Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
Director: Frank Tashlin
Year Released: 1957
Rating: 2.0
Reminds me of the Hudson-Day pictures which are light and airy and it's all cute and charming and everyone realizes they're not making Ordet. Rock Hunter carries the same tone - nothing between the ears - but claims to be a satire of modern advertising. Well it is a satire ... for the first half-hour, but after that it's monotonous dopiness, as average guy/advertising-jingle-expert Tony Randall winds up acting as superstar Jayne Mansfield's (downright irritating) boyfriend (to make her ex-boyfriend jealous) so he can get her to endorse a line of lipsticks. For being "satiric" it's all mostly dry humor or bad puns (the script only allows for a few genuinely witty lashes), and they're at their most plentiful during the opening credits - after that the picture gets bogged down with its flat love-triangle storyline and a particularly uninteresting last thirty minutes, where Randall has to come to terms with success ... and being in a picture with little conflict or tension. It's fluffier than Pooh.
