Cackling "whoever has the most when he dies, wins!" Danny DeVito's market driven corporate raider, Lawrence "the Liquidator" Garfield, lit up screens in the dark comedy Other People's Money, released this week on October 18, 1991.

The plot, based on a bitterly satiric off-Broadway play, has the tough guy Garfield prowling for the next big score. He soon focuses his energies on a family-owned, profitable corporation with a money losing subsidiary, New England Wire And Cable...run by the elder "Jorgy" Andrew Jorgenson (Gregory Peck), an old-school patriarch more concerned with factory workers' well being than pure shareholder profits. "The Liquidator" soon meets a credible opponent though when Jorgenson's loyal assistant's daughter/lawyer, Kate (Penelope Ann Miller), is brought onboard to help Jorgy fight the hostile takeover.

Many scenarios of one-upmanship and then, mutual attraction hilariously and deviously come into play. Eventually Garfield moves in for the score during a climatic Capra-esque, stockholders' shoot-out. His dilemma of choosing money or love is resolved for much like the scorpion, it's his nature not to mismanage "other people's money."

This Week in Wall Street History

10/12/08