Le nigaud magnifique

Peter Gibbons, meet Thadeus "call me Tad" Page. Selling life insurance may have been the 1940's equivalent of a cubicle job, but in any case Tad Page doesn't take to it much better than Peter Gibbons did in "Office Space", and they both appreciate fishing. Henry Fonda is the perfect personality for demonstrating the value of well-timed laziness. Don Ameche was either Alexander Graham Bell or a pleasant schemer in his films (until "Trading Places" at least) and his Dwight Dawson-ambitious-man-with-a-gimmick is nicely drawn here. I also appreciated the subtle manner in which the tune "Lazy Bones" was woven unobtrusively into the background during Fonda's scenes. Watch for it on TCM; worth your time.

Dwight Dawson (Don Ameche) is a real huckster. He runs a 'School for Success' but all he's been able to accomplish is run up a lot of bills. In desperation, he decides to run a contest and offer some total loser $500 as well as a free course on becoming successful. Tad (Henry Fonda) appears to be such a loser and wins the prize but instead of being able to use him for publicity, Dwight is shocked to find out that Tad doesn't want the course, just the money. It seems that Tad is quite happy with his lazy life back in Vermont. So, in desperation to salvage Tad as the new poster boy for the success courses, he conspires to find a reason...any reason...to keep Tad in New York. When he learns that Tad is smitten on Dwight's girlfriend, Claire (Lynn Bari), he convinces Claire to pretend to be interested in him. How all this works out is quite enjoyable and the ending, particularly so. Not a great film by any stretch but fun and original...and it's nice to see a jerk like Dwight get his in the end!

Yet he is, in this movie, a charming and sly country vs city tale. Fonda is the title character. He is chosen as a prime loser who can take Don Ameche's positive thinking course: If he can come through it, the cynical Ameche and his sidekicks reason, anyone can. And others will try.

Edward Everett Horton is one of these sidekicks, as is Bari, his mink-wearing secretary.

Fonda is from rural Vermont and teaches everyone in New York a thing or two himself. He wins over a famous financier, who promptly retires to enjoy life. He shows all and sundry how to relax. And he pines for Bari.

It's a cute idea, which twists and turns several times before its ending. The premise resembles a far less cynical and cruel "Curtain Call" -- which is an infinitely better, less conflicted, movie.

...but fun just the same. It is almost escapist entertainment due to the fact that it just ignores the fact that WWII is going on at the time. Don Ameche plays Dwight Dawson, the owner of a school for success in New York City that doesn't really teach anything other than self confidence. Like the Wizard of Oz, he doesn't seem to be passing out anything that people don't have inside already. His business is down, and so he decides to run an ad looking for the biggest failure in America, using it as the basis for a publicity campaign to turn the contest winner into a success via his methods. Even this he does wrong, though, because who he ultimately picks isn't someone who can't get ahead, but someone who is happy with not getting ahead - a guy from Vermont (Henry Fonda as Tad Page) who rents fishing boats in the summer and thinks about summer in the winter.

The prize is five hundred dollars and a course at Ameche's business school. Tad is interested in the five hundred dollars only - he wants to buy a new fire engine for his community. However, he is perfectly happy with his life as it is and is not interested in changing. So now Dawson and his fiancée (Lynn Bari as Claire) have to convince Fonda to go to the classes, prevent him from convincing the other students they don't really need these courses to be happy, and get him to be a success.

A romantic triangle forms, rather predictable comical consequences ensue - Tad Page rubs off more on New York than New York rubs off on Tad Page, and I really never saw how Tad Page was either really magnificent or a dope.

Darryl F. Zanuck, head of Fox studios, was big on message pictures and films with a historical context, and this is a rather rare example of a film done at his studio during his reign that is set in the present day that is not a noir. It's enjoyable stuff with Fonda doing his familiar likable every-man character and with Ameche as the debonair little weasel that you just can't bring yourself to truly dislike - much like a ferret in a tuxedo. A recommended rarity.

A refreshing, funny film about a different kind of American dream - laziness.

Dwight Dawson (Don Ameche), peddling his success classes, launches a contest to find the laziest man in America. The plan is to turn the winner into an aggressive, driven success through his class and draw thousands of enrollees. The winner is Tad Page, beautifully portrayed by Henry Fonda. He's a happy man who feels that, though he's not rich, he has everything - he just wants the prize money to buy a fire engine for his town. He has no interest in taking Dawson's class. Then he falls in love - with Dawson's girlfriend (Lynn Bari).

This is a delightful movie about a man who has the true secret of life and is able to impart it to many he meets. As the original post indicated, it's a great life lesson and something to think about.

The cast - Fonda, Ameche, Bari, Edward Everett Horton, are just great. The birthday party, during which Ameche and Horton try to keep Tad from realizing that Bari is Ameche's girlfriend - was especially funny. Highly recommended.