I never quite understood why Garvin(Sutherland) was so hostile towards Sanders(Douglas) from the very beginning. I undertstand why he set him up to get fired AFTER he becomes aware of the line problems and the sexual harassment issue. But in a meeting near the beginning he is bad mouthing him behind his back. What is behind his dislike of Sanders from the very beginning?
shareOne of the first scenes of the film shows Sanders having a conversation with an annoying man that is talking about employees being sandbagged and what not, Sanders shugs off this bothersome loser ( as i would assume Sanders sees it ) and then the scenario the man describes plays out for Sanders, if you have the DVD, i would go back and watch it, answered a lot of the same questions you have for me. Quite easy to overlook and perhaps the movie needs to make a bigger point of it, but the real point of this movie is the roles of the sexes and shows sexual harrasment in a way most people havent seen.
shareThanks. That sounds like a good explanation. I now remember that scene on the ferry where Sanders has that conversation. He shrugs off the guys whining and then WHAM... guess who's next? The only thing then would be why try to get rid of Sanders who appears to be very bright, still reasonably young and up for the promotion that eventually went to Meredith? At the end when Rosemary Forsythe's character becomes top dog of the Seattle operation, she says she is counting on Sanders to be her right hand. Quite a testament to Sanders who just a short time before was in the gunsight of Garvin (her boss). Then again who says corporations or those at the top always make the right decisions.
shareIn Garvin's speech near the end of the movie, he mentions his dead daughter who never got a chance to run a company. So it seems that from the beginning, Garvin had an agenda to promote not only a woman, but a young woman, to run the company, almost as a surrogate for his daughter. In order to forestall Sanders' possible objection, he made it a point to go looking for him before he knew he'd be in the office. Then if Sanders made a fuss, he could say, "Why should I promote you? You're always late for work."
shareIf you read the novel, you also see how Johnson tries to ingratiate herself with Garvin as surrogate daughter.
also Garvin badmouthing Sanders plays a role in smoothing the way for Johnsons introduction
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I am not sure if that is the issue about his dislike for him. I think that Garvin was talking smack in the beginning because he just viewed Sanders as a middle management type that wasn't going to go anywhere else in his company. Plus, it was all business with Garvin because he knew that he was coming into millions and I think it just created a class A D-Bag out of him (Garvin).
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I agree with Rlly294. I think that assessment is spot on and I've personally seen that in real life, albeit not on that scale. I've seen Supervisors that didn't like their Lead Operators simply because the regular workers liked/respected the Lead more than the Supervisor. Kinda sad.. but it happens. I got the impression from the final speech by Garvin that he REALLY wants everyone to like him. Problem is, few if any regular workers like/care about company owners/CEO's or upper management.
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