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The Facebook fan page for the Van Boren comics Frank Tashlin created just linked to his first effort, a short for The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (!), The Way of Peace.

The page also posted a good history on the short: "This film was made by Rev. H.K. Rasbach as a reaction to the bombing of Hiroshima. The story is a very brief overview of the Bible, showing mankind's downward spiral, eventually culminating with the end of the world. Very eerie stuff. The publishing arm of the Lutheran Church contacted East West Studios to do the animation. Wah Chang produced the film and designed the puppets. Wah Chang had just finished designing models for the Daffy Ditties stop-motion series for Morey and Sutherland Productions for which Tashlin was the director. Tashlin's connection to Chang is probably how Frank ended up directing this cartoon. Apparently is took twenty months and $60,000 to complete, according to a 1947 Newsweek article." Also his last animated feature apparently.

Not sure how many will get a kick out of this, but I checked out The World That Isn't from the library and found this inside:

Everybody buy my friend Ethan's book on Tashlin.

A certain someone let me read an early draft and it's indeed very well-researched-- more scholarship on Tashlin is always welcome, especially since he's having something of a renaissance in the last couple years

I think Tashlin (and this after watching Geisha Boy and The Girl Can't Help It back-to-back) is criminally underrated as both a director of comedies AND musical numbers. His compositions and the DeLuxe, vibrant colors combined with the sheer joy and exuberance of his story telling have been absolutely dying for the HD treatment. I personally think some of the sequences he put on film, particulary in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter and even in the best Jerry Lewis ones are on par with greats like Minelli. I'm all for a re-evaluation of his career and I think a real retrospective of his work is way overdue.

stroszeck wrote:I'm all for a re-evaluation of his career and I think a real retrospective of his work is way overdue.

That's kind of what's going on now. Never before has so much Tashlin been so available.

Especially since WB was fairly generous with the Tashlin shorts on the Looney Tunes sets awhile back (Vol. 4 devoted an entire disc to him). It's really interesting to see his evolution from animation to features, especially given that his toon-work often foreshadowed the raciness inherent in much of his live action work. Perfect example (and one of my favorites) is I Got Plenty of Mutton (1944), which features a cross-dressing wolf and a punchline that predates a similar ending in Billy Wilder's much later gender-switching comedy.

I remember one of his filmmaking buddies saying in an interview that he witnessed the progression of Tashlin's own directorial style from animation to live action features and that he would direct his cartoons like real life and his live actions like cartoons.

Two installments of General Electric Theater directed by Tashlin are up on YouTube in their entirety: the Honest Man and the Face is Familiar

Both episodes also available at Archive.org.
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The First Time arrives as MOD from Sony.

Bachelor Flat arrives today via MOD 20th Century Fox.

Shown in 4:3 letterbox format...

They have no standards and no scruples. Even worse than the non-enhanced widescreen transfers they're passing off, I went to watch Tender Is the Night and couldn't believe that it was pan & scanned, ruining the cinematography, apparently they've done the same to a number of other CinemaScope films. They're successfully selling stuff like this to collectors and specialists, i.e. the only people who would be interested in these films in the first place?
Fox Cinema Archives? More like Fox's Old FUBAR Masters Archive.

I got to see UCLA Film and Television Archive's gorgeous new 16mm restoration of Tashlin's The Way of Peace a few months back, which looked a million times better than any rip online and fixed audio problems by finding the original tapes and restoring the audio. To my surprise, UCLA themselves have transferred the film and just put it up on YouTube in beautiful HD.

Was shocked to discover Artists and Models received a Blu-ray release in Australia last year. Anyone seen it?

No but I did recently pick up a pressed version of Man from the Diners Club from there

swo17 wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 3:44 am No but I did recently pick up a pressed version of Man from the Diners Club from there

DVD? I'm not seeing a blu-ray option out there

Yes, just a DVD for that one. But also, I'm actually seeing Australian Blu-rays for all of these:

My Friend Irma
My Friend Irma Goes West
The Stooge
Artists and Models
Hollywood or Bust

swo17 wrote:Yes, just a DVD for that one. But also, I'm actually seeing Australian Blu-rays for all of these:

My Friend Irma
My Friend Irma Goes West
The Stooge
Artists and Models
Hollywood or Bust

From "Shock" https://shock.com.au/

Haven't seen myself, but a guy called "Critical Tom" has posted reviews on Amazon Australia claiming that the "...the print and sound quality is identical to their DVD release of a year earlier."

At $6.98 at JB Hi-Fi I might chance it.




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domino harvey wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 3:40 am Was shocked to discover Artists and Models received a Blu-ray release in Australia last year. Anyone seen it?

It actually came out even earlier in Japan...I might have it lying around somewhere. It was on Amazon Japan, and seems it's still available there. It looked pretty good to me, and checking online, the Australian release has lossy audio. I think Paramount released this one on DVD, and could see them having it on the Presents line, but not sure about who owns the rights to Artists and Models or any other Tashlin not yet on US blu.

domino harvey wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 3:40 am Was shocked to discover Artists and Models received a Blu-ray release in Australia last year. Anyone seen it?

I didn't bother picking them up after reading this reaction on the Blu-Ray.com forum that said they were "barely HD rubbish. The image is thin and riddled with blocky artifacts."

If anyone is brave enough, there's also a box set containing Who's Minding the Store?, Who was that Lady?, The Nutty Professor, It's Only Money, Boeing Boeing, The Stooge, Who's got the Action?, Hollywood or Bust, Artists and Models, and My Friend Irma Goes West

I bought those blu-rays of Hollywood or Bust and Artists and Models earlier this year. I can confirm they aren't upgrades. The blu-ray of Hollywood or Bust might actual look worse than the DVD as it really exposes how bad the image is. Artists and Models seemed identical to the DVD but I didn't do a comparison. I would just stick with the DVDs if you have them.

domino harvey wrote: Sat Jun 05, 2010 1:52 am Thank God for the Fox Movie Channel. Finally got a chance to enjoy Tashlin's first Cinescope film, the Lieutenant Wore Skirts, and you gotta love how he fills that first non-second unit 'Scope frame:



The film was produced in the midst of Tashlin's best period and, sandwiched between Artists and Models and the Girl Can't Help It, would probably be overlooked even if it were available on DVD. It's a real scream though, full of the brilliant compositions and comedic energy that marks Tashlin's best work. Just watching the camera move around the set is funny-- you could watch the film on mute and it'd still work. It's also pretty dirty, even for Tashlin. I mean, if you thought the Girl Can't Help It's breast jokes were too subtle, good news, he not only recycles, he one-ups:





Where's our Blu-ray Tashlin boxed set, World?

The Lieutenant Wore Skirts is available in HD via rental or purchase from Amazon (and on back channels....). The DVD-R from Fox didn't even get an anamorphic transfer, so needless to say this is an upgrade. I amended my non-working caps with those from this version above. As you can see, it clearly received the usual Fox color correction for this digital release, so either it was already in the hopper before Disney, or they're at it again in some capacity