What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

Artists and Models from 1955 with Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Dorothy Malone, and Shirley MacLaine


Martin and Lewis movies – a mashup of vaudeville, 1930s screwball, musicals, farce, slapstick, and, most importantly, the magic between Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis – are their own genre, as there are no other movies to compare them to.

Artists and Models, considered by some the pair’s best movie, came toward the end of Martin and Lewis' partnership but shows no diminished energy or effort, as Lewis is his usually hyperkinetic self and Martin is fully committed to his mainly straight-man role.

The plot, not that it really matters, is a bunch of storylines and craziness revolving around Martin playing a struggling artist and Lewis playing a fan of comic books, The Bat Lady series, specifically.

Coincidentally, the artist who writes and draws The Bat Lady, played by Dorothy Malone, lives in Martin and Lewis' apartment building. This also brings the model, played by Shirley MacLaine, for the Bat Lady herself into Martin and Lewis' orbit.

What really matters is that playboy Martin falls for Malone, but she wants no part of him at first. At the same time, MacLaine – against any logic in the universe – falls for Lewis, who is smitten in his crazy Lewis way with The Bat Lady.

Much silliness ensues, including Malone quitting comic books because she won't make her stories gory enough for her editor. Martin, effectively, replaces her with ideas he gets from Lewis talking in his sleep.

As that and more of the silly plot unfolds, comic books themselves, congressional hearings on the "evils" of comic books, television, advertising, astrology, Eisenhower's golf game, the space race, the Cold War, and almost everything else get satirized to death.

There's more if you try to follow it all with the Russians and the CIA getting involved as they believe Martin's comic book stories contain a covert rocket fuel formula. Eva Gabor even shows up playing a Mata Hari type for the Russians – it's that sort of movie.

As all this is going on, the cast occasionally breaks out into musical numbers. Martin's performances in these scenes lift the entire movie up – his version of "Innamorata," even though it's truncated here, is a particular highlight.

With Lewis doing all his usual physical comedy – falling down stairs, getting tangled up like a pretzel in a masseuse skit, and more – the scenes with Martin alone give you a chance to catch your breath.

MacLaine, in only her second movie, comes across like an old pro that somehow fits into the boy's world comfortably. Malone, like Martin, provides a chance to breathe out as her scenes are usually calmer, but steamy as – well – it's Dorothy Malone, often showing her midriff.

You'll probably either love or hate this movie, as it goes full force in several screwy directions. Plus Lewis, with his almost-always-on slapstick loudness, demands you take sides for or against him.

Today, Artists and Models, filmed in bold Technicolor and shot on obvious but charmingly mid-century modern sets, feel like time travel to a loud and colorful make-believe version of the 1950s. Like all Martin and Lewis movies, you'll have to watch all its craziness to decide if it works for you.

 

[Trenchfriend]

In the mood for ALIEN (1979), right now!

Old DVD on CRT!
Theatrical Cut, NOT 2003's Director's Cut.

 

[Edward]

Just back from an early evening screening of Nosferatu - one of two versions I've seen recently. There's one on Amazon Prime in the UK (I think - unless it was Netflix?) I watched a few weeks ago. Also made in 2024, that version aims to have the feel of a 1930s, talkie remake of the 1922 original (which would of course not have been possible in those days after the court case). It's okay, if not quite as successful at pulling off the trick of appearing to be a genuine old piece as the masterwork of that ilk, David Lynch's The Elephant Man.

The more well known cinematic release is interesting. Dark brooding and gothic, it feels something akin to what a Hammer Horror picture might be like in 2025, evolved beyond the high camp into something more serious, but still fun. It's interesting how it has mostly followed Murnau's lead, but with some characters added back in (under alternative names, though) and other bits that are pure Stoker, and yet others that are of its own invention. I particularly enjoyed the tabby cat called Greta - felt like a cosmic nod to my own, dear departed Greta cat who ascended to Kitteh Valhalla in 2022. The bit that intrigued me perhaps most was actually the look of the nosferatu itself, which while it remained ugly throughout (consistent with Murnau and earlier vampire literature), in the early stages it is probably the closest I've seen depicted in film to Stoker's description of Dracula. It's not the definitive version of Dracula by any means, but as a piece which draws from both Stoker and Murnau, and adds its own spin on the lore, it has its place in the vampire cinema canon imo.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

After an extended hiatus, thanks in part to the birth of a new grand baby, here is an-ever-so-quick update on movie-watching with The Missus and I.
The Big Chase (1954) co-directed by Arthur (Cat Women of the Moon) Hilton and Robert L. Lippert, Jr. , with Glenn Langan, Lon Chaney, Jr. , and big Jim Davis. Good guy cop Langan must deal with an armored car robbery. Most of the story is actually a long chase, shot all around southern California. Elements of a Lippert, Jr. 3-D short are edited in flat, with folks shooting right at the camera, and big Jim Davis karate-chopping right at the camera. Joe Flynn, pre-McHale's Navy, is a reporter, to whom the story is told.
The Great Lie (1941) tells about Bette Davis and George Brent and Mary Astor and George Brent, who deliver the soap-opera goods under the direction of Edmund Goulding. If you were to hear the plot, you might not believe it, but, sure enough, virtuoso pianist Astor and aviation whiz Brent aren't married like they thought, so he bails on prima donna Astor and seeks solace with former fiancee Davis. There's a pregnancy involved, and tense competition between Davis and Astor over Brent, and WW2 looms ahead which makes Brent valuable to Uncle Sam's air defense, so he's gone, and then disappears somewhere in the Amazon and-- look, just watch this with a tub of popcorn, and see Astor win an AA for Best Supporting Actress.
And Then There Were None (1945) re-titled screen version of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, with Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, and Louis Hayward. Seven folks are invited to an isolated island by a mysterioius "host." Each guest, plus two servants, and a secretary have dubious pasts, and as the movie unfolds we find that no one is who they seem. Telling anything about the story would spoil it for those who've never seen it.
I Forgot the Name of This Movie (1930s) about some convicts who plan to make a break, but the young kid who was sent up wrongly knows if there's a break all the other convicts lose their honor work gang privileges, so he determines to stay behind even though his sweetheart tries to get him to join her on the outside. From a stage play, I think.