Expert: Mel - 8/21/2010

Question
hi Mel,

I have been searching the net like crazy to find the name of this movie I had watched many years ago.
that was a color movie, a comedy, I am guessing from the 50's or 60's, about a young ambitious guy who buys a book that successfully instructs him how to move up the corporate pyramid. I remember that at some point the guy faces the challenge of a senior executive who uses the same book.

thanks,
Yoni

Answer
Hello Yoni,

That sounds like the 1967 film "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying".

PLOT OUTLINE: Twenty-seven year old New York window washer J. Pierpont "Ponty" Finch believes he can be a success in the corporate world after he impulsively picks up the book "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". The book promises its reader that he can climb the corporate ladder simply and quickly. The Worldwide Wicket Corporation, the business in the office building whose windows he washes, is the perfect type of business. There, he meets secretary Rosemary Pilkington, who sees in Ponty an unassuming man who she believes the corporate world will eat alive. Ponty, memorizing what the book tells him, does quickly climb the corporate ladder, but not by doing any real work. But Ponty has a few obstacles along the way, such as: Bud Frump, the nephew by marriage of the company president J.B. Biggley, Bud who sees Ponty as a rival; Hedy La Rue, a curvaceous but simple woman who has a secret, or not so secret, tie to someone important in the company; Mr. Ovington, an executive who Ponty can't figure out; and himself, by possibly making a fatal error in not reading far enough ahead in the book. Ponty ultimately has to decide if climbing to the top of the ladder is worth stepping on all those along the way and risk losing the love of Rosemary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Succeed_in_Business_Without_Really_Trying_(film)


Glad to be of help. Cheers.........Mel.