The Hud­suck­er Proxy is a 1994 fan­tas­ti­cal com­e­dy film by Ethan and Joel Coen. Sid­ney J Muss­berg­er (Paul New­man), the new head of the huge­ly suc­cess­ful cor­po­rate mono­lith, Hud­suck­er Indus­tries, in Fifties-era New York, comes up with a bril­liant plan to make a lot of mon­ey: appoint a moron to run the com­pa­ny. When the stock falls low enough, Sid­ney and his friends can buy it for pen­nies, then take over and restore it to its for­mer for­tunes. They choose Norville Barnes (Tim Rob­bins), who has just start­ed in the mail room, but soon, tough reporter Amy Archer smells a rat and begins an under­cov­er inves­ti­ga­tion of Hud­suck­er Indus­tries.

The Coens’ sense of the aes­thet­ic is supreme, their know­ing ref­er­ences wit­ty to the extreme, and their style all their own. This movie, despite being a box office flop, is packed with deli­cious high­lights but today’s blog focus­es on the bril­liant per­for­mance by Jason Jen­nifer Leigh. Leigh plays Amy Archer, the hard­nosed reporter will­ing to do any­thing to get a good sto­ry, even going under­cov­er to gain the trust of the über-naïve Norville. In the news­room, she’s bold, sassy, and will inform any­one lis­ten­ing about her Pulitzer Prize. In a man’s envi­ron­ment, she’s the most capa­ble of the lot and, as we’ll see, she can simul­ta­ne­ous­ly talk on the phone to the chief, type a sto­ry, solve cross­word puz­zles, and fence fel­low reporter Smit­ty with smart, fifties-hip word­play.

If the con­cept of the quick-tongued, ace female reporter feels famil­iar, it should; in the great tra­di­tion of news­pa­per movies, Leigh is chan­nelling a cross between Jean Arthur in Mr Deeds Goes to Town and Katharine Hep­burn in Woman of the Year. In this scene, she has invei­gled her­self into Norville’s office and con­trives to win his trust, play­ing the vul­ner­a­ble maid­en in dis­tress and pre­tend­ing to be “a Muncie girl”. Then cut to tough Amy in the news­room, mul­ti-task­ing spec­tac­u­lar­ly and mock­ing the pat­sy, Norville. You can be sure her heart will soft­en in the end, but for now Leigh nails the stereo­type char­ac­ter with aplomb.