Executive Suite (1954)

A slice of 50's Americana, complete with little league baseball and the world of high finance business.

Intro.

I'm taking a break from my November writing challenge to update this blog.  I had watched Executive Suite awhile back, and want to write about while it's still fresh in my mind.  November was supposed to be dedicated to Westerns, and it will be, but for now I'm focusing just on what I have time to watch and review.  At a modest 104 minutes, the film promised to be tight and easy to follow.  Plus it featured June Allyson and William Holden, so of course I had to watch.

Overview

Executive Suite focuses on the lives and struggles of half a dozen Board members trying to find a replacement when their chair and CEO of Tredway Corporation, Avery Bullard, drops dead on the sidewalk outside.  We get a good sense of characters from the beginning, when each is called in for a six o'clock conference with the CEO, and then one by one as they find out what has happened.  George Caswell (Louis Calhern) witnesses the death first and immediately calls his stock broker.  He is then at risk to lose his shirt when the quarterly sales reports are released at the same time, which causes the stock to rise, not fall as he had predicted.  The woman in love with Avery, Julia Tredway (Barbara Stanwyck), is crushed by his death, even contemplating suicide, despite the fact that he never had time for her when he was alive.  Perhaps the most touching response is that of his friend and Vice President of Design and Engineering, McDonald "Don" Walling (William Holden).  Don still holds Avery's original ideas - that of expanding and growing, that the company should be dedicated to progress and making furniture in which they could all take pride, not just something fast and cheap to make a quick profit.  Unfortunately, the main candidate to take over as CEO, Loren Shaw (Fredric March), is an accountant who is only interested in dollars and cents, not about the workers' integrity.  A corporate battle erupts, filled with power plays and unofficial meetings.  Finally Don puts his name in for president and comes head to head with Shaw at the final Board meeting.

Highlights

I loved how this film opened.  The camera shot from Avery's point of view, moving with him, seeing the reaction of people to "his" presence.  In this sense, the audience becomes Avery, making him not only a great man of power, but in a sense, the everyman (and woman).  It ends, of course, when he dies in the first five minutes, but it's a powerful enough opening and an interesting one.  I can't think of any other film which featured that as the opening sequence.  It ties in nicely to the narration just before which says that those people way up in the executive suites of all those skyscrapers aren't high and above temptation. 

The acting was very good in this film.  I particularly loved June Allyson, who didn't just fall into the dutiful wife role - she's the one telling her husband Don what to do, even suggesting that he take the position.  She's also a great mother, stepping in to play catch with their son when Don has to go off on meetings.  I really liked watching their dynamic - Holden and Allyson - as they portrayed a typical American couple of the fifties.  But what really impressed me was Barbara Stanwyck, who is her usual dynamic self.  I loved seeing her and William Holden reunite in this film, and although their scene alone together is too short, it is still one of the best in the whole picture.

I'm not sure what exactly to write about Executive Suite.  It was a well constructed film, pretty easy to follow and an interesting look at the culture's view of business in the 1950s.  Holden's characteristic cynicism is rampant throughout the process, that is right up until his final speech about saving the company and saving themselves (against a lovely stained-glass window too - should we call him St. Don?).  It's a cry against big business and manufacturing - against disrespecting the factory workers and saving their jobs, their livelihoods, their self-respect.  It reminded me in part of some of the 1930s films with respect to the rage against factory labor and bosses not caring about the "little people" who worked behind the scenes.  It's important that Don then gets the vote, because he is introduced not in on office suite, but down in the factory, working alongside the others to test a new molding process.  Don comes to represent the best intentions of the building and progress boom of the forties and fifties - build it bigger, faster, better.  Improve the world through business.  But Don is rare amongst his peers, giving us an awful feeling of encroaching corruption.  Had this movie been made in in the 1960s or later, I'm sure Don would have become president only to lose his own self-respect, to neglect his family and even worse, to become himself just as awful as the people he once hated.  It says a lot about the culture that none of this addressed, that it ends instead on a positive note.  I left the movie feeling empty, wondering how long would Don be able to hold onto his ideals of progress.  It almost broke my heart that he won; but at the end he is still the family man at heart and I hope he remained that way. 

Review and Recommendation
I liked this movie.  It's not one of my favorites and I'm not sure I'll watch it again for awhile, but it still poses some interesting questions and I think is a great piece of Hollywood history.  I recommend it for history buffs studying the 1950s and those interested in the presentation of business in American film. 

P.S. I should mention that the film lost me about halfway through with a lot of complications around Calhoun's character's work with the stock market.  He arranged for a short sell, but didn't have the stock so he was going to go broke when the stock price rose.  Anyway, I used to work for a financial publisher, and I had some trouble following at first.  Then I realized we weren't really supposed to understand - these were the tycoons talking, those who didn't care about the common people on the ground floor or in the audience.  They literally don't "speak our language".  It's a brilliant contrast to straight-shooting Holden. 

Boom Town (1940)

Intro.

I had no intention of watching Boom Town when it aired on television a few nights ago.  However, I had just turned off Doctor Zhivago and was casually channel surfing when I saw it about fifteen minutes into the film.  I almost changed the channel when I realized that this was the original plot line for the film North to Alaska (1960).  My jaw dropped, I laughed out loud and sat riveted as I watched the rest of the movie (which after the first half hour stopped being like North to Alaska).**

Overview

Big John McMasters (Clark Gable, handsome as ever) is an oil driller in Texas when he meets and becomes partners with Square John Sand (Spencer Tracy). Together they start their own drilling and hit oil.  Finally able to support a wife, Sand sends for his long-waiting girlfriend from back East, Betsy (Claudette Colbert).  McMasters meanwhile goes into town for some fun and winds up meeting Betsy.  While she figures out who he is, he doesn't know who she is, and a few drinks and crazy stunts later, they are married.  The next morning they have to tell Sand, who comes to tell McMasters that they've hit a bigger well and that they are millionaires.  Fortunes go from good to bad though when the men later have a falling out and decide to flip for the entire multi-million dollar operation.  McMasters loses, and packs up with Betsy and hits the road.  Each man has his fortunes rise and fall and we watch them handle it differently.  Meanwhile Betsy is strong, adventurous and most of all, happy when McMasters isn't a millionaire because that's when he needs her.  Finally McMasters gets back on top of the oil industry and winds up in a huge office in New York.  He and Sand meet up several times, but never do they bury the hatchet.  When they meet for the last time, Sand sees that Betsy is unhappy in New York, mainly because McMasters is spending so much time with his pretty employee Karen (Hedy Lamarr).  Sand decides to take action - first by proposing to Karen to get her away from McMasters, and then by joining a rival oil company and trying to put McMasters out of business.  What follows is a great turn of events including a trial, a big night of drunken fighting and of course a happy ending.

Highlights

There wasn't a single person in this film that was anything less than entertaining and talented.  It was great to see two actors of equal reputation against each other - it kept me (and I'm sure also audiences of 1940) from really choosing sides because one actor was more well known than the other.  And Gable and Tracy make a great team.  All in all, this film isn't about oil or business or the fortunes and failures of life, it's about friendship, and these two men act their parts beautifully.

At the heart of the film (both plot-wise and character-wise) is Claudette Colbert.  I always love watching her because she is so sure of herself.  Take this film for instance: imagine marrying a guy you've only known for a day - and you still haven't told him who you are!  Betsy is happiest when she is needed, but won't complain when she's put aside either because she worries about her son (although she does consider leaving McMasters before she's pregnant).  Her character is not only charming and warm, but gracious, forgiving and strong.  It takes quite a woman to cause such a long fight between two best friends, and it takes an even better woman to end it.  Not many actresses could pull the role off convincingly, but Claudette does.

Review
What I really loved about Boom Town was how the film played with the audience.  Just when I thought I knew what was going to happen, another twist of plot threw the whole thing off course and we had to start over.  It was engaging, fun, humorous and a bit sad but with good pacing.  The writing was good, the acting superb and the whole picture was just plain enjoyable.  And Frank Morgan, just one year after playing the title role in the Wizard of Oz, is just as upbeat and fun to watch here.  I would definitely recommend watching Boom Town anytime you want a great old-fashioned comedy/drama/buddy movie (and unlike North to Alaska, the theme song won't get stuck in your head for days and days!).        


 **North to Alaska, I should mention, is a Western parody starring John Wayne in Clark Gable's role.  He and Stewart Granger (in Spencer Tracy's role) have a gold mine in Alaska instead of an oil rig in Texas, and when John Wayne goes to Seattle to get Stewart Granger's girlfriend, he finds that she's married.  In desperation, he hires a call girl to come as a "replacement" girlfriend, only to wind up falling for her himself.  It is a parody, so you get to see the Duke making fun of himself, which is hilarious.  It also has a great (although way too addictive) theme song.  So if you watch it, don't blame me if you find yourself humming it in the elevator at work a few days later.