Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Joe Bob Jones Inexplicably, Robert Morse is ruinously cast in the lead role of what is an otherwise wonderful musical film. Smarmy, greasy, snotty, and any other number of descriptors can be stuck to his performance of a role which can and has been played so lovingly and better by less obvious actors. J Pierpont Finch is written as a sort of everyman who earnestly seeks employment and advancement in wide eyed but nice moves inspired by a self improvement tome with the film's title. Morse rather develops a brown-nosing loveless character who holds no more sympathy than does the clear douchebag of the musical. Pierpont should be a lovable kid who is working systems he doesn't necessarily fathom. He is not a jerk as written, but Morse just makes him gross. The musical itself is wonderful, and could be considered a classic. If the producers required more friendly performances, what they got instead from some was simplified and goofy indicating acting. I have seen stage versions which were so so much better when played with a genuine awe-shucks approach, which nailed it. This film needs redoing. I believe in you.

blanche-2 Today, at 77 years old, Robert Morse is still going strong as Mad Men's Cooper, but there's no question that his heyday was the late '50s to the early '70s, when his toothy grin, amiable tenor and boyish acting made him the toast of Broadway. Here, he repeats his Broadway success as J. Pierpont Finch in "How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying," a 1967 film also starring Michele Lee, Rudy Vallee, and Anthony Teague. Lee and Vallee also repeat their Broadway roles.With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows, "How to Succeed" is the story of window washer J. Pierpont Finch, who in a matter of days, thanks to a book he carries around by the same name as the film title, has risen through the ranks of the Worldwide Wicket Company without doing any work. He has his enemies, but one very good friend in Rosemary (Lee), a secretary with a crush on him who wants Ponty, as he is called, to make good.I'm not all that familiar with the musical, but I understand that there are several songs missing, including "Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm." The standouts are "I Believe in You," which became a hit song, and the rousing "Brotherhood of Man." What makes the music for me is the wonderful orchestrations.Sexist today in some of its themes, this is a brightly-colored musical, done the old-fashioned way, without cutting the numbers to pieces. Morse is delightful and never had any trouble adapting to film. Ditto a young, pretty Lee who sings "I Believe in You" like a dream. Vallee is well cast as the head of the company who has a girlfriend on the side. Anthony Teague is very good as the boss' nephew, but Charles Nelson Reilly played this role on stage, and I can only imagine how hilarious he was in the role.Good movie, and director David Swift keeps the pace moving.

funkyfry I hadn't really heard much about this one and it was recommended to me by other IMDb posters. I think it's a very good movie, I enjoyed it a lot. Robert Morse (who I recognized from the cast album for the musical "Sugar") is hilarious and unpredictable as Finch (F-I-N-C-H), a former window cleaner who decides to use the tricks from a self-help manual to get him to the top of the corporate ladder. Frank Loesser and Abe Burrows, of "Guys and Dolls" fame, provide the excellent music for this fully integrated show that spoofs inter-office politics and sex.Michele Lee is very perky and vivacious in sort of a generic 60s kind of way that reminded me of Mary Tyler Moore, but she does a good job with her character, playing up the motherly elements as an ironic contrast to her real position. Rudy Vallee has a good role too, as the President of the company beset by his wife's interventions on behalf of the idiot nephew Bud Frump (Anthony Teague) and trying desperately to please his showgirl type paramour, Hedy (Maureen Arthur). Carol Worthington also puts in a notable performance as the head of all secretaries who takes her job very seriously.Morse's performance carries the film, a sort of variation on the kind of comedy that Jerry Lewis used to be so good at, or maybe Danny Kaye and guys like that. At least that's the closest thing I can think of to compare it to, because I really haven't seen anybody give a performance quite like this one. He's all up in everyone's faces and very "touchy" in the literal sense that he touches everybody, all over. Somewhat spastic, and yet inclined to the passive shrug of the shoulders and sly smile.My opinion is pretty much always that Abe Burrows was a better lyricist than Frank Loesser was a musician, and my feelings about this play in particular aren't any different based on the movie version. Burrows had the kind of wit that could be unobtrusive, not cutesy, the kind of thing you could compare to the greats of the previous generation like Lorenz Hart and Ira Gershwin. Loesser's music is good enough, but not particularly special in and of itself here.A very well made movie, I don't know how close it is to the show because I don't know very much about the show. But at the very least this film made me want to know more. And I wonder why Robert Morse isn't in more movies? I've been informed he's doing television these days at least.

Robert J. Maxwell If the movie seems "dated" today (and it does), it's not just because the men wear tightly tailored narrow-collared gray suits, stovepipe trousers, and short haircuts. It's not the apricot carpets either. It seems dated because now the cynicism that informs it is taken for granted. It's presented as amusing and shocking but a modern audience is likely to shrug and say, "So what?" When I was in college, Macchiavelli, author of "The Prince," an essay on how to manipulate people in order to bend them to your will, was considered a bible of rotten conniving. I recently saw a paperback copy of "The Prince" with a cover illustration. The giant palm of your hand, with "the world" in it. (Read this book and you have the world in the palm of your hands -- get it?) Macchiavelli, the lying, greedy, underhanded suppurating scum, The Prince of Darkness, has become a modern hero.The movie's no longer as shocking as it was in the mid-1960s, but it's still very funny. J. Pierpont Finch (Robert Morse) is a window washer who happens upon a book, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." By simply following instructions he manages to worm his way into a huge company that manufactures and distributes wickets. He starts in the mail room and rises in a few days to Chairman of the Board through deception and skulduggery. In the last scene he is introduced to the President of the United States.What's a wicket, you ask. Nobody knows. The play doesn't show us any, or describe any, or tell us what they look like or what they do. The business is content-free. I am referring here to the "business" because that's the metaphor used in the story. You can substitute any other bureaucracy that fits the model if you like -- a hospital, a government. The point of the story is the same as that of Macchiavelli's book -- not wickets but power.I don't really want to get into the movie in detail because it would involve giving away too many amusing sight gags and bits of dialog. Much of the success is owed to the smoothly practiced cast. It looks like a filmed play in which the actors know their roles inside and out. Robert Morse is quite good. He's clever but he looks cute in a boyish way, with those gapped incisors. He uses his cuteness as a tool but convinces us that this is part of the character, not the actor. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't personally think he's cute or handsome. I don't know why the secretary, Michelle Lee, falls for him. Why, hell, on a bad day I'm ten times as handsome and cute as Robert Morse. Come to think of it, I'm not sure he's so "cute" after all. Furthermore, when he sings he sounds like Marlene Dietrich did in "Destry Rides Again" when she jiggles her speech organs between thumb and forefinger.The songs are usually sprightly, sometimes sweet, and the lyrics have to be heard to be fully appreciated. One falls a little flat -- The Brotherhood of Man. It works if taken to be meant as the baloney that it so obviously is. None of the tunes is really powerful, though "I Believe In You" is, marginally, a standard today. I'd have enjoyed seeing more vigor in the songs and dances. Bob Fosse would have done wonders with the numbers but then it would have turned the film upside down. The songs are only ancillary. The real story depends on plot and character and doesn't need too much music because it would be a distraction.There are some laugh-out-loud moments in it, and it's well worth seeing.