Working Girl
Working Girl is a 1988 American romantic comedy drama film directed by Mike Nichols, written by Kevin Wade, and starring Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, and Melanie Griffith. Its plot follows an ambitious secretary from Staten Island working in mergers and acquisitions. The secretary, who has been going to business night school, pitches a profitable idea, only to have her new boss attempt to take credit. When her boss is laid up with a broken leg, she secretly takes over her boss's role to prove her capabilities in the corporate world.
The film's opening sequence follows Manhattan-bound commuters on the Staten Island Ferry accompanied by Carly Simon's song "Let the River Run", for which she received the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television, making her the first artist to win this trio of awards for a song composed and written, as well as performed, entirely by a single artist. The film was met with critical acclaim, and was a major box office success, grossing a worldwide total of $103 million.
Working Girl was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress for Griffith, while both Weaver and Joan Cusack were nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The film won four Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Actress – Musical or Comedy for Griffith, and Best Supporting Actress for Weaver. It also received three BAFTA nominations: Best Actress for Griffith, Best Supporting Actress for Weaver, and Best Original Score for Simon.
Plot
Tess McGill is a working-class woman from Staten Island who dreams of climbing the corporate ladder to an executive position. Having earned a business degree via night school, she works as a secretary at a stockbroker firm in lower Manhattan. There, Tess's boss and male co-workers treat her like a bimbo, despite benefiting from her intelligence and business instincts. After one humiliation too many from her scornful boss, Tess retaliates by posting on a VDT what she thinks of him and of what he's done. This greatly amuses Tess's colleagues, but also gets her fired.Shortly thereafter, Tess lands another job, this time as an administrative assistant to Katharine Parker, an associate partner at the mergers-and-acquisitions firm Petty Marsh. At first, Katharine seems supportive of Tess, encouraging her to share ideas. Eventually, however, she insists that Tess's proposed purchase of a radio network by Trask Industries would not work out.
When Katharine breaks her leg skiing, she asks Tess to house-sit. While there, Tess discovers meeting notes which reveal Katharine's intention to pass off the Trask Industries idea as her own. Returning home, Tess finds her live-in boyfriend having sex with another woman. Tess dumps him. With Katharine still in the hospital, Tess uses her boss's connections and clothes to ramrod the Trask proposal. With help from her friend Cyn, Tess gives herself a makeover, borrowing Katherine's stylish clothes to look more professional.
Tess schedules a meeting with Jack Trainer, a mergers-and-acquisitions associate from another company. The night before the meeting, she attends a dinner hosted by Trainer's firm. Trainer is attracted to Tess, and approaches her at the bar. Yet Jack does not reveal his name, even after she asks directly whether he knows the man she's slated to meet with. Trainer brings Tess to his apartment, after she passes out in a cab from a combination of Valium and alcohol.
Tess leaves early the next day, believing that they slept together. Arriving for her meeting with Trainer and his associates, she is surprised to recognize him from the previous night. They both feign non-recognition. After the meeting, Tess worries that her deal has failed, until Jack arrives at Tess's office. He assures her that they did not sleep together, and that he wants to move forward with her idea. Together, they prepare the financials for her merger proposal, which they present successfully to Trask. Tess and Jack celebrate by giving in to their attraction, and ending up in bed. Thereafter, Tess discovers that Jack has been involved with Katharine, but was planning to break up with her when she went skiing and got injured.
Katharine returns home on the day of the merger meeting. While Tess is helping her get settled, Katharine brings up the Trask merger, claiming she was intent on taking it to Jack, and on eventually giving Tess credit for it. Katharine adds that Jack's strict ethical code has prevented him from looking at another's ideas without verifying the source, ever since he was accused of stealing himself. Jack arrives in response to a call from Katharine, who unsuccessfully tries to seduce him. Tess avoids running into Jack at Katharine's apartment, but accidentally leaves her notebook there before she departs for the meeting. Katharine discovers Tess's deception by finding the notebook, which includes Jack's phone numbers and the scheduled merger meeting.
At the meeting, Tess brings up what Katharine told her about Jack's ethical code, and about his being accused of stealing. Jack insists that it was all a lie. Then Katharine crashes the meeting and outs Tess as her secretary. She accuses Tess of stealing the Trask merger idea. Unable to defend herself, Tess apologizes profusely and leaves.
Tess returns to Petty Marsh a day later, intent on cleaning out her desk. Instead she encounters Jack, Katharine, Trask, and members of Trask's board. Jack sticks up for Tess, who points out a news item which presents a possible risk to the merger's success. She explains to Trask what inspired her plan for his radio acquisition. Trask confronts Katharine, who, when she is unable to explain where Tess's plan came from, is fired.
Tess lands an entry-level job with Trask Industries. She also moves in with Jack. On her first day at Trask, Tess meets a colleague named Alice, whom she takes for her new supervisor. Alice explains that she is actually Tess's secretary. Tess makes it very clear that she considers Alice a colleague, thus proving herself very different from Katharine. At the first opportunity, Tess calls Cyn from her new office and tells her that she has made it.
Cast
Production
Development
Screenwriter Kevin Wade was inspired to write the screenplay after visiting New York City in 1984 and witnessing throngs of career women walking through the streets in tennis shoes while carrying their high-heels.Casting
Melanie Griffith read the screenplay for Working Girl over a year before the production began, and expressed interest in playing the role of Tess McGill. Approximately a year later, Mike Nichols agreed to direct the film after reading the screenplay while shooting his film Biloxi Blues in Arkansas. Following Nichols's attachment, Griffith had a formal audition for the role. Molly Ringwald auditioned but was deemed "too young." Nichols was so determined for Griffith to have the part that he threatened to drop out of the production if the studio, 20th Century Fox, would not hire her.Following the casting of Sigourney Weaver and Harrison Ford—both major stars at that point—the studio agreed to cast Griffith, as they felt Weaver and Ford's involvement gave them a higher chance of box-office success.
Filming
of Working Girl began on February 16, 1988, in New York City. Many scenes were shot in the New Brighton section of Staten Island in New York City. One half-day of shooting to complete the skiing accident scene took place in New Jersey. Four different buildings portrayed the offices of Petty Marsh—1 State Street Plaza; the Midday Club, which served as the company's club room; the lobby of 7 World Trade Center ; and the reading floor of the L. F. Rothschild Building. One Chase Manhattan Plaza was featured at the end of the film as the Trask Industries building. Filming completed on April 27, 1988, with the final sequence being shot on the Staten Island Ferry.Throughout the shoot, Griffith was in the midst of struggling with a years-long alcohol and cocaine addiction, which at times interfered with the shoot. "There were a lot of things that happened on Working Girl that I did that were not right," Griffith recalled in 2019. "It was the late '80s. There was a lot going on party-wise in New York. There was a lot of cocaine. There was a lot of temptation." After Nichols realized that Griffith had arrived on set high on cocaine, the shoot was temporarily shut down for 24 hours. Griffith elaborated on the experience:
Three weeks after filming was completed, Griffith entered a rehabilitation facility to receive treatment for her addiction. Ironically, according to the biography Mike Nichols: A Life, written by Mark Harris, Nichols had been battling a cocaine addiction of his own around the same time.
Music
The film's main theme "Let the River Run" was written, arranged, and performed by American singer-songwriter Carly Simon, and won her an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Grammy Award for Best Original Song, making Simon the first artist to win this trio of awards for a song written, as well as performed, entirely by a single artist. As a single, "Let the River Run" reached No. 49 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and No. 11 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart in early 1989.The film's additional soundtrack was scored by Simon and Rob Mounsey. The soundtrack album was released by Arista Records on August 29, 1989, and peaked at No. 45 on the Billboard 200.