Brantley Foster is a recent graduate of Kansas State University who moves to New York City, where he has accepted an entry-level job as a financier. Upon arriving, he discovers that the company for which he is supposed to work has been taken over by a rival corporation. As a result, Brantley is laid off before even starting work.
After several interviews for other jobs, he is unsuccessful due to over- or underqualification, or having no experience. Brantley ends up working in the mailroom of the Pemrose Corporation, directed by his "uncle" Howard Prescott, a distant relative he's never met. Pemrose was founded by Howard's father-in-law. Howard achieved the presidency by marrying his boss's daughter, Vera Pemrose.
After inspecting company reports, Brantley realizes that Howard and most of his fellow "suits" (executives) are making pointless or damaging decisions. He notices an empty office in the building due to one of Howard's frequent firings. Using his access to the mailroom and his understanding of the company, he creates and assumes the identity of Carlton Whitfield, a new executive.
While handling two jobs (switching between casual apparel and business suits in the elevator), Brantley sparks romantic interest from Christy Wills, a fellow financial wizard who recently graduated from Harvard. He meets Vera by driving her home in a company limo at his employer's request. She persuades him to stay for a swim and seduces him.
Seeing Howard arrive, Brantley and Vera realize that she is his aunt by marriage. She had seduced him out of revenge against her husband for having an affair with a woman at the office. Brantley changes as fast as he can and narrowly escapes the mansion without being spotted by Howard.
Howard, unbeknownst to Brantley, is having an affair with Christy. When Howard asks her to spy on Carlton Whitfield, whom he suspects is a corporate spy for Donald Davenport, she falls in love with "Whitfield", not knowing he is actually Brantley. The Pemrose Corporation is preparing for its impending hostile takeover. If Davenport Corporation absorbs Pemrose in this merger, all workers will get fired, but Howard and his aide Art Thomas will retain their jobs as a favor for cutting money from areas to ease the takeover.
Howard believes the company should cut every area, but that would ruin the company and make Davenport begin his hostile takeover. Brantley pitches the idea with Christy to expand the business to prevent the takeover. Later, at a corporate party at Howard and Vera's home, Vera introduces Brantley to three of New York's top financiers to whom he discusses his ideas about the company.
Brantley's double identity is discovered when he, Christy, Vera and Howard end up in the same bedroom after the party. Brantley and Christy end their blossoming relationship. He gets fired from his job as Whitfield, as does Christy for refusing to continue her affair with Howard. Vera is divorcing Howard, since she found out about his affair with Christy and his plan to propose to her.
While both Christy and Brantley are moving out of their offices, they end up in the same elevator and reconcile, conceiving a revenge plan together with Vera. They raise enough cash, bonds, and stocks to take control of the Pemrose Corporation and, with the help of the financiers from the party, proceed with a hostile takeover bid of Davenport's corporation.
Vera, already hating Howard for his inept business practices which were driving her father's empire into the ground, tells the board about his affair with Christy. She promptly replaces him with Brantley, with Jean (Carlton's secretary), Christy and Melrose (Brantley's mailroom colleague) at his side to prevent the takeover and keep everyone's jobs safe. While security guards escort Howard and Art from the Pemrose Building, Brantley and Christy start planning their future together, personal as well as professional.
The soundtrack was released on LP and cassette tape on April 10, 1987.[3][4] Seven of the 10 tracks were produced, and either written or co-written, by David Foster, who also scored the film and has three tracks of his own on the album.
Not all of the songs featured in the film are included on the soundtrack, or, at least not in the same version. The film version of the song "The Secret of My Success" is slightly different, and also features a mini-instrumental version. The film version of "I Burn for You" does not feature vocals, whereas the soundtrack version does. The "Restless Heart" track from the film has a different title ("Something I Gotta Do"), and different lyrics than the soundtrack version.
The film received a mixed response from critics. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "The Secret of My Success seems trapped in some kind of time warp, as if the screenplay had been in a drawer since the 1950s and nobody bothered to update it." He concluded "Fox provides a fairly desperate center for the film. It could not have been much fun for him to follow the movie's arbitrary shifts of mood, from sitcom to slapstick, from sex farce to boardroom brawls."[7]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 49% of 43 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.5/10.The website's consensus reads: "A miscast Michael J. Fox gives The Secret of My Success all the madcap energy he can muster, but it isn't enough to overcome confused direction and a recycled plot."[9]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 36 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.[10] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[11]
Box office
The film opened on April 10, 1987, and debuted at number one at the box office, taking $7.8million in its opening weekend.[12] It stayed at No. 1 for five weeks, and was in the top ten films for two months.
The film grossed $66.995million in the US,[13] becoming the 7th highest-grossing film in the United States for the year 1987, and outgrossing arguably better known films such as RoboCop, Predator, Lethal Weapon and Dirty Dancing. The film went on to gross an additional $44million worldwide, giving it a total of $111million.[14] Additionally, the film made $29.856million through video rentals.[15]
Musical
In 2020, a musical based on the film was mid-run for its world premiere and pre-Broadway tryout at the Paramount Theatre in March 2020 with Sydney Morton (Christy Lockhart) and Billy Harrigan Tighe (Brantley Foster/Carlton Whitfield) as leads and Greenberg directing when production was shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.[16][17][18] It had been scheduled to run from February 21 – March 29, and the final performance was March 12, as Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker shut down all performance venues starting March 13.[17][19]
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