Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Released Jul 26, 1957

1h 34m

Comedy

List

88%

Tomatometer

24 Reviews

75%

Audience Score

500+ Ratings

Rock Hunter (Tony Randall) writes television commercials, and he's hatched a strategy for a new beauty product. Needing a famous face to deliver his message, Rock tries to recruit actress Rita Marlowe (Jayne Mansfield). At first she thinks it's beneath her, but she wants to make her actor lover (Mickey Hargitay) envious, so she agrees, as long as Rock pretends to be her boyfriend. Soon, Rock is running the ad company, but his ascension is greeted by all kinds of personal troubles.

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Richard Brody

New Yorker

The movie spotlights the self-consuming, self-perpetuating echoes of mass media and their jangling yet liberating amplification of private, intimate matters.

Apr 3, 2023

Full Review

Keith Uhlich

Time Out

[Mansfield] constantly catches you off guard. She's this unabashedly crude movie's bleached-blond heart and soul.

Rated: 4/5

Apr 9, 2013

Full Review

Philip French

Guardian

The picture sends up and encapsulates the complacency of the conformist Eisenhower years.

Jan 3, 2011

Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson

Combustible Celluloid

This masterpiece by Frank Tashlin may be his greatest film.

Rated: 4/4

Jul 21, 2024

Full Review

Clyde Gilmour

Maclean's Magazine

Ad agencies and television, instead of Hollywood, are noisily satirized in Hollywood's rewrite of George Axelrod's Broadway farce. It's a funny show just the same.

Nov 26, 2019

Full Review

Michael E. Grost

Classic Film and Television

Zingy satire of the business world also boasts long takes and creative staging.

Sep 13, 2017

Full Review

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william k

Pretty wild satire is something like a work of pop art with its glaring colors and collage-like editing, but the humor is often in your face and hit and miss.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? Yes it will. This success with it's hilarious satirical film is what made this film pretty well made. The performance by Jayne Mansfield playing a parody of Marilyn Monroe was pretty fine. This film has it made.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/18/23

Full Review

Ed M

Weak. Plays like a cookie cutter sitcom.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

01/19/22

Full Review

Matthew D

"He didn't speak English that well. being from Texas". Ha, great flick!

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

08/27/21

Full Review

Audience Member

Jayne Mansfield was no Bette Davis, but Tony Randall is much fun in this 1957 movie.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/12/23

Full Review

deke p

I remember it playing at the magnificent Avalon, Catalina CASINO Theater when we were summer vacationing there in 1957. Apparently it is considered a very important movie. Then why I have NEVER seen it on broadcast TV until i see it is on THE MOVIE CHANNEL today, 7.12.21. For years I wondered why the movie title would have ROCK HUDSON's name in it. I was a confused young lad. But later, TONY RANDALL would costar in some movies with the original ROCK. Oh, and JANE MANSFIELD (hubba hubba) great reviews, I'm still verklempt she died in that terrible car crash. Saw it on tv again 1.17.2022. I don't think I want to sit thru it all again, kinda silly. PS: I did not realize this was previously a popular stage play, which Wiki sz was almost entirely changed in the movie.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

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Frank Tashlin

Director

Jayne Mansfield

Rita Marlowe

Tony Randall

Rockwell P. Hunter

Joan Blondell

Violet

Betsy Drake

Jenny Wells

John Williams

Irving La Salle Jr.

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Synopsis

Rock Hunter (Tony Randall) writes television commercials, and he's hatched a strategy for a new beauty product. Needing a famous face to deliver his message, Rock tries to recruit actress Rita Marlowe (Jayne Mansfield). At first she thinks it's beneath her, but she wants to make her actor lover (Mickey Hargitay) envious, so she agrees, as long as Rock pretends to be her boyfriend. Soon, Rock is running the ad company, but his ascension is greeted by all kinds of personal troubles.

Director: Frank Tashlin
Producer: Frank Tashlin
Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Production Co: Twentieth Century Fox
Genre: Comedy
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jul 26, 1957, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Jul 1, 2011
Runtime: 1h 34m
Sound Mix: Stereo

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