Movies You Ought to See: Executive Suite
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This entry was posted at
23:58 GMT on 26 June 2003
One of these days, when I feel I have a better grasp on his career as a whole, I'll include Robert Wise in my essays on Great Filmmakers. He's one of the finest unacknowledged filmmakers ever, and worked, in one capacity or another, on many of the most influential films of all time, among them Citizen Kane, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Haunting, The Sound of Music, and The Andromeda Strain.
Today we deal with Executive Suite, his sharp, unappreciated drama from 1954, scripted by the brilliant Ernest Lehman, from the novel by Cameron Hawley.
This movie exemplifies both what is great about Robert Wise, and why he is never remembered with the Greats. It's a behind-the-scenes boardroom business drama with a knockout cast.
(Business dramas seemed particularly popular in the 1950s, for some reason. A large part of that reason was likely Lehman, who also had a hand in the script for Billy Wilder's Sabrina, as well as the source story and co-scripting duties on The Sweet Smell of Success (about which, more another time). Even apart from him, though, was Rod Serling's Patterns, which first brought him public acclaim as a live television drama in 1955, and was filmed and released theatrically in 1956 (the movie does not live up to the original script, I'm afraid), as well as The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit and probably a dozen others that don't spring immediately to my mind. Please feel free to email me with any I've missed.)
(Yes, I'm well aware that Cameron Hawley's other big novel, Cash McCall, was filmed with James Garner and Natalie Wood. Never seen it, though.)
The film opens with the type of Omniscient Narration that Lehman also wrote for North by Northwest (cut out by Hitchcock). Over several shots of skyscrapers, we are told that the people who inhabit these perches are not gods, but people, like you and I (funny, coming from the Voice of God, no?).
Then we get about a minute and a half of a daring-for-the-time Point of View shot. Well, about six, actually, but they are edited together rather seamlessly except for one obvious insert. You see the world through the eyes of the president, Avery Bullard, of the corporation the story is concerned with, Treadway. Right up to the moment he dies of a heart attack.
To me, this is very creepy and effective, setting the audience off-balance completely (both with the unusual POV technique, and by vicariously killing the viewer off). Joe Dante did much the same thing in a key sequence in InnerSpace, but that's another essay.
The film takes place from Friday afternoon, moments before Bullard's death, through the weekend until a climactic board meeting. The entire story is about the behind the scenes maneuvering and wangling to win control of the company at the board meeting.
And what a cast! William Holden, as Our Hero; the ever-reliable June Allyson as his wife; Barbara Stanwyck (never my favorite, but quite good here); the nearly-forgotten Walter Pidgeon as Holden's manipulative nemesis; Shelley Winters before she became famous just for being Shelley Winters (meaning she acts, but doesn't ACT!, if you follow me); Louis Calhern (Ambassador Trentino from Duck Soup! I've never been so insulted in my life!); and a very young Tim Considine as Holden's brat, er, son.
From that quick synopsis, you know that this is not an action-heavy movie. In fact, it's dialogue heavy, and more or less bound to the sets. There are a few trips outside the confines of the office. Very few.
Wise made several radical decisions in handling this material.
First off, there is no music. I repeat, there is no music. All sound is strictly diagetic, which is to say it emanates from within the scene being presented. No cues to what you should be feeling, no imposition of emotion of any kind. Wise started off as a sound editor and, boy, does he make that knowledge work here.
"A good score, when used in the right way, can add qualities and dimensions that enrich and strengthen your film. A very important aspect of choosing where to have music in a film is where you don't use it, for as valuable as where the music should go is where there shouldn't be any."
from Robert Wise On His Films, p. 123
Second, apart from the opening POV shot(s), there is no flashy editing. In that opening sequence, there is some use of wipes and dissolves to hide the transitions between shots, to make it seamless. After that, nothing but straight cuts. Wise did journeyman work as a film editor, too, and knows precisely how to pace a scene, to control the tempo through cutting alone.
"Because of the way the story built from the beginning and how it went along—all the people involved, all the different scenes—I thought I could keep the momentum without having to do time lapses. It seemed to me that we [in Hollywood] were so locked into dissolves and fade-outs [at that time] that it became almost a cliché."
from Robert Wise On His Films, p. 34
Wise is, first and foremost, a craftsman. Nowhere is that more evident, or hidden, than here. He took what should have been a clunky, visually uninteresting story, and with his inspired approach and meticulous planning, he set upon the world an inspiring and, at the time, popular drama.
But the thing is, you never notice all the work that went into it. It flows seamlessly, naturally — as it should — and you get too involved in the story to notice the expert hands behind it.
Take the climactic boardroom meeting. A bunch of people around a table, discussing the future of a furniture company. Sounds boring, but the scene is electric, crackling with tension and conflict, the clash between worldviews. They shot the scene in something like two days, after two weeks of planning and rehearsals. As Wise said:
"We worked it up and broke the scenes down, so we had a feeling of the tempo and the performances. We made still pictures, little diagrams, and notes on how we were going to cover...By planning like that, you can save yourself a lot of time."
from Robert Wise on His Films, p. 122
Going back to the content of the story for a moment, the refreshing thing about this film, to me, was that the business world wasn't presented as inherently evil. That would never happen today. Holden's character is a fundamentally decent man, and remains so, despite his work in the business world. There are evil, or rather, vicious people present, but there are those in all human endeavors.
It is, in fact, so pro-business that some people have commented that it almost seems like Ayn Rand had a hand in the script. Of course, she didn't, and so far as I have ever read, was never even aware of this film.
Turner Classic Movies is (was?) running a string of movies this month and having viewers vote on which ones Warner Brothers ought to release on DVD. The top five vote-getters will be on DVD next January.
Of course, you must sign up with AOL to vote. So I haven't. But if you wish to, by all means, this movie deserves it.
Robert Wise is (well, "was": he's still with us, thankfully, but he hasn't directed in 14 years) the epitome of the quiet professional. He doesn't try to amaze you with what a good director he is, he just sets out to tell the story in the best manner possible. The ease and simplicity with which his movies unfold are the marks of an expert craftsman.
Hunt down this movie, or catch it on TCM, and give it a go. I doubt you'll be sorry.