Lou Mannheim

That and if someone actually listens and critically analyzes the "Greed is good" speech they will realize he was right

"you can't get a little bit pregnant" and "(money) makes you do things you don't want to do" are 2 of the best lines in a film full of great one-liners, which is especially something since, like you say, he had such little screen time.

I don't think it is just about Gekko's lifestyle. A lot of things he said was insightful, was and still is true and make sense. He is the villain, but not evil. "It is all about bucks, the rest is conversation", that sums up what he is.

What Lou Mannheim said however sounds more like preaching, it is about morality and there is no truth in it. Those young guys are there to make money, to pay off loans, not to make the world better.

The lesson in there is that you do what Mannheim says you are a loser. If you want to be a winner you listen to Gekko.

And throughout the movie that was the message, and it could not have been any clearer.

About a month ago I watched (for the first time) Other Peoples Money (91) with Danny DeVito in the lead role. If you haven't seen it yet I highly recommend watching it.

The movie is surprisingly good adult fare, well written/acted/directed, based on a hit play. DeVitos character gives a less evil and more nuanced view of capitalism at work.

His speech near the end is just as good if not better than Gordon Gekkos.

Buggy whips 😃!

* Greed is Good makes a lot of sense. Humans have always strived to be more, to want more.
* Charlie Sheen's character is not very interesting or likable. He is actually naive and it is funny watching him get taken for a ride.
* Gekko is ultimately betrayed by his protégé. A young kid that he took under his wing. This also makes him more sympathetic and Sheen's character less so.

Lou Mannheim might have been a Wall Street icon in the 70s but he was about to be obsolete in the mid 80s and onwards. He was the old, Gekko was the new.

Lou Mannheim (Hal Holbrook) was on screen for the perfect amount of time. His dialogue, while brief, said all that needed to be said. The point was that no matter how concise or verbose he was, the younger guys (like Bud) were too greedy and lazy to heed his advice/warnings. They didn't just want to make a quick buck; they wanted to make a quick million bucks. Mannheim's philosophy ran counter to that because he was urging proper research into the fundamentals of a company and investing in that stock for the long haul. Not dumping it in hours or minutes when the ticker increased by a few points (i.e., day trading).

As for people looking up to Gordon Gekko and missing the cautionary thrust of the whole movie, I agree that that indeed happened. I think there was some research into the idea that a whole generation of brokers entered the business because they were so mesmerized by the movie Wall Street and Gordon Gekko and Bud Foxx's lifestyles. I have always thought that this was inevitable. Had there been a scene at the end where we see a convicted Gekko entering his jail cell in prison uniform and a pained look on his face (which Michael Douglas would certainly have been able to pull off) and a similar shot of Bud Foxx entering his cell (though for a shorter sentence), that might have eliminated the allure of the business and these characters.

As it happened, the only clue we get is when Foxx's mom and dad are driving him to the courthouse where he will testify against Gekko is when Foxx says to his father, "Aww come on, Dad, I'm going to jail." Predicting it is a lot less effective than showing it. And though it is implied that Gekko will go to jail (and confirmed decades later in the sequel 'Money Never Sleeps'), we never see the result of that trial and (as stated earlier) Gekko go to jail.