It seems Hollywood seldom makes films about business leaders, and in the ones it does make the executives are invariably portrayed as greedy, short-sighted, and tyrannical. (Quick: name me a film where a businessman is favorably portrayed by using less of society's resources in producing a product than the value placed on that product by customers reflected in the price they're willing to pay in a competitive market, thus earning a well-deserved profit.) Anyway, Executive Suite offers the drama of an executive succession struggle in a large furniture company after the long-time CEO drops dead on the street. I can't recall many films on what may be viewed as the prosaic issue of "executive succession" even though much "drama" can be milked from such an issue, as in this film, since the future course of a company and what it wants to be in the marketplace can be determined by the next CEO. I can recall, however, "Arthur Hailey's the Moneychangers", a 1976 TV Mini-Series, where Kirk Douglas (the prudent "good" banker) and Christopher Plummer (the aggressive, bend-the-rules "bad" banker) were competing to succeed the dying CEO of a major bank. In "Executive Suite" we have multiple contenders for the top job but eventually the "tired" Treasurer drops out, the glad-handing chief of sales is viewed as too "weak", and the struggle boils down to the boss of Design and Engineering and the Controller.The conflict they express in their different visions for the company mirrors conflicts we have today in Corporate America between the production and expansion people and the finance folks who are stewards for the company's resources and speak for its shareholders. (See the recently published "Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business" by Rana Foroohar for this on-going conflict where the "Makers" -- engineers, production people -- are extolled and the finance people who favor share buybacks rather than reinvestment are severely criticized.) Similarly, ES has the chief engineer, played by William Holden, passionately argue for superior product quality and growth while the finance-oriented Controller (ably played by Fredric March) argues for control of costs, the maintenance of profits, and the payment of secure dividends. I think you know who Hollywood has win this argument, but it's worthwhile to note that neither of these positions in intrinsically superior, and that they depend on company circumstances and marketplace realities. In any event, the clichéd "bean counter" aids in securities fraud to help and thus win the support of a speculation-minded board member (greasily played by Louis Calhern similar to his character in "The Asphalt Jungle") while our production / engineering chief breaks company-made, inexpensive furniture in the boardroom to show its shoddy character (to which the Controller responds that it's one of our inexpensive product lines that "we're phasing out") and argues for a return to superior product quality. Who can be against product quality?!

More stars than there are big shots on Wall Street, that's the theme of this big MGM drama that deals with a sudden death in the board rooms of a New York City fortune 500 company. The sudden death of the chairman of the board, fights behind the scenes, and quite a bit of money and power on the line, leaving everybody wondering who will end up in charge. Having been through some complicated situations in my own big business career, I can relate to much of what goes on here. I have seen equal ruthlessness, lies, passing of the blame, and can say that working in the rat race of big business ain't no cake walk, regardless if you're in the mail room or C.F.O. Too complicated a plot to really describe and mention what every character does, this is far more interesting to go into not knowing really anything about it. The cast is a who's who of Hollywood greats, none really the lead, and certainly the best ensemble of 1954. It's a reunion for "Golden Boy" stars Barbara Stanwyck and William Holden, joining Walter Pidgeon, Fredric March, Louis Calhern, Paul Douglas, June Allyson, Shelley Winters and Nina Foch, who managed to get the single Oscar nomination as the dead man's executive secretary. Of course, there's the shocking death scene, witnessed only by one of the main cast, who sets into motion a really evil scheme.Stanwyck gives what I consider the very best performance that easily could have won her a Supporting Actress Oscar. She is a combination of elegance, neurosis and vulnerability as not only the potential heiress to the company, but the holder of the largest amount of stock, too. Everybody gets a little moment to shine so it's starless even when filled with stars. I've heard people compare this to the equally excellent "Patterns", but films like this date back to the silent era. The big business world holds so much power over so many people, it's no wonder that these themes are the subjects of many novels, plays, TV series and movies. The themes touch practically the entire world, not just one company in one city in one country.

In a Friday afternoon in Wall Street, the president of the Tredway Corporation Avery Bullard has just had a meeting with investment bankers and sends a telegram scheduling a meeting at the furniture factory in Millburgh, Pennsylvania, at six PM with his executives. Bullard has never appointed an executive vice-president for the corporation after the death of the previous one but when he is getting a taxi, he has a stroke and dies on the street. A thief steals his wallet to get his money and his body goes to the morgue without identification. The investment banker George Nyle Caswell (Louis Calhern) sees Bullard's body from his window and decides to use the information to make money, asking a broker to sell as much Tredway stocks as possible until the end of the day, with the intention of buying them back Monday morning by a lower price making profit. Meanwhile the executives unsuccessfully wait for Bullard in the meeting room. When they learn that Bullard is dead, the ambitions accountant VP and Controller Loren Phineas Shaw (Fredric March) releases to the press the balance of Tredway showing profit and assumes temporarily the leadership of the company, expecting to be elected the next president by the seven-member board. However, the VP for Design and Development McDonald "Don" Walling (William Holden) and the VP and Treasurer Frederick Y. Alderson (Walter Pidgeon) oppose to Shaw. There is a struggle in the corporation for the position of president and Shaw blackmails the VP for Sales Josiah Walter Dudley (Paul Douglas) that is married and has a mistress, his secretary Eva Bardeman (Shelley Winters), to get his vote. Caswell needs to cover the 3,700 stocks he sold and Shaw promises to give to him the stocks for the price he sold if he is elected president. The VP for Manufacturing Jesse Q. Grimm (Dean Jagger) is near to retire but is a close friend of Frederick and supports him. Therefore the heir of Tredway and Bullard's mistress Julia O. Tredway (Barbara Stanwyck) will be responsible to give the casting vote. But she is disenchanted with the corporation. Who will be elected the next president? "Executive Suite" is a realistic film about struggle for power in a corporation. Serious films about the Machiavellian competition in a company, such as "Glengarry Glen Ross", "Le couperet" or "El método", are usually engaging and "Executive Suite" is surprisingly great since it is not dated. The film is directed by Robert Wise, who is one of the best directors in Hollywood ever. The cast is top-notch and Fredric March has one of his best performances. The final speech of Don is a lesson for classes of motivation. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Um Homem e Dez Destinos" ("A Man and Ten Destinies")

Movies with ensemble casts, with a large array of big name actors sharing the same bill, crop up from time to time. This is often a publicity stunt for some prestigious production, especially in Hollywood's classic era when the big studios could splurge on all their contracted talent. Executive Suite however appears a fairly innocuous picture; a black-and-white drama about the internal politics of a furniture company's board of directors. As a premise it even looks like a fairly dull prospect, and certainly not something the studio would be likely to go all-out on. And yet it is the ensemble cast and its possibilities that really makes and transforms the picture.First and foremost this is a picture intentionally written for a large and competent cast. Ernest Lehman's script is based around a complex network of relations between nearly a dozen principle characters. It only works because these figures are all highly distinct and clearly defined. Each of the various corporate vice-presidents is humanised and given extra depth because their personal lives are woven into the narrative, with the exception of Fredric March's character who remains appropriately enigmatic. Wives, children, secretaries; every one of them has a personality and none of them appears as a mere plot-device. As to the story, Lehman keeps all the various strands full of twists and intrigue without ever once straining credibility or verging upon melodrama.The director here is Robert Wise, one of the most important filmmakers of his generation. Crucially, Wise recognises that Executive Suite is a picture about character, and he devotes a lot of technique to bringing character out, encouraging slow measured performances and allowing the camera to linger upon the actors and their mannerisms. In an early scene we see Nina Foch running a message over to one of the other offices, but rather than just have some token functional shot or a direct cut from one room to the other, we get to slowly track her descending the stairs, giving us a much deeper introduction to her character. Wise is also careful to keep the right angle on the players to capture certain aspects of a performance, for example having Barbara Stanwyck's back to the camera when William Holden apologises to her, giving us only the subtleties of her body language and leaving her face to our imagination.And now a few words about that cast. The fact that each of them was among the top in the craft gifts every character with a vivid realisation. There is nothing to fault in any performance, but a few in particular stand out. Fredric March demonstrates Shaw's coldness with an unusually stiff and stilted manner, his gestures purely practical and lacking in expression. It pays off with his awkward false attempts at warmth in the final scenes. Nina Foch gives an amazingly deep performance, playing as she does a character who is not supposed to be expressing emotions or opinions, she mostly keeps her face turned from the other characters, but shows her inner thoughts to the camera with beautiful understatement, with often a hint of real turmoil beneath the surface. Credit also goes to Barbara Stanwyck for handling the character who gives most vent to her emotions without quite allowing the performance to overspill into hammy overkill – something that would have absolutely ruined the restrained and realistic tone of the picture.When presented on paper, Executive Suite tells a story of mundane events – the death of one company president and the election of a new one – with no major scandal, no true evil, and certainly no violence or comedy. And yet it stands as an engaging and compelling piece of cinema. It's a testament to the power of a rich ensemble cast to breathe life into character and continually command audience attention.