Jack Benny Comedy Classics (Artists and Models/Man About Town) (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Raoul Walsh/Mark SandrichRelease Date(s)
1937/1939 (March 17, 2026)Studio(s)
Paramount Pictures (Kino Lorber Studio Classics)- Film/Program Grade: See Below
- Video Grade: See Below
- Audio Grade: See Below
- Extras Grade: B
- Overall Grade: B+
Review
Jack Benny was once one of the most popular entertainers in America. He started in vaudeville and scored his greatest triumph in radio on a show that bore his name and ran from 1932 through 1955. Television beckoned in 1949 and The Jack Benny Program ran on TV until 1965. Benny was featured in movies from 1929 into the 1940s, among them Artists and Models and Man About Town, pictures that blended music and comedy. Both films are now available on the Blu-ray release Jack Benny Comedy Classics.
In Artists and Models, Benny plays advertising agency head Mac Brewster. Mac has been appointed chairman of the Artists and Models Ball and must select a queen for the event. Mac’s struggling business is saved by a million-dollar ad campaign assignment from Alan Townsend (Richard Arlen), the head of Townsend Silver. Mac promises to make the next queen of the ball the “Townsend Silver Girl.” Mac plans to fix the contest so his professional model girlfriend Paula (Ida Lupino) is crowned queen, but then learns Townsend wants the winner to be a member of the social register.
Determined to be named queen, Paula changes her name to fool Townsend into thinking she’s a debutante and they end up falling in love. Mac meets socialite Cynthia Wentworth (Gail Patrick) and tells her the fix is in for her to be named queen of the ball. He winds up promising to announce his engagement to both Paula and Cynthia at the ball.
Everything turns out fine as the slight plot meanders through a series of musical numbers featuring the Yacht Club Boys, who open the film with the broad comedy number Sasha Pasha; synchronized swimming by the Water Waltzers; Judy Canova cavorting through hillbilly tunes; Connee Boswell singing the Academy Award-nominated Whispers in the Dark; rubber-legged comedian Ben Blue; and the Russell Patterson Personettes, puppets that resemble famous Paramount stars of the period including W.C. Fields, Claudette Colbert, and Burns and Allen.
The film’s big production number is Public Melody No. 1, staged by a then unknown Vincente Minnelli and featuring Martha Raye and Louis Armstrong. The number is lively. Raye wiggles and postures up a storm as scores of Black extras crowd into an obviously small set of a street in Harlem while Armstrong solos on trumpet and adds his gravelly voice to a chorus or two.
A sequence featuring famous artists of the day sketching the British fashion model Sandra Storme provides some eye candy, but dull except for some surrealistic repartee between Benny and artist of screwball inventions Rube Goldberg.
Comedy-wise, Artists and Models falls flat and the plot becomes tedious. Benny’s one-liners fail to generate smiles, let alone laughs, and the film comes off as an excuse to present a vaudeville-style assortment of popular entertainment.
Artists and Models was shot by director of photography Victor Milner on 35mm black & white film with spherical lenses and presented in the aspect ratio of 1.37:1. The Blu-ray is sourced from a new 2K master. Musical numbers are shot with diverse camera angles to enhance their cinematic appeal. The Personette puppets reveal the clever way the orchestra conductor and instruments are made to move to the musical track. The Artists and Models Ball features an elaborate set and scores of extras, offering considerable production value. The Public Melody No. 1 number, despite its cramped set, is exciting with lots of chorus movement while Martha Raye shakes and shimmies as she puts over her song. Ida Lupino and Gail Patrick look elegant in gowns designed by Travis Banton.
In the second film, Man About Town, Benny portrays Bob Temple, an impresario who brings an American show to London and has an eye for his star, Diana Wilson (Dorthy Lamour). She doesn’t take his attentions seriously so to make her jealous, he woos Lady Arlington (Minnie Barnes), who has an agenda of her own—to make her inattentive financier husband (Edward Arnold) jealous. During a weekend at the Arlington country house, Bob becomes the pawn of Lady Arlington and a friend of hers who both want to make their husbands jealous. Their plan works better than anticipated and Bob’s in danger from both husbands.
Man About Town is buoyed by a strong supporting cast headed by Eddie Anderson, Benny’s longtime butler “Rochester” from his radio show. Anderson has a pretty big role and lots of comic lines. His banter with Benny is effortless and natural, and the easy relationship between a white man and a Black man was a rarity in films of the period. Phil Harris, also from Benny’s radio show, stars as leading man Ted Nash in the show-within-the-movie. E.E. Clive as Arlington’s butler is stereotypically humorless and stone-faced, making a scene with Rochester especially funny. Betty Grable plays an ambitious chorus girl.
Musical numbers include a silly romantic ballad, That Sentimental Sandwich, performed by Dorothy Lamour and Phil Harris; Jack Benny playing Love in Bloom on the violin; Fidgety Joe, a duet by Better Grable and Phil Harris; Strange Enchantment (Dorothy Lamour); and Dance of the Sultan’s Wives enthusiastically performed by the Merriell Abbott Dancers.
Man About Town was shot by director of photography Ted Tetzlaff on 35mm black & white film with spherical lenses and presented in the Academy aspect ratio of 1.37:1. Sourced from a new 2K master, the print features sharp clarity and very good contrast. There are no visual imperfections to impair enjoyment. Close-ups of Dorothy Lamour bring out her exotic, sensual quality. The musical numbers are staged rather routinely, without much cinematic flourish.
The soundtracks on both Artists and Models and Man About Town are English 2.0 mono DTS-HD Master Audio. English subtitles are available for each film. Dialogue is clear and distinct, and back-and-forth comic repartee is well rendered. Musical numbers lack the brilliance of modern recording techniques but reflect what was state-of-the-art at the time. The Andre Kostelanetz orchestral segments in Artists and Models have an old-school grandeur, while Connee Boswell’s number is presented in a simple setting. Judy Canova’s numbers are loud and brash and involve the occasional comic sound effect.
ARTISTS AND MODELS (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO): C/A/A-
MAN ABOUT TOWN (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO): B-/A/A-
Bonus materials on the Region A Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber Studio Classics include the following:
- Audio Commentary for Artists and Models by Eddy Von Mueller
- Audio Commentary for Man About Town by Paul Anthony Nelson and Lee Zachariah
- Trailers:
- Artists ands Models (2:03)
- Man About Town (1:56)
- Never Say Die (:55)
- Desire (2:50)
- The Good Fairy (2:46)
- The Gilded Lady (2:44)
- Love Me Tonight (1:46)
- I’m No Angel (1:58)
- The Old Fashioned Way (2:37)
- Road to Morocco (2:13)
Audio Commentary for Artists and Models – Film historian Eddy Von Mueller says that the title sequence is like a theatrical program. Artists and Models premiered on Broadway on March 24, 1927. The film, made ten years later, is a “fascinating snapshot of American culture and mass entertainment in the 1930s.” By the latter part of the 1930s, the United States had developed a shared national culture based on entertainment made possible by mass media. There was “a little something for everyone.” The real Broadway is parodied in the opening number, Sasha Pasha. The film is a vaudevillian celebration. Mueller points out that there’s little chemistry between the two women and Jack Benny in their “romances.” Overviews are provided on the careers of Ida Lupino, Judy Canova, Connee Boswell, Richard Arlen, and Martha Raye. After she left Paramount, Lupino would star in the Warner Bros. features High Sierra and They Drive By Night, both co-starring Humphrey Bogart. She became a trail-blazing director of movies and television in the post-war period. Director Raoul Walsh was best known for Westerns and directed John Wayne in The Big Trail. Speaking about the Public Melody No. 1 number, Mueller notes that Harlem was an “alternative pop culture space for persons of color to inhabit.” It fused musicality, sensuality, and criminality. Martha Raye was new at Paramount at the time and was mostly used in comic roles.
Audio Commentary for Man About Town – Film historians Paul Anthony Nelson and Lee Zachariah share this commentary. They provide an overview of Jack Benny’s life and career. Though he’s largely forgotten today, they remind us that he was huge in pop culture from 1932 to 1965, first on radio and later television. He hosted the Oscars when it was broadcast on radio. Playing the violin miserably was part of Benny’s professional persona, though he did study the instrument seriously for years. He dropped out of school at age 16 and created a solo act playing the violin in vaudeville houses. He later incorporated comedy during a stint entertaining fellow servicemen in the navy. Dorothy Lamour was a band singer who went to Hollywood but initially did not break into movies. She had her own radio show, eventually got a test at Paramount, and was signed when she was 21. The Jungle Princess made her a star immediately. Her unique appearance was responsible for her being cast in exotic roles and she became known as “the sarong girl.” Though Gracie Allen was supposed to star in Road to Singapore, the first of the road movies, ultimately the role went to Lamour, who became a fixture in the series for many years. Man About Town takes place in London but was shot entirely in California. Eddie “Rochester” Anderson and Phil Harris, regulars from Benny’s radio show, are prominent in the cast. Anderson had a significant role, a sassy manner with Benny, and a story line of his own at a time when Black performers were relegated to minor parts as servants. While nominally following orders, Rochester mostly does as he pleases, driving the boss’ car on his own errands, smoking the boss’ cigars, and offering endless contradictions and sarcasm.
Though hardly a comedy classic as the title of the collection declares, Man About Town holds up better than Artists and Models. Both pictures offer viewers a chance to experience Jack Benny. Neither film captures fully the persona Benny conveyed on radio and television. Both use slight comic plots to string together disparate song and dance numbers in an attempt to broaden their audiences.
- Dennis Seuling