5 Funny Movies All About Advertising

Advertising is something most of us have a kind of love/hate relationship with, often amused by some yet annoyed by most. We clamor for them on Super Bowl day but swipe them hurriedly away without a thought when that free-to-play game on our mobile phone tosses them at us between levels. Still, it’s a fascinating business that many don’t really think all that much about, even if we’re practically bombarded by it from morning to night.

Television occasionally tries to give us an inside look at the people behind these posters, commercials, pop-ups, banners, billboards, and more, with the highly-successful Mad Men (above) centered entirely on characters involved in the creation and selling of ads. That was an almost ridiculously addictive show about people struggling to make the best slogans of all time while building drama out of the consequences of it.

But TV isn’t the only place where we get a peak behind the curtain, with plenty of very cool movies featuring stories about those neck deep in the advertising world. While some take it seriously … we’re looking at you Kramer vs. Kramer … most are comedies, sort of poking fun at the lunacy behind the logos, pitches, and more. Here’s five of our favorites, starting with a trippy flick about two heads …

How To Get Ahead In Advertising

Often, as you’ll soon see, those in advertising on film are typically proven to be or about to go absolutely mad. Such is the case with writer/director Bruce Robinson‘s spectacularly weird How To Get Ahead In Advertising, a 1989 comedy from the UK. Richard E. Grant plays Denis Dimbleby Bagley, a once happy and relatively sane advertising exec, who slowly starts to lose his mind. Working tirelessly on a pimple cream account, he begins to question the very ethics of the career he’s in, spiraling him into a sort of delusional state where he’s convinced a large boil on his shoulder grows a face and personality. You read that right. Completely out in left field, this absurd farce also stars Rachel Ward as Bagley’s frustrated wife, in a story that is as demented as it is clever. Using creepy practical effects of the era, there’s a strange kind of Cronenberg-ian feel to the experience, but without much of the macabre. Funny and twisted, this is one to search for with Grant delivering a truly manic performance.

What Women Want

With the recent remake of this still fresh in our minds, the original remains a superior film, even with its flaws. Mel Gibson plays Nick Marshall, a powerful advertising executive with no lack of attitude and ego. However, when his bosses hire Darcy McGuire (Helen Hunt) to the firm instead of promoting him, he’s not all too happy but, finding her attractive, takes to her ideas of selling more to females with some gusto. This leads to a strange accident in his home involving myriad products for women that leaves him with the ability to actually read their minds, or rather hear their immediate thoughts. It’s an eye-opening experience when he discovers that he’s not as well liked as he believed. Time for some life lessons. Clever and often very funny, thanks to the always spot-on comedic timing of Gibson, this is light but entertaining fun with a cool look inside the advertising world.

Boomerang

We travel now back to 1992, when Eddie Murphy was king at the box office, his high energy and megawatt charms making him a wildly popular movie star. Here, he plays Marcus Graham, a – you guessed it – advertising exec who, like Gibson’s Nick Marshall from before, a ladies man with a huge ego to boot. Courting nine women at once, he reveals his impossibly high standards, waiting for the perfect girl. Enter three more women, including Lady Eloise (Eartha Kitt), an elder business woman about to take over his company, Jacqueline Broyer (Robin Givens), a beautiful young woman who is about to get the job he’s after, and finally Angela Lewis (Halle Berry), another beauty who works in the art department. All the ingredients for a whacky love triangle and more. While it’s predictable and obvious, it’s also tightly scripted and infused with high octane momentum thanks mostly to Murphy’s commitment and the beguiling allure of the women. Plenty of advertising features throughout this simple comedy, well worth a peek as a reflection of the times.

Nothing in Common

Admittedly, most of this movie is fairly dramatic, with the film centered on the relationship between a father named Max Basner (Jackie Gleason) and his thirty-year-old-ish son David (Tom Hanks). As you’ve no doubt guessed, David is an advertising executive in a small firm, recently promoted and one of the creative leaders of the team. All is great until one day, he learns his parents are divorcing and soon he’s wedged between them, discovering that there is a long history of trouble between breaking them up. Meanwhile, Max is not healthy and the men find themselves bonding in the unlikeliest of ways. All this and there’s even a whole story on whether David can land a new airline account, falling for the daughter of the company’s owner. Naturally, with a young Hanks in the cast, there’s no shortage of laughs as he takes to the humor of it all with that patented personality, giving  the heartache just as much punch as the jokes. It’s actually a cool movie with some nice asides about the advertising life. Go check it out.

Crazy People

Okay, the best for last, though some might quibble with order. If you’re even the slightest Dudley Moore fan – and you really ought to be – then this is a keeper. Moore plays Emory Leeson a – say it with me – advertising exec, who has a nervous breakdown from the stress. As a result, he creates an entire series of ads that are completely truthful, something few ads really seem to be. It is the funniest part of the movie. Either way, he’s eventually persuaded to enter a psychiatric hospital and put in group therapy with Dr. Liz Baylor (Mercedes Ruehl). There, he meets all sorts of other off kilter characters, though finds he drawn to the lovely Kathy Burgess (Daryl Hannah), another voluntary patient. When his ads are accidently printed though, a surprising thing happens: they work. Now he’s asked to do it again, but he’s got a few conditions. So yes, while the movie might try to spoof the business only to end up sort of shining a light on it, and the romance could use a jolt, this is nonetheless an often underrated bit of good old fun with Moore charged up and the cast of goofballs pulling their weight.