''Other People's Money'' is a 1991 American romantic

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film directed by

Norman Jewison Norman Frederick Jewison (born July 21, 1926) is a retired Canadian film and television director, producer, and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. He has directed numerous feature films and has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best D ...

, starring

Danny DeVito Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. (born November 17, 1944) is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He gained prominence for his portrayal of the taxi dispatcher Louie De Palma in the television series ''Taxi'' (1978–1983), which won him a Gold ...

, Gregory Peck and

Penelope Ann Miller Penelope Ann Miller (born Penelope Andrea Miller; January 13, 1964), sometimes credited as Penelope Miller, is an American actress. She began her career on Broadway in the 1985 original production of ''Biloxi Blues'' and received a Tony Award no ...

. It was adapted by screenwriter Alvin Sargent from the 1989

play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * Pla ...

of the same name by Jerry Sterner. The minor film is mostly notable as Gregory Peck's last major screen performance.

Plot

Lawrence "Larry the Liquidator" Garfield (Danny DeVito) is a successful

corporate raid In business, a corporate raid is the process of buying a large stake in a corporation and then using shareholder voting rights to require the company to undertake novel measures designed to increase the share value, generally in opposition to t ...

er who has become rich buying up companies and selling off their assets. With the help of a computerized stock analyzing program called "Carmen", Garfield has identified New England Wire & Cable Company as his next target. The struggling company is run by the benevolent and folksy Andrew "Jorgy" Jorgenson (Gregory Peck) and is the primary employer in its small

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

town in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

. Garfield decides to take over the company. After Jorgy learns that he has filed a

Schedule 13D Schedule 13D is an SEC filing that must be submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission within 10 days by anyone who acquires beneficial ownership of more than 5% of any class of publicly traded securities in a public company. A filer mu ...

report, and after stubbornly insisting that no outsider can seize control of a business his father began, Jorgy is finally persuaded to hire his stepdaughter Kate (Penelope Ann Miller), a big-city lawyer, to defend against a

hostile takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to ...

. Garfield is instantly smitten with the beautiful Kate, although he is on to her tactics and does not waver from his goal of becoming the majority stockholder of New England Wire & Cable. Garfield tactlessly and unsuccessfully tries to seduce her. Despite their antagonism, Kate finds herself attracted to Garfield's bold nature. The takeover attempt begins to fracture the New England Wire & Cable Company family. Kate's mother Bea (

Piper Laurie Piper Laurie (born Rosetta Jacobs; January 22, 1932) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in the films ''The Hustler'' (1961), '' Carrie'' (1976), and '' Children of a Lesser God'' (1986), all of which brought her Academy Award no ...

) secretly travels to Garfield's offices to offer one million dollars in

greenmail Greenmail or greenmailing is the action of purchasing enough shares in a firm to challenge a firm's leadership with the threat of a hostile takeover to force the target company to buy the purchased shares back at a premium in order to prevent the ...

to Garfield if he'll go away, but he refuses, stating, "I don't take money from widows or orphans". Trusted company president Bill Coles ( Dean Jones), fearful that the takeover will leave him with nothing, offers to let Garfield vote his shares in the company in exchange for a million-dollar payout. Garfield agrees, but specifies that Coles will get only half as much if his shares fail to make up the margin of victory. Garfield concedes to Jorgy's offer to let the matter be settled at the annual shareholder's meeting. Relying on the support of longtime friends and investors, Jorgy makes an impassioned plea to save the company, appealing to the traditions of manufacturing as opposed to the new breed of capitalism which Larry the Liquidator represents, in which buyers of companies create no products or jobs and are interested only in money. The shareholders seem swayed by Jorgy's speech and boo Garfield when he gets up to give a rebuttal. In his rebuttal, Garfield compares New England Wire & Cable to the last

buggy whip Buggy may refer to: * Buggy (automobile) * Buggy (surname) * Dune buggy or beach buggy, a light, open recreational vehicle * Horse-drawn buggy * Kite buggy, a light, purpose-built vehicle powered by a traction kite * Shopping buggy or shoppin ...

manufacturer, arguing that even though the company's product may be high quality, changing technology has rendered it obsolete. Rather than running a failing business into the ground, he contends that the shareholders should follow his lead and get what value they can from the stock before the company's inevitable demise. At least when this company is liquidated, he says, they'll end up with a few dollars in their pocket. When the vote is taken, the shareholders agree to give Garfield controlling interest in the company. The margin of victory is greater than Coles' shares and thus he does not receive the full amount he betrayed Jorgy to get. Back at home in Manhattan, Garfield finds himself uncharacteristically despondent after his victory, having realized he has lost his chance for a romance with Kate. Just then, Kate calls. She's been having discussions with a

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese automaker that wants to hire New England Wire & Cable to manufacture stainless steel wire cloth for making automobile airbags, something which will make the company profitable again on a new expanding industrial product. An excited Garfield invites her to dinner to discuss it. Kate tells him lunch, “strictly business, you know where”. Garfield blushes and smiles at this.

Cast

as Lawrence ("Larry the Liquidator") Garfield * Gregory Peck as Andrew ("Jorgy") Jorgenson *

as Kate Sullivan *

as Bea Sullivan * Dean Jones as Bill Coles * R. D. Call as Arthur *

Mo Gaffney Maureen E. Gaffney (born November 5, 1958, in San Diego, California) is an American actress and activist. Career Gaffney hosted two of her own television talk shows: ''Women Aloud!'' (which was shown on the Comedy Central network) and ''The Mo ...

as Harriet *

Tom Aldredge Thomas Ernest Aldredge (February 28, 1928 – July 22, 2011) was an American television, film and stage actor. He won a Daytime Emmy Award for playing the role of Shakespeare in ''Henry Winkler Meets William Shakespeare'' (1978). His Broadway ...

as Ozzie

Production

The film was mainly shot in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. During the opening credits, the original 7 World Trade Center lobby can be seen. Some of the scenes that take place inside the factory were shot in the now defunct "Seymour Specialty and Wire" in Seymour,

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

. Other scenes were shot in the (also defunct) Gilbert and Bennett mill in Georgetown, Connecticut.

Reception

The film received mixed to negative reviews, with a 31% rating on review aggregate

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 16 reviews.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

of ''

The Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'' gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, but said 'I didn't like the very last scene of “Other People’s Money.” It felt tacked on, manufactured, concocted out of a Hollywood studio's knee-jerk need to provide a smileyface ending that was not in the spirit of the film'.

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' said of Sargent's adaptation, 'culminates in a speechy but effective debate about the merits of old-fashioned business versus the corporate takeover,' but still felt that the film was 'too genial to be hard-hitting.'

References

External links

* * * * * {{Norman Jewison 1991 films 1991 comedy-drama films American business films American comedy-drama films Trading films Films directed by Norman Jewison American films based on plays Warner Bros. films Films set in Rhode Island Films shot in Connecticut Corporate raiders Wall Street films Films scored by David Newman Films with screenplays by Alvin Sargent 1990s English-language films 1990s American films