{"id":14978,"date":"2020-09-25T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-25T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=14978"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:17:47","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:17:47","slug":"classic-corner-patterns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/classic-corner-patterns\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic Corner: Patterns<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I realize how difficult it is, in the din of endless online content and countless listicles and algorithms, to make a movie recommendation that means anything. So let me assure you that this week\u2019s pick is selected by a reputable source, and I am merely the carrier pigeon for the recommendation: Martin Scorsese thinks you should watch Patterns<\/em>. He thought I should too, so I did. And here we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put as simply as possible, I interviewed Mr. Scorsese for my upcoming book on New York movies, and asked for a few of his essentials, just off the top of his head. He demurred; he did not want to be that casual about it, and he would get back to me. And sure enough, a few days later, his publicist sent over a Word document of his formative and essential New York City cinema, and while I had seen most and at least heard of the ones I hadn\u2019t seen, Patterns<\/em> was completely unfamiliar to me. But it\u2019s on Amazon Prime now<\/a> (in an admittedly shoddy, public domain-quality print), so here we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest draw, at least for contemporary audiences, is Rod Serling, the prolific creator of The Twilight Zone<\/em>, who wrote the film \u2013 adapting his own teleplay, an episode of the Kraft Television Theatre <\/em>anthology series. As was the standard practice, though the story is set in New York City, the bulk of the picture was shot on California sound stages; the much more expensive East coast photography was limited to exteriors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But what exteriors they are. The cinematographer is Boris Kaufman, the peerless Gotham craftsman who also shot On the Waterfront, The World of Henry Orient, <\/em>and The Pawnbroker<\/em><\/a> (among many others), and he fills those early frames with imposing, low-angle images of giant skyscrapers \u2013 the kind that crush the spirit. Fred Staples (Van Heflin) is introduced in the act of gawking at those skyscrapers, as his wife muses, \u201cA little different from Mansfield, isn\u2019t it?\u201d He replies, \u201cGimme a chance, maybe I\u2019ll get it down to my size.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s Fred\u2019s first day at Ramsey & Co., a Manhattan-based industrial empire, and the new guy\u2019s orientation is, as ever, a whip-smart exposition tool. The rising star was brought in from another company, a recent acquisition, and is clearly being groomed for great things; \u201cI have a feeling he\u2019s going to carve out a long career around here,\u201d notes William Briggs (Ed Begley), the honey-voiced positive thinker and firm long-timer (\u201cthe last of the original bunch around here\u201d) in the office next door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Briggs is a VP, the \u201cAssistant General Manager,\u201d just back from a sick leave. He\u2019s getting up there in years, and sports a bad ticker and a worse ulcer. He can blame both on Walter Ramsey (Everett Sloane, miles from his work as the jocular Mr. Bernstein in Citizen Kane<\/em>); in Fred\u2019s first meeting, the friction between the two men flares up quickly and sharply. There is a history here, and part of the subtle genius of Serling\u2019s script is how cleverly he shades in the nuances of this relationship: an offhand remark here, and under-the-breath snipe there, until Fred wanders into the older man\u2019s office late one night to find him drunk and exhausted, waxing rhapsodic about Ramsey\u2019s father (whose name is on the company), then dismissing the son as \u201cthis spindly little financial wizard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Briggs\u2019s assessment of Fred is kinder: \u201cI like the guy.\u201d And he\u2019s easy to like, affable, a former jock, a quick study; he advances quickly in the company, and then discovers he\u2019s intended to. Mr. Ramsey brought Fred in to replace Briggs, whom he compares to a grandfather clock or a Stanley steamer, an antique whose time has passed. And while Fred wants to stick up for his friend and colleague, he discovers soon enough that his morality and righteousness can, in fact, be bought \u2013 if the price is right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director Fielder Cook \u2013 who, appropriate to Patterns<\/em>\u2019 origins, mostly worked in television \u2013 deftly understands how to frame Briggs (and Begley\u2019s heartbreaking performance). We see the old man, from the beginning, as a tragic figure, a Shelley Levine type; the picture tracks Fred\u2019s journey to seeing him the same way. But the tragedy is not that Briggs is incompetent, or ineffective. It\u2019s that he\u2019s old-fashioned. \u201cYou think of people in terms of the human factor,\u201d Briggs confides to Fred, as a compliment. \u201cIt\u2019s something I\u2019ve never been able to get Ramsey to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what\u2019s most fascinating about Patterns \u2013 <\/em>the degree to which Serling\u2019s sharp, insightful script homes in on the big ideas of efficiency and profitability that would power American business (and American life) in the decades to come. It may be more explicit, but Serling and Cook are painting the same kind of poison portrait of corporate (specifically, executive) culture as Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond in The Apartment <\/em>four years later; from the power dynamics at the elevators to the arbitrary bullying in staff meetings (\u201cRamsey\u2019s stalking that poor man like an animal\u201d), Patterns <\/em>presents us with an utterly and undeniably toxic workplace, decades before that phrase existed. \u201cI don\u2019t submit to any of these calculated colorations of a man\u2019s worth,\u201d Briggs sputters, near the end of the film, and the end of his time at Ramsey & Co. It was true then, and even more so now. \"\"\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPatterns\u201d is<\/em> <\/em>now streaming<\/em><\/a> on Amazon Prime<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s Classic Corner pick, a long-forgotten Rod Serling-penned drama from 1956, comes recommended by a highly reputable source. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":531,"featured_media":14979,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399],"tags":[1431,1422],"class_list":["post-14978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","tag-classic-corner","tag-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22715,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14978\/revisions\/22715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}