Patterns

I happened to stumble on this on TCM while channel surfing (I had seen the blurb in their program guide and had given it short shrift) and, although ten minutes or so into the movie I was immediately gripped by the acting. I stayed for the whole thing and was amazed at the quality of this practically forgotten movie with script by Rod Serling and superb performances by Van Heflin, Everett Sloane, Ed Begley and Beatrice Straight. Anyone who has been in the business world in even an incidental way will be taken by the way in which Serling has so effectively captured the machinations and power ploys in the corporate world. A bald description of the plot - ceo grooms upcoming exec to replace a company veteran - gives no idea of how exciting the realization is on screen (which is why I skipped past the program guide listing); it is simply gripping. Director Fielder Cook's work subsequent to this has been primarily in television.

If you're fortunate to find this rarity scheduled, by all means don't miss it.

Patterns finds Van Heflin, newly arrived from Mansfield, Ohio where Everett Sloane's corporation has just bought out the factory where he was the plant manager. Sloane was impressed enough with Heflin to take him along to New York and make him a member of his company's board of directors. Vice President Ed Begley was impressed with Heflin's abilities as well and befriends him.

What Heflin doesn't realize is that he's the object of a corporate power play. Sloane is hard driving, ruthless executive usually in the kind of role Ed Begley plays. For once Ed Begley is a nice guy in a film. He's a decent soul unlike Sloane, but he's past his best years. Sloane doesn't want to fire him, just demean him enough so he'll quit. Begley's loyalties to the company stem from when Sloane's father ran the business and he can't see life beyond it.

All this comes out at the first board meeting that Heflin attends and later at a party that he and wife Beatrice Straight throw for the board members. Heflin is a confused man, caught between liking and admiring Begley and sadly knowing his future lies with Sloane.

A number of films were made in these years about corporate connivings at the top. Patterns can hold its own with any of them and that list would include Executive Suite, The Power And The Prize, Cash McCall, and B.F.'s Daughter in which Van Heflin co-starred with Barbara Stanwyck.

Patterns was originally a television drama and one of the best early scripts done by Rod Serling. Begley and Sloane repeated their roles, movie name Heflin was substituted for Richard Kiley. The filming still betrays its photographed teleplay origins, but the players more than compensate for the deficiencies there.

For a good look at how we saw corporate America in the Eisenhower years you can't do much better than Patterns or any of the other films I mentioned.

...Rod Serling is recalled today almost exclusively for his speculative fiction television series "The Twilight Zone" and "Rod Serling's Night Gallery." Perhaps that's understandable, given the out-of-sight-out-of-mind nature of today's audiences, and the fact that the generation Serling first impressed with this lean but powerful work in 1955 on the "Kraft Television Theater" is now well into the process of dying out. Still, the kinetic nature of PATTERNS, either in this theatrical film or in the kinescoped original TV broadcast, is not lost on today's first-time viewers. It helped that two of the three leads in this picture, Everett Sloan and Ed Begley, were carried over from the TV productions (Richard Kiley was replaced in this film by Van Heflin, giving perhaps his single greatest performance). But Serling's screenplay has not lost one bit of its relevance; in fact, I'm surprised nobody's thought of remaking this one...

Having spent a good part of my working life in large corporations, I appreciated that writer Rod Serling never fell into the trap of shallow stereotypes and superficiality in his treatment of this company and the people who worked within it and who were dependent upon it for their livelihoods. Having grown up as a Twilight Zone junkie (original series) during the early 1960's, Rod Serling as a writer has never disappointed me. His original screenplay here only demonstrates the wide range of his writing ability far beyond the science fiction and horror genres with which he is usually associated. The script is crisp, intelligent, and quite powerful.

Van Heflin, who plays the lead role as Fred Staples, is an actor who I never appreciated until late in my movie viewing life. Shame on me. I can't explain this other than the fact that I didn't see either "3:10 to Yuma" or "Act of Violence" until well into middle age, and I can thank Turner Classic Movies for finally introducing me to these films, to Van Heflin, and to much, much more than that. Heflin is a very natural, often understated professional. When I see him in a movie, his portrayals appear very real to me, as if he isn't reading the lines of a script written by someone else but rather speaking his own words very credibly and seamlessly. I think that this is what excellent acting is all about. Ed Begley, Sr. also appears in one of the best roles of his career, if not the very best, as Bill Briggs, the corporate executive who is being replaced by Staples and who is humiliated and degraded as a human being during the ugly process. Everett Sloan is perfectly cast as Mr. Ramsey, the egotistical, ruthless CEO who brutally intimidates any subordinate who stands in the way of his corporate goals and vision. Elizabeth Wilson, as the loyal secretary awkwardly transferred from Briggs, her beloved, longtime boss, to Staples, the new darling on the block, and Beatrice Straight, as Staples' sympathetic, sensible wife, both provide outstanding support.

I also liked how the director, Fielder Cook, created the fast pace of the corporation, at least at the height of its activity during normal business hours. I'm sorry that I missed Richard Kiley as Staples in the original play written for television. He is an actor who successfully played a wide range of characters from the very naive, inexperienced teacher in "Blackboard Jungle", to the crime-busting lawyer in "The Phenix City Story", and finally to the charismatic Don Quixote in the musical "Man of La Mancha".

The nightmarish view from the straining eyes of a stricken Biggs as his colleagues helplessly peer over him is very distressful. I recognize Mr. Serling's very distinctive influence here at a very critical moment in the film. Beyond this movie, the writer was among the most brilliant and creative contributors to the much missed "golden age of television".

"I didn't hire you to like me!" shouts Walter Ramsey (Everett Sloane) at Fred Staples (Van Heflin) at the climax of Rod Serling's "Patterns." Those seven words pretty much sum up the whole film.

Ramsey knows no one likes him, but he couldn't care less. He'd rather play to win than play nice. He knows that it's time for nice old boy Bill Briggs (Ed Begley) to go and he's found just the man to take his place in Staples, who'd been managing his plant in Ohio. The only problem is that Staples genuinely likes Briggs and detests Ramsey.

You'll hate Walter Ramsey too, but you'll see that he built his company not merely through intimidation but by being an excellent judge of character. He recognizes that Staples, who seems clueless when it comes to office politics, is immensely talented and actually very ambitious. Ramsey sees that the fact Staples will never like him is really an asset. He doesn't want a groveling yes-man, he needs someone who will fight him.

Of course Briggs also fights with Ramsey, but his punches never land. His arguments are easily brushed aside and only serve to make Ramsey even angrier. Briggs refuses to accept that he's washed up, which reflects either his stubborn nature or his lack of professional vision. In any case, it's a fatal flaw and Ramsey mercilessly carves him up.

This is painful to watch and all your sympathy is with Briggs, but from a business perspective you have to accept that Ramsey is right. Gradually, Staples sees this as well and that Ramsey understands him better than he understands himself. At the end, Fred Staples hates Walter Ramsey more than ever but he can't resist his boss' challenge. And Ramsey knows that though the price was high, he finally has the man he wants as his vice president.

"Patterns" offers many solid performances, especially Sloane's and Heflin's. Ed Begley is hardly my image of a corporate executive (he was much more credible as the cop turned crook in "Odds Against Tomorrow"), but he certainly looks the part of a sick man. Watching Beatrice Straight I couldn't help but recall her role in "Network" and wonder if her Nancy Staples would suffer the same fate in the 1970s. Straight had a rare combination of intelligence and beauty, and it's a shame she made so few films.

"Patterns" is quick (about 85 minutes) because it has to be. Were it any longer Ramsey's bullying of Briggs would be unbearable and the film's real point would be lost.

Today we flatter ourselves when we think that characters like Ramsey went out with the Edsel. It's a different world, but it's still a cruel one. Working women are no longer called "girls" and some may have moved into executive suites, but the corporation imperatives are the same as they were in 1956: know your people, know your product, make money, cut your losses.

None of this was lost on Walter Ramsey. We may hate him, but as much as we hate to admit it, we still need him. That's not the way we like it but that's the way it is.