Capital Celluloid 2019 - Day 70: Mon Mar 11

The Hudsucker Proxy (Coen, 1994): Prince Charles Cinema, 6.15pm


This 35mm presentation is part of the 'Class of 94' season at the Prince Charles Cinema. You can find all the details here.

Time Out review:
New Year's Eve, 1958, Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) climbs on to a window-ledge of the Hudsucker Industries skyscraper in snowy Manhattan. We flash back a month: company chairman Waring Hudsucker (Charles Durning) shocks board members by plunging 45 floors to the sidewalk below – at the moment young Norville, a hayseed business graduate from Indiana, first enters the building to take a post in the mail room. Norville didn't, however, expect immediate promotion to company boss, a move plotted by vice-chairman Sidney Mussburger (Paul Newman); with an idiot pawn in charge, stock will plummet and Sid can take over. Or he could, if only hard-bitten hack Amy Archer (Jennifer Jason Leigh) hadn't smelt a rat and gone undercover as Norville's secretary. Directed by Joel Coen, produced by Ethan Coen, and scripted by both brothers (plus Sam Raimi
), this is a notably well-executed, very funny and very well-acted movie: a quirky, sardonic take on '50s faddishness, fame, power, friendship, character and ethics. A minor work, but confirmation of the Coens' position among America's most ambitious, able and exciting film-makers.
Geoff Andrew

Here (and above) is an excerpt.

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