President F. Ross Johnson of a major tobacco company decides to purchase the company himself, but a bidding war ensues as representatives from other companies make their own offers.President F. Ross Johnson of a major tobacco company decides to purchase the company himself, but a bidding war ensues as representatives from other companies make their own offers.President F. Ross Johnson of a major tobacco company decides to purchase the company himself, but a bidding war ensues as representatives from other companies make their own offers.
- Won 1 Primetime Emmy
- 8 wins & 16 nominations total
- Jim Robinson
- (as Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaA TV movie for the HBO network.
- GoofsThe film is set in 1988, but a post-1991 Chevrolet Caprice taxi is visible during a street scene.
- Quotes
1st Scientist: [talking about the smokeless Premier cigarette survey] Well of all the people we surveyed the results were just about uniform
F. Ross Johnson: Uh huh.
Edward A. Horrigan Jr.: They all said they tasted like shit.
F. Ross Johnson: Like shit?
2nd Scientist: Shit was the consensus, yes sir.
F. Ross Johnson: They all said that? Nobody liked them?
2nd Scientist: Fewer than 5%
F. Ross Johnson: You said you heard the results were terrific.
Edward A. Horrigan Jr.: There's nothing wrong with 5%, Ross, I'll take 5% of the smoking market any day of the week
F. Ross Johnson: How much are we into right now?
1st Scientist: Right now?
F. Ross Johnson: To date, to here, to now?
1st Scientist: Upwards of 350.
F. Ross Johnson: We've spent 350 million dollars and we come up with a turd with a tip? God almighty, Ed! We poured enough technology in this project to send a cigarette to the moon and we come up with one that tastes like it took a dump?
Edward A. Horrigan Jr.: We haven't even talked about the smell.
F. Ross Johnson: Oh what did they say that was like? A fart?
Edward A. Horrigan Jr.: Yep.
F. Ross Johnson: Oh you're not serious! They really said that?
2nd Scientist: We have an awful lot of fart figures.
F. Ross Johnson: Tastes like shit and smells like a fart! Got ourselves a real winner here, it's one goddamn unique advertising slogan I'll give you that.
- SoundtracksG-String
Written and Performed by Elmer Sheffield
I haven't read the book but the teleplay by Gelbart is very amusing and sometimes hilarious. Be prepared for the profanity which generates some of the best laughs. "There should be a warning on every pack: Danger, these cigarettes will tear your b***s off."
But it isn't just the swearing that makes this movie as funny as it is. The set ups are marvelously done. The initial big celebration held by RJR Nabisco features a character who suffers a cruel cough every time he tries to light his cigarette until Garner comes over and flicks open a lighter to help him.
All the characters' roles are well written but I wish Fred Dalton Thompson had an expression other than his default -- as if he were watching his daughter marry a biker with a face tattoo. James Garner gets the palm, not just for his unforced and vulgar wit but for a breezy disregard for everything except his own wealth, exemplified in his fleet of jet airplanes with their private hangar. Garner keeps denigrating the pursuit of wealth for it's own sake -- "After all, how many sets of golf clubs can you be buried with?" -- but acts all the way through as if that were his one and only priority. In his own defense, he says indignantly, "I don't plan to be homeless -- or planeless either for that matter."
There must have been enormous pressure on Gelbart and the others involved to turn this movie "serious" towards the end, to bring in cancer and emphysema, a sobbing victim, a military-industrial conspiracy to undermine the health of the proletariat, to expose big business for the angry, villainous, mean-spirited, duplicitous cretins that they are but, thank Bog, Gelbart resisted any tendency to make the movie "about something." He keeps the ending as ironic as the rest of the film.
Poor Garner. He loses his job, "The first time I've been out of work since I was fourteen," he moans, and retires with a severance package amounting (after taxes) to only $23m. Close on a shot of a mansion in Palm Beach.
- rmax304823
- Sep 20, 2002
- Permalink
Details
- Runtime1 hour 47 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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