Better a Billboard that Smokes than Those Silly Eyes of God

Artists and Models (1955)
directed by Frank Tashlin
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Jerry Lewis and Shirley MacLaine serenading one another for the better part of a day in a New York City stairwell is the sort of scene that people who don't like Jerry Lewis seem to think of when they envision a theater full of Frenchmen laughing through their cigarettes. MacLaine and Lewis are too similar to be compatible, but even comic book readers deserve their happiness, and so it's hard to begrudge either one of them the candy cane rush each aspires to. But in a movie like this, my happiness is paramount, especially at the expense of someone else, and that's why it's good that Dean Martin takes the lumps from his friends and lovers just to inspire my heart with a song. Dean made it okay not to have money, and he could sell that smitten personality like it was your confidence he was using to wisecrack the blonde. This being a movie, the blonde comes around. She appreciates Jerry as your foil. And that, folks, is all, and all you need.