Patterns

It's likely you are unfamiliar with 1956's PATTERNS, a sadly obscure drama written by Rod Serling and directed by Fielder Cook.  I learned about it on Letterbox'd, where a real education for obscure cinema thrives.  I've seen numerous depictions of the toxicity of corporate culture but this picture stings and bites the way few dare.  This is a coldly observant little movie that, as David Byrne once sang, is the same as it ever was.   They say that film is primarily a director's medium, but with all due respect to Mr. Fielder it is the writing and acting in PATTERNS that make it sing.

 

Bill Briggs (Ed Begley) has spent most of his life working for Ramsey & Co., an industrial firm in one of those imposing skyscrapers in New York City.  He's the VP to the bold, heartless, and acid tongued CEO Walter Ramsey (Everett Sloane).  Briggs is of that tortured minority that actually breeds concern for employees and his fellow man.  His mentor was his original boss, Walter's father, who started the business and prided himself on knowing the names of even the lowliest in his employ.  

Enter Fred Staples (Van Heflin), an engineer at Ramsey & Co.'s recently acquired company in the Midwest.  Ramsey recruits him (and provides a beautiful home in the country) for his forward thinking ideas and business savvy.  It is clear that Ramsey intends to replace Briggs, whose mantras and business plan are considered out of date, with the new hotshot.  But Staples is not cut from the same cloth as Ramsey, and his concern and guilt deepens as the CEO's plans grow more obvious and tensions boil over.

PATTERNS really captures the awkwardness of such a scenario.  Hell, of corporate environments in general.  The whispers of gossip.  The uncertainties.  The environment contrived to make everyone feel as if they need to constantly look over their shoulders. Walter Ramsey is the sort of viper likely found at the top of most successful corporations. This film goes behind closed doors to let him spout how he really feels about business and his employees.  He is an unapologetic son of a bitch who will spell out his methodology and barely react when he is confronted with it.  Sloane, who along with Begley reprised his role from Serling's Kraft Television Theater production a year earlier, is absolutely riveting in a balls out performance.  Begley matches him in a heartbreaking portrayal of a man well past his prime, a relic at the age of 62.  Any viewer over say, 50 who has suffered the corporate world will find some uncomfortable parallels.  Real truth in his speeches. 

Heflin is no slouch either.  His role requires a certain balance between cocksuredness and empathy.  He especially burns it up during the film's climax, where Serling's terrible and ruthless truths roar to the surface, a perfect cap to a brilliantly trenchant drama.