Review of Salesman (1969) by Tony O — 15 Feb 2010

You wouldn't be alone in thinking that a documentary from 1968 on the lives of a group of door-to-door Bible salesmen would rank right up there with "root canal after divorce" in terms of entertainment, but this one may surprise you.

By no means is it the Maysles brothers best work and by no means is it even that definitive of a documentary (truthfully, it would be impossible to chronicle the Mid-American Bible Company and its employees with this small of a production team but we're given a small group of salesmen to follow and most of them sort of exist off of the frame as we focus our attention on one persona), but it will definitely hold your attention as it goes.

Turns out monthly plans for a $49.99 Bible are pretty tough to come by in 1960s America and we watch our team of salesmen repeatedly go through the motions, sometimes successfully, most of the times not so much.

The majority of the attention is focused on Paul and get the Prozac ready because Paul is equal parts depressing and slimy. Of course, most everyone in this is but since we're focused on Paul, we'll give him the majority of the negative imagery (along with the fact that he gets the majority of the negative energy in this, what with his humming of "If I Were a Rich Man" and slowly watching his colleagues -and pretty much the world- move on without him).

Tactics and tricks are explored which is good but this is mostly a character study of a select profession and how it leads people to constantly chase their numbers, never knowing who is on the other side of that door (yeah, our team gets the names of "interested parties" from local church boxes but a good percentage of these customers want no part of this).

Fascinating stuff but it may make you want to pound a scotch and a cigarette afterwards to get the taste of the film out of your mouth.