Described by film critic Jim Hoberman as “the original Pop artist,” Frank Tashlin brought to his features the screaming colors, antinaturalistic tone, and hyperbolics he had developed as an animator for Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes cartoons. It is only fitting that the writer-director’s most enduring collaboration would be with Jerry Lewis, the real life star whose acting so resembled a cartoon character.

In their first film together, Eugene (Lewis) is a comic book-obsessed children’s author whose overactive imagination becomes source material for a struggling artist friend Rick (Dean Martin). Shirley MacLaine and Dorothy Malone are the upstairs neighbors in this ferocious satire of mid-1950s pop culture that turns every hot topic from its era into a joke: from the 1954 Senate subcommittee hearings (on the perils of comic books!), to the Cold War, the space race, and the publishing business.

All 22 reels of the original VistaVision negative were scanned in 6K, and unlike many VistaVision titles that can suffer from severe color fade, this one showed only relatively minor fading. The primary picture challenge was stability: heavy flicker, color breathing, and scattered dirt and scratches. About 60 hours of digital clean-up, plus a Phoenix pass on the opening reels, balanced the image and brought out the rich color. Once stabilized, the film’s vibrant Technicolor palette and Frank Tashlin’s playful visual style came through beautifully. For audio, 35mm safety optical negatives (OSTN) were selected as the preferred elements, and Perspecta tones were confirmed across the sets. The final restoration preserves the original Perspecta sound mix, delivered alongside a standard mono track. The result is a lively, colorful restoration that not only lets Martin, Lewis, and MacLaine shine as if the film were brand new, but also restores the playful sound mix audiences would have heard in 1955.

Courtesy of Paramount

Shows with:

Betty Boop’s Rise to Fame (Fleischer Studios Cartoons, 1934, 9 mins)