...these pictures are mainly for the Stanwyck fan, but Executive Suite is good enough to please almost anyone.
Tools:
Send to a friend »
I confess I have never been a huge fan of Barbara Stanwyck, a fine actress, certainly, but not exactly one that lit up the screen for me. And it's not that she didn't make some first-rate movies like "Double Indemnity," "The Lady Eve," "Meet John Doe," and others. It's more probably because she made most of her best motion pictures either before I was born or while I was still a kid, and I only got to see them on TV (a blurry black-and-white of the day with commercials, which was hardly fair).
Anyway, in this DVD box set Warner Bros. have gathered together six of the actress's films and done them up in the studio's usual excellent audio and video. What's more, the studio has made each of the movies available separately as well. First, let me give you my quick assessment of five of the films and then spend some further time on the one picture I think is the standout of the set.
In director George Stevens' biopic "Annie Oakley" (1935), Stanwyck plays the famous female sharpshooter of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, and Preston Foster plays her leading man, Toby Walker. It's all very lively, to be sure, but a bit dated. 6/10.
In Curtis Bernhartdt's "My Reputation" (1946) Stanwyck plays a young widow whose love for George Brent causes a riot of gossip among local townsfolk who think it's too soon for her to fall for another man. It's a soap opera and not a very good one. 5/10.
In the film noir "East Side, West Side" (1949), based on the best-selling novel by Marcia Davenport, Stanwyck is a prime suspect in a murder. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, the film costars Ava Gardner, James Mason, and Van Heflin. It seems fairly tame and not a little dull by today's standards. 5/10.
Then we have a double feature disc. In "To Please a Lady," directed by Clarence Brown, Stanwyck and race-car driver Clark Gable have a romance before the Indianapolis 500. Yeah, it's almost as dumb as it sounds, but Gable is always fun to watch. 6/10. Finally, in the melodramatic thriller "Jeopardy" (1953) Ralph Meeker kidnaps Stanwyck just after an accident traps her husband, played by Barry Sullivan, under a pier, and from there it's race against time. What are the odds? 5/10.
Fortunately, there's "Executive Suite" (1954), which still manages to hold up reasonably well after more than fifty years. Of course, it ought to hold up, given its cast. If you know anything about older movies, consider some of these starring names: William Holden, June Allyson, Barbara Stanwyck, Fredric March, Walter Pidgeon, Shelley Winters, Paul Douglas, Louis Calhern, Dean Jagger, and Nina Foch. Can you imagine what these folks could have done with a really great script?
"Executive Suite" is, as Oliver Stone calls it on the commentary track, a "business movie." It is one of those unusual films that deals with people in suits talking about company deals in the upper echelons of big business. It's about power and the struggle for power. It's about making profits at the expense of making a quality product. It's about blackmail, coercion, backstabbing, and double dealing. In other words, it's your typical corporate America.
Only it's 1953, and the setting is downtown St. Louis. Noted screenwriter Ernest Lehman ("Sabrina," "Somebody Up There Likes Me," "North By Northwest") based his screenplay on the novel by Cameron Hawley, and equally noted filmmaker Robert Wise ("The Day the Earth Stood Still," "West Side Story," "The Haunting," "The Sound of Music") directed it. How could the film lose? Although it might be about a topic that seems boring to a lot of people, with a cast and crew to die for, they make it come alive.
Here's the setup: Avery Bullard, the president of Treadway Industries, a big furniture manufacturer, dies suddenly, leaving his board of directors with the unhappy task of choosing a new leader. Bullard was the one-man-band of the company, and with him gone, who's to replace him? The movie introduces us to the seven people on the board who have to decide among themselves which of them will get the new top spot. Backdoor machinations among the executives ensue as they all jockey for the power position.
Average user rating (1-5):
Not yet rated.
Not yet rated.