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.
Richard Ewing Powell was an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility and successfully transformed into a hardboiled leading man, starring in projects of a more dramatic nature. He was the first actor to portray private detective Philip Marlowe on screen.
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. He is best known for portraying the role of Felix Unger in a 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 Karoly Hargitay, was a 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.
Mamie Van Doren is an American actress, singer, and sex symbol. She is perhaps best known for the rock 'n' roll, juvenile delinquency exploitation film Untamed Youth (1957).
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 title 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 Stevens. 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.
Matt Cimber is an American producer, director, and writer. He also occasionally acts in films, television, and theatre. 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 cinema." He was co-founder and director of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW) professional wrestling promotion and syndicated television series. Cimber was also the last husband of actress Jayne Mansfield, directing her on stage and in the film Single Room Furnished (1968), which was released after her death.
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.
