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Boston Globe Review
By Jay Carr
One of its subjects, Jan Muller, cuts right to the core of "Pitch People," Stanley Jacobs's documentary on those frenzied vendors of kitchen gadgets, fitness gear, and cleaning products on late-night TV, saying that TV was designed to move merchandise and that what most people have been taught to regard as the programming is merely filler between the commercials, where the real action is. If nothing else, he reinforces a point that many of the film's subjects make, namely that stuff moves best when the pitchman communicates an urgent belief in the product, at least for the moment.
Referring to the pitchman's blend of salesmanship and showmanship as the world's second oldest profession, the documentary inserts a little context by tying the pitchmen we know from TV to the medicine shows and carnivals of the 19th century and the county fairs and open-air markets of more recent years. Although most have faded into folk history, there still are about 100 full-time pitch people left, the film tells us, working malls and fairs. A lot have British accents. A shrinkage of venues in the United Kingdom, where the art was honed, caused many to move to the States......
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