Hollywood has not been kind to the financial advisory business. While moviemakers have spun countless tales that glorify cowboys, spies, detectives and vampires, they have rarely deigned to portray the travails of financial professionals. And when Hollywood has focused on those who toil in the world of finance, it has shown them in a negative light.
Perhaps the most stinging insult occurs in Woody Allen’s 1969 comedy Take the Money and Run. Incarcerated bank robber Virgil Starkwell (Allen) has his punishment intensified when he is forced to spend a week in solitary confinement with an insurance salesman. (Ouch!)
Here are a few of the films that have turned the camera on the financial services professions, and the lessons they hold for advisors.
> Double Indemnity (1944)
Insurance advisor Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is seduced by an unscrupulous “A” client (Barbara Stanwick), into murdering her husband so she can collect on his insurance policy.
Advisor tip: Think twice before you give a client your home phone number.
> The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
Manhattan bond trader and family man Sherman McCoy (Tom Hanks) becomes involved in a deadly hit-and-run accident while out with his mistress (Melanie Griffith). The ensuing scandal leads to McCoy’s social and financial downfall.
Advisor tip: Diversify your portfolio, not your relationships.
> Wall Street (1987)
Ruthless corporate raider Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) teaches eager young broker Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) that “greed is good.” He teaches the protégé to profit from insider information without a twinge of guilt. But when Fox rediscovers his sense of ethics, he goes after Gekko with a vengeance.
Advisor tip: Greed is not good.
> Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
Having served eight years for securities fraud, money laundering and racketeering, Gordon Gekko (Douglas) is released from jail only to find that his former colleagues are still raking in the cash. In an effort to win back his estranged daughter, he goes after the shark who wronged her boyfriend (Shia LaBeouf) — with a vengeance.
Advisor tip: Greed is still not good.
> Boiler Room (2000)
Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi), an ambitious college drop-out, gets a job cold-calling prospects for a suburban brokerage firm. He finds, to his delight, that he has a talent for cold-calling — earning himself a good salary. But as Seth rises through the ranks of the company, he learns that the legitimacy of the firm is suspect and that he must break the law in order to maintain his position.
Advisor tip: A referral strategy is always the best way to get new business.