THE VERY LIVING END: FRANK TASHLIN AND THE AMERICAN NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

In the 1950s, America was facing an unprecedented national emergency: comic books were turning children into perverts, rock and roll was turning teenagers into sex maniacs, and advertising was turning everybody else into idiots. Fortunately, former Looney Tunes animator Frank Tashlin was on hand to document the collapse of Western civilization in the brightest colors Hollywood could manufacture. In three gloriously deranged comedies—ARTISTS AND MODELS (1955), THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT (1956), and WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? (1957)—Tashlin unleashes Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Jayne Mansfield, and Tony Randall upon an America so hopelessly addicted to sex, money, fame, and consumer goods that nobody seems to have noticed the country has become a giant cartoon. A master of outrageous sight gags, shameless innuendo, and the kind of visual excess that made French intellectuals lose their minds, Tashlin was simultaneously one of Hollywood's greatest enthusiasts for American vulgarity and one of its most merciless critics. His movies suggest that the entire American way of life is an elaborate practical joke, possibly at your expense, but with terrific production values. Come for the beautiful women, catchy songs, and spectacularly stupid behavior; stay for the complete moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the United States.