“The patterns of which this piece speaks are behavior patterns of little human beings in a big world—lost in it, intimidated by it, and whose biggest job is to survive in it.” So said Rod Serling about his 1955 tele-drama Patterns, which was adapted into a feature film the following year. The quote by Serling is from the Bantam paperback version of the narrative, which was published in 1957. The story was produced in three separate mediums—television, film, and written fiction (left)—suggesting that it hit a nerve with audiences during the 1950s.
The film version, which airs on TCM this Saturday, September 24, at 10:15pm EST, differs from the tele-drama primarily in the casting of movie star Van Heflin as protagonist Fred Staples. Industrial engineer Staples and his wife, Nancy, played by Beatrice Straight, relocate from friendly Mansfield, Ohio, to cold-hearted Manhattan after Fred takes a job with Ramsey & Co. He and veteran vice-president Bill Briggs, played by Ed Begley, hit it off until Fred learns from company president Walter Ramsey that he was hired to replace the older man. Everett Sloane costars as Ramsey, who brow-beats Briggs in meeting after meeting, hoping to force the older executive to resign or retire. Caught in the middle, Staples struggles with his conscience. Though he protests the unfairness of Ramsey’s tactics, he stops short of making any real sacrifice on his friend’s behalf.
BEGLEY PLAYS SENIOR VP BILL BRIGGS, WHO REALIZES HE IS BEING PUSHED ASIDE FOR YOUNGER MAN VAN HEFLIN.
I recently watched a Blu-ray version of Patterns released through The Film Detective, a company that restores and digitally remasters classic movies. Because the film was a product of the 1950s, I expected a happy ending in which the morally centered Staples gives Ramsey his come-uppance. But, the conclusion does not unfold in that way; it’s more ambiguous and disconcerting. As a diehard fan of Serling’s The Twilight Zone, I should have expected the unexpected. I found Serling’s conclusion to be provocative, befitting his idea regarding human behavior. But, I am not sure if I was satisfied at the ending, or if I was supposed to be. So, I will ask regular TCM viewers to catch Patterns and let me know what you think or feel about the conclusion. If you comment before Saturday, please don’t give the ending away.
AS BRIGGS AND RAMSEY, BEGLEY AND SLOANE WERE NEVER BETTER. THEIR BOARD ROOM DEBATES ARE VERBAL DUELS IN WHICH EVERY WORD IS DELIVERED WITH CALCULATED INTENSITY. CHARACTER ACTORS OF THEIR CALIBER ARE SORELY MISSED TODAY.
Patterns belongs to a trend from the 1950s when live tele-dramas were adapted into films, often using the same casts and directors as their small-screen counterparts. Well-known examples that have grabbed the spotlight include Marty, Requiem for a Heavyweight (also penned by Serling), and 12 Angry Men. These film versions tended to be low-budget and small-scale in an effort to retain the intimacy and immediacy of the television originals. However, don’t mistake a modest scale for low production values because these dramas are tightly directed gems with stellar performances by actors who speak the literate, precisely written dialogue as though it is everyday discourse.
THOUGH THE FILM IS SHOT IN A REALIST STYLE, SETS ARE STILL USED STRATEGICALLY. THE HALLWAY OF RAMSEY & CO. IS LIKE AN ARENA OF POMP AND POWER.
In the film version, Heflin replaced Richard Kiley as Fred Staples, though Begley, Sloane, and Straight reprise their roles from the live television production. Heflin may have been the movie star, but he has nothing on Begley and Sloane, who are opposites on the moral compass of big business. As Bill Briggs, Begley represents an old-school approach in which the human factor is considered in the decision-making process, while Sloane, a second-generation company president, argues that business should omit sentiment and compassion in favor of objective, calculated tactics. Their confrontations in the board room amount to razor-sharp arguments in which every word is important to the rhythm of the dialogue and to the escalation of emotion. As each sequence unfolds, the level of emotion steadily rises, giving way to the explosion of clashing points of view in the conclusion. These types of tv-based dramas were driven by conversation, argument, and dialogue rather than action, but it is the caliber of writing and the level of acting that are the strengths of these topical-based stories. I recently saw an indie film called Equity, which is about Wall Street manipulations and shenanigans. Like Patterns, the point of the film was that the tactics and culture of Wall Street eat away at personal morality and social responsibility. Equity’s dialogue, pacing, and character construction pale in comparison to Patterns. Begley and Sloane would have blown the actors of Equity off the screen with a single facial expression or one precisely timed line of dialogue.
KAUFMAN WAS ALSO CAPABLE OF EXPRESSIONIST TECHNIQUES. HERE, BRIGGS SPILLS HIS GUTS TO STAPLES, AN ACT OF SELF-EXAMINATION THAT IS BRUTAL AND UGLY. THE “HORROR” OF THE SCENE IS MAGNIFIED BY THE LAMP THAT LIGHTS HIS FEATURES FROM BELOW.
MARKETING IS A TOXIC BY-PRODUCT OF BIG BUSINESS. HERE THE MARKETING FOR THE FILM DELIBERATELY MISREPRESENTS THE STORY BY REFERRING TO “PATTERNS OF LUST.” HOW IRONIC!
To flesh out Patterns for the big screen, director Fielder Cook added footage of 1950s Manhattan shot by legendary cinematographer Boris Kaufman. The brother of Russian nonfiction filmmaker Dziga Vertov, Kaufman didn’t seem to care for the political climate of the Soviet Union. He immigrated to Paris in 1927, eventually moving to America in 1942. He worked on documentary shorts for John Grierson—who coined the word “documentary”—at the National Film Board of Canada, and he hired on to shoot propaganda films for the U.S. during WWII. He brought his three decades of experience in nonfiction filmmaking to Hollywood when he began shooting feature films in the 1950s. His unglamorous, black-and-white cinematography, which was just this side of gritty, fit a decade that was devoted to the pursuit of topical subject matter rendered in a realist style. The shots of Manhattan sprinkled throughout Patterns are more than mere filler; they capture the vitality of the big city after the pace of daily life had accelerated but before the cacophony had reached today’s chaotic proportions. I watched the Blu-ray of Patterns from The Film Detective alone on the big screen in my classroom—a relaxing treat to myself after a long, grueling week. I can honestly say that the DVD does justice to Kaufman’s cinematography.
A dialogue-driven drama with a topical subject matter featuring mostly character actors from the 1950s would be a hard sell to most audiences. But, I know TCM viewers, who are as devoted to good cinema as I am, will give this movie a fair shake. I am looking forward to readers weighing in with their thoughts.