Few filmmakers have moved as easily between animated and non-animated work as New Jersey-born Frank Tashlin. A school drop-out at age 13, he drifted into a multitude of jobs before he went to work for producer Paul Terry at 17, as a cartoonist on Terry's Aesop's Film Fables animated shorts. Three years later he was working as a gagman for Hal Roach, and soon after began his own comic strip, which ran through 1939. He worked for Disney's story department until the mid '40s, and later joined Warner Bros., where he became a director for Leon Schlesinger's cartoon unit. But from the middle of the decade onward, he moved out of animated work entirely and into comedy screenwriting, adapting One Touch of Venus as a film vehicle, and then taking up writing for Bob Hope (The Paleface, etc.) and Red Skelton (The Fuller Brush Man, etc.), and later became a director for Jerry Lewis (Geisha Boy, Cinderfella), Hope (Son of Paleface), and Doris Day (The Glass Bottom Boat). His experience in cartoons showed in the wilder elements of his scripts and directing--his films were known for their bizarre turns in action, unexpected use of sight gags, and frenzied pacing, which lent itself to the work of his comic stars. Probably Tashlin's most well known films today are his two late-'50s satires, The Girl Can't Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, both of which starred Jayne Mansfield in her best roles, and poked merciless fun at a multitude of social and cultural sacred cows, using cartoon-like pacing at strategic points to make their own points. The '60s saw a slowing and blunting of Tashlin's work--The Glass Bottom Boat was a cute Doris Day slapstick comedy mixing the perky comedy star with spies, but Tashlin's final film, The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell (1968), was a disaster, a Bob Hope comedy from the actor/comedian's declining years of popularity that seemed to confirm his lack of taste. The tapering off of Hope's screen career, coupled with the changes in public taste and the gradual end of Doris Day's and Jerry Lewis's movies work, precipitated the end of Tashlin's career as well.
| Title | Year | Editors' Rating | User Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell
Director, Screenwriter |
1968 | |||
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Caprice
Director, Screenwriter |
1967 | |||
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Who's Minding the Mint?
Director, Screenwriter |
1967 | |||
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The Glass Bottom Boat
Director |
1966 | |||
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The Alphabet Murders
Director |
1965 | |||
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The Disorderly Orderly
Director, Screenwriter |
1964 | |||
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The Man from the Diners' Club
Director |
1963 | |||
|
Who's Minding the Store?
Director, Screenwriter |
1963 | |||
|
Bachelor Flat
Director, Screenwriter |
1962 | |||
|
It's Only Money
Director |
1962 | |||
|
Cinderfella
Director, Screenwriter |
1960 | |||
|
Say One for Me
Director, Producer |
1959 | |||
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Rock-A-Bye Baby
Director, Screenwriter |
1958 | |||
|
The Geisha Boy
Director, Screenwriter |
1958 | |||
|
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
Director, Producer, Screenwriter |
1957 | |||
|
General Electric Theater: The Honest Man
Director, Screenwriter |
1956 | |||
|
Hollywood or Bust
Director |
1956 | |||
|
The Girl Can't Help It
Director, Producer, Screenwriter |
1956 | |||
|
The Lieutenant Wore Skirts
Director, Screenwriter |
1956 | |||
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The Scarlet Hour
Screenwriter |
1956 | |||
|
Artists and Models
Director, Screenwriter |
1955 | |||
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Susan Slept Here
Director |
1954 | |||
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Marry Me Again
Director, Screenwriter |
1953 | |||
|
Son of Paleface
Director, Screenwriter |
1952 | |||
|
The First Time
Director, Screenwriter |
1952 | |||
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The Lemon Drop Kid
Screenwriter |
1951 | |||
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A Woman of Distinction
Screenwriter |
1950 | |||
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Kill the Umpire
Screenwriter |
1950 | |||
|
The Fuller Brush Girl
Screenwriter |
1950 | |||
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The Good Humor Man
Screenwriter |
1950 | |||
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Love Happy
Screenwriter |
1949 | |||
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Miss Grant Takes Richmond
Screenwriter |
1949 | |||
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One Touch of Venus
Screenwriter |
1948 | |||
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The Paleface
Screenwriter |
1948 | |||
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Variety Girl
Screenwriter |
1947 | |||
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A Night in Casablanca
Screenwriter |
1946 | |||
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Hare Remover
Director |
1946 | |||
|
The Fuller Brush Man
Director, Screenwriter |
1946 | |||
|
A Tale of Two Mice
Director |
1945 | |||
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Behind the Meat Ball
Director |
1945 | |||
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Nasty Quacks
Director |
1945 | |||
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The Unruly Hare
Director |
1945 | |||
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Booby Hatched
Director |
1944 | |||
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Brother Brat
Director |
1944 | |||
|
I Got Plenty of Mutton
Director |
1944 | |||
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Plane Daffy
Director |
1944 | |||
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Swooner Crooner
Director |
1944 | |||
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The Stupid Cupid
Director |
1944 | |||
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A Corny Concerto
Screenwriter |
1943 | |||
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Porky Pig's Feat
Director |
1943 | |||
|
Puss N' Booty
Director |
1943 | |||
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Scrap Happy Daffy
Director |
1943 | |||
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Cracked Ice
Director |
1938 | |||
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Have You Got Any Castles?
Director |
1938 | |||
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Little Pancho Vanilla
Director |
1938 | |||
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Now That Summer Is Gone
Director |
1938 | |||
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Porky at the Crocadero
Director |
1938 | |||
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Porky the Fireman
Director |
1938 | |||
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Porky's Spring Planting
Director |
1938 | |||
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The Major Lied Till Dawn
Director |
1938 | |||
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Wholly Smoke
Director |
1938 | |||
|
You're an Education
Director |
1938 | |||
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Porky's Building
Director |
1937 | |||
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Porky's Double Trouble
Director |
1937 | |||
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Porky's Railroad
Director |
1937 | |||
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Porky's Road Race
Director |
1937 | |||
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Porky's Romance
Director |
1937 | |||
|
Speaking of the Weather
Director |
1937 | |||
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The Case of the Stuttering Pig
Director |
1937 | |||
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The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos
Director |
1937 | |||
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Little Beau Porky
Director |
1936 | |||
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Porky in the Northwoods
Director |
1936 | |||
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Porky's Poultry Plant
Director |
1936 | |||
|
Hook and Ladder Hokum
Director |
1933 |

