The Wheeler Dealers (1963)

When a wealthy Texas oilman (James Garner) is short on funds, he goes to New York to raise some capital and falls for a security analyst (Lee Remick) who's determined to break the glass ceiling on Wall Street for her gender. Considering this romantic comedy plagiarizes or perhaps I should say "borrows" generously from PILLOW TALK, it's pleasantly amiable in an early glamorous 1960s Hollywood way. Garner easily slips into Rock Hudson's shoes, he bases his entire performance on Hudson's Texas act in TALK. But the lovely Remick is no Doris Day and when it comes time to fume (is there a Doris Day romantic comedy from TALK onward where she doesn't have a fuming scene?), she can't quite go there. In 2011, the film's characters aren't as "cute" as they probably were in 1963. For one, they're the prototypes of the Wall Street raiders that began devastating the economy that is largely responsible for the financial crisis that followed in the 2000s. When one of the characters says, in effect, that the government will pick up the bill if their scheme fails, chills ran down my spine instead of the laughter it probably got in 1963. Directed by Arthur Hiller (LOVE STORY). The large supporting cast includes Pat Crowley, Chill Wills, Jim Backus, Phil Harris, John Astin, Elliott Reid, Louis Nye, Robert Strauss, Vaughn Taylor, John Marley, Eleanor Audley, Charles Lane and Carmen Phillips.