The Silver Screen Oasis

I have mixed feelings about Frank Tashlin, who started out in animation and moved into live action comedies.

I like his cartoons for Warner Brothers, such as "An Unruly Hare." I love his children's book "The Bear Who Wasn't," which Chuck Jones made into a cartoon in the Sixties.

However, as a director of people, Tashlin often leaves me cold. I saw "The Girl Can't Help It" years ago and didn't really care for it.

This weekend, I watched "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" Apart from the attack on TV, which was very funny, I kept thinking "Billy Wilder would have done a better job with this." Indeed, the film's plot seemed oddly off center. Jayne Mansfield seemed to vanish from the film in the last half-hour, as did Tony Randall's niece, who had been so important in the earlier part of the film. Basically, I'd rather watch "The Seven Year Itch" or "The Apartment" any day of the year.

What's your take on Tashlin?

I love the Jayne Mansfield Tashlins but I don't care much for his work with Jerry Lewis or Doris Day. SON OF PALEFACE with Bob Hope and Jane Russell is great.

I disagree about Wilder for ROCK HUNTER - I think Tashlin was perfect for this, Wilder would have been too venomous for this light satire.

To me Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter ? is very dated. When I first saw it in the 1960's I liked it, but as I said it doesn't hold up very well.

I read The Bear That Wasn't when I was a kid and I just loved it, I don't know why. It must have been far over my head. I read it again a couple years ago and discovered a great satire of our society run amok with corporate greed and incompetence. It also is about how a lie repeated over and over again will eventually become what people believe, no matter how foolish the lie is. There is some hope in the end, since the lie doesn't stick.....the bear reverts to what he truly is.... not what others think he must be.

Frank Tashlin's movies never really live up to the man who wrote that book, as far as I am concerned. They do seem pretty dated and obvious, but who knows? Maybe they will come into fashion again at some point. I still can enjoy them for what they are.

Tashlin had two stints as a director of cartoons at Warners, from 1936-9 and 1943-6. What strikes me is how much his cartoons from 1943-6 are interested in sex. "Plane Daffy" has a real femme fatale, and "I've Got Plenty of Mutton" ends on a punchline that suggests the ending of "Some Like It Hot." Usually, Tex Avery, who created "Red," the flame-topped dancer, is seen as the classic cartoon director most interested in sex in cartoons, but Tashlin seems even more suggestive/knowing in his wartime catoons.

Has anyone ever read any of Tashlin's other children's books apart from "The Bear That Wasn't"?

I didn't know he wrote any others.

He also wrote "The Possum That didn't," (1950) and "The World That Isn't" (1951). So I guess this was when Tashlin had left animation and was working as a screenwriter but had not yet become a director.

Thanks, Mike! I might just see if I can find those...

Kingrat ... same here, you said perfectly! I did not care for it all. its one of those movies that you watch it once and that's it!

Always willing to defend Jerry Lewis, I find enjoyable moments in THE GEISHA BOY, ROCKABYE BABY and the likes. Not the comedian's best work, nor the director's, but there are laughs, songs, harmless fun. I just watched two modern comedies. I'll stick with Lewis and Tashlin.

RedRiver wrote:Always willing to defend Jerry Lewis, I find enjoyable moments in THE GEISHA BOY, ROCKABYE BABY and the likes. Not the comedian's best work, nor the director's, but there are laughs, songs, harmless fun. I just watched two modern comedies. I'll stick with Lewis and Tashlin.

I take Jerry Lewis over Frank Tashlin any day. I do like Frank's work in animation and he was superb in that area; but I find his later works not so great (it was okay) and he doesn't have (in my opinion) the command presence that Jerry Lewis had. Jerry Lewis is by far more superior than Frank; because he has longevity as an actor and working with great talent. Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin is one excellent example of that. Of where I from, Frank Tashlin is not well known and my local television stations owners do not care for him. They prefer Lewis. Lewis is more marketable than Tashlin.

Many of my older generations do not care for Frank Tashlin at all (I'm speaking geographical, Pacific Northwest) and I did not heard of him until I went to California on Vacation back in the early 80's and tried my best to find out more about him. When, I did come back home ... my local library did not even carry one book that mentioned him; but has dozens and dozens of books on Jerry Lewis. The only library that has a book on Frank was the Seattle Public Library and I got his book via mail.

The problem with Frank ... I think that his agent and/or he did not make himself marketable ... I don't know that is true or not. But, that is the way I see it from my perspective.