THE CURBSIDE CRITERION: HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING
(We here at Hammer to Nail are all about true independent cinema. But we also have to tip our hat to the great films of yesteryear that continue to inspire filmmakers and cinephiles alike. This week Brad Cook pops in the new Bu ray release of How to Get Ahead in Advertising, the 80s cult comedy classic.)
How to Get Ahead in Advertising is an overlooked gem of 1980s cinema. Released in 1989, this British production re-teams director Bruce Robinson and actor Richard E. Grant from 1987’s Withnail and I.
This time around, Grant plays Denis Bagley, a smarmy ad executive who brags about his ability to sell anything to anyone, but the pressure of his job gets to him when he’s tasked with creating an ad campaign for a new acne cream. He has a breakdown and develops a conscience, but he also develops a boil on his neck that becomes sentient.
The boil takes his previous attitudes to an extreme and slowly takes over his body, causing problems with his relationship with his wife and their friends. Eventually it succeeds, with the transformation marked by a new mustache that no one seems to notice, and Denis’s conscience-stricken personality takes over the boil.
This “Jekyll and Hyde with a twist” approach does a great job of skewering 80s consumerism, something that’s even worse today, thanks to the ways social media warps many people’s sense of what’s important in life.
I suppose if How to Get Ahead in Advertising was made today, Bagley would be an executive at Meta or Google, although I’m not sure that the personality required to get such a job could be pushed any further. Today’s era of tech billionaires would probably make Gordon Gekko blush.
This is the film’s Blu-ray debut in the United States, courtesy of Criterion Collection, which also issued Withnail and I on 4K Ultra HD. The lack of a 4K release for How to Get Ahead in Advertising might bother some people, but my understanding is that the original camera negative may not exist anymore, which would preclude such a restoration.
However, Criteron’s 2K restoration of the 35mm interpositive (a positive print made from a 35mm original camera negative), which was approved by director of photography Peter Hannan, offers solid picture quality and should serve fans of the film well.
Unfortunately, the extras are sparse for this one, consisting only of the theatrical trailer and a new 28-minute interview with Robinson and Grant, filmed separately, that digs into the film’s origins. Of particular interest to me was their association with George Harrison’s Handmade Films, which probably deserves its own documentary, if one doesn’t already exist.
The obligatory printed material features a new essay by critic David Cairns.
– Brad Cook (@BradCWriter)
Citerion Collection; How to Get Ahead in Advertising; Bruce Robinson
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