Bracing and abrasive, a very free adaptation of Jerome Weidman’s '30s ‘rag trade’ novel with an underrated screenplay from habitually overrated Abraham Polonsky (last before he was BlackListed) working off the wholesale changes of Vera Caspary’s largely reimagined storyline. You can get some idea just how unfaithful noting that Weidman’s own book for a 1962 B’way musicalization* had a singing Elliot Gould taking the role played in the film by Susan Hayward. A gender swap only in this film version that advances a proto-feminist spin to everything, with Hayward’s unsympathetic/unprincipled behavior (movie-book mavens will be reminded of WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN) par-for-the-course from a young ambitious means-justifies-the-end hustling male up-and-comer, but still jarring from a glam gal. The new plot sees designer Hayward, glad-handing salesman Dan Dailey and magic-hands dressmaker Sam Jaffe going out on their own with a new ready-to-wear discount firm. And they’re making a go of things when luxury brand legend George Sanders shows up to woo Hayward into high priced lines thru a professional and personal partnership. Director Michael Gordon & lenser Robert Krasner were only allowed a little bit of real NYC location shooting, but they got the feel, the pulse, the desperation of the thing; and certainly aren’t afraid to go nasty when the story points that way. It’s no SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS/’57, but as a stop along the way, one worth taking.
DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above: SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, which is on another plane entirely. OR: *Never filmed, the B’way show was a near success (300 perfs) with gold-caliber names in producer David Merrick, Harold Rome score, Arthur Laurents/Herb Ross directing, 19 yr-old Barbra Streisand’s killer debut as Miss Marmelstein, and fallen-film star Lillian Ross in a stage comeback as Elliot Gould’s mom. Look for the Original Cast Album. And note that Lillian Ross’s tell-all bio, I’LL CRY TOMORROW, supplied a big juicy film role for (wait for it) Susan Hayward in 1955. OR: Very good here, Dan Dailey takes this character to the limit in the flawed, but brilliant IT’S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER/’55. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/its-always-fair-weather-1955.html
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