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The Secret of My Success (1987 film)

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Director
  
Featured song
  
The Secret Of My Success

Duration
  

Language
  
English

6.4/10
IMDb

4.4/5
Amazon

Genre
  
Comedy

Screenplay
  
Country
  
United States

The Secret of My Success (1987 film) movie poster

Release date
  
April 10, 1987 (1987-04-10)

Writer
  
Jim Cash (screenplay), Jack Epps Jr. (screenplay), AJ Carothers (screenplay), AJ Carothers (story)

Cast
  
(Brantley Foster aka Carlton Whitfield), (Christy Wills), (Howard Prescott), (Vera Prescott), (Fred Melrose), (Herself (uncredited))

Similar movies
  
Fight Club
,
Toy Story 3
,
The Mask
,
Spider-Man 3
,
The House Bunny
,
Batman

Tagline
  
There's no such thing as an overnight success. Brantley Foster took two weeks.

The secret of my success 1987 movie


The Secret of My Success (sometimes stylized as The Secret of My Succe$s) is a 1987 American comedy film produced and directed by Herbert Ross, and starring Michael J. Fox and Helen Slater. The screenplay was written by A.J. Carothers, Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Jr. from a story written by Carothers.

Contents

The Secret of My Success (1987 film) movie scenes

The secret of my success 1987 hq trailer


Plot

The Secret of My Success (1987 film) movie scenes

Brantley Foster (Michael J. Fox) is a recent graduate of Kansas State University who moves to New York City where he has landed a entry level job as a financier. Upon arriving, he discovers that the company for which he is supposed to work has been taken over by a rival corporation. As a result, Brantley is laid off before he even starts working.

The Secret of My Success (1987 film) movie scenes

After several unsuccessful attempts to get another job, mostly because he is either overqualified or underqualified and has little experience, Brantley ends up working in the mailroom of the Pemrose Corporation, which is directed by his uncle, Howard Prescott (Richard Jordan), the CEO. Pemrose was founded by Howard's father-in-law; Howard received presidency of the company by marrying his boss's daughter, Vera Pemrose (Margaret Whitton).

The Secret of My Success (1987 film) movie scenes

Upon inspecting company reports, Brantley realizes that Howard and most of his fellow "suits" (executives) are making ineffective or detrimental decisions. After Brantley notices an empty office in the building due to one of Howard's frequent firings, he uses his access to the mailroom and his understanding of company processes to create the identity of Carlton Whitfield, a new executive. Brantley then assumes this role.

The Secret of My Success (1987 film) movie scenes

While handling two jobs (switching between casual wear and business suits in the elevator), Brantley also falls head-over-heels for Christy Wills (Helen Slater), a fellow financial wizard who recently graduated from Harvard. Brantley meets Vera after driving her home in a company limo (at his employer's request). Vera persuades Brantley to stay for a swim and seduces him by stripping off his swimsuit and having an underwater kiss before she rips off her swimsuit and ultimately swims naked with him. Upon seeing Howard arriving, Brantley and Vera realize they are related (albeit not by blood). Vera only seduced Brantley to get back at her husband for having an affair with a woman in his office. Brantley then gets changed as fast as he can and leaves the mansion without being seen by Howard.

The Secret of My Success (1987 film) movie scenes

Howard, without Brantley's knowledge, is having an affair with Christy. When Howard asks her to spy on Carlton Whitfield, Christy falls head-over-heels for "Whitfield", not knowing he is actually Brantley. The Pemrose Corporation is preparing to merge with the infamous Davenport Corporation. If Davenport Corporation merges with Pemrose and everyone gets fired. Howard, unaware that Whitfield and Brantley are one and the same person, suspects "Whitfield" is a spy for corporate raider Donald Davenport (Fred Gwynne).

In the end, Brantley and Vera raise enough cash, bonds, and stocks to wrest ownership of the Pemrose Corporation from Howard, and to proceed with a hostile takeover bid of Davenport's Corporation. Vera, already contemptuous of Howard for his counter-productive business practices, which were driving her father's empire into the ground, learns that Howard has been cheating on her to boot. She promptly replaces him with Brantley, with Jean, Christy and Melrose at his side. While security guards escort Howard and his aide, Art Thomas (Gerry Bamman), from the Pemrose Building, Brantley and Christy start planning their future together, personal as well as professional.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was released on LP and cassette tape on April 10, 1987. Seven of the 10 tracks were produced, and either written or co-written, by David Foster, who also scored the film and has three tracks of his own on the album.

Not all of the songs featured in the film are included on the soundtrack, or, at least not in the same version. The film version of the song "The Secret of My Success" is slightly different, and also features a mini-instrumental version. The film version of "I Burn for You" does not feature vocals, whereas the soundtrack version does. The "Restless Heart" track from the film has a different title ("Something I Gotta Do"), and different lyrics than the soundtrack version.

Popular songs "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina & The Waves and "Oh Yeah" by Yello are heard in the film but do not appear on the soundtrack.

The soundtrack peaked at #131 on the Billboard 200.

The theme from the picture "The Secret of My Success", performed by Night Ranger, was one of the songs that competed for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song in 1988. The winner in question was "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", the central theme from Dirty Dancing, performed by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes.

Track listing
  1. "The Secret of My Success" (performed by Night Ranger)
  2. "Sometimes the Good Guys Finish First" (performed by Pat Benatar)
  3. "I Burn for You" (performed by Danny Peck and Nancy Shanks)
  4. "Riskin' a Romance" (performed by Bananarama)
  5. "Gazebo" (performed by David Foster)
  6. "The Price of Love" (performed by Roger Daltrey)
  7. "Water Fountain" (performed by David Foster)
  8. "Don't Ask the Reason Why" (performed by Restless Heart)
  9. "3 Themes" (performed by David Foster)
  10. "Heaven and the Heartaches" (performed by Taxxi)

Critical response

The film received a mixed response from critics. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "The Secret of My Success seems trapped in some kind of time warp, as if the screenplay had been in a drawer since the 1950s and nobody bothered to update it." He concluded "Fox provides a fairly desperate center for the film. It could not have been much fun for him to follow the movie's arbitrary shifts of mood, from sitcom to slapstick, from sex farce to boardroom brawls."

However, Vincent Canby, writing in the New York Times, felt it was "close to inspired when the ambitious Brantley finds himself leading two lives", although he noted that "Hanging over The Secret of My Success is the long shadow of Frank Loesser's classic musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying."

The film holds a 58% "rotten" rating at website Rotten Tomatoes.

Box office

The film opened on April 10, 1987, and debuted at number one at the box office, taking $7.8 million in its opening weekend. It stayed at No. 1 for 5 weeks, and was in the top ten films for 2 months. It grossed $66,995,000 in the US, becoming the 7th highest-grossing film in the United States for the year 1987, and outgrossing such films as RoboCop, Predator, Lethal Weapon and Dirty Dancing. The film went on to gross an additional $44,001,000 worldwide, giving it a total of $110,996,879. Additionally, the film made US$29,856,000 through video rentals.

The secret of my success original movie trailer 1987


References

The Secret of My Success (1987 film) Wikipedia
The Secret of My Success (1987 film) IMDbThe Secret of My Success (1987 film) Rotten TomatoesThe Secret of My Success (1987 film) Amazon.comThe Secret of My Success (1987 film) themoviedb.org