The Lady and the Stock Exchange (1962) User Reviews

How It Worked In 1962

[boblipton · 6/10 · 20 March 2024]

Here's an industrial film about the New York Stock Exchange. It begins with a short black-and-white discussion about the tour guides, all lovely young ladies, who conduct visitors about the Exchange on Broad and Wall. After that, we get to look at a short comedy about married couple Janet Blair and Eddie Bracken. They have inherited $4500 -- a sizable amount back then -- and wish to invest it to pay for their son's education. Bracken talks with friend Jim Backus about a hush-hush investment. Miss Blair, in contrast, goes to broker Everett Sloan, is told something about the process, is given literature, and gets a brief look at the Stock Exchange, back in the heyday of the Open Outcry system of stock sales.

Nowadays, of course, the same system applies, although the floor of the Stock Exchange is comparatively deserted. Instead, the transactions take place online.

Humorous and educational

[Rodrigo_Amaro · 7/10 · 20 May 2022]

This was an interesting and well-developed short film designed to invite women to join the Stock Exchange market and consolidate good earnings and dealing with Wall Street. It begins as a documentary showing the busy world of finances in New York and the main attractions from the place which is shown presenting women visiting there as if a tourism vacation.

Not long later, "The Lady and the Stock Exchange" begins introducing the typical American Way of Life kind of family with a happy wife (Janet Blair), a happy husband (Eddie Bracken) who is always late for his appointments and a bright kid (a very talented boy who didn't received credits for the role). Little the husband know that his wife is about to consult with a Wall Street specialist (Everett Sloane) about the possibility of investing on bonds and savings after earning a nice income comes to the family and she wants to invest in her son's college.

She gets plenty of advice from the veteran man and visits the trading floor where the man guides her through the whole process of acquisitions and sales.

Cut to the other side of the relationship there's her husband trying to use that same money in some weird investiment he's doing with a relative (Jim Backus), of whom he assures it's a calculated risk. So both sides (man and woman are hiding their "shady" businesses which generates a lot of fun for us viewers).

It's a very informative piece, quite easy to follow and it truly engages women who don't know much about the finantial world to become potential investors because it's all made out to be very attractive, with almost no risks involved and guaranteed return of profits. Heck, even a the common male who doesn't know much about the stock exchange and how it works will find it a very interesting piece and will probably enter the game right away.

I personally don't understand much of the business - even though the movie made it very easy to follow through - and I'd like to have the perspective from people in the business world so they could pintpoint what's exactly real or not for first-timers in Wall Street, and others similar places around the world. One major point of concern (and quite realistic) is when Sloane character is talking over the phone with a client who was worried about a potential bond, of which we later learn is a fraudulent scheme but the client was warned in time. That's what pushes people down when it comes to entering a new world where you can either gain a lot of money but can also make you lose a lot of money. It makes us wonder...

In terms of sort of commercial kind of thing this works with plenty of efficiency and charm, it's all well-acted and presented, and it's a very humorous picture where you can also learn plenty of things. 7/10.