Patterns (1956)
(Fielder Cook, US 1956, 83 min., 16mm)
Labor Film Series | Senior Matinee. Rod Serling gained critical acclaim for writing this mid-1950s drama of office politics in the executive corridor of a giant industrial corporation. The merciless, success-bent president (Everett Sloane) plans to replace his caring and aging vice president (Ed Begley) with a promising new industrial relations executive (Van Heflin) who must confront the opposing forces of personal ambition and the ethics of responsibility. In this (white) man’s world, the film’s main women characters—secretaries and wives—challenge as many stereotypes as they uphold. Patterns depicts many of the issues in studies of the time, like Whyte’s Organization Man and Mill’s White Collar. Free for 55 and older.
Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.