# Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
**Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?** is a 1957 American satirical romantic comedy directed and produced by Frank Tashlin for Twentieth Century-Fox, starring [Tony Randall](https://www.edgepedia.org/tony-randall) as a [Madison Avenue](https://www.edgepedia.org/madison-avenue) advertising writer and [Jayne Mansfield](https://www.edgepedia.org/jayne-mansfield) as the Hollywood star Rita Marlowe. It was adapted by Tashlin from George Axelrod's 1955 Broadway play of the same title, discarding most of the play's plot while keeping its advertising setting and Mansfield, who had played Rita Marlowe on stage.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52446-WILL-SUCCESS-SPOIL-ROCK-HUNTER?cxt=filmography) • [2](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/08/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | August 1957, Twentieth Century-Fox; CinemaScope, De Luxe color, Westrex sound; listed at 90 or 94 minutes[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52446-WILL-SUCCESS-SPOIL-ROCK-HUNTER?cxt=filmography) |
| Director/producer/writer | Frank Tashlin, credited as producer, director, and writer of screen story and screenplay[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52446-WILL-SUCCESS-SPOIL-ROCK-HUNTER?cxt=filmography) |
| Source | Play by George Axelrod, produced on Broadway by Jule Styne, opened 13 October 1955[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52446-WILL-SUCCESS-SPOIL-ROCK-HUNTER?cxt=filmography) |
| Lead cast | Tony Randall (Rockwell P. "Rock" Hunter), Jayne Mansfield (Rita Marlowe), Betsy Drake (Jenny Wells), Joan Blondell (Violet)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52446-WILL-SUCCESS-SPOIL-ROCK-HUNTER?cxt=filmography) |
| Broadway run | 444 performances, 13 October 1955 to 10 November 1956, at the Belasco and then the Shubert Theatre[3](https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter-2539) |
| Screen rights | Fox paid $150,000, with a provision that Mansfield reprise her Broadway role[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52446-WILL-SUCCESS-SPOIL-ROCK-HUNTER?cxt=filmography) |
| Critical standing | 88% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 25 reviews; a box-office failure on release[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/will_success_spoil_rock_hunter) • [2](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/08/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Rockwell P. Hunter is a middling television commercial writer at the La Salle agency who awaits a raise so he can marry his secretary, Jenny Wells. His plans collapse when the agency loses the Stay-Put lipstick account and Rock is "slated for the chute." To save the account and his job, he pursues an endorsement from the movie star Rita Marlowe. Rita agrees, but on a condition: to make her actor lover Bobo Branigansky ([Mickey Hargitay](https://www.edgepedia.org/mickey-hargitay)) jealous, Rock must pretend to be her new lover. The resulting publicity lifts Rock to the presidency of Rita Marlowe Productions, and his success brings the personal troubles that give the film its title; in one synopsis he ends by retiring to a quiet life as a chicken farmer.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52446-WILL-SUCCESS-SPOIL-ROCK-HUNTER?cxt=filmography) • [4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/will_success_spoil_rock_hunter) • [5](https://play.google.com/store/movies/details/Will_Success_Spoil_Rock_Hunter?hl=en_US&id=SqjQn4ntLhw)
## From stage to screen
The play, a comedy in three acts and four scenes, opened at the Belasco Theatre on 13 October 1955 and moved to the Shubert Theatre in July 1956, closing on 10 November 1956 after 444 performances. It was written and directed by George Axelrod and produced by [Jule Styne](https://www.edgepedia.org/jule-styne), with Jayne Mansfield as Rita Marlowe and [Walter Matthau](https://www.edgepedia.org/walter-matthau) as Michael Freeman; [Mansfield](https://www.edgepedia.org/mansfield) won a 1956 Theatre World Award for the role.[3](https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter-2539) • [6](https://playbill.com/production/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter-belasco-theatre-vault-0000010826)
The film differs significantly from the play. Tashlin said in a later interview that Fox bought the rights mainly to secure Mansfield's services, and a January 1956 Hollywood Reporter item supports this, noting the $150,000 price and the contractual provision for Mansfield to reprise Rita Marlowe. Tashlin stated that he disliked the play. The character of Rock Hunter did not exist in the play itself; he was a figure in a story within the play.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52446-WILL-SUCCESS-SPOIL-ROCK-HUNTER?cxt=filmography)
Production ran from 19 March to late April 1957, with additional scenes in mid-June 1957. The working title was *Oh! For a Man!* According to a June 1957 Hollywood Reporter news item, Tashlin decided to add the closing gag featuring [Groucho Marx](https://www.edgepedia.org/groucho-marx), who appears as Georgie Schmidlap, one month after the completion of filming.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52446-WILL-SUCCESS-SPOIL-ROCK-HUNTER?cxt=filmography)
## Style and self-reference
The film is built around direct address and mock television. Tony Randall presents the opening credits in person, claiming his contract lets him play every instrument in the Twentieth Century-Fox fanfare, then introduces the cast with comic commercial pitches; when he forgets the film's title, Mansfield, Drake, and [Joan Blondell](https://www.edgepedia.org/joan-blondell) appear to supply it. As "Rock Hunter," Randall narrates the plot in voice-over, interrupts the film roughly halfway through with an intermission for "TV fans accustomed to constant interruptions," and returns at the end to enumerate the characters' fates, closing with the words "The Very Living End."[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52446-WILL-SUCCESS-SPOIL-ROCK-HUNTER?cxt=filmography)
Critics have read these devices as satire rather than decoration. The critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, a film critic formerly of the Chicago Reader, called it Tashlin's most avant-garde and probably his most political film, a caricature of 1950s America in which television and advertising obliterate the divisions between public and private life.[2](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/08/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter/) Michael Atkinson, writing for [Turner Classic Movies](https://www.edgepedia.org/turner-classic-movies), described Tashlin's cartoon-derived style, noting his fifteen years as a gag animator on [Porky Pig](https://www.edgepedia.org/porky-pig) cartoons, and argued that the film's ire is aimed at television, mocking its direct address and shrinking the screen during the intermission gag. He judged that few American films of the 1950s said such lacerating things about the era's nexus of Hollywood, publicity, advertising, gossip, and television.[7](https://www.tcm.com/articles/385146/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter) A Time Out review by Keith Uhlich singled out Mansfield's performance as Rita, a self-aware parody whose ditziness keeps the viewer guessing whether she is in on the joke.[8](https://www.timeout.com/movies/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter-movie-review)
## Reception and legacy
The film flopped at the box office, and Rosenbaum reports that the failure was disastrous for Tashlin's career, echoing [George S. Kaufman](https://www.edgepedia.org/george-s-kaufman)'s maxim that "satire is what closes on Saturday night."[2](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/08/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter/) Its reputation later recovered. Philip French in The Guardian called it a verbally and visually clever satire on television and the New York advertising world that "sends up and encapsulates the complacency of the conformist Eisenhower years," and noted that Tashlin was extravagantly admired by the Cahiers du cinéma critics, especially Truffaut, Godard, and Rohmer.[9](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jan/02/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter-classic-dvd) On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an 88% Tomatometer from 25 reviews and a 74% audience score.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/will_success_spoil_rock_hunter) The film was later edited into the 2003 comedy *[Down with Love](https://www.edgepedia.org/down-with-love)*, and it remains available on digital rental and purchase platforms.[10](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051196/)
## References
1. [Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52446-WILL-SUCCESS-SPOIL-ROCK-HUNTER?cxt=filmography)
2. [Jonathan Rosenbaum, "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" (Chicago Reader, 2006; posted 2023)](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/08/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter/)
3. [Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, IBDB, Broadway production](https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter-2539)
4. [Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/will_success_spoil_rock_hunter)
5. [Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Google Play listing](https://play.google.com/store/movies/details/Will_Success_Spoil_Rock_Hunter?hl=en_US&id=SqjQn4ntLhw)
6. [Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Playbill vault, Belasco Theatre 1955](https://playbill.com/production/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter-belasco-theatre-vault-0000010826)
7. [Michael Atkinson, "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?", TCM article (2011)](https://www.tcm.com/articles/385146/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter)
8. [Keith Uhlich, Time Out review (2013)](https://www.timeout.com/movies/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter-movie-review)
9. [Philip French, The Guardian classic DVD review (2011)](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jan/02/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter-classic-dvd)
10. [Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051196/)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1950s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license