46 Comments
User's avatar
Copyranter's avatar

"You know...for kids!"

I LOVED this movie, Buzz the elevator operator's "Waring Hudsucker" jokes, the expert mailroom worker (THEY DOCK YA), so many precious moments, you have to watch it more than once.

Jim True-Frost (Buzz) went on to play Pryzbylewski on The Wire.

Expand full comment
WJ Hayes's avatar

I have to suspect the only reason they were allowed to make this film is that because, as you noted, the Coens make non-formulaic, unique & offbeat movies that the suits essentially said, "We don't get it, but their other films have been boffo, so why not". (Though it is notable this film is the only movie they ever made for Warner Bros.)

I also think if this movie had been made 5-10 years earlier, there may have been enough folks who remembered the Sturges and Capra films still going to the theatre that it may have been successful. In the time before cable networks really took off, local UHF channels usually aired old movies every night. (Basically TCM before TCM became a thing). So you probably could have had a quasi-grassroots effort to get people familiar with the concept underpinning the film.

Expand full comment
Chris U.'s avatar

I also wonder if it would be successful if it had been made ~10y later. By then, TV comedies had started to ditch the laugh track in the rapid-fire joke shows like Arrested Development and 30 Rock.

I saw Hudsucker Proxy when I was young and my sense of humor was developing so I never considered that it might have been ahead of its time

Expand full comment
Tori Swain's avatar

Hudsucker Proxy is one of those movies one should watch, simply for the amount of class and zing.

I think it's one of those "writers love this" movies like Clueless.

Also, you're aware that Sam Raimi got writing credit, too? Apparently that was for throwing firecrackers at the Coen Brothers, as much as anything else.

Expand full comment
Grisha G's avatar

Another fan of that movie here. Wonderfully quirky, and I thought it had plenty of "heart".

Expand full comment
Zachary B's avatar

It has an enormous degree of heart. When Tim Robbins is describing meeting JJL as a pair of Ibex it makes me start to mist up immediately. Right up until the punch line when I am laughing and crying at the same time. The score for the film is excellent as well giving you exactly the right audio cue to prime exactly the right emotion to unlock.

Expand full comment
Gnoment's avatar

Its been a minute since I've seen it, but the reasons I loved this movie, along with everything you've said:

- its not just funny, its absurd, which pokes fun at the corporate world and people that think highly of themselves.

- because the characters are naive to how silly they are, while we are in on the joke, it has a meta quality; this was before meta narratives became the big thing

- the theater stage like vibe to it feels like it would later inspire Wes Anderson, but I like how toned down it is here.

- I like weird things

Great, great movie.

Expand full comment
Greg's avatar

Oh man. It’s for me. One of my favorite all time favorite films. Still say “you know, for kids,” on a too regular basis.

Expand full comment
Jay Moore's avatar

The movie is obviously for those who fantasize about sucking a hud, but since that’s illegal, they can watch someone else do it on the screen.

Expand full comment
Thorby Baslim's avatar

Nitpicking: I'd say that Howard Hawks, rather more than Capra or Sturges, is the main inspiration here. Sturges was quirkier, and Capra more sentimental. JJL is definitely channeling Rosalind Russell from His Girl Friday.

I agree with the folks who wanted to love this (I also came to it loving a lot of the classic screwball comedies) but felt that it didn't land, for me anyway.

Expand full comment
CharlieDubs's avatar

There’s a bit of Billy Wilder in there too: the whole one-big-company-in-one-big-building set-up and the key character of elevator operator both feel borrowed from “The Apartment”

Expand full comment
Thorby Baslim's avatar

Good call.

Expand full comment
Rodney Rockwell's avatar

Also, one of the best punchlines of the entire movie was fucking RUINED by the advertising

Imagine the hula hoop reveal if it weren’t for the box art and the posters -

the “y’know, for kids!” With the circle having happened four times to set up that first bit with the kid was BRILLIANT and then they just give away the punchline in the advertising

Expand full comment
Cernunnos's avatar

In its complete commitment to period-appropriate rapid-fire banter, it is like the comedy mirror universe twin of the darkly brilliant, serious-as-a-heart-attack Miller's Crossing.

Expand full comment
Carina's avatar

I love the Hudsucker Proxy! I don't get the hate at all. It's a funny comedy with loads of great lines. But a long time ago, I showed it to my friend and her reaction was "WTF is this."

Expand full comment
Asher's avatar

We watch this excellent film at least every other year - it does not get old. Right up there with one-off gems like "Moonstruck" and "Lake Placid". Then again, I think that "The Quiet Man" is the best John Wayne film, so what do I know...

Expand full comment
Joey Tosi's avatar

Has always been one of my fabs. I find it to be fun and very inspiring. The hula hoop sequence is film bliss.

Expand full comment
Chris Bateman's avatar

Definitely not just for you, Jeff - I love The Hudsucker Proxy, it is one of my favourite Coen brothers movies, I like it far more than The Big Lebowski, which I hated the first time I saw it but now enjoy but don't adore as I absolutely do adore Hudsucker. I don't think it's so much full of jokes, though, as it is full of chucklesome patter - but you're spot on about the influences (and I love the influences; His Girl Friday feels very present here!)

Frankly, I have not shut up about mezzanines since seeing it.

Stay wonderful,

Chris.

Expand full comment
The Flood Poems's avatar

This article vastly underestimates the lengths that Bruce Campbell fans will go. HAIL TO THE KING BABY!

Expand full comment
Jeffrey Blehar's avatar

I really do appreciate this genuine, heartfelt tribute to a movie that just doesn't work.

I WANTED to love this movie so much going in. I remembered it from newspaper ads in the Style section of the Washington Post as a kid growing up! I grew to LOVE screwball '40s comedies as a teemager! Jennifer Jason Leigh is hot! Tim Robbins plays a rube well! It's the *Coen Brothers*, ffs! (Even then I was hip to them.)

But it doesn't work. Is it the acting and line-reads? The directing (editing being key here)? I dunno. The jokes mostly *CLANK*, because the dialogue sounds like it's being delivered by people who don't normally speak like that. (People did back then. Trust me - one of them was my grandma.)

I don't hate THE HUDSUCKER PROXY - in fact, I understand exactly what it wanted to be, and I shared those aspirations - but the Coens just shot wide of the mark here. Great idea - bad execution.

Expand full comment
Jeffrey Blehar's avatar

All of that said, I still use the line "You know - for kids!" maybe once a month in any context I can possibly wedge it into.

Expand full comment