CORPORATE ROCK

Before Don Draper there was Rock Hunter. Granted, Tony Randall’s adman is more 
lovably nebbishy than suave and debonair, but that makes no difference. As the title character in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), he still catches the eye—and lips—of simpering, squealing Jayne Mansfield. Not to mention the whole mistaken identity and illicit workplace affair thing he and Big D have got in common. But while still critical, Frank Tashlin’s newly restored Technicolor portrayal of TV ad writers is above all a comedy—Groucho Marx even makes a cameo. Rock collides with a hard place when he gets wrapped up in a Hollywood starlet’s publicity scheme, but he’s far from the stony type. True love—in one of the more heartwarming renderings of the banging-the-secretary trope—might just be worth more than the coveted key to the executive bathroom.

Fri., April 12, 1, 2:50, 4:40, 6:30 & 8:20 p.m., 2013