The Hucksters (1947)

A cynical advertising executive (Clark Gable) doesn't have much in the way of principles as he caters to a tyrant of a client (Sydney Greenstreet). He plays the game to his advantage. But when he falls in love with a war widow (Deborah Kerr in her American film debut), he can't help but start to question his values. Based on the best selling novel by Frederic Wakeman and directed by Jack Conway (LIBELED LADY). The novel had to be cleaned up for its film version with all the sex taken out, Kerr made a widow instead of a married woman and a character's Jewishness eliminated among other things. What's left is still a glossy entertainment, MGM style. The critics didn't like it but the public flocked to it. Gable and Kerr have a nice chemistry though curiously MGM never paired them together again. Ava Gardner as a chanteuse and an old flame of Gable's had just come off her breakthrough role in THE KILLERS and MGM still hadn't quite decided to do with her so she's relegated to the second female lead. With Adolphe Menjou, Keenan Wynn, Edward Arnold, Clinton Sundberg, Gloria Holden, Connie Gilchrist and Marie Windsor.