Executive Suite - Warner Archive Collection

Boardroom politics and power plays often produce memorable movie scenes, but one film attacks those topics with a laser focus and devotes its entire running time to the cutthroat maneuvers and backroom deals that transpire during a corporate crisis. Executive Suite may seem dated and somewhat tame when pitted against the cutthroat big business practices of today, but director Robert Wise's often riveting film addresses such timeless core elements as ambition, corruption, deal-making, and betrayal with frankness and insight. There's plenty of personal drama in the script by Ernest Lehman, but it's the tense events in the hallowed, wood-paneled offices that make the strongest impressions in this top-flight film that boasts an all-star cast.

When Avery Bullard, president of the Tredway Corporation (a small Pennsylvania furniture company), drops dead on the sidewalk outside the office of his Wall Street investment banker, a couple of his colleagues try to exploit the tragedy to their advantage before his body is even cold. Tredway board member George Caswell (Louis Calhern), who witnesses Bullard's collapse and hopes to reap financial rewards, instantly calls his broker and instructs him to sell his Tredway stock short, while Loren Shaw (Fredric March), the oily, arrogant company controller, moves to shore up support in a bid to inherit Bullard's mantle.

Aside from Caswell, Shaw has few fans in the executive circle. Treasurer Frederick Alderson (Walter Pidgeon), manufacturing vice president Jesse Grimm (Dean Jagger), sales vice president Walter Dudley (Paul Douglas), Bullard's secretary Erica Martin (Nina Foch), and especially Don Walling (William Holden), who heads up production at the plant and runs costly experiments to improve quality and efficiency, don't like Shaw's rigid, impersonal, by-the-numbers management style. Alderson and Walling, who fear Shaw will drive the company into the ground by rubber-stamping a cheaper, poorly made product and favoring the bottom line over Tredway's loyal workers, frantically look for an alternative candidate, but struggle to find anyone who has the gumption to stand up to Shaw and the will to fill Bullard's huge shadow. After much soul searching, Walling throws his hat into the ring, but convincing his colleagues he's the right man to lead Tredway into the future isn't easy and his ascension to the top spot is a long shot at best.

Executive Suite exudes a macho air as it explores the psyches and machinations of powerful men, each of whom harbors his own private agenda. Walling's idealism and vision are inspiring, but it's the flawed figures like Shaw, Caswell, and Dudley who make the story interesting. Amazingly, this was Lehman's first screenplay, and the masterful plot construction, crackling dialogue, and deft delineation of character foreshadow the six-time Oscar nominee's work on such classics as Sabrina, Sweet Smell of Success, North by Northwest, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, to name but a few.

The men carry the movie, but when examining Executive Suite from today's standpoint, the women are even more fascinating. For as much as Executive Suite concentrates on corporate culture, it also provides a revealing snapshot of 1950s society and the gaping chasm separating males from females. The women of Executive Suite are either wives, secretaries, kept women, or gold-diggers, but despite their subservient roles, all but one (Caswell's sexy, ditzy, platinum blonde wife) are intelligent, influential women who quietly pull their own set of strings behind the scenes.

June Allyson, who specialized in playing perfect wives during the 1950s, portrays Walling's supportive spouse, who - like the other women in the film - accepts the fact that work comes first for her husband and her job is to keep the domestic front tranquil and serene so he can focus on more important matters. Shelley Winters plays Dudley's sassy yet savvy secretary who's also having an affair with him. (He's unhappily married, but can't quite muster the courage to divorce his shrewish wife.) Foch, who would nab an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actress, is the gatekeeper of the executive suite, a lonely career woman who thrives on protocol and struggles to adapt to the messiness brought about by Bullard's sudden death.

And then there's the magnetic Barbara Stanwyck, appearing in what would turn out to be her last big-budget, high-profile movie. In the small but pivotal role of Julia Tredway, neglected daughter of the company's late founder and Bullard's long-suffering mistress, Stanwyck portrays a bitter, neurotic, isolated woman who's been marginalized by men her entire life and finally finds herself in a position of power, holding the all-important swing vote in the climactic boardroom battle between Shaw and Walling. Although a bit histrionic at times, Stanwyck turns in a performance of surprising depth that belies the part's brevity.

March is especially good as the uptight, scheming Shaw, who salivates over the prospect of becoming the next Tredway president. Continually mopping his sweaty upper lip and eyeing his prey like a predator ready to pounce, he fully inhabits his role. Holden, whose breakout part was the titular Golden Boy 15 years before, plays another golden boy here and the role fits him like a glove. He commands the screen during his climactic, six-minute speech and his relaxed chemistry with Allyson and wonderful rapport with Stanwyck (who co-starred with him in Golden Boy and is credited with saving his fledgling career when she persuaded the producers of that film not to fire him) add a touch of warmth and humanity to an otherwise ice cold drama.

Wise, whose Oscar-winning work on two classic musicals (West Side Story and The Sound of Music) wrongly overshadows his talent as a dramatic director, astutely recognized the story's sharp, cynical nature and refused to soften it with a music score, even during the more relaxed domestic scenes. Forgoing a score in favor of street noise, factory machinery, and the occasional ominous tones of a deafening church bell heightens both realism and the fly-on-the-wall perspective we get during the claustrophobic office scenes. Wise also cleverly employs a subjective camera in the opening sequence, putting us in Bullard's shoes during the last moments of his life.

Executive Suite still has bite 70 years later. In this era of political pandering, social media brawls, and Coldplaygate, it's refreshing to go back to a simpler time when corporate backstabbing was largely done behind closed doors and the combatants swallowed their pride and shook hands when the battle ended. Of course, real life is rarely like a movie script, but Executive Suite seems to come close to accurately capturing a bygone time. And with such a great cast and array of fine performances, we'll be watching and analyzing this excellent film for years to come.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
Executive Suite arrives on Blu-ray packaged in a standard case. Video codec is 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 and audio is DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono. Once the disc is inserted into the player, the static menu without music immediately pops up; no previews or promos precede it.

A brand new 4K scan of the original camera negative yields a striking 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 transfer that faithfully honors the stark, Oscar-nominated cinematography of George Folsey. (One of MGM's most reliable and talented cinematographers, Folsey was nominated for a whopping 13 Academy Awards, but sadly never won.) Faint grain preserves the feel of film and well-balanced exterior shots rival the quality of the carefully lit interiors. Rich blacks and superior shadow delineation enhance the impact of nocturnal scenes, the bright whites never bloom, and a wide grayscale helps fine details in the textures and patterns of the wardrobe and elegant trimmings in the stately Tredway offices pop. (Both the costumes and art direction-set decoration received Oscar nominations as well.) Razor sharp close-ups showcase facial hair, beads of sweat, wrinkles, and pores and no print damage mars the pristine source.

The biggest difference between this Blu-ray and the 2007 DVD is the film's aspect ratio. This Blu-ray presents Executive Suite in its intended aspect ratio of 1.75:1. All other home video editions, except for the 1997 laserdisc, present the movie in the 1.37:1 ratio. Though the film was shot in that smaller ratio, reportedly so it could seamlessly air one day on television, it was always intended to be viewed in the widescreen format. The more expansive feel allows us to become more engulfed in the action and heightens the intensity and intimacy of the personal confrontations. If that wasn't enough of a reason to upgrade, the cleanliness of this Blu-ray transfer improves immeasurably upon the DVD, which is riddled with nicks and small scratches. Just like old executives eventually retire, it's time to put that obsolete DVD out to pasture and embrace this new, more vital, and more pleasing presentation. 

The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track also bests the DVD, with the remastered, lossless audio beautifully balancing the robust and nuanced sound effects. Executive Suite was one of the first movies to completely forgo a music score in an effort to pump up realism. An ear-splitting church bell rings ominously at various times, often catching us off guard, but whistles, honking car horns, ringing phones, the cacophonous furniture machinery, and sirens are equally vital. Subtleties like street noise supply some ambience and all the dialogue is clear, well prioritized, and easy to comprehend. Like the video, the audio is free of any age-related imperfections like hiss, pops, and crackle.

Warner Archive imports the commentary track and trailer from the 2007 DVD, but strangely swaps out the Pete Smith Specialty short that had a great corporate tie-in to Executive Suite for a less successful episode and trades a Tex Avery cartoon for one starring Tom and Jerry.

• Audio Commentary with filmmaker Oliver Stone
• Vintage Short: Do Someone a Favor (SD, 9 minutes) - "No good deed goes unpunished" is the theme of this slapstick one-reeler, part of the long-running Pete Smith Specialty series. When a mild-mannered husband takes care of a neighbor's dog and helps out a shapely blonde with car trouble, mayhem - and marital strife - ensue.
• Vintage Cartoon: Hic-cup Pup (HD, 6 minutes) - Tom and Jerry star in this amusing animated romp that pits the two adversaries against Spike the dog, who blames Tom for giving his son a case of the hiccups.
• Theatrical Trailer (SD, 3 minutes) - The film's original preview completes the extras package.

The boardroom maneuvers in Executive Suite might seem tame by today's no-holds-barred standards, but they still provide plenty of riveting drama. The all-star cast supplies the fireworks and Warner Archive supplies a sterling transfer struck from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative in the intended aspect ratio. Remastered audio, a commentary track, and a couple of vintage extras sweeten the deal. All in favor of an upgrade, say aye. The ayes have it! Highly Recommended.