American Success

Original title: The American Success Company

1979
PG
1h 31m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Harry, who married his boss Mr. Elliott's daughter Sarah, has had enough of being humiliated both at home and at work. He hires prostitute Corinne to help him get back at his boss, wife, and... Read allHarry, who married his boss Mr. Elliott's daughter Sarah, has had enough of being humiliated both at home and at work. He hires prostitute Corinne to help him get back at his boss, wife, and friends and gets richer in the process.Harry, who married his boss Mr. Elliott's daughter Sarah, has had enough of being humiliated both at home and at work. He hires prostitute Corinne to help him get back at his boss, wife, and friends and gets richer in the process.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.4/10

453

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

User reviews11

Featured review

A movie with several different titles.

The "American Success Company" (AKA "Good as Gold" or "The Ringer"). It was later re-edited slightly and titled "American Success". Then it was re-edited again with many scenes switched around, a couple scenes added, and a narration by Jeff Bridges added and titled "Success".

I'm not sure why it was re-edited twice, but I think the reason might be related to the reason it was never released on video (except for a few copies when it was re-titled "Good As Gold") in the U.S.

It's a somewhat humorous story about a guy (Bridges) who's considered by his boss (Beatty) and his bosses daughter, who's also his wife (Bauer), to be a loser. So, with some makeup, some exercise, and some help from a local prostitute (Jagger) he becomes a new man. He also conceives a plan to steal a lot of money from the company that he works for (AM-SUC-CO, a movie version of American Express).

The last version ("Success") has a narration by Jeff Bridges, which clears up a lot of plot holes and confusion that are in the first two versions of the movie. Plus, I liked the extra scenes in the last version, which aren't in the previous two versions. "Success" is the version to see if you can find it.

asaidi-2
Jan 10, 2001
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Trivia
The 'Rotten Tomatoes' website summarizes this film's troubled production history by saying: ''In mid-1978, the cult fantasy guru and comic book illustrator Bill [aka William] Richert -after months directing Jeff Bridges and Belinda Bauer in the scatter-gun carnival of a political satire, 'Winter Kills' -faced a real head-scratcher. With 'Winter' yet to be completed, Richert's backer, Avco-Embassy, lopped off all funding and suspended production indefinitely. Projectless, Richert spun around, picked up an unproduced feature script by drive-in director Larry Cohen . . . and somehow found the cash to churn out a second piece of eccentricity with Bridges and Bauer in the leads, this one for Columbia Pictures -hoping he could use the latter's earnings to polish off 'Winter'. Thus began a very shaky history over the next thirty years for a little film originally called 'The American Success Company'. This ghost of a picture bombed at the box office in 1979, was later re-edited twice by Richert under distinct titles (first as 'American Success' in 1981 and then as 'Success' in 1983), and received limited theatrical distribution. It has since fallen through the cracks of movie history, never receiving official distribution on home video [sic] but popping up in bootleg versions under the titles 'Good as Gold' and 'The Ringer'.''

Alternate versions
The film was originally released under the title "The American Success Company" (AKA "Good as Gold" or "The Ringer"). It was later re-edited slightly and released under the title "American Success". In 2005 it was re-edited by Brian Q. Kelley, with the inclusion of some deleted footage and a new narration by Jeff Bridges, under the title "Success -- The Director's Cut". This new version was screened at the Munich Film Festival in 2006.