Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

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Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
Original Movie Poster
Directed by	Frank Tashlin
Produced by	Frank Tashlin
Written by	George Axelrod Frank Tashlin
Starring	Jayne Mansfield Tony Randall
Music by	Cyril J. Mockridge
Cinematography	Joseph MacDonald
Editing by	Hugh S. Fowler
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	July 29, 1957
Running time	93 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is a 1957 20th Century Fox romantic comedy film starring Jayne Mansfield and Tony Randall, with Betsy Drake, Joan Blondell, John Williams, Henry Jones, Lili Gentle, Mickey Hargitay, and a cameo by Groucho Marx.

It was produced and directed by Frank Tashlin, who also wrote the largely original screenplay, utilizing little more than the title and the character of Rita Marlowe from the successful Broadway play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? by George Axelrod. The Broadway play ran from 1955-1956 and also starred Jayne Mansfield as Rita.

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? received a nomination for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actor - Musical/Comedy (Tony Randall) and a nomination for the Writers Guild of America WGA Award (Screen) for Best Written American Comedy (Frank Tashlin). The character, Rita Marlowe, is loosely based on Marilyn Monroe.

In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

1 Plot
2 Trivia
3 Main cast
4 Footnotes and references
5 External links

[edit] Plot

A writer for television advertising, Rockwell P. Hunter (Randall), is low on the ladder at the company he works for. He then finds the perfect model and spokesperson for his new line of lipstick, the famous actress with the "oh-so-kissable lips", Rita Marlowe (Mansfield).

In order for Rita to endorse the lipstick, however, Rock has to pretend to be her boyfriend to make her real boyfriend, Bobo Branigansky (Hargitay), the star of a TV Tarzan show, jealous. Bobo leaks the news of Rita's new romance to the tabloids and Rock Hunter is suddenly famous. Women are crazy about him and he moves steadily up the ladder at work, becoming company president, only to find it is not what he really wanted.

At the behest of his agency, Rock is forced to propose to Rita on a coast-to-coast TV show, which breaks the heart of his fiancée, Jenny Wells (Drake), who is not too pleased, but she takes him back in the end. Both Rock and Rita are saved from a marriage neither one wants by the last-minute arrival of Rita's hometown boyfriend, George Schmidlap (Marx).

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

There's a reference to this film in the 1964 spy novel Funeral in Berlin, starring Michael Caine as Harry Palmer. When the secret agent Palmer character, gets forged papers with a new identity, he gets unsatisfied with the name given to him and complains, "Rock Hunter! Why can't I be Rock Hunter?"
The book Jayne Mansfield reads in the bathtub scene is Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, which eventually became a feature film and a popular TV series that is claimed to be the forerunner of prime time soap operas. It has been claimed that the buxom characters in the book were inspired by Mansfield.^[1]

[edit] Main cast

Actor	Role
Jayne Mansfield	Rita Marlowe
Tony Randall	Rockwell P. Hunter
Betsy Drake	Jenny Wells
Joan Blondell	Violet
John Williams	Irving La Salle Jr.
Henry Jones	Henry Rufus
Lili Gentle	April Hunter
Mickey Hargitay	Bobo Branigansky
Groucho Marx	George Schmidlap