James Garner, The Wheeler Dealers
James Garner brought the breezy good-old-boy persona that had made him a star on TV's Maverick to the big-screen with this 1963 comedy set in the wilds of Wall Street. He stars as a Texas millionaire (or is he?) out to double his fortune (if any) who gets bilked into buying bogus stocks (or are they?) by a pretty financial analyst (Lee Remick, whose beauty and charm are among the few things you can be sure of).
Garner had become a star when he managed to shift the Warner Bros. series Maverick from standard western to offbeat satire shortly after its 1957 debut. But when the studio took him off salary during a writers' strike - and refused to let him work anywhere else - he quit, leading to a lawsuit that successfully ended his contract. It also kept him pretty much out of work for two years. He returned to movies in 1962 with a straight dramatic role in The Children's Hour (1961), a film that performed poorly at the box-office despite the high-powered teaming of Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine. Then he had a comic success working with producer Martin Ransohoff and writer Ira Wallach on Boy's Night Out (1962). When Ransohoff picked up the rights to George J.W. Goodman's novel about Wall Street cowboys, it seemed the perfect way to bring the good-hearted con artist routine Garner had developed on television to the big screen. Released in the same year as three other hits - the World War II action adventure The Great Escape and the Doris Day comedies The Thrill of It All and Move Over, Darling - The Wheeler Dealers helped establish Garner as a major screen presence, kicking off a very successful decade on the big screen
The Wheeler Dealers marked a successful change of pace for leading lady Remick. Primarily a dramatic actress, she had just scored an Oscar® nomination as Jack Lemmon's alcoholic wife in Days of Wine and Roses (1962). That had followed a series of powerful dramas in which she played everything from the small-town vixen in Anatomy of a Murder (1959) to a simple farm woman in Wild River (1960). With The Wheeler Dealers, she proved that was equally adept at comedy, a genre she rarely got to play on the big screen, though she had appeared in numerous musicals during her days as a Broadway dancer.
Adding to the film's success was a supporting cast of versatile comic actors. Louis Nye and Pat Harrington, Jr. had both established themselves as members of the comic repertory company working on Steve Allen's TV show, while John Astin would soon play his most famous role, Gomez Addams, in Ransohoff's TV adaptation of The Addams Family. Also on hand were Patricia Crowley, star of the sitcom version of Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1965-67) and currently a regular on the ABC daytime drama Port Charles, and Jim Backus, just before embarking on a three-hour tour as Thurston Howell III on Gilligan's Island.
Producer: Martin Ransohoff
Director: Arthur Hiller
Screenplay: George J.W. Goodman, Ira Wallach, based on Goodman's novel
Cinematography: Charles Lang
Art Direction: George W. Davis, Addison Hehr
Music: Frank De Vol
Cast: James Garner (Henry Tyroon), Lee Remick (Molly Thatcher), Phil Harris (Ray Jay), Chill Wills (Jay Ray), Louis Nye (Stanislas), John Astin (Hector Vanson), Jim Backus (Bullard Bear), Patricia Crowley (Eloise), Pat Harrington, Jr. (Buddy Zack), Howard McNear (Mr. Wilson).
C-106m. Letterboxed.
by Frank Miller
