Today on Summer Under the Stars 2021 it’s Tony Randall day and I feel like it would have been difficult to pick a movie more perfect than Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? for the occasion. Randall plays a man working in advertising and we are treated to some amazing 50s ad aesthetic. This is essentially a prequel to Mad Men. Turns out, the biggest movie star is coming to New York to find seclusion and by humorous coincidence, ends up with Randall, deciding to use him to make her real love jealous. Meanwhile, he decides a celebrity endorsement for his new lipstick campaign could give him success — but will it spoil him?
I would consider Tony Randall to be the best part of the film (from the very intro, where he hilariously breaks the fourth wall), but of course we must talk about Jayne Mansfield herself, who joins him on the screen. It is hard to believe for me, but this is actually my FIRST Jayne Mansfield film. I don’t know how it happened, I feel like I know everything about her and always had. I do know that, while I enjoyed the film, the role she was given was not exactly complex, which must have influenced the character, but to me this is too much of a Marilyn copy/parody. I will be happy to be proven wrong when I watch my SECOND Mansfield film.
Joan Blondell is also in this film, full twenty years older than she was yesterday when I watched the third Gold Diggers movie, but still as glamorous.
Swingin' at the Seance 