Watch Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? For Free

I love this movie so much

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It doesn't take long to realize Jayne Mansfield is doing Marilyn Monroe in the picture, it happens with her very first squeal of delight. You know, it's not easy to squeal like that, just try it a couple of times. I don't know how Mansfield kept it up for the whole picture.Not ever having seen Mickey Hargitay before other than in photos, I wasn't sure if it was him playing the part of Bobo Branigansky or not. Turns out it was, and even though he had an impressive physique, I'd point out what a difference a few decades makes when it comes to winning a Mr. Universe title today. By the time 1977's "Pumping Iron" came out, the muscular look of guys like Schwarzenneger and Lou Ferrigno far outpaced the more natural looking physique of body builders like Hargitay.As for Tony Randall, without knowing it he was giving us all an early, two decade preview of the character that would eventually become Felix Unger in TV's "The Odd Couple". He had the nervous persona down pretty well and that nose honk was a dead giveaway at one point in the story.The film is a nifty spoof of the advertising industry, such as it was in the late Fifties. The picture does it's fair share of name dropping with industry celebrities like John Wayne, Debra Paget, Cary Grant and Harry Belafonte, and the Groucho Marx appearance near the end of the movie was a fun spot. Old timers like myself will hardly bat an eye, but I'd be curious to know what younger viewers make of the reference to Idlewild Airport. It wouldn't be until 1963 that the name would be changed to John F. Kennedy International.

It's a super-dated fluff story about an ambitious advertising man named Rock Hunter (Tony Randall) who finds a way to climb the corporate ladder with the help of a bleach-blonde bimbo with big lips named Rita Marlowe (Jayne Mansfield). She coos and squeals, and poses in front of a camera, on her way up Hollywood's stardom ladder. I have seen silent-era films that had more depth, entertainment value, heart, and contemporary relevance than this atrocity.Characters are as shallow as they are silly, as superficial as they are stereotyped. The only thematic message is contained in the film's title. And guess how the film defines "success"; materialistic values, here we come. Aside from this odious theme, there is no message. Viewers back in 1957 must have been easy to please and free from the burdens of critical thinking to enjoy such a nothing movie.Each main actor gets his or her own long monologue, no doubt a selling point to lure in the principal performers. I didn't like the way Tony Randall breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to viewers, corn pone savoir-faire straight from Hollywood. Script dialogue lacks subtext. And the plot flows straight from point A to point Z with nary a zigzag to interfere with viewers' minimal comprehension skills.Background music is standard 1950's nondescript. Casting is acceptable except for Tony Randall, a mouse who couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag, much less able to take on the rigors of cold, in-house corporate politics. The one really fine performance is from reliable Joan Blondell, as companion to dimwit Rita Marlowe. Joan Blondell and a few funny lines save this antique from being a total cinematic misdemeanor.Apparently aimed at an audience of giggly 16-year-old females, this popcorn and candy flick is pure diversionary fluff, and embarrassingly dated, a time capsule of horrid mainstream American pop culture during the stodgy Eisenhower era. No wonder juveniles back then were driven into delinquency.

This piece of satire from 1957 was probably considered edgy and sharp back then, but it really didn't age too well, and there isn't much else about it to make it stand on its own legs as a classic. The witty send-ups of television, the advertising industry and celebrity culture seems tame and mellow now that real celebrity culture is so much more extreme than anybody in the 50's might have guessed, and reality had surpassed any possible satire. The film is still watchable, even entertaining - the script is solid and smart and has more double entendres than most writers back then and which probably should have never received the Hays code's approval. Joan Blondell is hilarious and steals the show whenever she's on screen, and obviously Jayne Mansfield is a screen presence to be reckoned with, and she nails her role here and is a real pleasure to watch. Tony Randall spoils it a little - he's just good enough to be passable as a dull straight man, but he's far more wooden and dull than the role calls for, and he did better before and after, most notably in TV's The Odd Couple. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is worth keeping if only because Jayne Mansfield films are so precious few, and it still has the slightly campy fun of a 50's comedy, but it isn't a classic worth lingering on.

"Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" stars Tony Randall, Jayne Mansfield, Joan Blondell, Henry Jones, Betsy Drake, John Williams, and Mickey Hargitay in a dated but fun story that spoofs the advertising world and the movies' arch enemy, television. In fact, Tony Randall breaks the fourth wall for a "commercial" during one part of the film, extolling the virtues of that "big, 21-inch screen" as the little screen's picture has problems with its vertical.The story concerns an ad exec trying to get a movie star to endorse a lipstick - in return, she wants him to pose as her new boyfriend.The performances are uniformly wonderful - Randall is hilarious as a man trying to hold onto his job, and then onto his girlfriend. Joan Blondell is fabulous as Jayne Mansfield's assistant. She can't get over her milkman boyfriend, stating that loses it whenever she sees Half & Half.But the movie belongs to Jayne Mansfield and her tongue in cheek sex bomb image - she's so blonde, so zaftig, so breathless, and so darn funny with her squeals of delight and outrageous wardrobe. When you look beyond all Jayne's muchness, you see a beautiful, smart woman who found a great niche for herself. It's a pity that the last part of her life was so sad. What a delightful, refreshing performer she was. This film and "The Girl Can't Help It" are for me her best, though she made several other films that showcased her comedic ability.Very good movie, highly entertaining.