#farce

https://tdn.com/news/local/crime-courts/article_0e2603fe-9ffe-4ce5-9a85-c052e6e00037.html#tracking-source=home-top-story And flabbergasted that this is even illegal anymore. Is this the goddamn dark sges or something? I don’t even need to ask. I’m telling you that it is. 🙂😁😂😂😂😂💜🤘🧨💣🤯🤠🥳😱💥💐💐💐🌄🌄

Steve Brodner

In the Iran deliberations Rubio had to explain to Trump what “farce” meant. Now, that’s ironic!

Anyway, all that and more is in the remarkable piece by Haberman and Swann:

Frank Tashlin was not the director you called on for a film about tyranny’s lash or humanity’s woes, but when he could draw on his background as a cartoonist, he was a more than able farceur. His WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? (1957, TCM) turns his actors into cartoon characters and leaves it to them to find any humanity behind the sight gags. There are bits that will make you laugh out loud, but they’re interspersed with scenes where Tashlin has to cut back on the jokes just to push the plot along.

Although the film is billed as an adaptation of George Axelrod’s Broadway hit, all it retains from the original is the title and the character of Rita Marlowe (Jayne Mansfield, who also starred on Broadway), a parody of platinum blonde ‘50s sex pots, including the one playing the role. In place of Axelrod’s tale of a movie magazine writer (the title is the only article he ever published) selling off bits of his soul to a Mephistophelian agent for what he thinks is success, Tashlin creates the story of an advertising writer who gets Mansfield to endorse the lipstick line his company represents. In return, he helps make her ex- (Mickey Hargitay) jealous by pretending to be her new boyfriend. That turns him into almost as a big a celebrity as she, while also angering his fiancée (Betsy Drake) and driving her to push-up bras and breast-development exercises.

Tashlin aims many of his satirical barbs at television. The opening titles play out over commercials for products that malfunction in sometimes hilarious ways (the model extolling a shampoo that makes her hair impenetrable is STAR TREK’s Majel Barrett). Randall even introduces a break in the middle for people used to watching TV with commercials. But unlike the best TV comedies, which moved along at a rapid pace, WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? has its draggy moments. When Randall’s boss (John Williams) starts talking about how unhappy he is running the ad agency he inherited from his father, you might want to step out for a snack (a later scene with Williams is much funnier, but you can figure out how it fits from context clues). And it’s demeaning to watch Drake, who could be a charming comedienne with the right material, reduced to joking about her small breasts. Still, when Tashlin can land a good, cartoony bit — popcorn in Randall’s pocket exploding when Mansfield kisses him, a water cooler belching when Randall’s supervisor (Henry Jones) complains about his ulcer — it’s very funny, at times bordering on the surrealistic. And if you’re a movie buff, you’ll enjoy all the references to other features from the film’s studio, 20th Century-Fox, including crediting other Mansfield films to Marlowe. You even get the mental image of Randall filling in for Debra Paget.

At times, Randall seems like a stand-in for Tashlin’s most frequent star, Jerry Lewis. He has the skill to pull off physical bits like trying to climb over a wall to escape teenaged fans or dancing with Mansfield in a nightclub. And he does it with a sense of character. There’s always some inner life there. It’s a pleasure to see Jones playing an intelligent character who talks a mile a minute. Joan Blondell has great moments, including some serious ones, as Mansfield’s secretary, and she sure can deliver a one-liner (of her first boss, a silent screen star: “She couldn’t speak English, being born in Texas.”). The film is the wrong kind of comedy for Drake; she’s the only cast member whose bits feels forced. But Mansfield is a delight. She knows she’s spoofing herself and she not only has the comic chops to keep it from being embarrassing; there’s a real character behind the jokes. As outrageous as she gets, she’s always endearing. There are also cameos from Mansfield’s husband, Mickey Hargitay, and [spoiler]. Do they move beyond stunt casting to add to the comedy? You bet your life!

I hope those of you who mark such things had a joyous arbitrary time boundary! To help ease the transition from the gentle embrace of blurred time and the delights of questing for post-prandial lassitude into the firmness and mundanity of January calendericality, a short film I discovered that blends mild peril, deft characterisation, and pleasingly nostalgic (the good kind that comes in glass…