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. 

Golden Boy (1939)

Violins and boxing rings don't go together, even if you are William Holden with fabulous hair.

Intro.

Just when I thought that William Holden month was over, I came home Friday night and discovered that I had long ago set up some recordings and two of his films were waiting for me.  It was a very pleasant surprise, and after a lot of errands, cooking and general chores, I finally let myself unwind with some popcorn and Golden Boy. 

Overview

Golden Boy opens with struggling sports agent Tom Moody (Adolphe Menjou) telling his girlfriend Lorna (Barbara Stanwyck) that he can't afford to divorce his wife and marry her.  He only has one client, a boxer, but as luck would have it, a lanky young man with floppy curls barges into his office to tell him his client just broke his hand.  The young man follows Tom and Lorna down to the gym, asking to be given a chance to sign with them as a fighter.  Tom only listens though when he learns that the young man, Joe Bonaparte (William Holden) is the one responsible for breaking his prize fighter's fist.  So Joe gets signed and starts boxing.  He's never had any formal training, but he learns quickly and has a beginner's enthusiasm and reckless courage.  He also has a very loving family who know nothing about his first fight.  His father, an Italian storekeeper, has saved up enough money to buy Joe a beautiful $1500 violin for his upcoming 21st birthday.  Joe's played the violin since he was very young and has earned a music scholarship, but with the tempting new world of boxing and fast money, Joe comes to a difficult decision.  Which life should he pursue?  He loves music, but he wants to provide for his father and earn enough money for them to live comfortably - boxing allows for big money like that.  Joe's talented in both fields.  But nothing is that simple.  Lorna, trying to help Tom stay in business, charms Joe and convinces him to keep boxing.  Joe rises to become a great sensation, but at the price of his music - 8 months on the road without playing have made his hands tough and shaky on the violin.  To make things even worse, Mobster Fuseli (Joseph Calleia) wants a piece of Joe's contract.  And he keeps raising his price in exchange for Joe's signature.  Joe accepts, much to the dismay of Lorna, who has met Joe's family and has found herself falling in love with Joe.  What it all comes down to is a big fight against the middle-weight champ in Madison Square Gardens and devastating consequences.

Highlights
I am now a Barbara Stanwyck fan.  What an actress!  She's one of those actresses that steals every scene with her talent, charm and beauty.  Not to mention her strength.  She is outstanding as Lorna, both the "girl Friday" to Tom and yet the compassionate friend and then lover of Joe.  We can see her character transform from a middle-aged cynical spinster into a warm, devoted part of a family.  She has a real presence and gives the film its heart.  I am looking forward to finding more of her films to watch and enjoy!

Barbara Stanwyck lobbied to get unknown William Holden into this film as the title character.  I read somewhere that something like 5000 actors had been considered for the role, but it was Barbara Stanwyck that really pushed for Holden and in the end, got him cast.  It did more than that too - it launched his whole career and even earned him the nickname of "The Golden Boy" of Hollywood.  Check it out - if you search IMDb's site for "Golden Boy" you'll get William Holden listed before the movie itself.  Holden was so grateful to Barbara Stanwyck for her support that he reportedly sent her flowers every year on the anniversary of their first day of shooting.  He also trained pretty hard for this role, taking both boxing and violin lessons so as to make his performance look more natural.  It's the stuff that movie legends are made of.

Although the story line was a plot that I'd seen in variations before (youth trying to choose between two different worlds/careers), it was very well done here.  Most of that is due to the fine acting of Stanwyck and Holden, but a good part of it is also due to the way the events unfold.  There is a great deal of love and tenderness in the film and Joe's family (although sadly stereotyped) is one of the happiest families on screen.  We come to care for them the same way Lorna does.  This is just as much her story of finding happiness and a family just as much as it is about Joe finding out who he really is and accepting his destiny.  It isn't nearly as straightforward as my overview might make it seem, and the ending will definitely come out of left field.    

Review and Recommendation

What did you accomplish when you were 21?  If you were William Holden, you were making a film that would jump-start your career.  It's astonishing to think about where I was at 21 (probably struggling through my class in organic chemistry) and to see how cool and confident he appears on screen.  His performance and the great performance by Barbara Stanwyck make this film worth seeing.  If you're interested in a Hollywood legend or like films about boxing or even if you just want a good, solid hour and a half of entertainment, give Golden Boy a try.  


P.S. Also, just to satisfy my fan-girl side, I have to say that when Holden appeared at first, tall, a bit lanky and sporting some gorgeous, floppy dark curls, I thought for a moment there was a mix-up because he looked an awful lot like Tom Hanks in the movie Big.  Just now I'm watching the opening of Sunset Boulevard and man, there's a scene where I swear he could be Hanks.  Or would that be, Hanks could be Holden?  I wonder if Tom Hanks could be considered the "Golden Boy" of modern films.  I know he's been called the Jimmy Stewart "everyman", but I think he definitely follows Holden's footsteps too.  That's a post I'll have to write another day.