Great Hollywood business baddies

By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine

One of the 1980s' most glorious villains, corporate raider Gordon Gekko, is coming back to the big screen in a Wall Street sequel. He's one of a long line of baddies that Hollywood takes from the world of business.

Despite being a big money business in itself, Hollywood regularly takes a dim view of those from the world of business.

In countless movies, business leaders are portrayed as at best, dull and driven, and at worst, cruel, manipulative villains.

Stock characters like the evil property developer and the ruthless boss litter the silver screen.

GORDON GEKKO - WALL STREET

With his slicked back hair, braces, and shark-like smile, Gordon Gekko was the film baddie of the 1980s. Audiences revelled in his pithily propounded ruthlessness.

Greed - for lack of a better word - is good Gordon Gekko Gekko crawls back to Wall Street

Named after a lizard, the corporate raider played by Michael Douglas was loosely based on Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and half a dozen other financial miscreants of the 1980s. He is a corporate raider intent on buying companies and selling off their assets, and he sees a protege in young Bud Fox, played by Charlie Sheen.

His piece-de-resistance as a film baddie comes in his "greed is good" speech to the shareholders of Teldar Paper, which he is hoping to take over.

"I am not a destroyer of companies, I am a liberator of them... Greed - for lack of a better word - is good. Greed is right, greed works.

"Greed clarifies cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit."

And he beautifully summed up the fundamentalist work ethic with his maxim: "Lunch is for wimps."

But the battle in the film is not between the capitalism of Gekko and the anti-capitalism of his opponents. The battle is between two forms of capitalism - a ruthless, super-ambitious version advocated by Gekko and the softer, slower, more traditional type practised by his victims.

Of course, as with so many charismatic film baddies, it's hard not to love him at least a little bit. Wall Street screenwriter Stanley Weiser has remarked on the way young people who speak to him about the movie frequently see Gekko as a hero.

MR POTTER - IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

If Gekko has a spiritual father in the movies it is Mr Potter, the baddie in It's A Wonderful Life.

George Bailey (middle) - the acceptable face of capitalism

In the "good" corner is George Bailey who runs his savings and loan company with the primary aim of helping the people of the town of Bedford Falls, rather than pure profit.

In the "bad" corner is Potter who wants to take over the savings and loan outfit and stop its frivolous lending. He represents greed untrammelled by feeling for the community. Eventually Potter goes as far as stealing $8,000 in an effort to destroy Bailey.

Again, the film is about the battle between a moderate, people-centred version of capitalism and a more brutal, unkind variety.

NOAH CROSS - CHINATOWN

Noah Cross is a truly despicable creation, played by John Huston in Roman Polanski's classic Chinatown.

Noah Cross (left): Nasty in business and no home-maker either

His financial evil-doing involves cutting off water supplies to agricultural land by sabotage, and then buying plots up cheap.

But this pales in comparison to what he has done to his own family, fathering a child by his daughter and then trying to malevolently control their lives.

Huston carries off the strident, bullying persona of Cross perfectly. Cross wins because of the apathy and greed of people less villainous than himself.

MAX ZORIN - A VIEW TO A KILL

The James Bond movies contain many examples of legitimate businessmen who don't know when to stop. They're not satisfied by making billions. Instead, they start fitting out henchmen with matching jumpsuits and building an underground base.

Blond ambition: Max Zorin went too far in eliminating the competition

Hugo Drax (Moonraker) followed up a successful career in aerospace with an unsuccessful attempt to wipe out the population of the earth. Karl Stromberg (The Spy Who Loved Me) followed up a successful career in shipping with an unsuccessful attempt to wipe out the population of the earth.

By their standards, Max Zorin's scheme to flood Silicon Valley by causing a massive earthquake - and thereby remove rivals to his microchip business - is rather modest. But there is something about Zorin, played by a bleached blond Christopher Walken, that propels him into the great business baddie pantheon.

His backstory as the product of a Nazi eugenics experiment, his dastardly antics on an airship, his racehorse doping and his all-female bodyguard unit all make him stand out.

RANDOLPH AND MORTIMER DUKE - TRADING PLACES

The financial misbehaviour of these two ageing commodities brokers, played by Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche, is unforgivable. Gordon Gekko's overweening ambition might be explained at least in part by his relative youth.

But the Dukes scheme to make a killing on orange futures by getting insider information on the harvest is harder to forgive in two representatives of a more gentlemanly age of trading.

And of course, their destruction of the young Winthorpe - played by Dan Aykroyd - is just for fun.

CHARLES FOSTER KANE - CITIZEN KANE

Charles Foster Kane: more megalomaniacal than malicious

The protagonist of Citizen Kane is interested in power, more than money. And not just power over peers or of a political nature, but power in his personal relationships.

As far as villains go, he's a fairly ambiguous sort. Kane causes unpleasantness for some of those in his life, but for the most part he isn't driven by malice. But his publishing of stories that aren't true to boost newspaper sales hardly paints him as a hero of business.

Ultimately the person who suffers most from his machinations is himself, as he dies unhappy despite all his wealth and success.

NORMAN OSBORN/GREEN GOBLIN - SPIDER-MAN

When a share price is reliant on a new invention being made to work so a big military contract can be fulfilled, it's understandable that you might be willing to cut corners.

Those corners should obviously not extend to experimenting with a dangerous serum, killing the chief scientist and then wiping out the board of directors with grenades. That is well outside the Cadbury Rules .

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A selection of your comments appears below.

This focus on corporate characters is just a reflection of reality: the executives of big companies exploiting people for their personal selfish goal of making as much money as possible. Anyone who denies this need look no further than Bernard Madoff.
Alex Brodie, London

The perfect movie villain is someone who represents everything the anti-villain is not. So who is the anti-villain? It's usually someone who is out on their luck, financially not doing so great and generally ignored by the masses. Doesn't this represent the majority of 'ordinary' people? The villain is probably very wealthy, greedy for power, money or control. They represent everything that we would like to be but distorted beyond recognition. Ultimately, the viewer is left feeling happy with his/her lot.
Harun Rabbani, London

Hollywood's propensity for defamation is exceeded only by their glorification of violence - for profit. World around, the overwhelming majority of business executives are honest. Most seek to deliver greater value at every decreasing cost to their customers. That is, it is better to build a market than grab short term gains. This in itself is highly moral. The few crooks that do litter business here and there can be easily identified by their willingness to resort to political favour, government assistance, and legal proceedings whenever their competition gets the better of them. As for Hollywood, creativity there has long since died to crude formula contrived upon base emotion. Envy - hating another for what is good about them - feeds box office greed by appealing to the worst in others. So much so, that if an American truly desires artful, creative, and cultured cinema, they must wait for the next BBC production to cross the Atlantic.
Esek Trent, Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania USA

Baddies are easy to spot in American films - they're the ones driving the European cars.
Phil, London

Great list, although I think it's missing Lex Luthor from Superman
Ned, Guildford

How about the corporate bureaucrat portrayed by John Houseman in 'Rollerball'. Here is the true meaning of power: the stifling of change by any means.
Paul T Horgan, Bracknell,UK

I think Other People's Money, starring Danny de Vito as Larry the Liquidator should be added to the list.
Ray Powell, Richmond England

How about Welles as Harry Lime in "The Third Man"? "You know what the fellow said - in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace-and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock"
Jack Thursby, Sheffield

Charles Foster Kane always seemed more like a tragic, misguided hero than a bad guy.
Steve Hurley, Tooting, London

How could you ever forget to include Daniel Plainview, the obnoxious oil tycoon from There Will be Blood? Daniel Day-Lewis impersonates the very essence of pure, unrelenting greed.
Rodrigo Alcântara, Recife, Brazil

How about Patrick Bateman, played by Christian Bale in American Psycho... Surely he is everything that is perceived to be bad about wall street in terms of greed, detachment and materialism?... While also being a serial killer.
Jay, London, UK

Shame, you missed Zorg in Fifth Element, capably played by Gary Oldman, with his offhand remark to an aide; Sack a million in one of the smaller companies, say the taxi companies, in response to a government request to increase unemployment to stave off overheating in the economy. The psychotic explanation of the economy to Cornelius (Ian Holm) is a joy to watch. An uber-industrialist's bad boy, with an odd taste in robes
Rebecca Baty, Ramsgate, UK