Title: The Secret of My Success (1987)
Director: Herbert Ross
Cast: Michael J. Fox, Helen Slater, Richard Jordan
Review:
The Secret of My Success was a huge hit in the 80’s because
it came out during Michael J. Fox’s peak of fame. He’d done extensive television
work on Family Ties, and just gotten off releasing Back to the Future (1985)
and Teen Wolf (1985), both of which were huge hits for him. The Secret of My
Success, proved to be one of Michael J. Fox’s most successful films outside of
the Back to the Future trilogy. Actually, at that time, anything that Michael
J. Fox did made money, because his popularity and career where just starting to
take off! I mean look at Teen Wolf a teen comedy that was a huge money maker. It
only cost 1.4 million and made 80 million! So yeah, Michael J. Fox was riding
hi on the fame train, question is, where any of the films he was making worth a
damn? Is The Secret of My Success a good one?
I’d say that yeah, it was a good one, I laughed, I giggled
and generally had a good time. I wanted to see something really 80’s for the 80’s
Blog-a Thon thing, and I have to say this one is really, really 80’s! I mean, the
clothes, the hair, the music…it took me back, which is what I love about
watching movies from a certain decade, I love it when films take a snapshot of
a certain moment in time. And in this particular moment in time, films about
poor people suddenly becoming rich were extremely popular. a.k.a. 'rags to riches' stories. For example films
like Trading Places (1983), Protocol (1984) and Brewster’s Millions (1985) were
all films about poor dopes suddenly becoming filthy rich because of a twist of
fate, or pure luck. The difference with The Secret of My Success is that it’s
main character, college graduate Bradley Foster doesn’t make it because lady
luck suddenly smiled on him, nope, Bradley Foster makes it to the big time
because of his own wits, his own smarts. I mean, yeah, true, he has an uncle
that’s a CEO of a big company, and his uncle gives him a job, but he ends up
working in the Mail Room, with very low pay. He makes it to the big time
because of his enthusiasm, his energy and his ideas.
So basically, this is a coming of age story. It’s a film about a kid whose just gotten out of college and wants to leave his mom and dad’s farm house in Kansas to make it big in New York City's business world. He’s taken it upon himself to beat New York, to not go back home crying to mama. He wants to make it big, to have a meaningful relationship with a beautiful girl, a car, a private jet, basically, he wants it all and he wants to do it on his own, without having to screw anybody to get to the top. But of course, he’s a kid from Kansas, and now he’s in NYC, so it can also be seen as a fish out of water story, David vs. Goliath. The thing about Michael J. Fox’s character in The Secret of My Success is that he adapts very well to living amongst sky scrapers and working amongst “the suits”. This is also one of those films where the main character adopts a second personality so he can achieve his goals, and has to later, by the end of the film tell everyone the truth.
The Secret of My Success is one of the many films that came
out during the 80’s that dealt with the corporate business lifestyle and its
effects on society. It’s no secret that the 80’s were known as the decade of
decadence, excess and self centered individuals making tons of money and
spending it, the quintessential ’yuppies’ that were later so perfectly depicted
in Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000). It was a decade of economic abundance,
a decade in which Reaganomics brought unemployment rates and poverty down. Economy wise, United States was doing good. The flood gates to big
business were opened wide. Back then films depicted greed as being…"for lack of
a better word…good" to quote Michael Douglas’s character in Wall Street (1987)
a film that mirrors perfectly the kind of mentality that permeated during this
decade, in fact, Wall Street can be see as a more dramatic and serious
version of The Secret of My Success. Other films of the 80’s that explored the
corporate lifestyle were Baby Boom (1987) and Working Girl (1988). In the case
of Baby Boom we get a film that tries to humanize the selfish yuppie by having
the yuppie (played by Diane Keaton) inherit a baby from a distant recently
deceased relative, she has to learn to accomodate her life, learn that what really matters in life is not money. Working Girl can be seen as a female version of The Secret
of My Success, it’s also about a working class woman who pretends to be someone
she isn’t in order to get ahead in the corporate world. So as we can see, these
types of films were proliferating during the 80’s because they are a reflection
of the era.
The Secret of My Success has survived
this long because it’s what I call a “quintessential 80’s film” and because it
stars Michael J. Fox who exploited his sweet natured, good boy persona. The film
also gets surprisingly romantic, Michael J. Fox’s character, Bradley Foster
falls in love with this working girl played by none other than the ultra
beautiful Helen Slater. I kept cracking my head trying to figure out where I’d
seen her before, then it dawned on me, it’s Supergirl (1984)! It’s really funny
how in some scenes (especially those where they kiss) Helen Slater looks like a
towering sky scraper next to Fox! The soundtrack is extremely 80’s, it has
tunes from many 80’s staples such as Pat Benatar, Bananarama and Night Ranger, who
by the way sing the theme song “The Secret of My Success”, which I remember
sounded quite a bit on the airwaves. At
the end of the day, The Secret of My Success is a fun film, most of the fun
comes from Michael J. Fox’s character leading a double life, trying to hide the
fact that he is passing himself off as one of “the suits” when he is really
just an employee from the mailing room; the idea being that if you believe
yourself to be something, you can eventually become that thing which you want
to become, an idea I’ve experienced to be true. Plus the film has something of an innocense to it, even if it can also be categorized as an 80's sex comedy. When we get down to it, The Secret of My Success is a multilayered film that spans quite a few genres, it's a comedy, it's a romantic film, it's a drama, it's a sex comedy, a coming of age story, a fish out of water story and it is also a truly 80's film, so if you're feeling nostalgic about the decade, this one comes highly recommended.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Haven't seen this film in ages but remember watching a fair few times as a kid. I remember thinking Michael J Fox was the coolest actor ever.
ReplyDeleteI miss all those workplace comedies and dramas that they used to do in the 80s/90s. Surely there's some good stories that can be made about the global recession. Where are they?
I remember seeing this when it first came out and enjoying it but I haven't seen it in years despite it being on TV quite often.
ReplyDeleteI always found it interesting that Fox did this film and also the dark flip side with BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY which may be my fave film of his.
Well, modern workplace comedies would include Office Space (1999), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) and Horrible Bosses (2011), but I will say this, on the television front, The Office has done a fantastic job of summarizing what working in an office is all about and very accurately I might add, highly recommend that show if you've never checked it out, funniest thing on television.
ReplyDeleteComedy Central has another show that's somewhere along the same lines called Workaholics, but that one focuses on three young dudes that work in this very small office, but it's hilarious as well. A bit more hardcore though!
I want to bugger Helen Slater (as the bird was in 1981 when the bird was 18, not as the bird is now obviously).
ReplyDeleteI never understood the popularity of Michael J. Fox, i always thought he was a bloody load of old rubbish.
ReplyDeleteJ.D.: I remember you recommended Bright Lights Big City a while back, I went and bought it and enjoyed it a whole lot, agree, it's his most solid performance. I am also curious to check out a movie of his called Light of Day, in which he plays a rock and roller juggling parental duties with the rock and roll lifestyle, Joan Jett stars with him on that one.
ReplyDeleteTeddy: I guess it's was his goody little two shoes persona that made him so popular.
I saw this for the first time and wrote about it on my blog last summer and enjoyed it. It was the 7th top grossing movie of 1987 in the U.S. so it was pretty popular at the time. I like Michael J. Fox but have noticed that The Secret of My Success is one of the few movies where they didn't care that his love interest was significantly taller than him. Melora Hardin was supposed to play Jennifer in Back to the Future when Claudia Wells became unavailable. However when Eric Stoltz was let go as Marty and Michael J. Fox was brought in Hardin was let go for Wells (who became available again) as Hardin was deemed to tall for Fox. But Hardin is still one inch shorter than Helen Slater!
ReplyDeleteAlso, The Secret of My Success was only the second movie/tv show/video game to use "Oh Yeah" by Yello. Ferris Bueller's Day Off has the first (and best in my opinon) use of the song though its now been everywhere.
Yeah, that song by Yello "Oooh Yeah" is used quite effectively on this one, I also remember it being used in a film called Million Dollar Mystery (1987), about a bunch of crazy people chasing after a million dollar treasure.
ReplyDeleteThis movie was awful and unrealistic. It was not entertaining at all.
ReplyDelete