Near the beginning of this movie Evan Llewellyn Evans, Sidney Greenstreet, owner of Beautee Soap and the most powerful client of Adolph Menjou's Madison Avenue advertising agency, hawks up a big ginder from the back of his throat and lobs it onto the boardroom table, much to the shock of his sycophants. "Gentlemen," he announces, "I have just performed a disgusting act." It's the most telling moment in the film. Evan Llewellyn Evans may be genetically incapable of Welshing on a deal but he's capable of some pretty disgusting acts. The second most telling moment in the film is saved for the climax, when the successful new employee, Clark Gable, finds that the phoniness and throat-cutting of the advertising business is not for him, and tells Greenstreet and Menjou what they can do with the jumbo-sized salary they've just offered him, and then stalks out of the board room to melt away his old self and discover his new, more principled, bite-sized, transfat-free new self in the arms of Deborah Kerr.
The plot isn't stupid. The intrigues, betrayals, and misunderstandings aren't openly spelled out as in a child's storybook. Most of the character development takes place in Gable's character, just returned from the war. He's pretty honest about himself and a little blunt with others but he keeps his cool throughout. He has what sociologists call "role distance." Role distance is Erving Goffman's term for "actions which effectively convey some disdainful detachment of the (real life) performer from a role he is performing". He knows when he's being good at his job and he knows when he's being a cad. His chief mistake is in thinking that money is the most important goal and that it's achieved by sometimes unethical means. His performance throughout is quite good.
Deborah Kerr as the aristocratic war widow is excellent. Her beauty is of an ethereal sort. She's delicate, frangible. She's "in touch with her feelings" and can be firm enough but her demeanor suggests she might collapse with fear or an excess of desire at any moment. (I kind of like that in a woman.) I don't know where she got the reputation of being some kind of ice queen in the movies. As an actress, she had good range -- comedic in "Casino Royale" and homespun and earthy in "The Sundowners." I don't think Ava Gardner ever looked more attractive or gave a better performance. But then all the acting is good and earns the film some extra bonus points. All the acting except for Sidney Greenstreet, that is, who is miscast as a rude blowhard redneck with some kind of terrible COWBOY hat and a blustering insistence on an in-your-face commercial style: His ideal jingle does nothing but repeat "BEAUTEE SOAP" without syncopation. This is Ed Begley's role, not Sidney Greenstreet's.
The movie was a bellwether in its own way. In 1947, the economy was just getting back onto a peacetime footing. People were beginning to make money again, and in the 1950s there would be an explosion of stories (eg., "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit", "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?") about the Madison Avenue ad agencies that would guide consumers into one or another channel to spend it all and go into debt doing it. Logically, in the 60s, there should have been a succession of dramas about credit card companies but it didn't happen.
The plot isn't stupid. The intrigues, betrayals, and misunderstandings aren't openly spelled out as in a child's storybook. Most of the character development takes place in Gable's character, just returned from the war. He's pretty honest about himself and a little blunt with others but he keeps his cool throughout. He has what sociologists call "role distance." Role distance is Erving Goffman's term for "actions which effectively convey some disdainful detachment of the (real life) performer from a role he is performing". He knows when he's being good at his job and he knows when he's being a cad. His chief mistake is in thinking that money is the most important goal and that it's achieved by sometimes unethical means. His performance throughout is quite good.
Deborah Kerr as the aristocratic war widow is excellent. Her beauty is of an ethereal sort. She's delicate, frangible. She's "in touch with her feelings" and can be firm enough but her demeanor suggests she might collapse with fear or an excess of desire at any moment. (I kind of like that in a woman.) I don't know where she got the reputation of being some kind of ice queen in the movies. As an actress, she had good range -- comedic in "Casino Royale" and homespun and earthy in "The Sundowners." I don't think Ava Gardner ever looked more attractive or gave a better performance. But then all the acting is good and earns the film some extra bonus points. All the acting except for Sidney Greenstreet, that is, who is miscast as a rude blowhard redneck with some kind of terrible COWBOY hat and a blustering insistence on an in-your-face commercial style: His ideal jingle does nothing but repeat "BEAUTEE SOAP" without syncopation. This is Ed Begley's role, not Sidney Greenstreet's.
The movie was a bellwether in its own way. In 1947, the economy was just getting back onto a peacetime footing. People were beginning to make money again, and in the 1950s there would be an explosion of stories (eg., "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit", "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?") about the Madison Avenue ad agencies that would guide consumers into one or another channel to spend it all and go into debt doing it. Logically, in the 60s, there should have been a succession of dramas about credit card companies but it didn't happen.