Daily Archives: July 29, 2016

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
Directed by Frank Tashlin
Written by Frank Tashlin from a play by George Axelrod
1957/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Tony Randall: Ladies and gentlemen, this break in our motion picture is made out of respect for the TV fans in our audience, who are accustomed to constant interruptions in their programs for messages from sponsors. We want all you TV fans to feel at home, and not forget the thrill you get, watching television on your big, 21-inch screens.[/box]

This broad Technicolor satire of mass media and pop culture works better for me than some other cartoony entries of the late 50’s.

Tony Randall plays both himself, in asides to the audience, and Rockwell Hunter, an ad writer for Stay-Put lipstick.  He works hard to raise his teenage niece April and to earn enough to marry his fiancee Jenny (Betsy Drake).  The agency is in danger of losing the lipstick account and Rock fears for his job.

April is President of the Rita Marlowe fan club.  When Rita (Jayne Mansfield) arrives in town to announce to a mob of reporters that she seeks “seclusion”, April overhears her give her address to a driver.  Rock gets a brainstorm.  He will convince Rita to endorse Stay-Put.

Rita has problems of her own.  Her body-builder boyfriend (Micky Haggerty, Jayne’s real-life husband) has been seen with another blonde.  When he calls, she tells him she is drinking champagne with a new man.  But there is no man in the room and when Rock shows up she grabs him as her pretend paramour.  The two continue the charade for several days and Rock gets the endorsement and climbs the corporate ladder.  Naturally, all this does not go over well with Jenny.  With Joan Blondelle as Rita’s companion and a surprise cameo by Groucho Marx.

For me, the best parts of this were the TV spoofs, of which there are many.  It’s all light and fun and goes down very easily.  Mansfield was a good comedienne along with her other assets and I always like Tony Randall.

Clip

Trailers from Hell

Enemy from Space (AKA Quatermass 2)
Directed by Val Guest
Written by Nigel Kneale and Val Guest
1957/UK
Hammer Films
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Perhaps, as some wit remarked, the best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn’t come here. Well, it can’t hide forever – one day we will overhear it. Arthur C. Clarke [/box]

These Hammer sci-fi films are so refreshingly different than the giant creature movies that were dominating American sci-fi screens at the time.

Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) is now working on a lunar colonization program, involving an elaborate facility that looks quite a bit like a nuclear power plant.  As the film begins, a rock falls from the sky and burns a colleague, though it is cold to the touch.   Investigation takes him to a nearby village and a top secret installation that looks identical to his own facility.  The installation is protected by armed guards.  At first, he can get no one to tell him what its purpose is.

Finally Quatermass contacts his old friend Inspector Lomax (John Longden) who is also reluctant to speak about it but refers the professor to a Member of Parliament who is investigating.  The MP has finally wangled a pass to visit the plant, which he has been told is developing synthetic food.  When the pair arrive, Quatermass deduces that it may be producing food – but not for humans …

I liked this though I found it somewhat slower moving than the original.  Donlevy still makes a perfectly irascible Quatermass, barking orders to everyone whether they work for him or not.

Trailer