The Hucksters (1947)
Release Date: August 27,1947
Directed by: Jack Conway
Studio: MGM
Costarring:
Deborah Kerr
Ava Gardner
Adolphe Menjou
Available on DVD through The Warner Brothers Archive Collection
DearMrGable.com’s Movie of the Month, February 2012
Clark’s second picture after returning to the screen, The Hucksters is categorized as a drama but really it is a bit of a satire, poking fun at the advertising industry.
Clark’s character, Victor “Vic” Norman, is just home from the war and immediately sets his sights on returning to the advertising game. He seeks a job from Adolphe Menjou (an off screen pal of Gable). To land the job, he must entice a British widow (Deborah Kerr) to pose for a soap campaign. He falls in love with her, as a nightclub singer (a young and fresh-faced Ava Gardner, their first film together) falls for him. He is constantly at odds with himself: is all this manipulation and diminishing self respect worth it, just to please a bellowing soap company tycoon (Sydney Greenstreet)?
Reviews
Photoplay magazine, September 1947:
Nearly everyone read “The Hucksters” and everyone had something to say about it. Here’s more parlor talk–a good picture, quick and to the satirical point with Clark Gable as an attractive “Huckster” and Deborah Kerr as the lady so remote from his fast and fascinating ways. Said lady comes to warmer life than she did in the book; she’s handled here by the competent Britisher Kerr. The children keep out of sight most of the time, thereby letting everyone get right on with the interesting business of producing laughs at the expense of that great American Field–advertising.
When Sidney Greenstreet put on the straw hat and egomaniac expressions of Evan Llewelyn Evans, he made the picture. Without him, it might have been just another; with him it turns into two-check entertainment.
Looking very well and playing the whole business straight is Gable, with Ava Gardner vibrating with lost of promise all the way through. That worn-out and worn-down advertising
executive is Adolphe Menjou who shouts his “Check” to Mr. Evans with just the right degree of hopeful subservience.
All the facts of the film stick closely to the facts of the novel in most instances; it will probably sell itself to you with ease.
Quote-able Gable
“How are you, Frank?” first line
“I want to remind myself that
money is only money. It’s a thought that will make me sincere about not needing a job.”
“I want a very sincere necktie!”
“I’m not married. Not the type.”
“I get paid for my opinion!”
“Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? Get a massage, get drunk!”
“I’m just as insensitive as they come.”
“Women always seem to trust a man who smokes a pipe. If I had a dog, I would try to smell a little doggy.”
“A huckster is a peddler. You know, a hawker. We’re professional hucksters but with station wagons instead of push carts.”
“I haven’t had much experience with honest people and I’m not sure I like them. How can you tell what they’re going to do next?”
“Have you gotten prettier since I last saw you?”
“Unfortunately what the public wants has nothing to do with radio. It’s what the sponsor wants that counts.”
“Everybody was a nobody once!”
“Now we’re starting with an even nothing in the world—it’s neater that way.” last line
Behind the Scenes
The book upon which the screenplay was based had Kerr’s character as being married and having an affair with Gable’s character. The script was changed to make her a widow and a more sympathetic character.