Beginner's Luck
Hollywood or Bust (1956)
directed by Frank Tashlin
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
So yes, a dog behind the wheel of a car is always funny. It's funny when Boone is in the driver's seat when I come back from Kroger, and it's funny when Mr. Bascomb (a Great Dane) takes Dean Martin's convertible for a loop around the haystacks. Dean's exasperation (with Jerry, with the dog, with playing the straight man when he should be at the Sands) is more background than undercurrent, and whatever effort Tashlin exerted keeping his stars in line feels effortless in hand with the easy breezy Americana that signposts the duo's drive west to LA.
Anita Ekberg plays herself, which is the only role I've ever seen her in (did I miss the part that made her the Definitive American Movie Star, en route to typecasting?), but it can't be an America of Ekbergs only - not if it's the country of Tashlin's VistaVision, never-a-gray-day dreams (never Out West, anyway) - so the long road of gold is armed to the teeth with pretty girls singing in regional attire: gingham and denim bikinis in the mid-west, buckskin-and-fringe miniskirts on the rez. Ian Frazier probably has something to say about cuckolded Chief Running Water (ditto for the "tribute" to the Chinese moviegoer), but who's better for the fall guy than Dino? Blame him, love him, let him croon you to the moon with that sweet and happy Mr. B. - surely the reason, more than the century's joke about France and Jerry Lewis, that Jean-Luc & François loved it so.
directed by Frank Tashlin
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
So yes, a dog behind the wheel of a car is always funny. It's funny when Boone is in the driver's seat when I come back from Kroger, and it's funny when Mr. Bascomb (a Great Dane) takes Dean Martin's convertible for a loop around the haystacks. Dean's exasperation (with Jerry, with the dog, with playing the straight man when he should be at the Sands) is more background than undercurrent, and whatever effort Tashlin exerted keeping his stars in line feels effortless in hand with the easy breezy Americana that signposts the duo's drive west to LA.
Anita Ekberg plays herself, which is the only role I've ever seen her in (did I miss the part that made her the Definitive American Movie Star, en route to typecasting?), but it can't be an America of Ekbergs only - not if it's the country of Tashlin's VistaVision, never-a-gray-day dreams (never Out West, anyway) - so the long road of gold is armed to the teeth with pretty girls singing in regional attire: gingham and denim bikinis in the mid-west, buckskin-and-fringe miniskirts on the rez. Ian Frazier probably has something to say about cuckolded Chief Running Water (ditto for the "tribute" to the Chinese moviegoer), but who's better for the fall guy than Dino? Blame him, love him, let him croon you to the moon with that sweet and happy Mr. B. - surely the reason, more than the century's joke about France and Jerry Lewis, that Jean-Luc & François loved it so.
posted by NPK at 7:42 AM
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