Because I’m such a shining example of power and achievement, people are constantly asking me, “Charlie, what is the secret to your success?”
Normally I tell them to suck eggs and have my driver run over their feet, but for you dear reader I’ll explain the four-step process:
- Move to New York without much of a plan and get a comically tiny apartment.
- Have a wildly rich and very powerful uncle that can reluctantly give you a job in his company’s mailroom.
- When delivering mail, find an empty office and pretend to be upper management, making decisions and moves that no one would do.
- Sleep with your uncle’s wife.
It’s that easy.
… well, not really; that’s just the plot to The Secret of My Succe$s – the 1987 film I’m going to review today.
The Secret of My Succe$s was yet another 80s yuppie-fest movie that asked “Is money really THAT important?” You see, the 80s were filled with those movies – Trading Places, Wall Street, and Glengarry Glen Ross are just a few. The times then were pretty similar to the times now, and the movies coming out were simply trying to portray the high cost of living.
The Secret of My Succe$s is a film starring Michael J. Fox as Brantley Foster; a young kid out of the country who dreams of being as rich and successful as his distant uncle Howard Prescott (Richard Jordan), so he drops everything and moves to New York.
You know, as far as I can tell moving to New York is pretty easy. I wonder why no one does it?
Anyway, things don’t really work out in the beginning for Foster and he quickly finds that both women and happiness are hard to come by without the money he desires; so, in desperation, he contacts Prescott and is grudgingly given a job in the mailroom.
While doing mailroom duty, Foster discovers an office from a recently laid-off employee, Carlton Whitfield, and decides to make camp. While there, he answers the phone as Whitfield, solves a huge problem, and then decides to be Whitfield; essentially jumping decades of work into management.
As mentioned above, Foster quickly discovers that with power comes money and women–
–wait, isn’t that Scarface?
Regardless; as you can imagine high jinks ensue when Foster tries to balance his act without alerting his uncle as well as coming off as the super-successful businessman to his New York crush and now girlfriend Christy Wills (played by the ultra-hot and my own Supergirl crush Helen Slater).
Oh, and Foster bangs his uncle’s wife, Auntie Vera.
If you’re looking for nostalgia of the time you can’t go wrong with this one – it has Michael J Fox, Helen Slater, an awesome soundtrack (including “Oh Yeah” by Yello – that DAY BOW BOW song you heard in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), and so, so much 1980s fashion.
The ending is expected and we all go home felling better about ourselves because the kid from Family Ties learns a valuable lesson about life.
All-in-all it’s a really dumb movie held together by the THINNEST of strings.
Questions will pop into your head like “How does no one notice Foster and Whitfield are the same person? Didn’t either person make ANY acquaintances in the office?” and “Seriously, can anyone just wander into a Fortune 500 company and work an empty office?”
Well, I guess the answer to that last one is yes.
How do you think I got my gig at Forces of Geek?
Until next time…
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