How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying

As film historian Julie Kirgo points out in the liner notes for Twilight Time's limited edition Blu-ray of 1967's How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, by the time Shepherd Mead's original book made it from print to stage to screen, the times they were-a-changing. What was once a spot-on skewering of office politics - and the advertising industry in particular - had become dated, sexist and safe. And the musical itself - one of the studio system's most reliable widgets - was about to be pulled off the assembly line. But, in true capitalistic spirit, if you wait long enough just about everything comes back into fashion. And How To Succeed plays now as a much trendier throwback to mod fashions, swinging set design and enjoyably old fashioned assumptions about the opposite sex...no matter which gender you identify with.

A window-washer with aspirations, J. Pierpont Finch (Robert Morse) stumbles upon a "How-To" book that catapults him from the mailroom to the boardroom in no time flat. Cleverly staging each step up the corporate ladder, Finch leapfrogs other candidates by schmoozing, conning and manipulating his clueless superiors with "aw-shucks" sincerity backed up with ruthless tenacity. Advertising assistant Rosemary Pinkerton (Michele Lee) is smitten at first sight, but success comes at a cost...and true love might be forced to foot the bill.

More kitschy than catchy, the musical numbers in director David Swift's cinematic adaptation aren't as memorable as the staging, based on Bob Fosse's original Broadway choreography. Surrounded by cornucopia of red, pinks and purples, How To Succeed looks like a Mad Men dream sequence played for laughs. It's a film full of endless visual pleasures (the secretary's "morning routine" montage is offensively exuberant) and verbal volleys that, while not as timely as they once were, have aged into a comfortable timelessness.

Robert Morse, with his gap-toothed grin and small-town sincerity, is the perfect corporate saboteur, managing to remain lovably sympathetic even when he's shrewdly beating the system. And that's really where the film finds its groove, crafting likable caricatures out of the real-life villains behind big business. How To Succeed has a good time sticking it the man at the top, but never passes the buck when it comes to showing the audience a good time. Maybe you can even write the purchase off as a business, expense?!

Twilight Time's 3000-copy limited edition is wonderfully rich and colorful from the word go. Special features include an isolated music track, interviews with Robert Morse and Michele Lee, original theatrical trailer and the aforementioned liner notes.