Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? | |
---|---|
Directed by | Frank Tashlin |
Screenplay by | Frank Tashlin |
Based on | Rita Marlowe 1955 play by George Axelrod |
Produced by | Frank Tashlin |
Starring | Jayne Mansfield Tony Randall |
Cinematography | Joseph MacDonald |
Edited by | Hugh S. Fowler |
Music by | Cyril J. Mockridge |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date |
|
Running time | 93 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1 million [1] |
Box office | $4.9 million [2] |
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is a 1957 American satirical comedy film starring Jayne Mansfield and Tony Randall, with Betsy Drake, Joan Blondell, John Williams, Henry Jones, Lili Gentle, and Mickey Hargitay, and with a cameo by Groucho Marx. [3] [4] The film is a satire on popular fan culture, Hollywood hype, and the advertising industry, which was profiting from commercials on the relatively new medium of television. It also takes aim at the reduction television caused to the size of movie theater audiences in the 1950s. The film was known as Oh! For a Man! in the United Kingdom.
The film was produced and directed by Frank Tashlin, who also wrote the largely original screenplay, using little more than the title and the character of Rita Marlowe from the successful Broadway play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? by George Axelrod. [5] The play had run from 1955 to 1956 and also starred Jayne Mansfield as Rita.
Struggling writer Rockwell P. Hunter is low on the ladder at the La Salle advertising agency. With the agency set to lose its biggest account — Stay-Put Lipstick — he hatches an idea to get the perfect model and spokeswoman for Stay-Put's new line of lipstick: famous actress Rita Marlowe. Fortunately, his teenage niece April — a huge fan of Rita — knows where Rita is staying in New York.
For Rita to endorse the lipstick, however, Rock has to act as her boyfriend to make her real boyfriend, TV actor Bobo Branigansky, jealous. Bobo leaks the news of Rita's new romance in a TV interview and Rock is suddenly famous as her "Lover Doll".
Rock's boss decides to leverage his employee's newfound fame, but when Rock gets Rita to agree on a television special sponsored by Stay-Put, Rock becomes the agency's highest-regarded employee. The two agree to continue this mutually beneficial relationship, garnering media attention for Rita and business for Rock. Rita, meanwhile, is miserable, as she is not over her one real true love, George Schmidlap, the man who discovered her. Unable to find Schmidlap, she pursues Rock, though her secretary Vi warns her that she is playing a dangerous game. Meanwhile, Rock's angry fiancée Jenny is jealous, and in a bid to get back his attention, starts dressing and talking like Rita (much to Rock's frustration).
Rock soon realizes that fame is a double-edged sword; it brings him what he desires, but at a cost. While women admire him, he struggles to find peace of mind. In the end, he climbs the corporate ladder and becomes the company president, only to realize that it is not what he truly wanted. Rock tells Jenny that achieving this success has left him feeling empty, and she decides to take him back.
As Rita opens her television special for Stay-Put, she is surprised by the appearance of the show's guest star (her one true love), George Schmidlap. The two kiss and reunite.
Freed from the strain of advertising, Rock and Jenny retire to the country to tend a chicken farm, announcing that he has found the real "living end".
Actor | Role |
---|---|
Jayne Mansfield [6] | Rita Marlowe |
Tony Randall [7] | Rockwell P. Hunter |
Betsy Drake [8] [9] | Jenny Wells |
Joan Blondell | Violet |
John Williams | Irving La Salle Jr. |
Henry Jones | Henry Rufus |
Lili Gentle | April Hunter |
Mickey Hargitay | Bobo Branigansky |
Groucho Marx | George Schmidlap |
Ann McCrea | Gladys |
Barbara Eden | Miss Carstairs |
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? received a nomination for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actor – Musical/Comedy (Tony Randall) and a nomination for the Writers Guild of America, East WGA Award (Screen) for Best Written American Comedy (Frank Tashlin). The character Rita Marlowe is based on the dumb blonde stereotype epitomized by roles performed by Marilyn Monroe at the time. Initially, Tashlin envisioned Ed Sullivan for the role of Rockwell P. Hunter. Sullivan turned it down, so Tony Randall was awarded the part. [10]
The film contains joking references to several of Mansfield's other roles, including The Girl Can't Help It (1956; also directed by Tashlin), Kiss Them for Me (1957), and The Wayward Bus (1957). The book Mansfield reads in the bathtub scene is Peyton Place (1956) by Grace Metalious, which became a feature film and a popular TV series. The buxom characters in the book were claimed to have been inspired by Mansfield. [11] Joan Blondell, who was herself a major movie sex symbol some 30 years before (her sexuality being an early target of the Hays Code), was cast as Mansfield's frumpy, middle-aged, all-business secretary.
Former silent film star Minta Durfee has an uncredited role as a scrubwoman. [12]
Randall is featured at the beginning of the film playing the drums, a trumpet, and a cello during the 20th Century-Fox logo and fanfare sequence. At the end, he remarks, "Oh, the fine print they put in an actor's contract these days!" [13] He also performs a comedic intermission midway through the film, which he says is for the audience used to television break.
In lieu of a theme song and opening of the film, Tashlin instead laid traditional opening credits over faux television commercials for products that failed to deliver what they promised.
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is known as Mansfield's "signature film". In 1966 Frank Tashlin said it was the film of his with which he was "most satisfied... there was no compromise on that one. Buddy Adler let me do it my own way." [14]
No less than ten television shows had episodes parodying the title of the film, usually substituting a series' character's name in place of Rock Hunter. Among the series who did so were The Munsters, My Three Sons, and The Bullwinkle Show.
There is a reference to this film in the film of the 1964 spy novel Funeral in Berlin , starring Michael Caine as Harry Palmer. When the secret agent Palmer gets forged papers with a new identity, he is dissatisfied with the name given to him and complains, "Rock Hunter! Why can't I be Rock Hunter?"
In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". [4] [15]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 88% of 24 critics have given the film a positive review. James Powers of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film as "social satire at its most penetrating" with a focus on "the inanities of TV" and on the mainstream notion of success itself. Powers wrote: "The joy of Tashlin's parable is so funny that you don't feel the blow until you see the bruise. You are laughing at some very silly people that you do not realize until much later very much resemble you." [16] Powers even claimed that the unconventional opening titles "could stand by themselves as among the funniest sequences ever filmed." [16] Picturegoer called the film "the most savage debunking" of television to date, claiming Hollywood "cut its home-screen rival down to size." [17] Variety called it one of the funniest films of the year, noting how effective Frank Tashlin's "one-man band" approach was to the production: "Producer Tashlin obviously was determined to shoot the works for director Tashlin who in turn knew how to handle the scripter Tashlin." [18]
Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times criticized Tashlin's script as lacking "substance and cohesion," claiming that the satire failed to prove movie entertainment as superior to television. In his review, Crowther wrote: "People who live in glass houses should not throw stones at their television sets, no matter how scornful and superior they may feel toward video. The rocks may miss the vexing targets and crash through their own fragile walls. This axiom is clearly demonstrated in the flimsy motion picture that has been made from the flimsy stage play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?". [19] He also criticized Mansfield's portrayal of Rita Marlowe, a character meant to impersonate Marilyn Monroe, calling the portrayal a "travesty."
Variety magazine praised the film, calling it "a vastly amusing comedy" and favorably noted that Mansfield did "a sock job" in the starring role. " [20]
Ethan de Seife wrote in his book, Tashlinesque: The Hollywood Comedies of Frank Tashlin, that we see with Son of Paleface , Marry Me Again , Artists and Models , Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, The Man from the Diners' Club , The Private Navy of Sergeant O'Farrell , and many others that American animation and American live-action comedy derive from the same tradition. [21] Peter Lev wrote in his book, Twentieth Century-Fox: The Zanuck-Skouras Years, 1935–1965, "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is more fragmented than The Girl Can't Help It , and paradoxically it makes it a better film." [8]
Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
---|---|---|---|
Cahiers du Cinéma | Best Film | Frank Tashlin | 2nd Place |
Golden Globe Awards [22] | Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Tony Randall | Nominated |
National Film Preservation Board | National Film Registry | Inducted | |
Writers Guild of America Awards [23] | Best Written American Comedy | Frank Tashlin | Nominated |
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is in a package called "The Jayne Mansfield Collection" along with The Girl Can't Help It (1956) and The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958)
The film was released on VHS on July 2, 1996, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. [24]
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is a 1957 American satirical comedy film starring Jayne Mansfield and Tony Randall, with Betsy Drake, Joan Blondell, John Williams, Henry Jones, Lili Gentle, and Mickey Hargitay, and with a cameo by Groucho Marx. The film is a satire on popular fan culture, Hollywood hype, and the advertising industry, which was profiting from commercials on the relatively new medium of television. It also takes aim at the reduction television caused to the size of movie theater audiences in the 1950s. The film was known as Oh! For a Man! in the United Kingdom.
Frank Tashlin, also known as Tish Tash and Frank Tash, was an American animator and filmmaker. He was best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated shorts for Warner Bros., as well as his work as a director of live-action comedy films.
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress and Playboy Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s, Mansfield was known for her numerous publicity stunts and open personal life. Although her film career was short-lived, she had several box-office successes, and won a Theatre World Award and Golden Globe Award, and soon gained the nickname of Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde."
Anthony Leonard Randall was an American actor of film, television and stage. He is best known for portraying the role of Felix Unger in the 1970-75 television adaptation of the 1965 play The Odd Couple by Neil Simon. In a career spanning six decades, Randall received six Golden Globe Award nominations and six Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning one Emmy.
Miklós Károly Hargitay, was an Hungarian-American actor and the 1955 Mr. Universe.
Tab Hunter was an American actor, singer, film producer, and author. Known for his blond hair and clean-cut good looks, Hunter starred in more than forty films. During the 1950s and 1960s, in his twenties and thirties, Hunter was a Hollywood heart-throb, acting in numerous roles and appearing on the covers of hundreds of magazines. His notable screen credits include Battle Cry (1955), The Girl He Left Behind (1956), Gunman's Walk (1958), and Damn Yankees (1958). Hunter also had a music career in the late 1950s; in 1957, he released a no. 1 hit single "Young Love". Hunter's 2005 autobiography, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star, was a New York Times bestseller.
George Axelrod was an American screenwriter, producer, playwright and film director, best known for his play The Seven Year Itch (1952), which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Marilyn Monroe. Axelrod was nominated for an Academy Award for his 1961 adaptation of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and also adapted Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate (1962).
The Fat Spy is a 1966 Z movie that attempts to parody teenage beach party films rather than spy films. It was filmed at Cape Coral, Florida. It is featured in the 2004 documentary The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made. Briefly released to theaters in 1966, it was rarely seen until the 1990s, when it was released to the public domain. Since then it has been widely released on DVD and VHS in various editions sold mainly at dollar stores.
Irving Paul "Swifty" Lazar was an American lawyer, talent agent and dealmaker, representing both movie stars and authors.
The Girl Can't Help It is a 1956 American musical comedy film starring Jayne Mansfield in the lead role, Tom Ewell, Edmond O'Brien, Henry Jones, and Julie London. The picture was produced and directed by Frank Tashlin, with a screenplay adapted by Tashlin and Herbert Baker from an uncredited 1955 short story, "Do Re Mi" by Garson Kanin. Filmed in DeLuxe Color, the production was originally intended as a vehicle for the American sex symbol Jayne Mansfield, with a satirical subplot involving teenagers and rock 'n' roll music. The unintended result has been called the "most potent" celebration of rock music ever captured on film.
Henry Burk Jones was an American actor of stage, film, and television.
The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw is a 1958 Western comedy film directed by Raoul Walsh, starring Kenneth More and Jayne Mansfield. Mansfield's singing voice is dubbed by Connie Francis. It was one of the first Westerns to be shot in Spain.
Merry Anders was an American actress who appeared in a number of television programs and films from the 1950s until her retirement from the screen in 1972.
Jane Kean was an American actress and singer whose career in show business spanned seven decades and included appearing in nightclubs, on recordings, and in radio, television, Broadway and films. Among her most famous roles were as Trixie Norton on The Jackie Gleason Show, and as the voice of Belle in the perennial favorite Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol.
Matt Cimber is an American producer, director, and writer. He is known for directing genre films including The Candy Tangerine Man, The Witch Who Came from the Sea,Hundra, and Butterfly. Cimber has been called "an unsung hero of 70s exploitation of cinema." He was co-founder and director of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW) professional wrestling promotion and syndicated television series. Cimber also occasionally acts in films, television, and theatre.
Jayne Mansfield was an actress, singer, Playboy playmate and stage show performer who had an enormous impact on popular culture of the late 1950s despite her limited success in Hollywood. She has remained a well-known subject in popular culture ever since. During a period between 1956 and 1957, there were about 122,000 lines of copy and 2,500 photographs that appeared in newspapers. In an article on her in the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture (1999), Dennis Russel said that "Although many people have never seen her movies, Jayne Mansfield remains, long after her death, one of the most recognizable icons of 1950s celebrity culture." In the novel Child of My Heart (2004) by Alice McDermott, a National Book Award winning writer, the 1950s is referred to as "in those Marilyn Monroe/Jayne Mansfield days". R. L. Rutsky and Bill Osgerby has claimed that it was Mansfield along with Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot who made the bikini popular.
The Wayward Bus is a 1957 American drama film directed by Victor Vicas and starring Joan Collins, Jayne Mansfield, Dan Dailey and Rick Jason. Released by 20th Century-Fox, the film was based on the 1947 novel of the same name by John Steinbeck.
Lord Love a Duck is a 1966 American teen black comedy-drama film produced, directed and co-written by George Axelrod and starring Roddy McDowall and Tuesday Weld. The film was a satire of popular culture at the time, its targets ranging from progressive education to beach party films. It is based on Al Hine's 1961 novel of the same name.
Illegal is a 1955 American film noir directed by Lewis Allen. It stars Edward G. Robinson, Nina Foch, Hugh Marlowe and Jayne Mansfield. It is the third film adaptation of the 1929 play "The Mouthpiece" by Frank J. Collins, following The Mouthpiece and The Man Who Talked Too Much.
Trax Colton is an American former motion picture actor who appeared in two films as a contract player for 20th Century Fox between 1960 and 1962.