Happy Labor Day! - How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying

United Artists, 1967
Starring Robert Morse, Michelle Lee, Rudy Vallee, and Maureen Arthur
Directed by David Swift
Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser

First of all, Musical Dreams Reviews will be going on hiatus from September 13th to 20th for vacation. As I did with my vacation in May, I'll be doing three extra reviews during the remaining weeks of the month to make up for it, starting today.

We honor Labor Day with a musical about working and moving up the corporate ladder. How to Succeed was seen as a breath of fresh air on Broadway when it debuted in 1961, an office satire that was considered to be so on the mark at the time, it won a Pulitzer. Does the movie resonate equally well nowadays, or is it like a stale office party? Let's take the subway to the World Wide Wicket Company and find out...

The Story: J. Pierrpont Finch (Morse) is a window-washer right now, but he's just bought a book that will help him rise to the top of the business world. He starts out in the mail room, where it turns out that the supervisor (Sammy Smith) is retiring. He ultimately passes that job to whiny Bud Frump (Anthony Teague), who isn't happy that he's now stuck handling mail.

Finch keeps moving up the ladder, inspired by the pretty and sensible secretary Rosemary (Lee). He's helped in this by another secretary, curvaceous sexpot Hedy LaRue (Arthur), who can distract almost any executive. He's managed to charm almost every women at the company, but the men, especially president J.B Biggley (Vallee), are more suspicious about his motives. When he ends up as head of Advertising, he gets into trouble, thanks to Hedy, and needs all his cunning and creative finagling to not only keep his job, but come out on top.

The Song and Dance: The office spoof and modern setting (complete with exterior filming in New York) makes this unique among the big-budget fantasy and historical musicals that were being filmed in the mid-60's. It's more like a two-hour sitcom from this era than a typical musical from this era, and it's just as refreshing on the big screen as it was on Broadway. It even features a lot of actors better-known for their TV work and a director who mainly worked on television, David Swift. Lee, in her film debut, is adorable as loyal Rosemary, Arthur is hilarious as the typist with more curves than brains, and Teague isn't bad as the scheming Frump.

Favorite Number: The "Secretary Is Not a Toy" number takes advantage of the widescreen process with inventive abstract choreography that ably shows how the secretaries doge their bosses' advances. Lee gets to perform a lovely "I Believe In You" as a straight ballad to encourage Ponty early-on. He co-opts it later for his love song to himself in the men's bathroom, as the other executives plot to stop his meteoric rise. Kay Reynolds, as Rosemary's best friend Smitty, gets to reveal what her pal and Ponty are thinking in my favorite song from this show, "Been a Long Day."

Trivia: How to Succeed was a huge hit that won 7 Tonys (including Best Musical) and the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. Two revivals, in 1995 with Matthew Broderick as Finch and in 2011 with Daniel Ratcliffe, also did fairly well. There was also apparently a TV version in 1975.

What I Don't Like: Morse and Vallee, despite having appeared in the original Broadway production, are a little over-the-top compared to the TV people working around them. They feel more goofy than real. Though Finch's ambition was toned down from the original show, he can still come off as a little jerk who cares more about his own ambitions than anything else, including his supposedly beloved Rosemary.

While some of the jokes - no one having an original idea, all the brown-nosing - still resonate today, other parts of this show haven't dated as well. This is especially apparent with the secretaries. Even by 1967, Rosemary's "Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm" and Smitty and the other girls' gold-digging "Cinderella Darling," were already sounding out of place. The way almost every man in this film behaves around the secretaries, including Hedy, would be grounds for sexual harassment suits today. There's also all the ladies' low-slung dresses and crazy hair and makeup, not to mention everyone smoking like a chimney.

There are some songs cut from the show I wish they'd retained. "Coffee Break," while extraneous, might have been fun on the big screen, and the secretaries do get the funny "Paris Original" at the party. Biggley loses his other major song, the spoof ballad "Love From a Heart of Gold."

The Big Finale: If you love the sitcoms or comedies of the 60's or are tempted to try a musical spoof, you'll want to play it "The Company Way" with the employees of the World Wide Wicket Company, too.

Home Media: Go with DVD or streaming. The limited edition Blu-Ray from Twilight Time is pricey.

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