The Secret of My Success *** (1987, Michael J Fox, Helen Slater, Richard Jordan, Margaret Whitton) – Classic Movie Review 8712

Director Herbert Ross’s entertaining 1987 yuppie movie The Secret of My Success stars the young Michael J Fox in a charismatic performance as Brantley Foster, the hick from the sticks (that would be Kansas) who succeeds in Manhattan business and in winning the heart of icy executive Christy Wills (Helen Slater).

He travels to New York to make it big and lands a job in the mail room of a big corporation, establishing a second identity as a wiz-kid executive under the name Carlton Whitfield, convincing his boss, his distant uncle Howard Prescott (Richard Jordan), to adopt his radical business ideas. But things start to go wrong when he attracts the unwelcome attentions of his boss’s man-eating wife Vera (Margaret Whitton).

The Secret of My Success is a little bit unsteady and over-extended at 112 minutes. But Ross makes a slick job of directing this pleasant and popular comedy vehicle for the star, who was deservedly enjoying a more than fair measure of cinema success himself at the time.

Also in the cast are John Pankow, Christopher Murney, Gerry Bamman, Fred Gwynne, Mercedes Ruehl, Carol Ann Susi, Elizabeth Franz, Drew Snyder, Susan Kellermann, Barton Heyman, Ira Wheeler and Christopher Durang.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8712

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