“We’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives…third prize is you’re fired!”
Aw, the life of a salesman. These are the famous first words uttered by Alec Baldwin’s nasty character in the movie, Glengarry Glen Ross. One of the great tough guy parts in cinema history. Baldwin’s character is either the world’s best or possibly the world’s worst motivational speaker of all time. His name is Blake, and he’s been called in from “downtown” to motivate (or intimidate) the real estate salesmen at Premiere Properties. Sales figures are down and it’s up to Blake to convey the salesman’s mantra to the sales force… Always be closing. You see, only closers get coffee in real estate, and Blake should know, he drove an $80,000 BMW to get there and the rest of the salesmen drove a Hyundai.
David Mamet’s screenplay is brilliantly razor-sharp in this scorching tale of salesmen and the pressures that they’re under to close their sales prospects. He wrote the adaptation from his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name. The dialogue and the characters ring true. There’s not a moment of dishonesty in the entire movie. Rumor has it that Mamet wrote the play while working briefly in a real estate sales office as a younger man. The scathing language, especially the abundant use of profanity, is lifted directly from real life situations.
The cast is magnificent, possibly the best group of screen actors assembled…EVER! All are pitch perfect. Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris and Alan Arkin make up the desperate sales team, hoping to turn things around as they wait for the premium Glengarry sales leads. Despite that, Kevin Spacey’s trusted office manager is instructed to hold the leads until these “losers” prove themselves as closers.
It’s pretty much agreed upon that the real standout performance in the movie is Baldwin’s in-your-face sales motivation speech. Almost eight minutes long, the whole scene is so over-flowing with Movie Men tough guy lines it’s hard to choose the best one. “Put that coffee down, coffee’s for closers.”… “You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?”…”The fucking leads are weak? You’re weak!”… “They’re sitting out there waiting to give you their money. Are you going to take it? Are you man enough to take it”…“It takes brass balls to sell real estate.”
Those are just a few of the choice lines, they’re all so beautifully coarse. In real life, the speech has been so influential that it’s been co-opted by hoards of salesmen, stock traders and telemarketers across the country to encourage their own sales teams. I suppose imitation is a form of flattery. It would be interesting to see if this kind of intimidation actually increases sales figures over time. It seems outlandish, but as Blake says in the movie, “Only one thing counts in this world: get them to sign on the line which is dotted.”
Simply put.
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