Review of Artists and Models

The color photography is very attractive and the movie has a great support cast, but the picture has been running half an hour before Shirley MacLaine and Dorothy Malone come on. Malone has the lion's share of the action, although MacLaine has a dance number plus half of one of Dean Martin's more attractive songs. Martin also has a children's dance. Eddie Mayehoff storms around hammily but unfunnily. About three quarters of the way through, a plot suddenly starts to develop and Eva Gabor enters. Anita Ekberg has only one very, very small insignificant scene. Kath Freeman delivers some of the films very limited genuine humor. Still in its very limited, juvenile way, the movie is a passable time-waster, although MacLaine and Ekberg fans are going to be disappointed. MacLaine's fans will be especially outraged as her dance number at the artists' ball has been left on the cutting-room floor. Director Tashlin actually had a background in comic art and I would have thought he would have brightened up the very heavy-handed satire on EC comics. As it is, the film falls very neatly into two halves. It would seem the writers ran out of ideas and desperately introduced the spy plot. Production values, especially the sets and costumes are lavish. Dean Martin was not happy that Jerry Lewis collared the lion's share of the climax. But despite all the cuts, including a scene in the dressing room corridor with a lot of distorted reflections in mirrors (we already had a scene with funny faces reflected in the water cooler), the movie still needs trimming.