June 22 movie: The Wheeler Dealers. Funny early 60s movie starring James Garner as a Texas entrepreneur just this side of a con artist, and Lee Remick as an ambitious young stock analyst struggling against sexism on Wall Street.
Enjoying a movie like this depends a lot on your point of view. From today's perspective, The Wheeler Dealers is astoundingly offensive.* But compare it to an earlier movie like Front Page Woman and you can see that huge progress has been made. Men still consider it an affront that a woman would dare to have a job, much less be good at it. But in The Wheeler Dealers that's a bad thing. And the hero helps the heroine win, rather than sabotaging her career.
I wasn't crazy about the ending, but up until the last ten minutes or so it was great. Mr. Howell from Gilligan's Island plays the boss trying to fire Remick for not having a Y chromosome, and John Astin plays a sleazy district attorney.
*here's an example:
Garner: "I'm not used to smart girls."
(voice in my head, imagining Remick's next line): Later, loser. I'm outta here.
Remick: "Really? (bats eyes) You think I'm smart?"
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