The Secret of My Success

This movie was made at the height of Michael J. Fox's success in the mid 80's but wasn't a biography of Michael. Rather it was a kind of corporate fairytale about a young man who moves to New York determined to 'make it' ...and succeeds spectacularly!

This is the kind of film that a cynical critic would dismiss as another rubbish "cliche 80's greed movie --kind of a soft core, comic book "Wall Street"" --but they'd be missing the point.

Directed by Herbert Ross immediately after finishing "Footloose", the movie is just pure fun, along the way poking fun at the corporate America of the 80's (although I'm sure not a lot has changed!) and introducing us to many brilliantly eccentric characters and silly situations.

Like most 80's movies of this kind, this is not a movie that takes itself seriously at all.. and as such, should be viewed as pure, unadulterated entertainment.

Fox plays the central character of 'Brantley Foster' who along the way to his fortune, starts off in the mail room of a large corporation run by his distant "Uncle Howard", played excellently by Richard Jordan.

His world is popluated by colorful types like 'Melrose', who is his coworker in the mailroom and Helen Slater is the 'cold fish' high flying executive who is the target of his affection and ultimately does warm to his charms. Margaret Whitton does an outstanding job of playing "Uncle Howard's" scheming wife "Vera".

If you're looking for a great piece of 80's culture (complete with tons of musical montaging), music and a lot of harmless fun, you could do a lot worse than "The Secret Of My Success"...