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With: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Shirley MacLaine, Dorothy Malone, Eddie Mayehoff, Eva Gabor, Anita Ekberg, George 'Foghorn' Winslow, Jack Elam, Herbert Rudley, Richard Shannon, Richard Webb, Alan Lee, Otto Waldis
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Written by: Herbert Baker, Hal Kanter, Don McGuire, Frank Tashlin, based on a play by Michael Davidson, Norman Lessing
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Directed by: Frank Tashlin
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MPAA Rating: NR
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Running Time: 109
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Date: 11/07/1955
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Artists and Models (1955)
Bat-Lady Gaga
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
Frank Tashlin's comedy has some of the meta-ness that would make his The Girl Can't Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? so great, but it's dragged down by some unmemorable musical numbers and some lengthy comedy bits that don't quite land. It's still worth a look, however. Jerry Lewis plays Eugene Fullstack, a struggling children's author who loves reading violent and sexy "Bat Lady" comic books. He has nightmares in which he shouts out his own violent superhero tales, which his roommate, Rick Todd (Dean Martin), writes down. Meanwhile, in the same apartment building, Abigail Parker (Dorothy Malone) is the actual creator of the Bat Lady. She enlists her publisher's secretary, Bessie Sparrowbush (Shirley MacLaine, in her second movie after Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry) to model in the Bat Lady suit. The plot spins into some wild places, but it's essentially a satirical commentary on violence in entertainment that, in spite of everything, is quite wise. Eva Gabor and Anita Ekberg appear in small roles.
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