Executive Suite (dir. Robert Wise, 1954) tells the story of the battle for the presidency of an American furniture company, the Tredway Corporation. The film has a great ensemble cast, with Louis Calhern, Paul Douglas, Nina Foch, Fredric March, Walter Pidegon, Barbara Stanwyck, and Shelley Winters, among others. Of greatest interest are the Wallings, McDonald (William Holden) and Mary (June Allyson). Don is a Charles Eames-like industrial designer whose plans for innovative products are stopped again and again by Tredway’s cost-cutting, chart-making controller Loren Shaw (March). Mary is no Ray Eames: we see her not as a collaborator but as a patient partner, appalled by the way Tredway frustrates her husband’s creativity. Avery Bullard, the company’s late president, hired Don with a promise that he could design and build whatever he wanted. But Don’s work on a “new molding process” has been stopped at Shaw’s directive. And the company’s most profitable merchandise is its Shaw-approved K-F line, cheap stuff with cracking finishes and legs that come loose.
The film’s interiors, by Emile Kuri and Edwin B. Willis, are rich in meaning: in the Tredway Tower, all is marble, stone, and carved wood — a contrast to the shoddy materials and workmanship of the company’s products. The Wallings’ house is modernity itself.
[The coffeemaker looks like a Cory.]
[That’s Mary coming through the door.]
[“If it hadn’t been for this room the past few months, you couldn’t have lived.”]
Compare photographs of the Eames house and office. If you look closely at the second photograph of the Eames house, you can see a dried desert plant, a signature Eames element, hanging in space. There’s something similar on the wall in Don’s studio, behind Mary’s shoulder. The 3 on Don’s wall is another Eames reference: it’s an Eames 3, or nearly one. And the reference to an unexplained “molding process” recalls of course the molded plywood of the Eameses’ chairs.
The most exciting moments in Executive Suite come in the film’s final boardroom scene. You can guess, I suspect, who gets to be president. The excitement in the scene comes from the clash between two different ways of thinking about the work of a corporation: one that seeks to cut costs, maximize profit, and pay stockholders a dividend; the other which bears in mind the need to build a future. As Don tells Shaw,
“We have an obligation to keep this company alive, not just this year or next or the year after that. Sometimes you have to use your profits for the growth of the company, not pay them all out in dividends to impress the stockholders with your management record.”Don’s dream, to make low-priced furniture “that will sell because it has beauty and function and value,” will now come true. As did the Eameses’ dream: “getting the most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least.”
As I prepare for the spring semester, I face a crisis. In their efforts to look all folksy and down to earth, certain candidates for the Republican presidential nomination have — I’ll say it — stolen the elements of my style. My sweater-vests: gone. My signature look of button-down shirt and jeans: gone. Snatched, swiped, purloined.
I have prepared a sharp and decisive response: come Monday, I’m wearing a tie.
[If you haven’t been following fashion: Rick Santorum stole my sweater-vests; Mitt Romney, my signature look.]
Roger Ebert’s recently offered six reasons for the drop in movie ticket sales in 2011. His general conclusion: theaters “are losing their charm.” Yes, they are. Going to the movies at our nearby multiplex means going to the movies, literally: you can hear the crashes and explosions from whatever is playing next door along with the movie you paid for. It’s like living in an apartment building.
There are still great theaters though. Close to home, my favorite place to see a movie is The Art Theater in Champaign, Illinois. The Art offers intelligent programming, atypical and well-priced snacks and drinks, appropriate pre-movie music, minimal advertising, and a terrific sound system. There’s one screen, and the audience comes to pay attention: what a difference that makes. I also recommend the more majestic Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts. For one lovely year in the mid-1980s Elaine and I lived a couple of blocks from the Coolidge Corner and got to see a different double-bill two or three times a week. Now we try to see a movie there when we visit Boston.
I would hate to see independent theaters go the way of so many record stores and bookstores. You too? If you know of a great theater, please, write about it in a comment. And encourage your family and friends to go to the movie, not the movies.
Update, January 10: Here are links to theaters recommended by readers in the comments:
Los Angeles, California
Landmark Theatre
Chicago, Illinois
Doc Films
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Brattle Theatre
Harvard Film Archive
Traverse City, Michigan
The State Theatre
Columbia Heights, Minnesota
Heights Theatre
Minneapolis, MInnesota
Riverview Theater
Uptown Theatre
St. Paul, Minnesota
Mann Theatres
A list of thirty-three “New Years Rulin’s.”
Other posts with lists
“Ambercroombie & Flitch” (Ways to be cool)
Amy Winehouse’s to-do list (“When I do recorddeal”)
Blue crayon (Supplies for an imaginary camping trip)
John Lennon’s to-do list (“H.B.O. Guy coming between 3–5”)
Johnny Cash’s to-do list (“Kiss June”)
Review: Liza Kirwin, Lists (Artists’ lists)
Whose list? (A found list)
Thanks, Trent.
“1. Fold each licorice piece in half and push ends through centers of 12 marshmallows. Set aside.”
I stopped there.
Watching Rick Santorum on television last night, I felt that I was watching a satellite transmission from Htrae. I was struck especially by Santorum’s explanation of why manufacturing jobs have gone overseas: “It’s because government made workers uncompetitive, by driving up the cost of doing business here.” And then: “When Republican purists say to me ‘Well, why are you treating manufacturing different than retail?’ I say ‘Because Wal-Mart’s not moving to China and taking their jobs with them.’” Wal-Mart: keeping jobs on Htrae!
Browsing around this morning for santorum and wal-mart, I found this page. Suddenly the Iowa caucuses seem to make sense:
At the Washington Post, Greg Sargent looks at Mitt Romney’s claims about job creation. The conclusion: Romney’s claim to have helped create 100,000 jobs is “at best unsubstantiated.” And the number of jobs created by Bain Capital may be surpassed by the number of layoffs resulting from the firm’s work.
Related posts
The Los Angeles Times on Mitt Romney and job creation
Mitt Romney at Bain
Mitt Romney: the soul of a poet
