This was Ida Lupino's last movie for Paramount under her contract with the studio. She'd been growing wary of being placed in forgettable pictures and felt that the studio was wasting her abilities. Eventually she obtained a new agent and a two-picture deal at Columbia, and within a few years she was at Warner Brothers making classics such as They Drive by Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941). A decade later, she'd begin a significant directing career.
Artists & Models is notable also as the first film to include work by Vincente Minnelli. He was brought to the studio from New York, where he'd been working in the theater, to design the musical number "Public Melody No. 1." According to author Stephen Harvey, Minnelli came up with "the concept" for the number but did not fully choreograph or direct it. In fact, Minnelli "felt the result was a chaotic travesty of his original notion." As time went on, it became clear that Paramount was intimidated by Minnelli's artistic ambitions. Minnelli grew frustrated, bought out his contract, and returned to New York. Later, of course, he tried Hollywood again and ended up as one of the greatest directors (of musicals and other genre films) in history.
"Public Melody No. 1" caused a ruckus in some states due to its onscreen blending of white and black performers. Martha Raye was particularly lambasted by racist southern theater owners and newspaper publishers for dancing on-screen with "negroes." Even Variety chimed in on this, saying in its review, "This intermingling of the races isn't wise, especially as [Raye] lets herself go into the extremest manifestations of Harlemania torso-twisting and gyrations." On the other hand, Variety said of the movie as a whole that it "holds enough variety, comedy, color, spec, flash, dash and novelty for a couple of pictures."
The New York Times agreed, calling the picture "a suave, witty and polished show, one of the sprightliest of the season's musical comedies... Mr. Benny, still the drollest comic on the screen, doesn't miss a bet and turns in his best performance to date."
Artists & Models drew an Oscar® nomination for Best Song, for "Whispers in the Dark" by Friederich Hollaender and Leo Robin. It lost to "Sweet Leilani" from Waikiki Wedding (1937). The film was successful enough for Paramount to produce a follow-up called Artists and Models Abroad (1938). It again starred Benny but was a sequel in title only and did not do as well at the box office.
Look for famed cartoonist Rube Goldberg in his only movie appearance -- yes, the Rube Goldberg, the man whose name became a still-used term for outrageously complicated contraptions that perform simple tasks or nothing at all. Goldberg would win a Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for editorial cartooning. He is billed in the picture with several other names as one of "America's leading artists and illustrators," and he plays an artist as part of the number "Mr. Esquire" -- an imaginative set-piece involving puppets made to resemble famous Paramount stars of the day such as Burns and Allen, W.C. Fields, Carole Lombard and Claudette Colbert.
Also keep an eye out for Hollywood gossip columnist and occasional actress Hedda Hopper, in the role of Mrs. Townsend.
Producer: Lewis E. Gensler
Director: Raoul Walsh
Screenplay: Walter DeLeon, Lewis E. Gensler, Francis Martin; Eve Greene, Harlan Ware (adaptation); Sig Herzig, Eugene Thackrey (story)
Cinematography: Victor Milner
Music: Robert Russell Bennett, Gordon Jenkins, John Leipold, Leo Shuken (all uncredited)
Film Editing: Ellsworth Hoagland
Cast: Jack Benny (Mac Brewster), Ida Lupino (Paula Sewell aka Paula Monterey), Richard Arlen (Alan Townsend), Gail Patrick (Cynthia Wentworth), Ben Blue (Jupiter Pluvius), Judy Canova (Toots), Charles Adler (Yacht Club Boys), James V. Kern (Yacht Club Boys), George Kelly (Yacht Club Boys), Billy Mann (Yacht Club Boys), Cecil Cunningham (Stella), Donald Meek (Dr. Zimmer), Hedda Hopper (Mrs. Townsend).
BW-97m.
by Jeremy Arnold
Sources:
William Donati, Ida Lupino
Stephen Harvey, Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Raoul Walsh, Each Man in His Time
