Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, starring Tony Randall as Rockwell Hunter and Jayne Mansfield as Rita Marlowe, is a direct and funny critique of the then new medium of television, commercial breaks, product endorsement, and the artifice of celebrity.
The plot centers about the acquisition of success, in the form of money for Hunter and fame for Marlowe. Hunter and Marlowe meet, early on in the film and strike a business deal. The advertising agency Hunter works for is on the verge of failing and by using Marlowe to endorse lip stick sold by a client of his agency; Hunter expects to save his job and maybe even be promoted.
By publicly dating Hunter, Marlowe seizes on an opportunity to keep her name in the lime-light of gossip columnists and media, giving her leverage over her film studio. By elevating Hunter to fame, Marlowe is increasing her own. Jayne Mansfield was also at the height of her popularity during the period this movie was made and her character closely parallels herself, as the following years she was criticized heavily for many publicity stunts to increase her own fame.
While her character is ostensibly a ditzy blonde, as intelligent as her pet poodle, her character shows shrewd business acumen and at first claims her trip to New York is to start her own production company. Unfortunately, the film falls into a less enlightened plot device when Marlowe then admits that she's just trying to get away from her boyfriend in California.
Hunter is taking care of his young niece, who lives with him and helps him be introduced to Marlowe. Where are her parents? They are never mentioned and no explanation is given about the circumstances behind her living with her uncle.
Out of the partners in the advertising agency Hunter works for, La Salle Jr., Raskin, Pooley and Crocket, only La Salle Jr. is seen in the movie, even though much of the plot focuses on the perks of being an executive at the firm.
These details help expose the thin layers of story telling that keep the plot moving, while allowing interjections of criticisms of television. The most blatant being a short intermission two-thirds of the way through the movie, when Hunter comes out on a stage, ostensibly to provide a break in the story out of respect for TV viewers "...who are accustomed to constant interruptions in their programs for messages from sponsors." While he talks about TV, the film begins to simulate a black and white TV cropping the image severely with then typical signal interference.
The irony is that there are several points in the movie where product placement for 20th Century Fox is prominent, such as twice name dropping a movie that Jayne Mansfield starred in the year before and when Mansfield is reading the book Peyton Place in the bath; a movie 20th Century Fox released 6 months after the release of this movie.
At the end of the movie, Hunter is making an impassioned plea to his fiancé, Jenny, trying to convince her that Marlowe means nothing to him and that he wants Jenny. Jenny believes that she's too average for him; that only someone like Marlowe would be good enough for him. Yet more irony, given that the actress playing Jenny is gorgeous and was herself married to Cary Grant.
Groucho Marx makes an appearance as Georgie at the end of the film, playing the original love of Marlowe, who has been pining after him. A reference to "You Bet Your Life" is made and highlights another critique of advertisements interrupting television shows. It also brings out a deeper structure of the movie, with three couples, Hunter and Jenny, Marlowe and Georgie, and Rufus and Violet, each seeking success in their own way; shadowing the format of the "You Bet Your Life" quiz show which starred Groucho, making the reference an advertisement for a then highly successful television show, mid-way through an 11 year run.
At the end, the movie brings out a general point of saying that you are what you make of yourself. At the start Hunter is coerced into claiming he is the president of the advertising agency. Towards the end of the film, he is promoted into that position, a direct outcome of his earlier boldness. La Salle Jr, who inherited the position and then gave it to Hunter, tells him that "...success will fit you like a shroud."
A shroud usually implies burial and would portend death. Fittingly, Hunter gives up the success of leading the advertising agency and instead opts for a farmers life.
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