The Hucksters *** (1947, Clark Gable, Deborah Kerr, Sydney Greenstreet, Adolphe Menjou, Ava Gardner, Keenan Wynn, Edward Arnold) – Classic Movie Review 9489

Director Jack Conway’s 1947 MGM black and white romantic comedy drama The Hucksters stars a notable line-up in Clark Gable, Deborah Kerr, Sydney Greenstreet, Adolphe Menjou, Ava Gardner, Keenan Wynn and Edward Arnold, and is based on the novel by Frederic Wakeman.

Scotland’s radiant star Kerr makes her Hollywood début in this advertising satire about World War Two veteran Victor Norman (Gable), an uneasy Madison Avenue executive at Mr Kimberly (Menjou)’s agency, who pours cold water over the egotistical big-business soap-maker client, Evan Evans (Greenstreet).

Greenstreet, as usual, effortlessly steals the movie from the rest of a starry cast. Kerr seems too young to be playing Gable’s romantic fluff as Kay Dorrance, an English socialite widow, one of the high-society women Gable is trying to line up to advertise the soap.

An incisive novel by Frederic Wakeman is blunted in the screenplay by Luther Davis, Edward Chodorov and George Wells, but it is still vibrant.

In total, Kerr was nominated for six Oscars – for Edward, My Son (1949), From Here to Eternity (1953), The King and I (1956), Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (1957), Separate Tables (1958) and The Sundowners (1960) – and Gardner for just one: Mogambo (1953), also with Gable. Gardner might be a legend but Kerr was a phenomenal actress.

Also in the cast are Aubrey Mather, Richard Gaines, Frank Albertson, Clinton Sundberg, Douglas Fowley, Gloria Holden, Connie Gilchrist, Kathryn Card, Lillian Bronson, Vera Marshe, Ralph Bunker, Virginia Dale, Jimmy Conlin, George O’Hanlon, Marie Windsor, Anne Nagel, Robert Emmett O’Connor, Joan Valerie and Billy Benedict.

Eileen Wilson provides Ava Gardner’s singing voice on ‘Don’t Tell Me’ written by Buddy Pepper.

Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr starred together again in The Night of the Iguana (1964).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9489

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