Some time ago in the quiet Michigan town of Chelsea, well outside the confines of the prosperous Detroit metro region, a couple of regular guys (one of which is a movie star) were hashing out a script about some oddball vacuum cleaner salesmen in the fight of their lives. It’s inevitable that all the loose jokes about sucking and blowing would lead to something funny and it did, as a punch line that weaves its way through “Super Sucker.”
Despite over two decades in the film business, Jeff Daniels solidified his place in comedic history with a glass of laxatives and a faulty toilet in “Dumb and Dumber.” In the comedic equivalent of your worst nightmare, Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) loaded up his buddy Harry Dunne (Daniels) with an overdose of Ex-Lax as payback for Harry stealing his dream girl, Mary (Lauren Holly). The explosive results in Mary’s non-functioning bathroom made even the most austere gents and femmes crack up and feel pity for Harry, the aloof and ultimately humbled character.
Less than a decade after his comedic breakout, Daniels has formed his own production company, Purple Rose Films, which so far has twice branded the film circuit with unique stories told through the eyes of small town Michigan characters. For Daniels, his characters rise out of the town that he loves — Chelsea, Michigan. The anti-metropolis, Chelsea is located 60 miles outside of Detroit and is home for Daniels and his creative endeavors, including The Purple Rose Theatre, a place for aspiring actors/actresses to hone their craft.
It’s rare for a high-caliber Hollywood actor to choose rural Michigan over the glitz of L.A. or Soho, but that’s just Daniels and his two Purple Rose Films. The quirky “Escanaba in Da Moonlight” and outrageous “Super Sucker” show a silver screen setting not common in the film industry.
It’s hard to tell how Woody Allen, the man who gave Daniels his big break in “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” would feel about “Super Sucker.” Instead of examining the screwy relationships between neurotic, obsessive-compulsive older men and young, chain-smoking hussies, “Super Sucker” explores the sexual relationship between women and vacuum cleaners; or, as the pleasurable attachment is called, “Homemaker’s Little Helper.”
“Super Sucker” opens with a memorable sequence that explains how Fred Barlow (Daniels) came to be enamored with the vacuum cleaner as a child and how he then became mesmerized with a man named Cy Suckerton, inventor of the Super Sucker vacuum cleaner. The limitless energy and potential of childhood comes to a screeching halt with each door that is slammed in the grown Barlow’s face as he struggles to sell Super Suckers door-to-door in Johnson City, Michigan.
Winslow Schnaebelt, a formidable Super Sucker salesman played by Harve Presnell (“Saving Private Ryan”), threatens to run Barlow and his sales crew right of town. Schnaebelt is constantly dressed in all red, drives a red car — everything red. After losing a sales contest to Schnaebelt that should have put him out of business for good, Barlow makes a final plea to Cy Suckerton II, president of Super Sucker, to have one more contest.
“If I’m not selling Super Suckers, I’m nothing,” Barlow tells the vacuum tycoon, who replies “Wow, that’s really pathetic.” With that, the contest is set. Whoever delivers the most signed contracts to Suckerton’s hotel room in Johnson City at the end of 30 days will win control of the entire Johnson City sales region.
The final sales contest runs much like the previous one until Barlow returns home from a rough day to discover his wife pleasuring herself with their vacuum cleaner. The source of her pleasure? An out-of-circulation drapery attachment created in 1923 by the elder Suckerton called “Homemaker’s Little Helper,” intended to “clean those hard to reach places.” The secret of the littlest helper is that it not only sucks, but it blows and pulsates. Ok, back to the film…
“I’m going to need a lot of these, hundreds, maybe thousands” Barlow quips to a rogue vacuum parts supplier. Sales eventually reach a feverish pitch for Barlow and his crew, who develop a Beatles-like following with females, even though the A.A.S.A.H.A (Association Against The Sexual Abuse of Household Appliances) is in hot pursuit of the deviant sales force.
The ending is an unexpected finish that fans of “Escanaba in Da Moonlight” would expect from Daniels. After nabbing the audience award for best feature at the HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in 2002, “Super Sucker” continues to pleasure and prod all of those “hard to reach” comedic places that don’t get touched in related films.
A solid mix of lowball and under-the-breath humor, Super Sucker is a balanced and worthwhile film. So when you hear someone say that “Super Sucker” both sucks and blows, consider it a good thing.
Grade: A/B
