The Moneychangers
OCLC 1119465 | |
The Moneychangers is a 1975 novel written by Arthur Hailey. The plot revolves around the politics inside a major bank.
Plot summary
As the novel begins, the position of CEO of one of America's largest banks, First Mercantile American, is about to become vacant due to the terminal illness of Ben Roselli, the incumbent chief, whose grandfather founded the bank.
Two high-ranking executives groomed for the succession begin their personal combat for the position. One, Alex Vandervoort, is honest, hard-charging, and focused on growing FMA through retail banking and embracing emerging technology; the other, Roscoe Heyward, is suave, hypocritical, and skilled in boardroom politics, and favors catering more to business than to consumers. Heyward lives in a "rambling, three-story house in the suburb of
Many characters and plot lines interweave. Senior bank teller Miles Eastin is discovered to be defrauding the bank whilst casting guilt on another teller, a young single mother named Juanita Nunez. He is dismissed, arrested, and convicted. While in prison, he is gang-raped by a gang of fellow inmates. In prison, his knowledge of
As readers increasingly appreciate Vandervoort, the
As these men pursue their battle for the soon-to-be-vacant position of CEO, various issues involving the banking industry, such as
The fight for control of the bank continues under the darkening clouds of an approaching economic
Real-life background
One of the banking innovations that Hailey mentioned in The Moneychangers is Docutel, an automated teller machine,[1]: 308 based on real technology that was issued a patent in 1974 in the United States.
In the novel, Jill Peacock, a journalist, interviewed First Mercantile American Bank executive VP, Alexander Vandervoort, in a suburban shopping plaza where the bank had installed the first two stainless-steel Docutel automatic tellers. Vandervoort, whose clothes looked like they were from the "fashion section of Esquire" and who had the "mannerisms a la Johnny Carson", was not at all like the classical solemn, cautious banker in a double-breasted, dark blue suit. Peacock compared him to the new ATMs which embodied modern banking.[1]
The history of the real Docutel was traced in a New York Times magazine article. The breakthrough came when Don Wetzel, Vice President of Product Planning at Docutel, was waiting in a long line for a teller at a bank in Dallas, Texas in 1968. Wetzel had seen cash dispensing machines in Europe and was inspired to adapt Docutel technology, which was originally used in airport baggage handling, to create Docuteller, an American version.[2] By 1969 work began on the prototype and the first working Docutel ABM was installed at Chemical Bank in New York.[3][4]
The bank is very loosely based on the
Miniseries
The novel was adapted for television as a 6+1⁄2-hour NBC miniseries titled Arthur Hailey's the Moneychangers of which its four parts aired on December 4, 1976, and each of the subsequent three Sunday evenings through December 19 as part of the network's “Big Event” format.[5] Ross Hunter and Jacque Mapes were the producers and Boris Sagal directed.[6][7][8]
- Starring
- Kirk Douglas as Alex Vandervoort
- Christopher Plummer as Roscoe Heyward
- Timothy Bottoms as Miles Eastin
- Susan Flannery as Margot Bracken
- Anne Baxter as Edwina Dorsey
- Percy Rodrigues as Nolan Wainwright
- Guest starring
- Ralph Bellamy as Jerome Patterton
- Joan Collins as Avril Devereaux
- Robert Loggia as Tony Bear
- Marisa Pavan as Celia Vandervoort
- Jean Peters as Beatrice Heyward
- Hayden Rorke as Lewis Dorsey
- James Shigeta as Wizard Wong
- Amy Tivell as Juanita Nunez
- and Patrick O'Neal as Harold Austin
- Special appearance by
- Lorne Greene as George Quartermain
- Helen Hayes as Dr. McCartney
- Co-starring
- Roger Bowen as Fergus Gatwick
- Leonardo Cimino as Ben Roselli
- Douglas V. Fowley as Danny Kerrigan
- Basil Hoffman as Stanley Inchbeck
- Lincoln Kilpatrick as Deacon Euphrates
- Harry Lewis as George Sperrie
- Woodrow Parfrey as Mr. Tottenhoe
- Michael Shannon as Lew Endicott
- Stan Shaw as John Dinkerwell
- Joseph R. Sicari as Julius LaRocca
- Chick Vennera as Humphy Lopez
John J. O'Connor of The New York Times raised concerns about the violence portrayed in the miniseries. He described the scene that concluded Part 1 involving the rape of embezzler Miles Eastin by fellow inmates as "one of the most explicity [sic] sexual-assault scenes devised without benefit of outright hardcore pornography."[9]
Christopher Plummer received a
References
- ^ ISBN 0-385-00896-1.
- ^ "Who Made That?". York Times Magazine. Innovations Issue. New York Times. 7 June 2013.
- ^ "Rise and fall of Docutel: Part II of II". ATM Marketplace. 18 March 2003. Archived from the original on 18 November 2010. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
- Fortune.com.An account of U.S. ATM history
- ^ O'Connor, John J. "TV Weekend," The New York Times, Friday, December 3, 1976. Retrieved February 6, 2021
- ^ a b The Moneychangers, NBC (Awards & Nominations) – Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS). Retrieved February 6, 2021
- ^ Roberts, Jerry. Encyclopedia of Television Film Directors, Volume 1. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2009. Retrieved February 6, 2021
- ^ The Moneychangers Main Title – YouTube (via Damian McGowan). Retrieved February 6, 2021
- ^ O'Connor, John J. "TV: 14th‐Century Holiday Treat," The New York Times, Wednesday, December 22, 1976. Retrieved February 6, 2021
- ^ "Christopher Plummer (1929–2021)," Turner Classic Movies (TCM), Friday, February 5, 2021. Retrieved February 6, 2021
External links
- The Moneychangers at IMDb
- The Moneychangers at AllMovie