The Secret Of My Success owes its very existence to How To Succeed In Business. I wouldn't be surprised if before the Parkinson's overtook him that Michael J. Fox didn't do How To Succeed in summer stock. If he didn't he should have.

This film has Fox as a bright young college graduate from Kansas, not unlike Clark Kent without the superpowers.. He's got himself an entry level position in a New York brokerage house and off he goes to the Big Apple because as the song teaches us 'if I can make it there I'll make it anywhere'.

With a cheap flat of an apartment Fox finds his position has vanished along with the company that has downsized and he can't get a job. Desperate he goes to a distant relative, an uncle by marriage Richard Jordan who gives him a job in the mailroom. Fox also attracts the interest of Jordan's new wife Margaret Whitton and later on of Helen Slater who is a girl Friday of Jordan's.

After that Fox makes his upward rise with circumstances making him obtain two identities, his own in the mailroom and a new executive in the company. Fox also discovers that the mailroom can be a strategically good to learn company business if one is bright.

All the while dodging the suspicious Fred Pankow who plays his mailroom supervisor who is a bit jealous of Fox seeing how bright he is. Pankow has some great scenes trying to find out who this new executive with the company is.

The Secret Of My Success is a good commentary on the Reagan 80s and the work ethic therein. One wonders if Fox could have made a go of it in Gordon Gekko's company. I'm betting he could.

Brantley Foster (Michael J. Fox) is fresh in New York from Kansas. He loses his job before he starts when it disappears in a hostile takeover. New York is tougher than he ever imagines. In desperation, he visits his distant wealthy grumpy uncle Howard Prescott (Richard Jordan),and is given a mail room job. He falls for top executive Christy Wills (Helen Slater).

It's a bad 80s take on corporate America. It lurches from ridiculous humor to serious. It seems to be heavily influenced by other 80s movies. Director Herbert Ross gives us crazy clothes, popular music interludes, and cheesy humor. The only good thing is the charismatic Michael J. Fox. His boyish charm is able to keep this mess on track.

Released the same year as "Wall Street", "The Secret of My Succe$s" plays with corporate bureaucracy. Brantley Foster (Michael J. Fox) has just moved to New York from Kansas, and hopes to hit it big. Naturally, this proves harder than it looks. Fortunately, Brantley has what it takes, by which I mean cunning. He poses as an office boy, and does some things that...well, let's just say that the corporate world will never be the same. If you ask me, Michael J. Fox works best in comedy, although his Parkinson's has of course prevented him from acting anymore. But anyway, you won't find this movie dull. If anything, this is what the business world is all about!