Product Details

• Actors: Clark Gable, Deborah Kerr, Sydney Greenstreet, Adolphe Menjou, Ava Gardner
• Directors: Jack Conway
• Writers: Edward Chodorov, Frederic Wakeman, George Wells, Luther Davis
• Producers: Arthur Hornblow Jr.
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Warner)
• VHS Release Date: September 1, 1998
• Run Time: 115 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301968972
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,748 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

As Victor Norman, Clark Gable plays a returning World War II vet looking for a job with an advertising agency. He succeeds, landing a good position with a nice salary, but soon finds out that ethics and integrity are in short supply in the rarefied world of corporate advertising. With a big soap account on the brink of leaving the ad agency, things get a bit desperate as the agency struggles to hang onto the company's business. They round up a war widow for an endorsement, and their client is temporarily happy, but soon Gable finds the man to be a harsh and demanding taskmaster. This acerbic comedy may seem a little thin by today's standards, but some of the commentary on the gullibility of the American buying public is still pretty fresh half a century later. Sydney Greenstreet excels as the tyrannical, somewhat disgusting head of the soap firm, and Deborah Kerr makes her American screen debut as Gable's war-widow love interest. --Jerry Renshaw

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing drama, July 31, 2002

By 

Susan Fong (Las Vegas, NV USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hucksters [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"The Hucksters" is a refreshingly adult drama with themes that resonate even today. Clark Gable plays an advertising agent (a "huckster") who is basically a decent man, but who finds himself increasingly compromising his principles in order to satisfy a despotic soap magnate played by Sydney Greenstreet, who obviously relishes in playing such a despicable, larger than life character.

As part of a promotion for his client's product, Gable convinces a lovely society war widow (sensitively played by Deborah Kerr) to endorse Greenstreet's beauty soap. Gable is immediately attracted to Kerr and vice versa.

But Gable and Kerr's characters are polar opposites. He is a driven sometimes ruthlessly ambitious businessman. She is a very proper, rather sheltered, but highly moral mother of two small children and a widow of a war hero.

In 1947, the year of this film's release, there was still a strong sense of morality in movies (something absent in most of today's films). The idea of having sex outside of marriage was not considered lightly. And in "The Hucksters", this issue is tastefully dealt with minus the vulgarity and gratuitous sexuality that permeate most of today's films. (Call me old fashioned, but I think we could do without so many explicit sex scenes in movies today.)

There are other contemporary topics in this film such as the power of big business to control the media and the dilemma of "getting ahead" in your profession by any means, ethical or not.

Even though this movie is over 50 years old, it holds up extremely well. It makes for an absorbing two hours of entertainment.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "And Mr. Evans, Your Ad is Not Clean.", December 20, 2001

By 

Linda McDonnell "TutorGal" (Brooklyn, U.S.A) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hucksters [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The summation of ad man Clark Gable's reading of the riot act to soap magnate Sydney Greenstreet is just great in this a-one movie about the post-war radio advertising world. Gable has just hung up his uniform--literally--when the show begins, and is ready to resume his radio ad man career. Along the way, he has to tangle with Greenstreet, a really dopey Keenan Wynn, and decide which of two lovely ladies he wants to pursue. Quite a dilemma: the upper-crust war widow Deborah Kerr who seems like she'd be made of ice but is surprisingly warm to the touch, or sultry torch singer Ava Gardner, who might seem like a live wire but secretly yearns for an apron and a man in slippers. For those who are as confused as Gable as regards the woman issue, have no fear--just check out "Mogambo" where once again Gable has to choose between a lady (this time, Grace Kelly) and a, well, not so much of a lady (Gardner again). See both movies together, and you can play out both scenarios.

Really wonderful supporting work by Greenstreet as the overbearing soap dictator, used to making everyone alternately jump and grovel, and by Adolphe Menjou as the beleagured head of the ad agency, who has lost so many of his scruples that he embarrasses his wife in a terribly effective drunk scene in a nightclub double date with Gable/Kerr. Smaller role for veteran Edward Arnold, but just as solid as usual, playing a man who trusts Gable a little more than he ought.

If you're in the mood for great post-war King Gable and a bevy of top-rate supporting players, make a bee line for "The Hucksters"--and that's no soft soap.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling Movie of Chesslike Stratagems, July 21, 2004

By 

Daniel G. Snethen (Colome, SD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hucksters [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The Hucksters does an excellent job of portraying the cut throat business that advertising is. Clark Gable, playing the suave but ethical advertising man, is the protagonist and he is pitted against the larger than life business tycoon Sydney Greenstreet. Both are pitted against one another in this real life chess match, each making strategic moves of cunning, self-pride and power--Gable, in an attempt at making the advertising business a respectable one and Greenstreet by instilling fear into the bumbling idiots who surround him. Greenstreet operates as though his customers are mindless sheep easily persuaded by fancy packaging and jingles of no substance whereas Gable is convinced that the customer is intelligent and is looking for more than bells and whistles when purchasing a product.

Most interesting however is the internal struggle Gable, Kerr, and Gardner are each battling. Gable, basically a good man, is somewhat of a player and finds himself in love with Kerr. Kerr, a widow with children, is a righteous woman deeply attracted to Gable but cannot reconcile with his lifestyle. Gardner, a sultry singer of a sordid background, longs to settle down as a respectable housewife and mother and his her net set for Gable. All three do a magnificent job of portraying the internal struggles of their characters.

In the end Gable buckles but does not break before the formidable Greenstreet. Realizing that he cannot continue on working for this tyrant without compromising his standards, Gable passes on the company?s lucrative offer and walks, but not before he has publicly humiliated Greenstreet.

Of course, Gable does get the girl in the end. Which one? Watch the movie and find out!