Martin and Lewis

Start with: Artists and Models (1955) The loudest, loosest act of the postwar nightclub boom. Dean Martin sang, stayed cool and played straight man, a thankless job he made look effortless, while Jerry Lewis turned into a flailing, shrieking man-child around him. They debuted at Atlantic City's 500 Club on July 25, 1946, became huge on NBC's Colgate Comedy Hour, made sixteen features for Paramount and split ten years to the day after that first show. Artists and Models, with Martin as a painter and Lewis as his comic-book-obsessed roommate, has the most visual invention of their films and shows how much of the chemistry was Martin's calm.