The Hucksters (1947)

The Hucksters is about sponsors and advertising agencies in network radio, in New York and Hollywood, circa 1945-47. It's a time when radio is king (just before TV came in). Double-breasted suits and men's hats are in style. People wear tuxedos to go out to fancy nightclubs, and take elegant trains to cross the country, if they can afford it. And ad man Vic Norman (Clark Gable), just back from the war, is determined to make the kind of money that will give him such a comfortable lifestyle. He thinks he has it all figured out.Vic goes to work for the Kimberly (Adolph Menjou) agency, which handles the Beautee Soap account. The big man who manufactures the soap is Even L. Evans (Sydney Greenstreet) a bully who has the ad men cowering because his account is worth several million dollars.The Hucksters is about how Vic loses himself in this crazy ad game, and finds himself again before all his self-respect is gone. It's about his relationships with two women (Deborah Kerr, Ava Gardner), a kindly Hollywood agent (Edward Arnold), and a sub-par comedian, Buddy Hare (Keenan Wynn), for whom Vic must create a radio program on orders from tyrannical nut case Evans.It's an entertaining picture, even if the satire is not quite pointed enough, and the serious side of the film - it's philosophical side, if you will - plays out as somewhat blunted. I think this may have to do with the fact that Hollywood satirizing the ethics and values of Madison Avenue is like the pot calling the kettle black. It just doesn't seem legit. On the plus side, the acting is uniformly good. It's hard to picture anyone other than Gable in the lead. In fact, he makes the film seem a little better than it is. He's possibly 10 years too old for the role, and he shows the beginnings of the tremor that was sometimes too distracting in his later films. But he's still Gable, which is damn good! You don't question for a minute that the younger women in the film would find him attractive. Quite a man. The Hucksters has outstanding cinematography, the score, by Lennie Hayton, is jazzy, yet elegant. Jack Conway's direction is fairly sure-footed. It's all a bit too glossy, and not really as smart as it wants to be. But The Hucksters is a good piece of entertainment, all told.By the way, The Hucksters was sold using the famous phrase, "Gable's New Star Is Deborah Kerr (it rhymes with star)!" Menjou's ad agency couldn't have come up with a better line.

This film is very well done. But I have to say that as it has the 1946 date, and came out in 1947, it was done before the big 'purge' that started in 1948. After that year, Hollywood felt it had to knuckle under to the new political agendas of our nation, and could no longer lightly or even comically criticize big business tycoon, Madison Avenue or the new 'religion' that held making money was all.The performances of all the stars, from Gable to Gardner, but especially Kerr are exceptional; every possible nuance of their responses to each other is made very clear, and yet one cannot know in the course of the film just where it will be going. Keenan Wynn's small role is incredibly well done. I'd never seen it till it appeared recently on TCM. Bravo to them for screening it.

After the World War II, the arrogant and self-confident Victor Norman (Clark Gable) returns to New York and seeks a job in the advertising agency of Mr. Kimberly (Adolphe Menjou). He is assigned to convince the widow Kay Dorrance (Deborah Kerr) to modeling to promote the the flagship of the agency Beautee Soap. The he has a meeting with the rude and capricious millionaire Evan Llewellyn Evans (Sydney Greenstreet, who is the tyrannical owner of Beautee Soap. Victor dates Kay but they have a misunderstanding and Victor returns to the arms of his former lover, the singer and aspirant Hollywood actress Jean Ogilvie (Ava Gardner). But Victor misses Kay and does not like the treatment of the untouchable Mr. Evans to him."The Hucksters" is a film with a great cast, with Clark Gable, the gorgeous and elegant Deborah Kerr and the seductive Ava Gardner that unfortunately has a shallow and pointless story. The female characters are lovely, but Evan Llewellyn Evans is a gross, despicable and stupid character and Victor Norman is arrogant and boastful. In the end, the weak story of "The Hucksters" wastes a magnificent cast. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "O Mercador de Ilusões" ("The Merchant of Illusions")

Suave ad man makes his biggest pitch...to himself. Or some such sappy nonsense.OK, this movie is strictly a star vehicle (which must have rankled the author of the original novel, who was trying to make a serious point), and as a result it suffers from the usual limitations. But when the star is Clark Gable, and he's at the top of his form, the movie is bound to be worth watching. The story is ostensibly a drama, but except for the stifling "passionate" scenes with Deborah Kerr (who admittedly isn't given much in the script to work with), the tone is more comedy than drama. Lots of fine supporting performances from Menjou, Greenstreet, Gardner and a Keenan Wynn so young it's difficult to recognize him.The storyline is pretty weak (as in, bowdlerized), and the premise about the annoying nature of entertainment and advertising, however accurate, is itself presented in an annoying way. (Although it is satisfying to see Ava Gardner snap off the radio in disgust.) But the storyline is of secondary importance in a movie like this. The heart of the movie is in Gable's interaction with the other stars, and he really shines. He gets a phone call early on from what is obviously last night's bedmate, and the one-sided conversation must have been pushing the bounds of movie-making respectability at the time. Maybe in the postwar years they were trying to loosen things up a bit.Throw in a classic fancy nightclub scene, offices that featured those low two-foot-tall walls with little swinging doors (what was that all about?), a seaside resort that was obviously a philanderer's hideaway (shocking!), a boss with a New York City mansion and an Eleanor Roosevelt-ish wife, references to a sport jacket, tie, white shirt and slacks as "casual dress", a young man just out of the military and broke, but able to afford a swanky hotel with his own personal valet, and of course Sidney Greentstreet as a comic corporate villain in a silly ultra-high-backed chair that passed for a kind of throne, and I think you have just about every delightful 1940's Hollywood cliché ever dreamed up.If you like the 1940's style of movie-making and you like star vehicles with lots of supporting stars, you're bound to get some jollies from this movie.