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By
NICK ZEGARAC
Herbert Ross’ The Secret of
My Success (1987) is a guilty pleasure; a
delightfully screwball and nonsensical comedy
about getting a leg up in the business world with
little to no experience. In the era of booming
‘Reganomics’ this sort of corporate fantasy-scape,
populated by clueless executives, wily rich gals
and aspiring wannabes, made for many a spirited
jaunt and wish fulfillment to those still slugging
it in the steno pool.
‘Success’ stars Michael J. Fox as Brantley Foster
– a Kansas farm boy who, upon graduation, takes on
the Big Apple…or that is, the Big Apple takes a
bite out of Brantley. On the day he is set to
start his new job, the company that hired him is
being liquidated. Determined not to return home,
Brantley taps his Uncle Howard Prescott (Richard
Jordon) for a job. Howard is a ruthless executive
and CEO who does not recognized Brantley’s
potential. Nevertheless, he hires Brantley then
relegates him to the mail room.
Brantley soon becomes the focus of ravenous and
unwanted sexual passion from Vera Prescott
(Margaret Whitton) – his aunt by marriage to
Howard! When he’s not ducking Vera or eschewing
his current work duties to adopt the persona of
Carlton Whitfield – an alias that places him in
the center of the boardroom – Brantley fantasizes
about cool number-cruncher, Christy Wills (Helen
Slater) – his uncle’s mistress.
Light on detail but heavy on its Cinder-fella-like
transformation, the film is a potpourri for ham
actors doing their utmost to overplay one another.
Fox’s performance is the most understated;
Whitton’s, the most gregarious. Her worldly,
though playful goading and corrupting of small
town innocence is quite riotous and effective,
leaving one with a rather guilty closet full of
‘secrets’ that are more than a little tempting to
revisit.
Revisiting this title on DVD should be the order
of the day for executives at Universal Home Video.
Their current disc is quite unacceptable. Not
anamorphic, the widescreen image exhibits a
generally dated characteristic with rather dull
colors and an incredible amount of film grain
sporadically peppered throughout the transfer.
Film grain is not undesirable if it is part of the
general presentation.
However, the image on this disc fluctuates from a
relatively smooth characteristic to a very gritty
texture – sometimes not even from scene to scene
but from cut to cut! This is not as originally
intended and it makes for a very inconsistently
rendered image. Fine details can be nicely
realized at times but occasionally the image
appears quite soft and undefined. Edge enhancement
exists throughout and is distracting. The audio is
2.0 stereo and quite acceptable though a 5.1 Dolby
Digital remix would be preferred. There are NO
extras. |
