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Let's
face it, there aren't that many movies or television shows made
about "commercial" artists... or are there? Why
not ask Lou ?
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| "Nowadays,
people are preoccupied with reality. They want to see every
leaf on the tree, every hair on the dog's tail. That's not
art, that's illustration!" - Don Fellows as J.M.Whistler
in the 1978 mini series "Lillie." |
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"Nightfall"
(1956) I swear to God, in this impossible to find noir goody,
Aldo Ray plays... an illustrator on the run!!
Yes, the same psychotic, brutal, loogy doofus that maimed,
killed, machine-gunned and bayoneted his way through "Battle
Cry", "Men in War", "The Naked and the
Dead", and all those other great 50's war movies! While
on deadline for some bigtime New York ad agency, Aldo gets
mixed up with a couple of scary bank robbers who are convinced
he has their loot , so they try to put his drawing arm through
a snow plow blade. Prize for the Best Line Ever in an
Art Movie: when he tries to impress fashion model Anne
Bancroft that he's an artist, she fires back, "What
kind... sunsets or soup cans?" Poor Aldo's career hit
rock-bottom in '78, when he appeared in the hardcore porn
flick, "Sweet Savage" with Candy Conners.
Thanks
to Peter Hoey http://www.peterhoey.com
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"Voice
in the Mirror"
(1958) Since I've posted this review, I've gotten a lot
of mail from you guys out there, admitting to having had
a thing for smoky-voiced Julie London way back before
she was ever Nurse Dixie McCall on "Emergency!"
So, here's a chance to see her in full 1950's blossom in
her most desperate and sordid role ever... as the wife of
an alcoholic agency art director! Richard Egan plays
her boozing husband, as he staggers his way through comps,
type specs and deadlines... hey, just like real life!
Click here for review
If
you're into Julie, here's a site truly worth visiting...
http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~agard/indexx.htm
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"The
Petty Girl" (1950) Real-life pin-up artist George
Petty was an American icon for more than twenty years...
in other words, an illustrator that could score more babes
in an afternoon than the rest of us could in a lifetime! But
when Columbia cast Bob Cummings as Petty in this typical
Technicolor 50's parochial funfest, they decided he should
be bored with all those steamy irresistable models. Instead,
we find him giving it all up to enroll in a design school
in order to pursue prim but beautiful college professor Joan
Caulfield. Look quickly for Melanie Griffith's mom,
Tippi Hedron, as "The Ice Box Petty Girl." |
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"Artists
and Models"
(1937) Where else are you gonna get to see Russell Patterson,
Peter Arno, McClelland Barclay, Arthur William Brown, Rube
Goldberg, and John LaGatta (all actual real-life illustrators!)
in a real Hollywood movie?? Jack Benny plays an advertising
exec trying to hold on to that big account. Meanwhile, the
agency's hot but swell model, Ida Lupino, longs to
be Queen of the Artists and Models Ball, but... sorry, Ida...
it's open to snooty debutantes only! Andre Kostelanetz (long
before he brought us all that annoying 50's elevator music)
plays the orchestra conductor. Always the pinnacle of integrity,
Hollywood removed a scene of Louis Armstrong and
Martha Raye performing together in order to appease
some southern US distributors.
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"Artists
and Models"
(1955) Dean Martin plays a "starving artist"
who sells out to the comic book business by stealing ideas
for "Vincent the Vulture" from roommate Jerry
Lewis. Jerry announces on TV that the reason he acts
"retarded" is from having read comic books for
15 years (so that's the reason!). Shirley MacLaine
as The Bat Lady... Eva Gabor as a Russian spy...
and Dorothy Malone at her frigid best, as she tries
to help Frederic Wertham battle the scourge of the comic
book! All this and Anita Ekberg
complaining to Dino, "You've changed! Now when I
pose for you, all you do is draw!"
Click
here for review
Order
it here from Amazon.com
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"Guest
in the House" (1944) Anne Baxter warms up
for "All About Eve". This time, she's a wacko
invalid bent on destroying an artist and his model along
with his entire family, after being taken in by them at
their ocean home following her breakdown. Plenty of atmosphere
with Ralph Bellamy and Margaret Hamilton as
Hilda the Maid. Besides tons of great TV (including 12 "Twilight
Zones"), director John Brahm gave us lots of
other great stuff over the years, including "Hangover
Square," "The Lodger," and one of my all-time
favorites, "Hot Rods to Hell."
Thanks
to Overton Loyd http://overvision.com
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"A
Bucket of Blood"
(1959) The Greenwich Village art world is a depraved swingin'
beatnik scene, Daddy-O... at least according to Roger
Corman, and "Bucket of Blood" is hands-down
his best low-budget "masterpiece" ever. Dick
Miller is Walter Paisley, a
coffeehouse waiter who accidentally kills his landlady's
cat and, in a panic, covers it with plaster. The "sculpture"
makes him the instant darling of the New York boho art
set. His new-found cultural friends want to see more,
and bodies start disappearing all over town as Walter
strives to meet his public's demand for his art. Okay,
so it's not really about commercial art, but it's all
about diggin' the bigtime NY art scene, and somehow belongs
here. Look for Bert Convy in a quickie role as
"Lou"!
Order
it here from Amazon.com
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"The
Blue Gardenia"
(1953) Way before Raymond Burr decided to become
Perry Mason and then Ironside, he played some really great
creeps (the best, of course, being Lars Thorwald in "Rear
Window"). Here, he's pretty slimy as lecherous Harry
Prebble, an illustrator/caricaturist/portrait artist who
apparently went into the business for the usual reason...
to meet girls! His artsy shenanigans get him in big
trouble with Anne Baxter, when he gets her up to
his studio and announces he's trashing an illustration deadline
in order to get in her pants! With Richard Conte as a reporter
and George "Superman" Reeves as a cop.
Thanks again to Peter Hoey http://www.peterhoey.com
Order
it here from Amazon.com
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"How
to Murder Your Wife" (1965) Rich cartoonist Jack
Lemmon (he even has a butler and lives in a huge swingin'
New York mansion!) gets turned on by sexpot Virna Lisi when
she oozes out of a cake at a bachelor party, and wakes up
the next morning married to her. Being the 60's bachelor
that he is, he spends the rest of the movie dreaming up
ways to do her in with the "gloppita-gloppita"
machine. Really fun!
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"Loving"
(1970) The quintessential movie about the illustration biz!
Unfortunately, it seems hardly anything is even remembered
about this film these days, and it's very hard to find,
but if it ever pops up on TV, don't miss it! George Segal
plays illustrator Brooks Wilson as he struggles to finish
a major assignment while having a world-class middle-age
nervous breakdown! Eva Marie Saint is his wife and
Keenan Wynn is perfectly cast as his exasperated
mercenary rep. The climax will floor you. A bunch of scenes
were filmed on location at the New York Society of Illustrators.
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"Pop
Goes the Easel" (1935) and "Slippery Silks"
(1936) The Three Stooges made a couple of madcap
shorts about the art game. In "Pop Goes the Easel,"
Moe, Larry and Curly shake the cops off their tails
by ducking into an art school where they're mistaken for
art students. A clay fight ensues! In "Slippery Silks,"
the boys masquerade as fashion designers. This time it's
a pie fight, with over 150 pies thrown!
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"The
Hand" (1981) Michael Caine plays a cartoonist
who loses his hand in a bizarre accident, then - guess what??
- the hand takes on a murderous life of its own! Gee, I
don't recall this ever happening to Al Capp or Chester
Gould, do you? Another of those fake-rubber-hand-on-the-loose
deals, but the idea that he's a comic strip artist makes
it pretty fascinating. This was Oliver Stone's second
stab at directing. Carlo Rambaldi, who did the special
effects, started out on Andy Warhol's "Flesh
for Frankenstein" and "Blood for Dracula."
Andrea Marcovicci plays Caine's wife. If you're into
this sort of plot, don't miss "The Beast with Five
Fingers" with Peter Lorre... about as chilling
as it gets!
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"Artist's
Studio Secrets" (1964) Sometimes I wonder why I
even include this 60's nudie flick. Pretty tedious going.
But the premise is so, well... astounding! Idiotic
Greenwich Village (of course) artist Percy Green
only gets turned on by clothed models, so his wife
forces him to paint only nude models! Get it? There's
the obligatory "orgy" at the end where an artist
gets drunk and smokes five cigarettes at once.
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"The
Adventures of Lucky Pierre" (1961) The first and
only time I saw H. Gordon Lewis's "Blood Feast,"
I was making out with Darla Jean Potts at the Roosevelt
Drive In in Philadelphia, and it stopped me in my tracks.
There was just something about slaughterhouse entrails that
made it hard to concentrate. But a few years before inventing
the gore genre, Lewis made "Lucky Pierre," an
amusing nudie rip off of Russ Meyer's "The Immoral
Mr. Teas." Pierre, played by Billy Falbo, finds
himself in various Tati-inspired situations, including a
segment entitled, "Pardon My Pigment,"
where three models pose nude while he paints their picture.
When the models discover the painting is "abstract"
rather than "realistic," they beat Pierre senseless
with the canvas. Click
here for larger image... well worth it!
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"Woman
in the Window" (1944) Pillar of the academic community
and family man Edward G. Robinson, suddenly finds
himself dangerously fixated upon an oil portrait of artist's
model Joan Bennett in this topnotch Fritz Lang
thriller. When they eventually meet, she invites
him up to see her sketches (now there's
a switch!)... which, of course, always leads to murder,
deceit and betrayal. With Dan Duryea at his slimiest.
Seven years later, Bennett's real-life jealous husband Walter
Wanger shot her agent, Jennings Lang, putting
her acting career into a tailspin. She finally resurfaced
into TV stardom in 1966 as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard on
Dark Shadows.
Order
it here fromAmazon.com
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"Scarlet
Street" (1945) A year after "Woman in the
Window," Fritz Lang brought his ensemble cast
of Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan
Duryea back together for... guess what?... another
movie about art! This time, Robinson plays Chris Cross (get
it?) a timid henpecked book keeper whose first love is his
Sunday painting. He meets Bennett, and does what we've all
done at least once... lies to her that he's a wealthy artist!
Soon he finds himself stealing his wife's money to pay for
Bennett's extravagant apartment, while she and evil boyfriend
Duryea make a fortune selling his paintings behind his back
with her name signed to them. Not quite as visually
crafted as "Woman in the Window," but still terrific.
Thanks
again to Peter Hoey http://www.peterhoey.com
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"The
Art of Love" (1965) Okay, another one that's not
really about commercial art, but still makes the cut. Dick
Van Dyke takes a break from Rob Petrie in order to play
a Parisian artist who fakes killing himself (with the help
of unscrupulous pal James Garner) so his painting
$$$ will go up, up, up (hey, there's an idea!). Trouble
is, now he has to stay "dead!" Angie Dickinson
and Elke Sommer provide the love. Ethel Merman
belts out a few tunes while running a Paris brothel.
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"You
Are an Artist" (1946-1950) Goatee, plaid shirt, and
sometimes even a beret... art instructor Jon Gnagy
was almost the sharpest dresser on TV, second only to Desi
Arnaz (who obviously had a much bigger budget)! This wasn't
just some "grab a pencil" learn-to-draw series.
In each 15-minute episode, Jon would whip out charcoal...
kneaded eraser... and the ever-present paper stump! From time
to time, armed guards would bring in a painting from The
Museum of Modern Art for Jon to critique and explain on
the air. Originally sponsored by Gulf Oil, of all things. |
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"Alcoa
Presents" (1959-1961) "Alcoa Presents"
was hosted by John Newland, and later became known
as "One Step Beyond", the poor man's "Twilight
Zone." Here's a publicity pic of one eerie 1959
episode called "Open Window" that appeared in
The Richmond Times Dispatch. The accompanying caption tells
all... "Michael Higgins stars as a highly-paid commercial
artist who sees the suicide of a desperate woman before
it happens in 'Open Window,' an exciting tale of clairvoyance
on Alcoa Presents, over ABC-TV, Tuesday (10:30 p.m., Ch.
6). Louise Fletcher co-stars as the model whose beauty
the artist finds boring." Now that is eerie!
Click here
for larger image
Thanks
to Bob Scott http://www.bscott.com/
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Lou
invites you, his very best friend, to click
here to submit any information or requests
regarding your favorite and somewhat offbeat "art" movie
or television show.
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