Other People’s Money (1991): Capitalism At Its Most Depraved

THIS FILM IS FREE ON YOUTUBE!

Directed by Norman Jewison, Other People’s Money centers around a corporate battle for ownership of a family-owned factory that’s said to be supporting a small town’s employment needs.

Gregory Peck (what a treat that a 1940s screen icon gets such a meaty role in 1991!) plays supposed blue-collar champion Andrew Jorgensen.

His opponent, Larry the Liquidator, is Danny DeVito gleefully playing the same notes of depravity that you see as Frank in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Only he doesn’t live in filth and squalor but in a shamefully extravagant hotel suite with a staff that includes 17 lawyers. While the film is an attempt to live up to the corporate-damning messaging of the 1987 film Wall Street, this film is as much about the singular oddity of Larry that Devito establishes with such a grandiose sense of hedonism. He’s a ruthless ball of lust and greed with no filter.

I’d like to pause to talk about how I first came across this film:

In elementary school, my parents were restrictive about my TV and I used to sneak into my nanny/housekeeper’s bedroom when she went away on the weekends. But she had a broken TV and I only got one or two channels that came in clear. One was a syndicated Paramount channel…