MADISON AVENUE
US, 1961, 94 minutes, Black and white.
Dana Andrews, Jeanne Crain, Eleanor Parker, Eddie Albert, Howard St. John, Henry Daniell, Kathleen Freeman.
Directed by Bruce Humberstone.
Madison Avenue is one of those adaptations of big books about society and business that were so popular at 20th Century Fox in the late '50s and early '60s, from Peyton Place to From The Terrace to The Best of Everything. This is a lower-key version of that genre. Filmed in black and white, directed by veteran Bruce Humberstone, the film has popular 20th Century Fox stars doing their thing: Dana Andrews, Jeanne Crain, Eleanor Parker.
The film focuses on the world of advertising, advertising agencies and their battles with one another to get accounts. The film shows Madison Avenue as an advertising jungle. Dana Andrews is the agent with ideas, Jeanne Crain is the journalist, Eleanor Parker is the prim secretary who is transformed into a workaholic executive.
While the material is larger than life and expected to be taken as such, the film shows in the grand style aspects of what it is to be involved in the rat-race of the business world. This is the stuff of later television series and mini-series.
1. The appeal of this kind of material? Highly blown soap opera materia1? Perennially entertaining?
2. Black and white photography, Cinemascope? The world of advertising and Madison Avenue? Offices and executive suites? and public shows? The musical score?
3. Bars? Firms? Madison Avenue and its reputation? The centre of the advertising and business world?
4. The title of the original novel was The Build-Up?. Differences in focus?
5. The film focusing on Clint Lorimer: his brilliant work, his ambitions, his work as an executive, the dairy concern account, his hopes of going out on his own, the pressures from Jocelyn, the attack on Clint's dealings with Jocelyn, reputation and the deal, his losing out? and the members of the executive? His decision to get revenge? Getting the account? The subsidiary firm? His relationship with Peggy, his failing her often? Her wanting to help him? His contact with Anne Tremayne, her dowdiness, her work in advertising, the small dairy account, Clint's advice to her and transforming her? His friendship with Harvey Ames, the president of the subsidiary? His becoming powerful? The advertising campaigns? Harvey Ames' speeches? The satiric presentation of Clint's success? Peggy’s reaction against him, her expose? The irony of her going to work with Jocelyn? Anne and her love for Clint, her disillusionment with him? The irony of her taking his job? Clint down and out? The discovery of one of his old projects, his trying to put it into practice, his getting back to work with Jocelyn, Peggy giving him another chance? world of Madison Avenue?
6. Peggy Shannon and her work as a journalist, her meeting Clint in the bar, her taking a stand against him, his winning her over? Her response to his new job? His letting her go? Her reaction against him writing the expose? The irony of Jocelyn's interest? Getting a job? Her being persuaded to forgive Clint?
7. Anne Tremayne and her work with the firm, her dowdy style, the impact of Clint, his wanting to help her, his transforming her and the effect on her, her falling in love with him, his ignoring her, her throwing herself into her work, ousting him from his job?
8. Harvey Arries and his breeziness, his work, his being caught up in Clint's impetus, the meetings, the speeches, the success? The reality and the phoniness?
9. Jocelyn and his toughness, ruthlessness with Clint, promotions and sackings? The fights in the advertising world? Industrial espionage with files? Using financial organisations to win accounts and steal them? The irony of his welcoming Peggy? Welcoming back Clint? The sketch of other executives - in their iciness and ruthlessness?
10. Audiences believing this to be the real advertising world? Is it?
