Executive Suite
Directed by Robert Wise
Written by Ernest Lehman based on the novel by Cameron Hawley
1954/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Narrator: It is always up there, close to the clouds, on the topmost floors of the sky-reaching towers of big business. And because it is high in the sky, you may think that those who work there are somehow above and beyond the tensions and temptations of the lower floors. This is to say that it isn’t so.[/box]
The fantastic cast could not quite overcome the didactic story line.
Avery Bullard is the Chief Executive Officer of Tredway Corporation, a publicly traded company which makes furniture. It has been a one-man operation and he has not even bothered to replace the last Executive Vice President. One fine day he drops dead of a stroke en route to a hastily called board meeting in another city.
Board member George Caswell (Louis Calhern) sees the boss die on the sidewalk. It is awhile before the body is identified. He takes advantage of his insider information to sell a large block of the company’s stock short, expecting it to take a nose dive when the death becomes public. We get to know the other board members and their sometimes messy private lives before they learn of the death.
Loren Shaw (Fredric March) is the corporate controller. His eye is firmly on the bottom line at all times. Frederick Alderson (Walter Pidgeon) is Bullard’s aging right-hand man. Josiah Dudley (Paul Douglas) is sales manager. He is having an affair with his secretary, played by Shelley Winters. Dean Jagger plays a kind of eminence gris of the board. McDonald Walling (William Holden) is the company’s research manager and is a driven young hot-shot. He is married to Mary, played by June Allyson.
The final board member is Julia Tredway (Barbara Stanwyck), the daughter of the company’s founder. She owns a large chunk of the stock but has not been active on the board. She is apparently in despair over the demise of her affair with Bullard even before she learns of his death. Serving as Secretary to the Board is Erica Martin (Nina Foch).
Once he learns of the boss’s death, Shaw takes over and is determined to take Bullard’s place via a hastily called board meeting. It looks like he has enough dirt on enough of the members to accomplish his mission. But he may be stymied through an impassioned speech by one of the members and help from an unexpected quarter.
I found this film highly predictable and burdened by its speechy critique of cutthroat capitalism. The cast, of course, acquits itself admirably and the whole production is of a high standard. Shelley Winters managed to make her tiny part the most natural and memorable thing about the movie for me.
Executive Suite was nominated for Academy Awards in the following categories: Best Supporting Actress (Foch); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White; and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.
Trailer
