The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, March 9-15
Artists and Models (1955)
Directed by Frank Tashlin
One of cinema’s greatest tragedies is that VistaVision never took the same hold either commercially or in film history that CinemaScope did, despite being the format that many of the films that define our idea of what 50s Technicolor looked like (The Searchers, Vertigo and North by Northwest, to name the most famous). It is no wonder then, that Looney Tunes alumnus Frank Tashlin would use the extremely flat, non-anamorphic frame to jam the most variegated gags possible at a mile a minute while keeping his compositions immaculate in this, his greatest outing with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Tash’s trademark satire is primarily aimed at the public derision of comic books, but that doesn’t stop the imp from taking shots at obsessions like astrology and the Cold War. One would think that these elements would keep the humor terribly outmoded, but Tashlin’s absolutely masterful control of color and tone keep the film’s virtues immortal, along with the irreducible contributions from Mr. Lewis and Ms. MacLaine, of course. Eric Barroso (March 9, 7pm at MoMA’s Lewis series)
