Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (October 28, 2025)
50 years after his death, Rod Serling unquestionably remains most famous for The Twilight Zone, a groundbreaking TV series he created that ran from 1959 to 1964. Of course, his career didn’t start with that project and 1956’s Patterns offers a glimpse at pre-Zone Serling.
Fred Staples (Van Heflin) moves from small-town Ohio all the way to Manhattan when powerful industrialist Walter Ramsey (Everett Sloane) hires him to join the company. This places Fred as a top executive at the business.
Unbeknownst to Fred, Ramsey wants to groom him to take over for aging second-in-command Bill Briggs (Ed Begley). This leads to conflicts as Fred battles between ambition and ethics.
Patterns began life as a TV program that aired in 1955 before it got adapted into this 1956 theatrical film. Unusually, the big-screen version brings back almost all the principal cast and crew from the 1955 production.
This means Serling updated the screenplay for the 1956 project and Fielder Cook returned as director. In terms of actors, the biggest change comes from the replacement of Richard Kiley as Fred and Beatrice Straight takes over for June Dayton as Fred’s wife Nancy (called “Fran” in the TV take).
I wish this Blu-ray included the 1955 production – or productions, I should say, as the January 1955 broadcast found such an audience that they restaged it about a month later. One assumes the theatrical edition boasts a higher budget and broader production values, especially since the TV version existed as a live show and thus came with attached limitations.
Cook doesn’t do a lot to expand the tale’s horizons, as it focuses largely on a few sets. Oh, we get the occasional shot of life on NYC streets but these exist mainly as brief establishing elements and they don’t play a real role in the proceedings.
This gives Patterns that “filmed stage production” vibe a lot of the time. Cook doesn’t bring a terribly cinematic feel to the production, though admittedly, it doesn’t lend itself toward anything particularly cinematic since it concentrates so much on a handful of interiors.
Nonetheless, Cook does little to bring life to the story. Patterns tends to seem awfully lifeless as a film because it sticks with simple and stiff shots so much of the time.
The basic story becomes fairly compelling as a look at brutal office politics. It bonds Fred and Bill and resists the usual tendency to paint the younger man as a ruthless striver.
Instead, Fred resents the way that his boss plays him against the older Bill. This adds a compelling twist to what otherwise might become a cliché narrative.
Patterns executes this in a more melodramatic manner than I’d like, though, and the whole project tends to feel broad. Even though the effort only ever existed on TV or film, the performances can aim for the fences in a way that makes them seem like they emanated from a live stage.
Not that I think the actors flop, as they do fine in their parts. Their work tends to lack subtlety, though.
Heflin also seems too old for the role. 47 at the time, Fred feels like a part meant for a man at least 10 years younger, an additional problem since I think Heflin looked considerably older than 47 here.
Amusingly, Heflin, Begley and Sloane were pretty close in age. Born in 1901, Begley was older than Heflin, but only by seven years, and Sloane was actually a year younger than Heflin.
No, actors don’t need to play their actual ages to succeed. However, because Heflin didn’t look like a young man in Patterns, this becomes an issue.
As it happens, Kiley was 14 years younger than Heflin and 34 during the film’s production – ie, the perfect age to play Fred. I don’t know why the theatrical version didn’t retain Kiley but they picked the wrong replacement in Heflin.
All these criticisms aside, Patterns remains a moderately entertaining look at corporate skullduggery. It just doesn’t turn into anything better than average.
