''Super Sucker'' is a 2002 film featuring
Jeff Daniels
Jeffrey Warren Daniels (born February 19, 1955) is an American actor, comedian, musician, and playwright, known for his work on stage and screen playing diverse characters switching between comedy and drama. He is the recipient of several accol ...
,
Harve Presnell,
Matt Letscher, and
Dawn Wells
Dawn Elberta Wells (October 18, 1938 – December 30, 2020) was an American actress known for her role as Mary Ann Summers on the CBS sitcom ''Gilligan's Island''.
Early life
Wells was born to Evelyn (née Steinbrenner) and Joe Wesley Wells ...
.
Plot
Fred Barlow (Daniels) and Winslow Schnaebelt (Presnell), are the heads of two different door-to-door vacuum cleaner distributors, with salesmen who are competing for the same territory. Their rivalry becomes so fierce that the president of the manufacturer of the product, Mr. Suckerton, decides that for the good of the company, the town will have only one group of sales representatives. Desperate, and always the underdog, Barlow suggests a winner-take-all sales contest to determine who gets the territory. Well behind Schnaebelt from the very start, Barlow's sales surge when he learns of his wife's non-traditional use of, the circular nap nipper,
a "homemaker's little helper",
a long forgotten vacuum attachment.
Cast
*
Jeff Daniels
Jeffrey Warren Daniels (born February 19, 1955) is an American actor, comedian, musician, and playwright, known for his work on stage and screen playing diverse characters switching between comedy and drama. He is the recipient of several accol ...
as Fred Barlow
*
Matt Letscher as Howard Butterworth
*
Harve Presnell as Winslow Schnaebelt
*
Dawn Wells
Dawn Elberta Wells (October 18, 1938 – December 30, 2020) was an American actress known for her role as Mary Ann Summers on the CBS sitcom ''Gilligan's Island''.
Early life
Wells was born to Evelyn (née Steinbrenner) and Joe Wesley Wells ...
as herself
* John Seibert as Shelby
* Guy Sanville as Leonard
* Kate Packham as Darlene
* Sandra Birch as Rhonda
* Michelle Mountain
as Bunny Barlow
* Will Young as Clifford
Production
Daniels made
Super Sucker in
Jackson, Michigan
Jackson is the only city and county seat of Jackson County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 33,534, down from 36,316 at the 2000 census. Located along Interstate 94 and U.S. Route 127, it is approxi ...
, and
Toronto, Ontario, Canada,
with Michigan performers
and technicians.
Release
''Super Sucker'' opened on 24 January 2003 (
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...
weekend), on 125 screens in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Kansas, and Missouri,
but never obtained national distribution.
Purple Rose is the distribution company and the distributor.
"It didn’t do as well as we had hoped when we released it in the Midwest. We had hoped it would do better, but distributing a film, particularly by yourself, is always a dicey enterprise. The video and DVD deal is in place, so we project it will make its money back. Domestic theatrical distribution is just a very difficult thing." — Jeff Daniels
Jeffrey Warren Daniels (born February 19, 1955) is an American actor, comedian, musician, and playwright, known for his work on stage and screen playing diverse characters switching between comedy and drama. He is the recipient of several accol ...
Reception
''Super Sucker'' won the 2002 Audience Award for Best Feature at HBO's
U.S. Comedy Arts Festival
The Comedy Festival, formerly known as the US Comedy Arts Festival, was a comedy festival that ran from 1995 to 2008. The festival included stand-up comedy performances, appearances by the casts of television shows, and has a film component calle ...
in Aspen, Colorado.
"I haven't a clue what this movie is about." — Christopher Borrelli, film critic,
Toledo Blade.
"I cannot recommend this movie highly enough. Jeff Daniels has crafted a comedy that is intelligent, well-acted, and laugh-out-loud funny." — ''Moriarty'',
"A solid mix of lowball and under-the-breath humor, Super Sucker is a balanced and worthwhile film." — Nathan Lichtman,
"Super Sucker... is a terrible movie. But that doesn’t prevent it from being interesting and even admirable as a grassroots phenomenon." —
Jonathan Rosenbaum,
Chicago Reader
The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative weekly newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. It was founded by a ...
(January 24, 2003)
"Daniels (goes) for big, tawdry, gloriously cheap yuks. Bless him for it" — Tom Lang,
"This is juvenile stuff (not a bad thing) and Super Sucker makes no bones about its meaning or pedigree (also not a bad thing)" — Erin Podolsky,
References
External links
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
2002 films
2000s sex comedy films
American sex comedy films
Films set in Michigan
Films shot in Michigan
Films directed by Jeff Daniels
Films with screenplays by Jeff Daniels
2002 comedy films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
{{2000s-US-film-stub