hyped garbage

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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.

This is one of my least favorite Martin & Lewis pics. And I imagine Dean wasn't particular thrilled with some aspects of it. For example, the first song in the film ("When You Pretend") is sort of a duet with Jerry, who sings it badly as he almost always sang; Dean did go on to record it for Capital Records. He gets his own first song with "You Look So Familiar", which he sings about as poorly as you'll see in any of his films; his Capital recording of the song is quite good, however. He fares much better with his own mini-production number of "My Lucky Song"...one of my favorite songs by Dean in any of his Martin & Lewis films. And, later in the film he has "Innamorata", which became a minor hit for Dean at #27 on the Billboard charts. He also has the title song, sung over the credits.Unfortunately, Eva Gabor proves the Gabor sisters couldn't act...but at least it's Eva and not Zsa Zsa! One comedy sequence I thought was too much -- taking the "buddy picture" too far -- was Dean and Jerry in a bathtub together.There are some good things about this film. Shirley MacLaine shines as the female lead and love interest for Jerry. There's a pretty good comedy sequence with Jerry and Shirley to "Innamorata" (after Dean finishes his version). Incidentally, this was Shirley's second film (after Hitchcock's "The Trouble With Harry"). Dorothy Malone is fine as Dean's love interest. Jerry has a funny chiropractor sequence. The production, like several of the later Martin & Lewis films was fairly big budget -- VistaVision, Technicolor, Eastmancolor, and stereo.Dean's and Jerry's acting here is pretty typical for their pictures, but unlike some scenes in some of their comedies, there's little here that's endearing. Dorothy Malone was fine as Dean's love interest, Shirley MacLaine fine as Jerry's. Eddie Mayehoff, who earlier was quite good in several Martin & Lewis films was, from my perspective, becoming a sort of Eddie Mayehoff character...to exaggerated.Time was running out for Martin & Lewis, and in my view, this film showed it.

When artist Dean Martin needs inspiration for a violent new comic book, he takes it from the dreams of his best pal (Jerry Lewis). Unfortunately they also contain the secret code for a new space station. This is the first Martin and Lewis film I've seen, and it was OK. Lewis isn't particularly funny, but you acclimatise to his relentless mugging after a few minutes, and he had a few good moments – particularly his encounter with the Bat Lady and the fat lady. I watched it because of Tashlin, a former animator who specialised in big, bright comedies satirising anything he felt like, including the marvellous Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? But here his direction is overbearing to the point of being annoying, with sound effects at every juncture. The film's best moments belong to Shirley MacLaine as Lewis's girlfriend (it's always amusing to see where stars ranked in the Hollywood Order of Attractiveness). This was her second film and she's so full of energy she's practically bouncing into your living room. Particularly good is her reprisal of the number Innamorata, where she leaps around a staircase, trying to kiss Lewis. In fact, the musical interludes are mostly surprisingly good; rather better than the comedy (the tone is set by the opening scene, which promises a man being flung through a billboard and then contents itself with dropping some paint on people's heads). Martin's Lucky Song, filmed in a similar way to I Got Rhythm from An American in Paris, is a joy, and the title tune is cleverly staged around an artist's palette filled with various women. Did I mention that the film is quite sexist? All in all, I'm not in a rush to check out more Martin and Lewis movies, but if there's one on TV, I might give it a go.

One of Martin & Lewis's better films, this gaudy comedy stretches a paper-thin plot by unnecessarily stringing out a couple of Lewis's comedy sequences – the bathtub scene, and the scene in which he's accosted by an elfin-like Shirley Maclaine on the stairs in particular. Lewis moons and gurns and pulls the kind of faces that are hilarious to a six-year-old (and French people) but will leave anyone in long trousers cold. Martin looks effortlessly cool and does his bit to pad out the film by singing a few numbers. The story is rubbish, an excuse to show Maclaine and Malone in various states of modest undress to keep the dad's interested while mum swoons over Martin and the kids shriek at Lewis.