Caution: The sycophancy and silicone in this paint-by-numbers preview may make you want to hurl. Note to Mr. Piven: those who went before salute you, albeit with a single digit. Yes, the silver screen (or flat panel HDTV) has a long history of amoral, blood-sucking, lying, cheating, scumbag car salesman. As Slate’s Matthew DeBord points out, “Don Ready” isn’t the usual sad sack salesman. A distinction without a difference? Anyway, DeBord has a nice little rundown on nine (I’ve subtracted four) automobile-selling assholes. So which one was your fave? Any additions? And have you ever met a real world car salesman to rival any of these?
Robin Williams as Joey O’Brien in Cadillac Man – MD: “His Brooklyn dealer has wife troubles, mistress troubles, and, once hostage-taking Tim Robbins shows up, guy-with-an-AK-47 troubles.” RF: If only Williams had walked away form the coke bowl.
William H. Macy as Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo – MD “Who can forget a desperate Bill Macy trying to obscure Oldsmobile VIN numbers on a fax to his loan officer while scheming to have his wife kidnapped?” RF: Not me.
Danny DeVito as Harry Wormwood in Matilda – MD: “Harry is straight out of Used-Car Dealer 101: Everything he does is corrupt. If you’re looking for a defining example, albeit one from a British sensibility, this is it.” RF: Harry relaizes his daughter is a prodigy when she adds up the profits her Dad makes by ripping-off customers. Priceless!
Kurt Russell as Rudy Russo in Used Cars – MD: DeBord’s got nothing. RF: Ditto.
Richard Crenna as Phil Brody in The Flamingo Kid – MD: “He’s seduced by car salesman Crenna, who offers a mythical lifestyle that features … flashy imported sports cars!” RF: Not literally, ’cause that would have been WAY more interesting.
I’m sorry, I can’t take any reporter seriously that has a cleavage like that.
Can I dump Honda’s “Mr. Opportunity” into some violent and depraved Japanese anime ? Please ?
Jerry Lundegaard is probably my favorite of those, simply because of the overall genius that is Fargo. He must have been one hell of a salesman to convince those guys to take a Cutlass Ciera off his hands.
Ingvar: You should have been an oyster.
There is a movie called ‘Suckers’ that came out a few years back that had Daniel Benzelli (sp) as the GM of a dealership in California. He was the ultimate bad guy in car sales. This was a great movie about salesmen at a dealership but was kind of an obscure movie. A must see if you have the chance.
The world is my oyster?
“Would you guys mind if I put my sunglasses on?”
“No, I was gonna say, I was gonna wear mine, but I thought, it will be pretentious unless you wear yours.”
I mean, get the fuck outta here….
John Brent as ‘Car Salesman’ in American Graffiti. Swoops in from his giant-sized wooden chair and hassles Terry ‘The Toad’ with quasi sales-speak and a barrage of ‘deals’ he can do for him until Terry literally escapes without having got a word in.
Best: Peter Stormare (VW’s “unpimp ze auto”) and David Leisure as Joe Isuzu.
@rdodger
You are 100% right. For anyone who has seen that movie and worked in the car business, this is a no-brainer.
Here’s a couple more:
Alan Arkin’s sad-sack Olds salesman in “Slums of Beverly Hills.”
Annabella Sciorra as Tony Soprano goomar / punching bag, Mercedes Saleswoman From Hell Gloria Trillo in “The Sopranos.” Best moment: after she gets into stalker mode with Tony’s wife, he sends Patsy Parisi out to threaten her during a mock test drive. “Remember,” says Parisi, “my face will be the last one you’ll see. Not Tony’s. It won’t be cinematic.”
Jon Hamm as former car salesman Don Draper / Dick Whitman turned ad man in “Mad Men,” honing his pitch skills at a used car dealership.
Robert Loggia as Mercedes dealer / dope king Frank Lopez in “Scarface.” Best moment: offering Tony $10 million in cash and his girlfriend in exchange for his life.
Speaking of Robert Loggia and Mercedeses. He wasn’t a car salesman per se in that film, but he surely sold it to me, the importance of having a supercharged 6.9 in David Lynch “Lost Highway”.
For about a month and a half in 1988, when I was between jobs, I took a whirl at selling cars. Longest six weeks of my life.
I’m here to tell you that all the bad crap that you hear about at dealerships really does happen, including:
*A sales manager who threatened to stick his shoe up my ass if I didn’t close a sale. When I found another job and gave my notice, he said the place would smell better without my “Jew ass” around.
*One of my customers came out of the finance office stunned to learn that he had bad credit and was getting an interest rate of 18%. Over beers a few days later, the finance guy told me the guy’s credit was fine – he jacked up his rate to make a higher commission.
*The same sales manager tried to ding my commission after the radio in one of the (very few) cars I sold went bad. After I told him that the factory would replace the unit under warranty, he relented.
*My office-mate was a cokehead who would disappear off the floor momentarily about 20 times a day, only to return as a grinning, genial game show host from hell.
*During a sales meeting, a fistfight broke out.
*One salesman was fired for making a pass at a female customer during a test drive.
*The dealership once sent me and another salesman to repossess a customer’s car – at night, in the worst neighborhood in north St. Louis, murder capital of the U.S.A. The good news: the other salesman was the repo target’s girlfriend, so he knew where she kept her stash of weed, which he consumed in one sitting on the way back to the dealership.
*The same sales manager once sent me back after two hours of negotiation to get $20 from a customer after we’d come to terms. I wrote the guy a check for $20 and told him to sign.
*The dealership I worked at sold Yugos, along with two other brands. I once attempted to sell one. Enough said.
*The dealership was family owned, and the youngest son, who had just graduated from Mizzou with a degree in beer bongs, was allowed to steal sales from everyone. The rest of the time, he sat in his demo, listening to Pink Floyd’s “A Momentary Lapse of Reason.”
I found another job and quit the moment I had the offer in hand.
However, life does offer its little rewards. Years later, I was buying a new car with my then-fiancee, and who did I happen to get as a salesman? Yep, it was the Jew-hating, customer-cheating, shoe-up-ass-obesssed manager who made my life a living hell for a month and a half. He actually remembered my name, and walked up with a huge grin on his mouth. He offered me his hand and I just stared at him, and asked for his sales manager. When the sales manager came out, I told him that the only way I would even consider buying a car from his dealership would be for him to fire my old manager on the spot.
AND FROM THE LOOK IN HIS EYES, HE WAS ACTUALLY CONSIDERING IT.
Don’t forget Don Johnson in ‘The Hot Spot‘, Dan Aykroyd in ‘The Blues Brothers…“It’s got a cop motor, a 440-cubic-inch plant. It’s got cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks. It’s a model made before catalytic converters so it’ll run good on regular gas” …but I might have to vote for Jeff bridges in ‘Tucker, the Man and his Dream‘as he sold a whole bunch of folks on his dreams.
what i find funny is that the automobile sale biz is pure capitalism and when the unprepared buyers walks into a showroom looking for a great deal,they are going to buy when they get their their perception of the best deal they can make.
There is a saying in the car biz, “no one ever got a bad deal on their car”.
The “Goods” is Kurt Russell with a paved lot and newer goods.
@FreedMike: Your post was priceless. I’m sorry for your trouble, but at the same time I couldn’t stop laughing. Just priceless…
Btw., did the the sales manager fire your old manager? Please tell us ;)
I get the sense that this article and the video have to do with Hollywood.
That’s good enough for me to refuse to waste my time on it.
FreedMike: Nice story. Yeah, what Marc said…did he fire the guy?
I’d go with William H. Macy in Fargo, with the best scene being when he’s closing a deal with a couple and adds on high-profit ‘Tru-Coat’ undercoating against the wishes of the buyers. He then outright lies to them to which the husband calls him on it but buys the car anyway.
The look on Macy’s face as he’s being berated is perfect – he knows he’s scum but has such a look of utter resignation as if to say, without uttering a word, that he just can’t help it. Macy should have easily won an academy award for his performance (Cuba Gooding won for Jerry Macquire).
There used to be an outstanding six-part series on edmunds.com where a reporter became a car salesman for a while and wrote about the experience. It’s definitely not a job for the faint of heart and/or anyone with any sort of morals/scruples, whatsoever. I remember that when asked why you wanted to be a car salesman, the key to getting hired was to simply say, “Make lots and lots of money!” as enthusiastically as possible.
Rudy Russo (and his partner Jeff) in Used Cars are, hands down, the best and worst car salesmen in film history. Some choice quotes? Sure! (kids, turn your eyes away!)
Rudy: C’mon Jeff! You’ve seen how bad business is. Thanks to Fuchs, our name is mud! Look… we had nuns, protesting out front when I got here this morning.
Jeff: Nuns?
Rudy: Yeah. I had to have Jim turn the firehose on them.
Rudy: Come on down to New Deal used cars…
Margaret: AAAAAAAHHHH! (her dress is ripped off during a live commercial)
Rudy: …come on down and squeeze on us!
[Rudy notices that some paint has washed off Manuel’s cars]
Rudy: Manuei! What the hell are you using; water based paint?
Manuel: Sure. How much rain do we get around here anyway? If you don’t like these, I’ll get you some others. Here is my inventory.
Rudy: Manuel, this is a picture of 250 cars. I can’t make a deal on a picture. Take these around back and I’ll think of something.
And these are just the ones that aren’t loaded with swears that can’t be printed here…
Another who should be on the list is Paul Dooley as “Dad” in the 1979 film Breaking Away. Who, after his son insists on a refund for some college kids whose new-used corvette dies out on the road in front of Dad’s used car lot, has a heart attack while screaming “Refund? Refund? Refund? Refund?”
And later during his recovery remarks –
Dad: No, I don’t feel lucky to be alive! I feel lucky I’m not dead. There’s a difference.
marc_m :
August 31st, 2009 at 8:37 pm
@FreedMike: Your post was priceless. I’m sorry for your trouble, but at the same time I couldn’t stop laughing. Just priceless…
Btw., did the the sales manager fire your old manager? Please tell us ;)
Nope, he didn’t fire the guy. I didn’t like the car tried to sell me anyway.
Looking back, I’m not sorry I took that job, though. I was 24 and pretty sheltered, and that was a lot of life experience to pack into a month and a half, let me tell you.
How you could not list Eugene Levy, the guy who sold the Family Truckster in National Lampoons’ classic “Vacation”?
“I’m just as upset as you are, believe me. Davenport! Get Mr. Griswald’s car back and bring it back here! Now I can get you the wagon, there’s not problem there. The problem is that it might take six weeks. Now, I owe it to myself to tell you that if you’re taking the whole tribe cross-country, the Wagon Queen Family Truckster… You think you hate it now, wait ’til you drive it.
Arthur Daley – obviously…
I don’t have an answer to the question, I just want to thank you for reminding me of Used Cars.
“You killed my dog, mister. You killed my dog! All he wanted was for you to be happy in this car… and now he’s dead.”
The strong-arm Audi sales techniques of
Robert DeNiro as Paul Vitti in “Analyze That.”
You forgot Bill Paxton as Simon in True Lies. That scene where Tom Arnold shoots at his feet to make him leave and he wets himself is classic!
@FreedMike
Thanks allot for the update, I really appreciate it. After reading your post, I watched “The Goods”. Your post was funnier do:) Thanks again for sharing your life experience with the rest of us. Best regards, Marc.
njdave :
September 1st, 2009 at 10:30 am
You forgot Bill Paxton as Simon in True Lies. That scene where Tom Arnold shoots at his feet to make him leave and he wets himself is classic!
OMG, that was funny…
“The ‘Vette gets ’em wet!”
“I’m nothing. I’m navel lint. I’ve got a tiny pecker…it’s pathetic. “