A Glittering Cast: Executive Suite

1954 Drama

From MGM

Directed by Robert Wise

Starring

William Holden

June Allyson

Barbara Stanwyck

Fredric March

Walter Pidgeon

Shelley Winters

Paul Douglas

Louis Calhern

Dean Jagger

Nina Foch

Tim Considine

If a corporate struggle at a large furniture manufacturing company is your idea of a good time, this is your film.  I, however, was drawn by Holden, Allyson and Stanwyck and frankly, all the rest of this exciting cast.  They did not disappoint, not a single one of them, but I have to add that corporate struggle theme I actually found completely engrossing.

As the film opens we see a man leave his office, taking the elevator to the first floor and into a telegraph office.  He sends a message to his company, The Tredway Corporation, to say there's going to be an executive meeting at 6 p.m.  He steps outside to hail a taxi and drops dead of a heart attack on the sidewalk.  We see someone empty his wallet of the cash and throw the wallet in a trashcan.  

Many floors up an amoral, cynical board member, Calhern, is looking out the window and is fairly certain it is the big boss he spies sprawled on the sidewalk.  He immediately makes a call to a broker to make a short sale of as much Tredway stock as he can before the end of trading that Friday afternoon.  He has tricks up his unethical sleeve to make a profit by Monday with the news of the exec's death.

By the time all the execs have gathered for the meeting, the dead man's loyal secretary, Foch, announces he is not present.  She tracks down various places he was expected to be and discovers he was a no-show.  Calhern says nothing.  For one he's not sure it was the boss and secondly he doesn't want any of the others in the loop.

Those others are March, the ambitious controller who already acts like he runs the company; Holden as the earnest, idealistic head of design and development; Pidgeon is the treasurer and the only one who is a good friend of the late president; Douglas, the one who seems like he'd be a better fit in some blue collar trade, is the head of sales; Jagger is that obedient, longtime, keep-his-nose clean employee and the head of manufacturing.  We learn important things about these people as they sit at the long table.

The other three women are not part of the executive staff.  Stanwyck is a board member, the daughter of the firm's late founder and also the ex-lover of the dead president.  She is most unhappy about that ex part.  Winters plays the married Douglas's secretary and his playmate after hours. Allyson is married to Holden and Considine is their son.  

Once it's discovered that the boss was the one who died of a heart attack on the sidewalk outside the skyscraper, all hell breaks loose.  He had not named a successor and one wonders whether it's going to be a bloodbath.

We meet the socially-involved wives of Pidgeon and Jagger, both of whom want their husbands' names to be thrown in the pot because you deserve it after all these years.  March is a treacherous s.o.b. and will stoop to anything to get the job.  He doesn't think anyone else is even remotely qualified.  He tells Pidgeon to not even bother trying because he hasn't a chance.  March is pleased to hear Jagger is going to retire.

March is aware of Holden's talent and intelligence but dismisses him because he's too young, too green and apparently doesn't want the big job.  March, who thinks Douglas is too blustery and just plain wrong for the job, goes out of his way to instigate a little blackmail in the form of revealing the Douglas-Winters affair.  

Serious time for Douglas & Winters

Most of the fun comes from the time they all hear of the death and the next day's scheduled meeting.  Several go into crisis mode.  March's nervousness is obvious through his constant  sweating and wiping his face with a handkerchief.  He has a stack of them in his desk drawer. He spends precious time maneuvering others to vote for him.

It is learned Stanwyck has signed a proxy to vote for March.  When Holden learns that she is in an outer office, he goes to greet her and she gets emotional about her ex-lover's death and how she played second fiddle to the company in the eyes of her father and her lover.  She cries out that she doesn't care about the company or who the president is.  Holden gives her a tongue-lashing that seems to shock her senses.  She decides to attend the board meeting.

Holden makes a last-minute decision to go for the big job mainly because he doesn't like the direction March says he will take the company.  All March seems to care about is money while Holden cares about the quality of the work, the employees who break their backs to give the company what it wants and the people who buy the product.  He gives a rousing 6-minute speech to all those assembled and he is voted in as the president.

Executive Suite is wonderfully directed, written and acted.  Ernest Lehman began his screenwriting career with this film and it was the first of four times he worked with director Wise.  Their second collaboration was Somebody Up There Likes Me, the story of boxer Rocky Graziano, and then West Side Story and The Sound of Music.

Wise treated his subject matter with great seriousness.  He eliminated a musical score to help with his cause.  He lays out, scene by careful scene, a display of fascinating characters, business people who traffic in neuroticism, ruthlessness, fear, cutthroat competition, back-stabbing.  My interest was held from start to finish.

I also was taken with the opening and the about-to-be dead man.  We only see his lower legs, his hands and hear his voice.  That certainly contributed to an intrigue that remained throughout the story which takes place in a little over a 24-hour time frame.   

The acting is uniformly excellent.  Perhaps I'd give an edge to Holden, Stanwyck and Foch.  Allyson, not being part of the corporation, is given little to do although for a while she is fairly unsupportive of her husband becoming president.  Winters only has a couple of scenes and was obviously showcasing her blonde bombshell image.

Foch won't be intimidated by March

Movie fans like me were knocked out by this cast.  MGM producer John Houseman came up with the idea.  Studios weren't making too many all-star films around this time although The Ten Commandments two years later certainly was another.  It was chiefly a ploy to get folks away from their televisions.  Allyson, Pidgeon and Calhern were all MGM employees so they came cheaper. Winters had just left MGM for Universal and was lured back.  Among the others, only Holden and Stanwyck could have come with a higher price tag.

Stanwyck didn't need to make this film.  First of all she was extremely busy at the time making one film after another.  Additionally she was not only not the star but an unheard of third billed with only a few scenes.  On the other hand she  worked just one week and would be reunited with her great platonic love, Holden.  She was his leading lady for his first starring role, Golden Boy (1939), and they'd been pals ever since.

It was old home week for most of the cast.  So many had made films with another in the cast and there would be many more such pairings after the filming.  Holden had already made films with two costars... with Douglas in Forever Female and with March in The Bridges at Toko-Ri.  He had also worked with Foch a few years earlier in the psychological noir, The Dark Past.

Foch, by the way, complained that her part was too small and Wise told her to make the best of it.  She obviously did because in this glittering ensemble, she was the only one nominated for an Oscar.

Allyson trying to understand her husband

There were issues with Allyson.  If one were to ask which of these 10 stars didn't really fit in, it would be MGM's singing-dancing Allyson. The others were mostly big stars or renowned character actors.  She was likely intimidated by them especially when Wise called them all together for two weeks of rehearsals.  She was frequently late and sometimes not prepared.  She was longtime friends with Stanwyck who chose to remain silent.  But Holden and a couple of others complained to the director who spoke with her and she wised up.  

Winters was leery about joining the gang because Holden was in the movie but she felt better when she learned they had no scenes together.  Still, there were those rehearsals.  In her no-holds-barred first autobiography she tells of the years she spent her Christmas Eves in bed with Holden.  Always in the holiday spirit, apparently, they got together for their annual cheer and that's the only time they saw one another.  Winters hadn't seen him the previous year because she had gotten married (to Vittorio Gassman) and wanted to be a good girl.  That didn't mean that during the making of Executive Suite that he didn't try.

The film was well-received by the public and the critics alike.  It seems that those reviewing it many years after it had appeared on the tube still sent along the same good vibes.  We know I like my glittering casts and this one was most impressive as is the film itself. 

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