the dead raise a smile.

Then there is Dino Paul Crocetti, those Italian looks so beloved by the ladies, sickeningly going hand in hand with a voice apparently sent from high above. Enjoy here a special sequence as Dean sings and dances with the children {sadly uncredited}, every inch of the frame is filled with what makes the world go around. Shirley Maclaine, Dorothy Malone and the ever enjoyable Eddie Mayehoff all combine to make this one of the pinnacles of the Dean & Jerry partnership, it may not be your preferred genre, but everyone should let such an ode to joy into their lives just once, surely?. 9/10

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Did Anne Bancroft have a cameo role?, 9 June 2005
Author: btdroflet38 from Australia

A crazy film for devotees of the super-hero comic book. Shirley MacLaine was both wacky and alluring as Bessie, who is the inspiration of the Bat-Lady, a character of the comic book which Dorothy Malone draws(?) Jerry is his usual self, while Dean Martin turns up a one-note performance as the typecast Lothario who tries to romance Dorothy who at first would have nothing to do with him. Eva Gabor(before Green Acres), cast as the seductress who tries to worm spy secrets out of Jerry is excellent.

I remember seeing the movie years ago and there was a scene where Jerry paints faces and puts little dresses on the knees of a young blonde actress in one scene. The actress bared a slight resemblance to Anne Bancroft. Is this correct?

Brian T

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Wow!, 4 April 2001
9/10
Author: Marie-62 from xxxx

I bought this movie at amazon.com because I'm a musical fan as well as a Shirley MacLaine fan. I'm so glad that I did! Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin are wonderful comiediennes, and Dean's voice could probably melt any woman's heart, serenading them with "Armaratta" and "You Look So Familiar." Jerry Lewis is funny as the dumb-bat best friend, Eugene, who is crushed upon by love-struck numberology/astrology loving Bessie (MacLaine). The songs are delightful and the movie is hilarious. I gave this a 9. Eva Gabor is also in the act as well as Dorothy M. and they're terrific! I highly recommend this movie to EVERYONE!

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Outrageous, funny, and imaginative, 3 April 2001
9/10
Author: Marie-62 from xxxx

I've never seen a Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis movie. This was my first and I hope it is not my last! With a wacky story line (Crazy-for-comic boy Eugene dreams up comic book stories with Vincent Vulture and Freddie Fieldmouse and his friend writes them down) and a ton of laughs ("Not only will I watch your switchboard but I'll buzz your lights and tangle your wires. Come 'ere baby." "Not while your friend's watching." "Oh, he left." "Wow! Then what are we waiting for? My saggitarius was right. Come on, boy. Don't fight.") And the cutest actors (Shirley MacLaine, Dorothy Malone). How can you not love the songs? And then there's the entire Eva Gabor thing going on. This movie is hilarious, too bad it's not popular NOW. I highly recommend it. I love it.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Dino Puts Jerry On Canvas, 11 February 2009
9/10
Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

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.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Frank Tashlin and Technicolor, 21 May 2003
7/10
Author: Craig S. Thom from Illinois

Yes, Jerry Lewis can get annoying, but this movie is worth seeing just for the visuals. As in Cinderfella, the clothes and sets are all too broad and too bright for real life. Tashlin has a talent for making Lewis's mugging work more often than not.

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