THE HUCKSTERS (1947)

Returning war veteran Vic Norman (Clark Gable) is trying to get a job in advertising, like he held before the war. Though down to his last fifty bucks, he knows he can't come off as desperate in interviews, but during an interview with Kimberly, the head of his own agency, Vic impulsively agrees to help out with a problem client, Evans (Sydney Greenstreet), who is trying to secure rich Manhattan socialites for an advertising campaign for his company's beauty soap. He gets Kay Dorrence (Deborah Kerr), a war widow, to participate, but at the photo shoot, she balks at appearing in a sexy negligee, so against Evans' wishes, Vic lets her wear an evening gown. At a meeting, Evans explains his philosophy that good ads should be irritatingly repetitive or shocking, but Vic wins him over by saying an ad for soap should stress cleanliness, not sexiness. Though Vic takes an immediate dislike to Evans, Vic takes a job with Kimberly, with Evans as his special client. Vic and Kay get close, though a misstep occurs when Vic invites Kay to spend a weekend with him at the Blue Penguin Inn. The inn used to be a nice resort but now it's a little sleazy, so Kay gets the wrong message about Vic's intentions and stands him up. But Vic has another woman who's interested in him, Jean (Ava Gardner), a lounge singer and old friend. Evans' next assignment for Vic is to go to California and get B-talent comic Buddy Hare (Keenan Wynn) to host a radio show. Vic finds Hare and his agent (Edward Arnold) obnoxious, and uses blackmail to get the agent to lowball Hare's salary. In the end, Vic doesn't like what he sees himself becoming and provides a memorable climax to the story in Evans' boardroom.

This movie doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. It's based on what is apparently a sharply satirical novel, but was toned down in the process of production and becomes a character study of Vic Norman with some lightly satirical jabs at advertising—think Mad Men without the 60s cultural enlightenment. But between the writing and Gable's lackluster performance, Vic just isn't that interesting. Gable and Kerr (pictured) work up some chemistry in their improbable class-conflicting romance, but as with Gable, her character is only sketchily drawn. With Ava Gardner sadly underused and Keenan Wynn a bit of an acquired taste, it's left to Sydney Greenstreet to give the movie a needed jolt every time he's on screen. His first scene is rightly notorious: to make his point about the impact of shock, Evans hawks out a huge gob of spit on the boardroom table in front of Vic and all of Evans' yes-men. Greenstreet makes Evans slimy and awful and quite memorable. Adolphe Menjou has a couple of nice scenes as an ad exec with a shameful secret. He also gets a good line, telling Gardner, "You shouldn’t get married; all that oomph ought to stay in circulation." It's filmed in that bland late-40s way that so many melodramas were, with Jack Conway displaying little directorial style. Certainly watchable, but not the classic satire it had the potential to be. [TCM]