Joel and Ethan Coen have a little fun with this carefree romp through the 1950s executive suite. Tim Robbins plays Norman Barnes, a naïve yokel who trips off the bus and falls straight to the top of a major international corporation, literally taking an express elevator from the crowded basement mail room to the president’s office. His breakneck appointment is a scheme by the bigwigs, a plot to artificially deflate stock prices while solidifying their control, but Barnes’s adorably simple-minded ideas catch on with the public. He becomes an overnight media darling and the conniving corporates (led by a gravel-voiced Paul Newman) are forced to pivot to their Plan B. Meanwhile, Jennifer Jason Leigh puts on a heavy Mid-Atlantic accent, channeling Rosalind Russell in _His Girl Friday_ as a pushy, fast-talking, “one of the boys” press reporter who goes undercover to dig some dirt on the new boss.

In _The Hudsucker Proxy_, the Coens pay homage to many such golden-aged archetypes. The wide-eyed innocent who’s in way over his head. The manipulative social elites who beg for comeuppance. The big-mouthed tough girl who’s softer than she lets on. These are all familiar caricatures, more than a little worn out, but the eccentric performances of an all-star cast are good enough to pull them back from the brink. Robbins is the physical embodiment of a puppy dog: all knees and elbows, still growing into his body (and the big boys’ world) despite standing at least a head taller than the men and women around him. He’s both insightful and clueless. Leigh’s worldly damsel can’t help pulling the wool over the eyes of such a rube, then regretting it when he turns out to be deeper than the clowns she’s been running with. And Newman is everything you’d want from a foil, cheerfully spitting and growling his way through a cloud of cigar smoke to toss a dozen dirty obstacles in their way.

Light, silly and playful, this was a nice break from the dark intensity of _Fargo_ and _Barton Fink_, which bookend it in the Coens’ filmography. It’s nothing monumental or groundbreaking, a pastiche which boldly wears its inspirations on its sleeve (particularly the vast, towering architectural details, which seem to have been delivered straight from Lang’s _Metropolis_), but the characters are warm, the cast give us their best and the dialogue is a real hoot. I’ve been enjoying it for years.