Patterns

A couple of weeks back TCM ran a night of films devoted to Ed Begley (Sr.) and, since I hadn't bloged about Patterns before, I decided to DVR it and watch it.

The Ramsey Corporation is one of those big conglomerates of the last century that's headquartered in New York and seems to have its fingers in everything, run by Ramsey (Everett Sloane), son of the founder of the business. Ramsey just brought up a new man who was managing a factory in the Cleveland area to be the newest executive, and that's what all of the secretaries are talking about. The new man, Fred Staples (Van Heflin), is going to be working alongside one of the most senior executives, Bill Briggs (Ed Begley).

Fred has a sort of wide-eyed view of New York, feeling it's the big time, and impressed with the way the corporation has handled his transfer. They've gotten him a big how out in the suburbs, already furnished, so on his first day his wife Nancy (Beatrice Straight) is able to drive him into work in a New York that has surprisingly little traffic. But Fred is soon to find out that everything isn't as idyllic as it seems.

Two things give Fred that indication. He's brought into a board meeting on his very first morning at the place, and one of the items up for discussion is the purchase of a factory currently in receivership. Ramsey wants to close it down for retooling for a good six months, since to keep it open would be unproductive and unprofitable. Briggs, however, feels it should be kept open, since it's the main employer in the town where it's located, and closing it down that long could mean by the time they're ready to reopen it, there's not going to be a workforce to work there. But really, this factory is just a McGuffin for the interaction between Ramsey and Briggs. Ramsey more or less winds up screaming at Briggs, belittling him and browbeating him into being a yes-man. Not what Fred expected at all. Worse is when Fred finds out this his secretary is going to be the thoroughly competent Marge (Elizabeth Wilson), who has been Briggs' secretary for years, and is being permanently reassigned to Fred. Marge knows what that means.

Although Fred has his misgivings, he's keeping a bit silent about them at work since he's made fast friends with Briggs, what with their working together on a big report. Nancy also realizes something's going on, and tries to get Fred to stand up for himself, even if that's going to cause some friction at work. If it's a dog-eat-dog world, you don't want to be the one being eaten. And it's not only causing friction at work, but at home, too.

Matters come to a head when the Staples hold a party for the various board members and their wives. Briggs can't make it, which should be another ominous sign. But Nancy engineers things so that Ramsey will get to read a copy of the report ahead of time, and Ramsey thinks that Fred should get all of the credit for it. Obviously, he's trying to push Briggs out, and since you can't really fire people this high up, you try to make their working life such a living hell that they'll give up and quit. Briggs, for his part, seems to have nothing in his life but his work, and isn't about to quit....

The plot of Patterns is a good one. The performances are uniformly excellent. The one problem I had, however, is with the script, which seemed a bit heavy-handed in places as it was trying to drive home its points. I was in many ways reminded of Executive Suite while watching Patterns, and I have to say that I'd give a slight edge to Executive Suite. That's not to say that Patterns isn't a darn good movie. Indeed, I can strongly recommend it.

Patterns is available on both DVD and Blu-ray.