Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)

When an advertising agency is in danger of losing its biggest account, a lipstick brand, a struggling ad man (Tony Randall) attempts to persuade a Hollywood sex symbol (Jayne Mansfield, repeating her stage role) to endorse the lipstick. The resulting storm of publicity in which he is perceived as her lover wreaks havoc with his personal life. One could hardly call this a film version of the George Axelrod play since everything but the title and Ms. Mansfield has been tossed out. The director Frank Tashlin instead whipped up a new screenplay satirizing television, Hollywood and the advertising world. Most of its topical references are dated but if one is familiar with those references, it remains a witty and caustic barb of a movie. The film is laced with the usual Tashlin inspired visual and verbal gags (when Mansfield is referred to as the titular head of her production company, she indignantly squeals, "Don't talk dirty!"). Ironically, for a satire on advertising, Fox has its cake and eats it too as it publicizes its own films thru out the film: Randall's niece (Lili Gentle) goes to a theater showing A HATFUL OF RAIN, Mansfield is seen reading PEYTON PLACE in her bath, Mansfield's character's next film is KISS THEM FOR ME etc. With Joan Blondell, Henry Jones, Betsy Drake, John Williams, Barbara Eden and Groucho Marx.