The Wheeler Dealers

Plot

Molly Thatcher (Lee Remick) is a stockbroker languishing in a company run by male chauvenist Bullard Bear (Jim Backus). When the company does poorly, he will have to fire somebody; Molly is the obvious choice. To avoid charges of sex discrimination, he assigns her the seemingly impossible task of unloading shares of an obscure company called Universal Widgets; when she fails, he will have an excuse to dismiss her.

Molly meets Henry Tyroon (James Garner), an aggressive wheeler dealer who dresses, talks, and acts like a stereotypical Texas millionaire. He's more interested in her than in Universal Widgets, but decides to be of help in order to get closer to her. As they spend time together, Molly watches Henry make complicated business deals, often in partnership with his Texan cronies, Jay Ray (Chill Wills), Ray Jay (Phil Harris), and J.R. (Charles Watts). One such deal is a venture into dealing modern art, with the aid of Stanislas (Louis Nye), a cynical avant-garde painter.

Molly and Henry have trouble figuring out Universal Widgets' reason for existence; its only factory burned down around the time of the Civil War. It manufactures nothing and provides no service. (Widgets, apparently, had something to do with horse-drawn carriages.) It's just a corporation on paper whose sole asset is a huge block of shares in AT&T, bought long, long ago when the stock was ridiculously cheap. Now it pays hefty, regular dividends to its complacent shareholders.

When Henry makes an attempt to take control of the undervalued company by questionable methods, over-enthusiastic government regulator Hector Vanson (John Astin) takes him to court. Further complications arise when Jay Ray, Ray Jay, and J.R. get Molly fired so she can spend more time with Henry; she thinks Henry is responsible. The case is dismissed when it is determined that all the shares are in the hands of a few people, not the general public; the Texans are bought out at a sizable premium. Once the Texas trio confess that they had Molly fired, she and Henry make up. She discovers that he is really an Easterner and an Ivy League university graduate; the fake Texan act just helps him with his deal-making.

Reception

The New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther was unimpressed, writing "somehow the script of George J. W. Goodman and Ira Wallach doesn't jell and isn't droll, and Arthur Hiller's direction is too slow for romantic comedy. What might be brightly satiric simply isn't because it lacks wit. Too much double entry and too little double entendre." He did, however, like Garner ("spry and briskly charming") and Remick ("cute").

Glenn Erickson characterized it as an "entertaining trifle that, if I read it right, outsmarts itself. Nobody on either side of the camera seems to know that the joke is really on them, and us, and our way of life." He thought both stars gave "outstanding performances" and rated the film "Good +".

DVD

The Wheeler Dealers was released by Warner Home Video on June 27, 2011 to DVD via its Warner Archive DVD-on-demand service as a Region 1 widescreen DVD. The film was released in Blu-ray format on April 25, 2017.