I just saw this on TCM. It’s one things that put Serling on the map as a writer. Just a rundown, in case you’ve never seen it:
Walter Ramsie/Ramsey: CEO of a company that his father had founded. An amoral bean-counter, unlike his dad, who cared about his employees.
Bill Briggs: One of the VPs. He had started when Ramsey’s father owned the company.
Fred Staples: Ramsey saw big potential in this plant manager, and decided to bring him from Ohio to the Big City, grooming him to succeed Briggs, whom Ramsey was looking to replace as he thought his ideas were stale–and he was known to disagree publicly with Ramsey.
Everette Sloane played Ramsey in the the original teleplay (1955), which was so critically acclaimed that they performed it again about six weeks later. The original was not recorded, but according to the Wiki on it, a kinescope of the second is available for viewing in New York and Los Angeles.
Ed Begley also reprised his role in the movie.
Richard Kiley played Staples in the teleplay, but Van Heflin got the job in the movie.
Sloane always looked about 20 years older than he really was. In reality, he was a year younger than Heflin.
I would have imagined Staples should probably have been in his mid 30s–like Kiley–as the hot-shot executive on the fast track. *Heflin would have been 47/48 when this was filmed.
So. . . has anyone ever seed the original?
*According to IMDB, Heflin once said, “Louis B. Mayer once looked at me and said, “You will never get the girl at the end”. So I worked on my acting.”
Yes, I’ve seen the original. It was released on VHS many years ago, paired with a TV version of No Time for Sergeants. A mom-and-pop video store in my town had a copy.
The main thing I remember about it is that Serling’s name was mentioned at each commercial break, with an announcer saying something like “We will return to Patterns by Rod Serling after these messages.” I don’t recall too much else about it, other than that it was “intense” in that typical Serling way.
I haven’t seen the original television play. I did catch the last half hour or so of the movie when it showed on TCM. I frankly hated the ending. It looks like they spent the whole movie building up Ramsey as a great big bully and a villain whose only concern about any person was what dollars they could make for the company. I guess we were supposed to feel sorry for Ed Begley’s character (Briggs), maybe he was stale and uncreative, and he was afraid to retire, although it was time. And Heflin’s character (Staples) was a noble hero, trying to stand up to the bully. But in the end, Staples sold out for a buttload of money and the likelihood of succeeding Ramsey when he died or retired. And why? Because Ramsey persuaded him that if he (Staples) didn’t make it big at this company, he would go back to working in a comfortable and amiable job in a small town and never amount to anything. Staples never seemed to consider working at and achieving great things at some other large company. Basically, the line that Ramsey was selling, that only the most ruthless men can be successful, was what Serling believed in. At least that’s what he wrote in this story.
Sorry for the hijack, the part I saw was well-written and well-acted, but repellent to me.