Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)

When advertising writer Rockwell P. Hunter (Tony Randall) finds his job on the line, he has one last chance to win over his agency’s biggest client, Stay-Put Lipstick.  When he sees actress Rita Marlowe (Jayne Mansfield) on television, he has a stroke of genius.  Rita is known for her “oh-so-kissable lips,” so having her endorse Stay-Put Lipstick would surely be a huge success.  The folks at Stay-Put Lipstick agree, so Rock sets out to get Rita to agree to endorse Stay-Put.

Luckily for Rock, Rita just happens to be in town trying to forget about her boyfriend Bobo (Mickey Hargitay).  She agrees to endorse Stay-Put, but only if Rock pretends to be her new boyfriend to make Bobo jealous.  Rock goes along with it, but nothing could prepare him for what happens next.  Bobo does, indeed, get jealous.  So jealous that he talks to the press about how Rita’s been running around with an ad exec named Rock Hunter, or as she calls him, “Lover Doll.”  Before he knows it, he’s all over the newspapers and Rita’s fans are clamoring to get a piece of him.  Rita gets a lot of great publicity out of it, but it isn’t all bad for Rock, either.  Not only does the whole world think he’s the greatest lover to ever walk the earth, he finally starts getting the recognition at work he’s wanted so badly.  But once he finds success, he isn’t sure if he really wants it.

One person not happy with this situation is Rock’s fiancée Jenny (Betsy Drake), who doesn’t believe Rock’s repeated assurances that he loves her, not Rita.  Desperate to not lose him, she begins trying to make herself more like Rita.  Meanwhile, Rita begins to actually fall for Rock and wants him to really be her boyfriend.  But her secretary Violet (Joan Blondell) knows her better than she knows herself and can see that she’s really just looking for a man to replace her one true love, George Schmidlap.

I can sum up Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? in two words: absolutely hilarious.  What Bombshell is to Jean Harlow, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is to Jayne Mansfield.  It bears very little resemblance to the stage play, but it does stand well on its own.  The first time I saw it, I wasn’t even planning to watch it at the time, but I happened to catch the first few minutes and it looked like so much fun that I didn’t want to turn it off.  Everyone’s performances were very entertaining, but Tony Randall was particularly hilarious.  Even though it’s a satire on television and advertising in the 1950s, a lot of the jokes have held up surprisingly well over time.  It’s just great fun.  And wait until you see who plays George Schmidlap!

What do “Bullets or Ballots” and “Footlight Parade” Have in Common?

1.  Both movies were made at Warner Brothers.

2.  Joan Blondell stars in both movies.

3.  Bullets or Ballots was directed by William Keighley, who is credited as being a dialogue director for Footlight Parade.

William Keighley with Bette Davis and James Cagney.

4.  A few costumes.  If you look closely at some of the showgirls’ costumes during Joan Blondell’s first scene in Bullets or Ballots, some of them might look familiar from the “By a Waterfall” number in Footlight Parade.

As seen in Footlight Parade (1933)

As seen in Bullets or Ballots (1936)

Other Men’s Women (1931)

Bill White (Grant Withers) is the irresponsible kind of guy that women are usually warned to stay away from.  He may have a job as a train engineer, but he’s a womanizer who drinks too much.  He does have a girlfriend named Marie (Joan Blondell), but she’s eager to get married and he isn’t.  Bill’s longtime friend Jack (Regis Toomey) is a bit more stable and has been married to Lily (Mary Astor) for two years.  On the night of their second anniversary, Jack invites Bill to join him and Lily for dinner.  But when Bill gets thrown out of his boarding house because of his irresponsible behavior, he’s invited to stay with them.

Living with Jack and Lily seems to have a good effect on Bill.  He straightens up his act a bit and is able to help out around the house a lot.  Everybody seems to be benefiting from this arrangement.  That is until one day when Bill realizes there is a woman he’d be willing to settle down for after all– Lily.  Lily has also fallen in love with Bill, but Bill cares too much about Jack to carry on with Lily behind his back and leaves with no explanation.  Jack knows that something happened between Bill and Lily and confronts him about it while they’re at work on a train.  They get into a huge fight that leaves Jack blind.

Bill feels terribly guilty after the accident and starts hitting the bottle again.  He goes back to Marie and in a drunken stupor, the both of them nearly get married.  But he backs out at the last minute and goes to see Jack instead.  Jack has no desire to hear from his former friend and when he finds out Bill had come over, he sends Lily away for a few weeks. Bill falls into a very deep depression and when their town is hit by some heavy rainfall that causes the river to overflow and flood the town, Bill decides to drive a train engine off a bridge as a way to dam up the river.  Jack has also fallen into a severe depression and when he finds out about Bill’s idea, decides to beat him to the punch.  Bill tries to stop him but Jack knocks him unconscious, throws him off the train, and carries on with the plan.  Some months later, Lily comes back to town and she and Bill run into each other.  Lily is still open to a relationship with Bill, which makes him happier than he has ever been.

I really enjoyed this movie.  Good story with good acting and good direction by William Wellman.  I loved Grant Withers as Bill and James Cagney and Joan Blondell are standouts in their minor roles.  Cagney played Jack and Bill’s friend Eddie Bailey, and even though he doesn’t get a whole lot of screen time, you can definitely see that he was a real up and comer.  The interesting thing about Other Men’s Women is that it can just as easily appeal to someone interested in the love triangle aspect of the story as it can to someone in the mood for something more gritty.  When this movie is gritty, it’s pretty darn gritty.  The fight scenes are very well done and it was interesting to see how it dealt with Jack’s blindness, especially just before he got on the train to drive it off the bridge.

Illicit (1931)

While many young ladies are chomping at the bit to get married, especially to a rich man, Anne Vincent (Barbara Stanwyck) isn’t one of them.  She loves Dick Ives, II (James Rennie) dearly, but really does not want to get married.  He’s repeatedly asked her to marry him, but she’s afraid getting married would ruin their relationship.  She’s seen how some of her friends’ marriages have ended up and she doesn’t want to wind up like them.  Living together out of wedlock is just fine and dandy by her.  But Dick’s family is much more conventional than she is and when word gets out about their illicit relationship, she gives into the pressure to get married.

All is going well before the wedding until Anne gets a telegram from her ex-boyfriend Price Baines (Ricardo Cortez) announcing that he’s coming to see her.  Dick doesn’t like the idea of her seeing him before the wedding, but she insists on it.  Naturally, Price is shocked to hear that she of all people is getting married and tries to talk her out of it and be with him instead.  She sticks to her guns and marries Dick.  At first, their marriage is great, but after about a year, things start to go downhill.  They never get to spend any time alone, Dick spends a lot of time traveling for work, and finally, Anne finds out Dick is having an affair with his ex-girlfriend Margie (Natalie Moorhead).

When Anne finally confronts Dick about his affair, she realizes that marriage has made her into the person she was afraid of becoming.  She decides to move back to her old apartment so they can have their freedoms again and maybe recapture the thrill of their early relationship.  They continue to see each other and it seems the plan has worked.  But one day, Price drops in on Anne unexpectedly and tries once again to win her over.  Even though she turns him down, Dick also comes over unannounced and catches them together.  He is furious and declares that he’s going to see other people, too.  He gets back together with Margie and even plans to take a to take a trip with her.  Anne is heartbroken, but just when she thinks he has left her for good, Dick surprises her.

Illicit is one of the most completely pre-code movie titles you can possibly have, and it certainly lives up to its name.  Living together out of wedlock, questioning marriage, adultery, plenty of innuendo, it doesn’t get much more pre-code than that.  Even though the idea of living together out of wedlock is not shocking at all anymore, this movie still packs a punch.  I loved Barbara Stanwyck in it, but I wish they had featured Joan Blondell more.  Joan had a small part as one of Anne’s friends, but I like seeing her with Stanwyck.  I liked them together in Night Nurse and since they’re both actresses who thrived in the pre-code era, it would have been fun if they had been teamed up more often.

Union Depot (1932)

Train Stations are always full of activity and the night that drifters Chick Miller (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) and his friend Scrap (Guy Kibbee) get out of jail is no exception.  Once they’re out, they head over to the train station to try to catch a break.  Chick hits the jackpot when he finds an abandoned suitcase that happens to have a nice suit and some money inside.  He gets himself cleaned up, gets some dinner, and sets out to look for a woman to spend the night with.  The station is full of hookers actively trying to pick him up, but he finds himself drawn to Ruth Collins (Joan Blondell).  Ruth needs to catch a train to Salt Lake City ASAP, but desperately needs the money to get there.  He takes her to a motel, buys her dinner, and listens to the story of how she wound up in the train station that night.  She’s a showgirl who found herself stranded after breaking her ankle and had to wait for it to heal.  To support herself, she had been getting paid to read smutty books to a blind old doctor.  And to top it all off, now she’s worried that the creepy doctor might be following her.  Luckily, her boss is willing to give her her job back if she can make it to Salt Lake City that night.  After hearing her story, Chick offers to buy her ticket for her, no strings attached.

Meanwhile, counterfeiter Bushy Sloan (Alan Hale) has come to town with a violin case full of counterfeit money.  He checks the case and puts the claim check in his wallet, but then his wallet is stolen.  The thief takes the money and ditches the wallet, which is found by Scrap.  When Chick and Ruth come back to the station, Scrap sees him and gives him the claim check so that he can bring whatever it is that’s checked to the pawn shop.  Chick gets the violin case, but when he sees it’s full of money, he takes some, has Scrap help him hide the case, and goes to buy Ruth a new dress.  He leaves Ruth to buy the dress and while she’s in the store, a ticket is delivered to her.  Naturally, she assumes it’s from Chick, and hurries over to the train.  When she gets there, she realizes her worst fear has come true — that creepy doctor really was following her.  But that’s not even the worst of her problems.  By now, the store clerk has realized she paid with counterfeit money and both Chick and Ruth are arrested.  Fortunately, Chick is able to clear both of their names.

I loved Union Depot!  It’s usually described as being kind of like Grand Hotel, but in a train station, which isn’t a bad description of it.  It doesn’t have as many different stories going on as Grand Hotel, but isn’t as long as Grand Hotel, either.  Union Depot is one of those wonderful movies that wastes absolutely no time at all.  It’s only a little over an hour long, but it sure made the most of its time.  If you love pre-codes, Union Depot is so up your alley because it is jam-packed with pre-code goodness.  Within the first five minutes alone, it’s got hookers looking for some sailors and a person posing for pictures by a train while the photographer asks her to show more leg.  And then when you factor in Ruth’s story about being paid to read smutty books to a creepy old doctor, more hints at prostitution, and the fact that the movie’s hero is also a criminal, I think this is one of the most awesomely sordid pre-code movies I’ve ever come across.

Lawyer Man (1932)

On New York’s Lower East Side, Tony Adam (William Powell) has built up a reputation as one of the best lawyers in town.  Even kids on the street admire him and want to grow up to be just like him!  One day, he gets a visit from Granville Bentley (Alan Dineheart), an attorney working in Uptown Manhattan, who invites Tony to join his firm.  He talks it over with his faithful secretary Olga (Joan Blondell), who believes he could be a big success if he moved uptown.  She has just one piece of advice for him: stay away from women.  But does he listen?  Of course not.  Tony makes the move, bringing Olga with him, and at first, he’s determined to stay on the straight and narrow.

When notorious racketeer Gilmurry (David Landau) finds out what a good lawyer Tony is, he tries to get Tony to come work for him.  Tony declines the offer, but then he meets the conniving showgirl Virginia St. Johns (Claire Dodd).  Virginia wants Tony’s help suing Dr. Gresham (Kenneth Thompson), her fiance, for breach of promise.  She also seduces Tony to convince him to help her.  Tony is no match for her charms and pulls out all the ethical stops to build her case up.  He doesn’t realize that she’s actually working with Dr. Gresham to catch him acting unethically so they can take him for everything he’s worth.  When they get through with him, he’s lost everything he’s worked for.   Tony defends himself at his trial and even though he isn’t convicted, he isn’t acquitted either.  Bentley fires him from the law firm and nobody wants him to represent them.

The only cases he can get are the shadier cases that nobody else will touch.  He realizes the only way for him to succeed is to play dirty, so he takes on those cases, but not without asking a hefty fee for his services.  When he hears about an opportunity to handle a case against Gilmurry, he jumps at the chance.  Even though the jury finds Gilmurry not guilty, Tony manages to get a big settlement out of Gilmurry before the jury reaches their decision.  Again, Gilmurry tries to get Tony to join his organization, but Tony is willing to let Gilmurry use his influence to get him a spot as Assistant District Attorney.  As Assistant DA, Tony sets his sights on getting even with Dr. Gresham.  He’d gotten all the dirt on Gresham’s fraudulent practices while working with Virginia and uses it to get him put behind bars.  Gilmurry isn’t to pleased about this since Gresham is part of his racket, but once again, Tony is able to turn the tables on Gilmurry and next thing he knows, Gilmurry is offering to get him in as a judge.  But Tony isn’t interested in being a judge.  He wants to go back to the Lower East Side, where he belongs, and work as an honest lawyer.

What piqued my interest in Lawyer Man is the fact that it’s William Powell in a more dramatic role.  I mostly know William Powell from comedies, so I was interested in seeing something a little different from him.  I like him better in comedies, but he did not disappoint here.  Joan Blondell did just fine and dandy here, even though she could have stood a little more screen time.  Surprisingly, this was the only movie William Powell and Joan Blondell ever made together.  I would have liked to see them teamed up again in something like a pre-code comedy, that could have been a lot of fun.  But at least we have Lawyer Man, which I really enjoyed.  Good story that fits a lot into just over an hour.

What’s on TCM: August 2011

It’s that time of year again!  Let Summer Under the Stars commence!  I love this year’s line-up.  Even though there are plenty of the usual SUTS suspects like Bette Davis, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart, more than half of this year’s stars have never been part of SUTS before.  And many of those who have been featured before, haven’t been featured in quite a few years.  Let’s take a look at the full list of stars:

Desk Set (1957)

Bunny Watson (Katharine Hepburn) and Peg Costello (Joan Blondell) are both happily employed by the Federal Broadcasting Network in the research department.  If anyone needs to know something, anything from the names of Santa’s reindeer to information about the movie King Solomon’s Mines, they’re the ladies to ask.  They love their jobs, but their lives are turned upside down when efficiency expert Richard Sumner (Spencer Tracy) starts hanging around the research department all of a sudden.  The Federal Broadcasting Network is planning a big merger, but keeping quiet about it, and has brought Richard in to determine how an EMERAC computer could help some departments deal with the increased workload once the merger is complete.  Of course, having an efficiency expert hanging around makes the gals in the research department a little nervous.  The last thing they want is to be replaced by a computer.  Richard is a bit quirky, but Bunny takes a liking to him.

But at the same time, Bunny has been dating network executive Mike Cutler (Gig Young) for seven years without any hint of a proposal coming.  Peg insists that it’s because Bunny makes herself too available.  Mike and Richard are two very different guys.  When Mike asks Bunny out, he’s planning a weekend in the country and a dance at a country club.  But when Richard asks Bunny to lunch, he brings take-out to the roof of the building in December.  On the day Mike was supposed to bring Bunny to the country for the weekend, he cancels at the last minute.  At the end of the day, Richard gives Bunny a hand with the luggage she brought with her and because it’s pouring rain, Bunny invites Richard to have dinner at her apartment and dry off.  They are quite surprised when Mike pays a sudden visit and Mike is none too pleased to see Bunny hanging out with another man.

At the company Christmas party, the research department parties like it will be their last Christmas party.  Champagne for everyone!  Just as Bunny thinks she’s about to get what she really wants, a proposal from Mike, Mike is called up to see the head of the company.  When he returns, he comes bearing the news that he’s been promoted to vice president!  He tells Bunny that he’s going to take her out to the west coast to get married ASAP, but suddenly Bunny doesn’t want to go with him.  Things get even worse when Miss Warriner from Richard’s office comes by to measure things for an EMERAC computer to be installed.  The ladies in research are sure their jobs are done for and it looks like their worst fears are confirmed when they all get pink slips with their paychecks.  They start packing their things, leaving  Miss Warriner to deal with all the questions coming in.  Miss Warriner is completely overwhelmed and Richard doesn’t understand why they aren’t helping out.  But then they realize that everybody got pink slips because the computer installed in Payroll made a mistake and fired everyone.  With everything cleared up, Richard tries to give Bunny what she longs for: a proposal.  Bunny is convinced that Richard could never love her as much as he loves that computer, but for once, is proven wrong when she hits the computer’s reset button and he hugs her.

Desk Set was the eighth movie Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn made together and even though it isn’t as good as some of their earlier pairings like Woman of the Year or Adam’s Rib, it’s a pretty cute movie.  Kate and Spencer were delightful together as always, and I liked Kate and Joan Blondell together as well.  They looked like they were having so much fun in the scene where Bunny and Peg are drinking champagne and getting tipsy during the Christmas party, they made me want to pour myself a glass of champagne and join them.  I also really liked the part where Richard is at Bunny’s apartment and Bunny and Richard are trying to explain to Peg how Richard ended up there.  There’s a moment when Richard walks off camera for a moment and walks back on camera acting like a crazy drunk person and Bunny and Peg start laughing hysterically.  Spencer Tracy improvised that part, so the ladies’ uncontrollable laughter was real.  It was just so cute seeing Katharine Hepburn crack up like that.  Even if it wasn’t the strongest of the Tracy/Hepburn movies, I really enjoyed it.

Three on a Match (1932)

Even as children, it was clear that Mary Keaton (Joan Blondell), Vivian Kirkwood (Ann Dvorak), and Ruth Wescott (Bette Davis) were on three very different paths in life.  Ruth was always very serious about doing well in school, graduated top of the class, and grew up to be a stenographer.  Mary was a bit more rebellious and even spent some time in a reform school, but grew up and went into show business.  Vivian, on the other hand, was the popular girl and went on to marry Robert Kirkwood (Warren William), a rich lawyer, and become a housewife.

After their time together in school, years go by and the girls fall out of touch.  But they end up meeting up again for lunch and Vivian reveals that even though it looks like she’s got it made, she’s really quite bored with her life.  To add some spice to her life, she takes a cruise, where she meets Michael Loftus (Lyle Talbot).  But before the ship even leaves, she takes her son and runs off with Michael.  While Vivian takes up a hard-partying lifestyle full of booze, cocaine, and parties, quality parenting gets put on the back burner.  Police investigate their disappearances, but the only person who finds them is Mary.  Mary tries to talk some sense into her, but when she won’t listen, she goes to see Robert to tell him where they are.  He takes his son back, divorces Vivian, and goes on to marry Mary.

Meanwhile, Vivian has hit rock bottom.  She’s run out of money and she and Michael owe $2,000 to a trio of gangsters, Harve (Humphrey Bogart), Dick, and Ace.  Michael goes to Robert and threatens to go public about Mary’s criminal background, but Robert isn’t fazed by him and throws him out of his office.  Instead, Michael hatches a plan to kidnap Mary’s son and hold him hostage.  The whole ordeal makes Mary realize just how far she’s fallen and, in order to save her son, takes some lipstick, writes a note on her nightgown, and throws herself from the window.

Three on a Match is one wild ride!  I just love it.  The cast is really outstanding.  This is one of Bette Davis’ early movies and she wasn’t really being used to her full potential yet.  Joan Blondell was good, but the real star was Ann Dvorak.  She did a spectacular job playing a junkie.  When she was supposed to be strung out, she was so jittery and nervous, it must have been really hard to get that just right.  This was also was also an early appearance from Humphrey Bogart.  In fact, it was the first time he played a gangster and he certainly showed a lot of promise in that type of role.  Three on a Match is quite possibly the ultimate example of a movie that packs a lot into a short amount of time.  It’s only 63 minutes long, and doesn’t waste a minute of it!  A fantastic cast, great performances, it’s well written, and it’s all packed into just over an hour.  What’s not to like here?

Dames (1934)

Busby Berkeley loved to taunt censors and uptight people, so I guess it’s no big surprised that he did a whole movie making fun of the morally self-righteous.  In Dames, Hugh Herbert plays Ezra Ounce, an eccentric millionaire with exceptionally high moral standards.  He’s looking for family members he can leave ten  million dollars to in his will and it looks like his cousin Matilda Hemingway (ZaSu Pitts) is one of his few options.  The catch is that he wants to leave his money only to the most upstanding family members, so nobody like his distant relative Jimmy Higgens (Dick Powell), who has his career in showbiz.  To make sure Matilda and her family meets his high standards, he goes to New York to live with them for a while and his stay is a disaster before he even arrives.  Matilda’s husband Horace (Guy Kibbee) accompanies him on the trip by train and returns to his cabin to find showgirl Mabel Anderson (Joan Blondell) sleeping in his bed.  She needed a way to get out-of-town after her show closed so she snuck into his cabin.  Trying to avoid a scandal, Horace gives her $200 and tells her not to mention it to anybody.

Meanwhile, Horace’s daughter Barbara (Ruby Keeler) has been having an affair with Jimmy (they’re 13th cousins) and wants to star in one of his shows someday.  With Uncle Ezra in town, it’s a challenge to keep all these juicy details from costing them their inheritance.  Especially when Mabel comes back and blackmails Horace into giving her the money Jimmy needs to put on his new show so that she can star in it.  When the press writes about the new show, they say it’s positively scandalous and that it’s being backed by a mysterious millionaire.  On opening night, Horace, Ezra, and Matilda show up just to see how bad it is.  The first musical number doesn’t shock them too much, but then Barbara does her first number and they’re pleased with how harmless it was.  By the end of the show, they think it’s great!  But their change in mood also had something to do with the fact that they spent the entire show drinking a health tonic that happens to be 23% alcohol.  But at long last, Uncle Ezra realizes that being high and mighty is awfully overrated!

1933 was a truly spectacular year for Busby Berkeley.  He added his signature touch to three of the most iconic musicals of all time, 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, and Footlight Parade, all in the same year.  With a year like that, it should come as no surprise that by 1934, he’d be slowing down just a little bit.  Dames most definitely doesn’t live up to the standards of Footlight Parade, but in all fairness, it would have been extremely difficult for him to live up to anything he had done the previous year.  The story and the musical numbers simply aren’t as solid or memorable as some of his previous efforts.  I’ll walk around with The Shadow Waltz stuck in my head all day, but Girl at the Ironing Board doesn’t have the same effect on me.  Even though we get to see a lot of the classic stars of Busby Berkeley movies like Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, and Ruby Keeler, they just don’t shine as brightly as they had before.  But with all that being said, I did enjoy Dames.  I loved the Dames number and I Only Have Eyes For You.  It was also very funny.  Gold Diggers of 1933 and Footlight Parade definitely had comedy in them, but Dames was a lot sillier than either of those.  And just because the stars didn’t have quite the same spark as they had before, they certainly weren’t bad by any stretch of the imagination.  It’s a fun three-star follow-up to an unbeatable four-star streak of movies.