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Movies => Good Movies => Topic started by: lester1/2jr on July 23, 2008, 08:43:53 AM



Title: Salesman (1968 documentary)
Post by: lester1/2jr on July 23, 2008, 08:43:53 AM
This is just about as good a documentary as I've seen.  Maybe not as funny or exciting as your "Supersize Me" or "Roger and Me" but riveting in it's own subtler way.  The camera follows a group of bible salesmen on a few of their trips, showing them in action pitching these fairly expensive bibles illustrated with old master painting reproductions and gold trim to various catholic peoples, most of whom don't seem like they could reasonably afford them.  We see them at sales meetings and blowing off steam in the various hotels they stay at.   The tension between pushy sales techniques and selling bibles is clear from the get go,  and  it is sort of depressing to watch.  There are some amazing scenes, my favorite is a guy doing a sale to a woman while her husband, an apparent audiophile, plays a muzak version of the Beatles "Something" at top volume.  The salesman, a guy nicknamed "the bull"  isn't thrown off in the slightest.  it's not all downbeat as there is quite a bit of comic relief and the commentary track features the directors and one of the salesman who is still in sales but not with the Mid American Bible Company, which is no longer extant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RehfqrDqJCs