This is the film version of Rod Serling's teleplay concerning the dangers and temptations of corporate culture in America. It features a top rate cast, with Van Heflin in the lead as Fred Staples, a young plant manager promoted to executive and moved to the city so he can eventually replace the aging William Briggs (Ed Begley Sr.). The puppet-master of the corporation, Walter Ramsey, is played by the great Everett Sloane. Sloane provides a very colorful and believable performance in a role that might have descended into camp in lesser hands. And to top it off Beatrice Straight appears in a role very similar to her Oscar-winning turn in "Network" of a few decades later -- the so-called "thankless wife" who actually has a lot of strength and offers her husband more than just the generic "support" but actually a profound challenge.
Since the word "Patterns" is never mentioned in the film it's worth pondering the choice of the title. I think most obviously it refers to the speech that Begley's character makes in his office when he talks about the ways that Ramsey and his kind try to make a worker uncomfortable, even to the lengths of perhaps driving them insane. He says they begin with small things, so that you think it's just your imagination. Eventually all these small indignities add up to an intolerable situation, but there's still nothing specific that one can point to as far as persecution. There is only the pattern of abuse.
There are other "patterns" as well in the film, most profoundly the theme of transference from father to son, the idea that the son could or should "follow" the father and be as much like him as possible. Briggs complains that Ramsey is not even half the man that his father, who started the company, was. Ramsey for his part sees Briggs as a kind of surrogate for his father and it's not unreasonable to see his torture of the older man as a form of revenge or even dis-association with the father figure. By transferring his identification with the father onto this other man, Ramsey enables himself to consciously define himself as something different and seeks to break the "pattern" of father/son succession that is supposed to sustain the corporate power structure in the traditional hierarchy. And perhaps most disturbingly, by the end of the film Staples seems to be ready to take his place in the hierarchy and attempt to succeed Ramsey himself as the focus of power. Staples becomes a surrogate father to Briggs' son because Briggs is too busy, buying the son traditional masculine items like guns and taking him on sporting trips. This is all part of the process of his taking Briggs' place both in the corporation and perhaps in a broader sense as a responsible or traditional "man of the house" as opposed to a man of the world. But in the end the son is nowhere to be seen and there are only two bitter and competitive men ready to cut each other's throats.
Since the word "Patterns" is never mentioned in the film it's worth pondering the choice of the title. I think most obviously it refers to the speech that Begley's character makes in his office when he talks about the ways that Ramsey and his kind try to make a worker uncomfortable, even to the lengths of perhaps driving them insane. He says they begin with small things, so that you think it's just your imagination. Eventually all these small indignities add up to an intolerable situation, but there's still nothing specific that one can point to as far as persecution. There is only the pattern of abuse.
There are other "patterns" as well in the film, most profoundly the theme of transference from father to son, the idea that the son could or should "follow" the father and be as much like him as possible. Briggs complains that Ramsey is not even half the man that his father, who started the company, was. Ramsey for his part sees Briggs as a kind of surrogate for his father and it's not unreasonable to see his torture of the older man as a form of revenge or even dis-association with the father figure. By transferring his identification with the father onto this other man, Ramsey enables himself to consciously define himself as something different and seeks to break the "pattern" of father/son succession that is supposed to sustain the corporate power structure in the traditional hierarchy. And perhaps most disturbingly, by the end of the film Staples seems to be ready to take his place in the hierarchy and attempt to succeed Ramsey himself as the focus of power. Staples becomes a surrogate father to Briggs' son because Briggs is too busy, buying the son traditional masculine items like guns and taking him on sporting trips. This is all part of the process of his taking Briggs' place both in the corporation and perhaps in a broader sense as a responsible or traditional "man of the house" as opposed to a man of the world. But in the end the son is nowhere to be seen and there are only two bitter and competitive men ready to cut each other's throats.