Very well executed

As Good As It Gets

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

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.

Madison Avenue gets a dusting up by Hollywood in this mainstream star driven vehicle featuring Clark Gable and Deborah Kerr. Usually the topic of provocateurs and malcontents outside the big tent The Hucksters does not shy away from the surly, high pressure of selling beauty soap or any other product for that matter to the masses by incessant drilling, usually by way of a jingle, to the public.Victor Norman has just been discharged after the war. He seeks a high paying job working for soap titan Evan Evans and quickly impresses him by signing war widow Kay Dorrance (Kerr) to endorse his product. Victor falls for Kay in the process but she is hesitant in committing leaving the door wide open for torch singer Jane Oglivie (Ava Gardner) to walk through. Meanwhile the job is peeling away Norman's self respect working for the humiliating Evans and playing some ugly hardball with former friends and associates. Dangling a huge salary before him Norman is faced with the decision to sell out or walk out.Any intention by The Hucksters to soft soap the advertising business is immediately extinguished by the ogre like appearance of Greenstreet's Evan's who enters the boardroom and spits on his polished table while lackeys quake about him. Gable may have been able to handle the China sea and darkest Africa but Greenstreet in the boardroom poses a different threat to his dignity and self worth.Gable brings a war weary look and background to Norman that allows his incredulity to resonate in a business that calls for him to create fantasies for day dreaming housewives. At the same time he is seeking normalcy and knows if you are going to get along you have to go along.As love interests Kerr as the tentative, responsible, vulnerable widow and Gardner as the vivacious good time girl are much better fits than Garson in Gable's first picture after the war Adventure. In spite of their disparate character personalities Gable shares a convincing chemistry with each causing me to wonder if Ms. Kerr might have been a better fit in Mogambo. In addition to the ladies fine performances veterans Adolph Menjou and Edward Arnold convey the pressures of the work while Keenan Wynn as a corny comic steals his scenes from everybody in the room.While it may be a little dated and not be a full frontal assault or satire on the advertising business in total The Hucksters for its day lands more than a few subversive punches to get its point across. Not exactly Putney Swope but in its own tempered way still gets its digs in.

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.

Forget that this film was made in 1947, or about radio advertising. This film is about all tyrannical bosses, liars, and propaganda which have existed years before and after this film was made. This The state of current American politics is sold to the public, much the same way as the Soap was sold in this movie.An aging Gable proves his abilities as an actor in this film. Some comments call his a liar, but by definition, a liar is someone doesn't tell the truth under oath. When you work in a business such as advertising or politics when the best "liar" wins,lying is an asset, not a negative moral judgment. Anything, short of murder is considered OK.I rate this film a 9 because it artfully shows the "huckster" meeting a "real lady" played by Debra Kerr. She is not your average 'war widow" Her husband was a General, she is from English Aristocracy, and has two young children. When the film begins-the two complete opposites clash but fall in love. Perhaps what saves Gable, and makes him attractive to Kerr is his four years of service during WWII.Gable has seen men die, and seen fear for one's life which changes his perspective. One of the best lines is when he tells Ad firm boss(aptly played by Adolph Menjou that he saw more courage in the men at Normandy than he saw in the reaction to Sydney Greenstreet who plays the largest client in the firm. Desite Gable and Kerr's differences, and the injection of a very attractive and young Ava Gardner, Gable and Kerr fall in love.The only reason I would not give this movie a "10" is due to the ending. Eventually, all men must make their living, and compromise with your boss or your customers is sometimes necessary. I found the ending a bit too sanctimoneous. In real life, Gable would have taken the job working for a despicable character played expertly by Sidney Greenstreet. Most of us have to face people like Greenstreet's character. The trick is keeping the job to pay the bills and keeping your self respect without running away from the job. There have always been Sidney Greenstreets.