These films portray business and/or businessmen in a positive light:
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"An American Romance" (1944)
"Stefan Dangos immigrates to America and works his way up from the
iron mines and steel mills to become a great American success story as
an industrialist."
Internet Movie Database: An American Romance
http://imdb.com/title/tt0036596/plotsummary
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"Sometimes a Great Notion" (1971)
"The Stampers, the old time logging family who has built a business
from nothing and 'Never give an inch' are the types of people imagine
by most Western idealists--they are hard working, rugged
individualists. They do their job the best the can without complaining
and don't care about getting help from anyone else."
Web Building: Sometimes a Great Notion
http://web-building.7gen.com/webshop/item-full.jsp?ASIN=0140045295
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"Tucker: The Man and His Dream" (1988)
"In the 1988 film, Tucker The Man And His Dream, Jeff Bridges plays
the dynamic inventor and charismatic salesman who pitches his idea for
seatbelts, fuel injection and disc brakes to the purchasing public.
With the help of Abe Karatz (Martin Landau), Tucker gathers funds to
build a prototype of his futuristic car and begins pre-selling to
dealerships across the country. Securing the world's largest
manufacturing plant, he gears up for mass production of the auto. But
while postwar Americans are flush with enthusiasm for the Tucker
Torpedo, outside sources begin to put the squeeze on the little man
with the big ideas."
Grading the Movies: Tucker: The Man And His Dream
http://www.gradingthemovies.com/html/mv/gtm_mv00668.shtml
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"Mac" (1993)
"Niccolo (Mac) Vitelli (John Turturro), who along with his two
brothers, Vico (Michael Badalucco) and Bruno (Carl Capotorto), gets
disgusted with the shoddy workmanship that is the standard with the
construction concern for whom he works. Mindful of the high standards
set by his late father, Mac begins his own construction company on a
shoestring budget and brings his brothers in with him, calling the
company 'Vitelli Brothers Construction.' He and his brothers set about
building quality housing on a small scale in suburbia."
Amazon: Mac
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001A9I5C
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"Cast Away" (2000)
"Cast Away, cleverly slated for release just days before Christmas,
positions Federal Express as the ultimate way to ship your last minute
goodies. Federal Express employees are stodgy and efficient but
professional (just like Federal Express would imagine you to imagine
them to be), while overjoyed recipients of Fed Ex cubes and tubes glow
like the star of Bethlehem on a clear night.
The first quarter of Cast Away might as well be repackaged as a
Federal Express infomercial. We are treated to the nuts and bolts of
the Federal Express delivery process as packages are shipped overnight
from Texas to Moscow. Enter efficiency expert Chuck Noland (Tom
Hanks), who reaches the low point of his on-screen career as he
delivers a company values speech to a group of Russian trainees about
speed and efficiency."
Movie 666: DREAMWORKS SELLS OUT CINEMA WITH ITS FED EX CORPORATE LOVESONG
http://www.movie666.com/winter01_feature1.html
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Although some of these films contain likeable and amusing characters,
business and businessmen are generally depicted as evil and corrupt:
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"Metropolis" (1927)
"It is the future, and humans are divided into two groups: the
thinkers, who make plans (but don't know how anything works), and the
workers, who achieve goals (but don't have the vision)"
Internet Movie Database: Metropolis
http://imdb.com/title/tt0017136/plotsummary
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"Modern Times" (1936)
"Charlie [Chaplin] turns against modern society, the machine age...
and progress. Firstly we see him frantically trying to keep up with a
production line, tightening bolts. He is selected for an experiment
with an automatic feeding machine, but various mishaps leads his boss
to believe he has gone mad, and Charlie is sent to a mental hospital."
Internet Movie Database: Modern Times
http://imdb.com/title/tt0027977/plotsummary
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"The Hucksters" (1947)
"As Victor Norman, Clark Gable plays a returning World War II vet
looking for a job with an advertising agency. He succeeds, landing a
good position with a nice salary, but soon finds out that ethics and
integrity are in short supply in the rarefied world of corporate
advertising. With a big soap account on the brink of leaving the ad
agency, things get a bit desperate as the agency struggles to hang
onto the company's business. They round up a war widow for an
endorsement, and their client is temporarily happy, but soon Gable
finds the man to be a harsh and demanding taskmaster. This acerbic
comedy may seem a little thin by today's standards, but some of the
commentary on the gullibility of the American buying public is still
pretty fresh half a century later. Sydney Greenstreet excels as the
tyrannical, somewhat disgusting head of the soap firm, and Deborah
Kerr makes her American screen debut as Gable's war-widow love
interest."
Oxford Books: The Hucksters
http://www.oxfordbooks.com/win/hucksters.html
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"Executive Suite" (1954)
"EXECUTIVE SUITE is one of the first films to deal with the corporate
rat race and all its power business and politics. After the sudden
death of its president, a giant furniture company's board members
battle for control. Surveying the candidates for the executive
position is Julia Tredway (Barbara Stanwyck), the daughter of the
firm?s founder, the mistress of the recently deceased company
president, and the company?s chief stockholder. The candidates are
competitive, particularly Loren Shaw (Fredric March), who is so
ruthless in his quest to reach the top that he begins to blackmail
Josiah Dudley (Paul Douglas) and George Caswell (Louis Calhern) into
supporting him. Perhaps the only candidate not actively campaigning is
the more honorable McDonald Walling, who simply wants to live a good
home life with his wife and child."
Yahoo Movies: Executive Suite
http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1800062856&cf=info&intl=us
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"Patterns" (1956)
"It's a forceful melodrama, that takes the viewer into the pits of a
big corporation's board room politics, backstabbing, and the tough way
of doing business."
Dennis Schwartz's Movie Reviews: Patterns
http://www.sover.net/~ozus/patterns.htm
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"How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying" (1967)
"The story takes pot shots at big business by aiming at all the
obvious targets: establishment conformity, collective "yes" men,
office politics, back stabbing, nervous breakdowns, sexual harassment.
Computers may have replaced typewriters these days, but business is
still business.
Robert Morse recreates his Broadway role as J. Pierpont Finch, a young
man who reads a book titled "How To Succeed at Business" and
immediately begins climbing the corporate ladder. By lunch of his
first day with the World Wide Wicket Company, he rises from window
washer to mailroom clerk to junior executive. To our delight, he
learns to fawn, scheme, and manipulate his way to the top."
DVD Town: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
http://www.dvdtown.com/review/howtosucceedinbusinesswithoutr/4164/437/
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"Alien" (1979)
"The overt horror of the film, of course, is the title entity, a
consummate predator unleashed on the unwitting crew of the
Conradian-named "commercial starship" Nostromo. The creature may be
the Osama bin Laden of the cosmos, but the real terror lurks behind
the deceptively human face of the corporation apparently in charge of
things, for which the fate of the crew is secondary to the potential
military benefits of nurturing a relationship with the alien."
Boston Phoenix: Alien: The Director's Cut
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/movies/trailers/documents/03284776.asp
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"Wall Street (1987)
"A very simplistic synopsis of Wall Street is that Gekko is the
crooked business tycoon, and Fox is the innocent lamb who initially
falls under Gekko?s evil spell, but eventually, with the help of wise
advice from his upstanding father, he sees Gekko for the crook that he
is, and betrays him. Fox will probably have to go to jail himself, but
those are his just desserts. With Fox?s assistance to the SEC, Gekko
will also probably wind up in jail."
The Calico Cat: Donald Trump vs. Gordon Gekko
http://www.calicocat.com/donald_trump.htm
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"Barbarians at the Gate" (1993)
"You will see how managers misuse shareholder money by treating it as
if it were their own (agency costs). You will see planeloads of money
poured into bad projects (NPV). You will see naked greed, inept
investment advice, and broken trust (corporate ethics). You know, late
20th century American business!"
Amazon: Barbarians at the Gate
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005MHOC
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"The Hudsucker Proxy" (1994)
"The Hudsucker Proxy skewers big business on the same shaft that
Robert Altman ran Hollywood through with The Player. From the
Brazil-like scenes in the cavernous mail room to the convoluted
machinations in the board room, this film is pure satire of the
nastiest and most enjoyable sort. In this surreal world of 1958 can be
found many of the issues confronting large corporations in the 1990s,
all twisted to match the filmmakers' vision."
Movie Reviews: The Hudsucker Proxy
http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/h/hudsucker.html
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These articles about favorable and unfavorable depictions of business
and businessmen in the movies may be of interest to you:
New Labor Forum: Hollywood Looks at the Business Office
http://forbin.qc.edu/newlaborforum/html/9_article79.html
Le Québécois Libre: Searching Cinema for a Capitalist Hero
http://www.quebecoislibre.org/001125-9.htm
Liberty Haven: Cinema and the Capitalist Hero
http://www.libertyhaven.com/noneoftheabove/fictionmusicorentertainment/cinemacapitalist.shtml
Fairleigh Dickinson University: The Image of Business in American
Film: A Short History
http://alpha.fdu.edu/~harry/Introduct.html
MSNBC: Top 10 Business Movies
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5497582
Busfilm: Art and Money in Movies
http://busmovie.typepad.com/busfilm/
KipNotes: Business Films
http://www.kipnotes.com/BusinessFilms.htm
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I hope this is helpful. If anything is unclear or incomplete, please
don't hesitate to request clarification.
Best regards,
pinkfreud |
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