Marchands d'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.

The Hucksters has a lot of good clean fun with the advertising business of the 1940's. Clark Gable, newly discharged from the service, returns to his old haunts as an ad man and finds himself involved with two women, a tyrannical client, and an obnoxious, not too talented radio comedian. This is high class melodrama, and has some pretty good satirical moments, though I don't think that the guys who wrote it were as smart as they thought they were, it's a decent, watchable movie.

One can see Gable slipping into middle age here, and though he seems spry enough, he's clearly not the man he was five years earlier, and I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him. Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner are attractive if otherwise unremarkable as the women in his life. Sidney Greenstreet does a nice turn as the sinister, demanding client. Keenan Wynn's the one to watch here, as the (so-called) comedian Gable must contend with; and he does a smashing job, managing to be pathetic, sympathetic and obnoxious all at once, not, I imagine, an easy thing for an actor to do.

Worth keeping an eye out for: excellent production values from MGM's art department in its glory years. Marvelous sets, expert lighting. The movie is a pleasure to look at, if not always to listen to.

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.

Clark Gable is in good form playing an advertising ace, unemployed after spending the last four years in the Army, talking his way into a top Wall Street radio and print agency and landing the company's biggest account: Beautee Soap, run by a despicable, disrespectful tyrant. Sydney Greenstreet is the spitting, bug-eyed soap czar who keeps all his yes-men clucking like frightened geese, and his scenes around the conference table very nearly go over the top (but their payoff is in the finale); Deborah Kerr is a glamorous war widow whom Gable chases; and young Ava Gardner is well-cast as a nightclub singer--and Gable's rebound girl after Kerr plays tough-to-get. It's a slick, handsome piece of refined goods, not satiric as one might expect, though not quite stuffy, either. There are leisurely laughs, a cute sequence with Gable and Gardner on the train to Hollywood, and a satisfying wrap-up. If the picture doesn't exactly deliver fireworks, it does gives us Gable nicely contemplative, blowing kisses at the girls while at the same time re-examining his place in the work force. **1/2 from ****

This is all about getting advertising business up to your neck and getting fed up with it, and this was even before the television commercials took over the field and drowning it in rot, which it has been doing ever since. There are excellent actors and splendid wit and dialog all the way that keeps moving on a constant race, so as an entertainment this is an ace of a film. Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner are both relatively young here and doing their very best for their adorable Clark Gable, who is always good and never made a bad film. To this comes Adolphe Menjou, Edward Arnold and Sydney Greenstreet to cap it all as the established monster of commercialism. It is both a comedy, satire and romance, the direction is splendid as is the music, so there is nothing missing. The problem remains today and is more abhorrently omnipresent than ever in all society, so even such a brilliant film as this did not help no matter how much it made a full hit at the problem.