Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Dir. Frank Tashlin (1957). This dishy ad-biz satire is surprisingly timely. Soaked in sex and an almost un-American disdain for PR and its lies – and even the high-life fantasy of big-money NYC. Once Rock Hunter — the nebbish-turned-ersatz-playboy thanks to Jayne Mansfield’s wily Rita Marlowe – gets a load of what it costs, soul-wise, to live on the A-list, he declares “I’m an average guy, and all us average guys are successes. We run the works.” Better still: “Who elects the presidents? Nobody but us.”

Thu., Nov. 29, 7 & 9:30 p.m., 2012