When climbing the corporate ladder, it’s a common belief that it’s not where your feet are on the rungs, but who they’re on. Rod Serling’s Patterns (showing early 3/9) deals with many of these ideas about footprints in the corporate world, yet it’s amazingly balanced in its views of big business and how it is nourished and fed. While films such as Wall Street (1987) paint broad strokes of unfeeling capitalistic greed, Serling’s ode to capitalism is much more complex, even though it was first written as a TV drama over 30 years beforehand.
Hired by Walter Ramsey (Everett Sloane) at the executive level, Fred Staples (Van Heflin) knows nothing about head games or power plays. That’s about to change as Fred realizes that he’s been brought in so that 40-year man Bill Briggs (Ed Begley) can be tossed like yesterday’s newspaper. A compassionate man, Briggs’ ideals are unworkable in modern business. His refusal to resign enrages Ramsey and creates a test of wills, which Briggs literally hasn’t the stomach (or heart) for.
Patterns was first developed as a television drama, but soon became a film with the same actors repeating their roles with the exception of Richard Kiley who was replaced by Van Heflin to bring a bigger name to the project. Everett Sloane won an Emmy for his TV performance and Rod Serling also won for Best Written Teleplay.
Perhaps the most amazing aspect when one looks at this film, is how every character's point of view is understood and given equal weight. Unlike The Apartment (1960), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967) or the aforementioned Wall Street, there are no shady characters or dishonest dealings here. Ramsey may be an uncompromising businessman, but there’s nothing crooked about him—he simply wants what’s best for the company. Briggs is a kind man, but good intentions don’t always create results (as his failure with his own son proves), and if his sympathy hurts the company, he renders it unable to aid the very people he cares so much about. Fred understands Briggs, but he also knows that you can’t do business with a handshake anymore. He also realizes that he too is ambitious (“I want the job.”), perhaps for the first time in his life.
Business is always personal—even when it’s impersonal, and has a life of its own. As Ramsey states: “It’s nobody’s business! It belongs to us right now because we’re producing, but in the future it belongs to whoever has the brains, the nerve, and the skill to take it away from us.” In this light, we realize success has no master -- a concept that is liberating, yet daunting.
