The Secret Of My Success (1987) * *

Directed by:  Herbert Ross

Starring:  Michael J. Fox, Helen Slater, Richard Jordan, Margaret Whitton

The nagging question was this:  What was Brantley Foster (Fox) trying to accomplish as he pretended to be an executive at a big Manhattan company while working as a mail room clerk?    He expends a lot of energy changing clothes and avoiding detection, but to what end?    I know, I know.  That's two questions. 

The Secret Of My Success is a 1980's Michael J. Fox vehicle which would've been a complete dud if not for Fox's intrinsic charm.    Fox has a load to haul and he is up to it, but the script is below par screwball/romantic comedy.   Seeing Fox being chased through the office halls grows quickly tiresome, as does watching his chasers slip, trip, and fall in their attempts to nab him.     You would think he was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List.   Marshal Sam Gerard could have helped out if he were in the building. 

Brantley flies from Kansas to New York City as a college graduate with a degree in business (I think) with hopes of becoming a rich yuppie.     He lands a job as a mail room clerk for his rich uncle's company, but after seeing the numerous vacated offices on the 25th floor, he decides to pose as a newly hired executive named Carlton Whitfield.     He attracts the disdain and then the guarded friendliness of Christy (Slater), the company's lone female executive who is also sleeping with Carlton's uncle.    She, of course, is only on hand to provide Fox a potential love interest, so her emotions follow lockstep with the requirements of the script.     

Carlton is there to work and show his business smarts, creating a plan which would save the company from a looming hostile takeover while eluding his mail room boss and his uncle.    But other than popping a boner hanging around the executive lounge and feeling important for a few moments, what does Fox have to gain from this scheme?     He isn't being paid any more money.    There is nothing but downside.

Further complicating things is Brantley's aunt's attraction to him.   She blows cigarette smoke in his face from the back seat of a limo as a come hither signal.    Yuck.   Doesn't she know about the dangers of secondhand smoke?    So, now he has to elude her too, although he does get a few bangs in.   

The misunderstandings are all cleared up during a night at Fox's uncle's house.    How the takeover works out in Fox's favor is something he actually just falls into.   None of his earlier actions matter.    He is a product of extreme good fortune and a rather forgiving aunt.    He tells Christy at the end that he wants to fly back to Kansas on the company jet.     Doesn't he realize that such wasteful spending could lead to the company not making its quarterly projections?     Maybe he didn't graduate from a top-flight business school after all.