The Five Best Movies About Big Business

Sloane as the difficult Mr. Ramsey.

1. Patterns (1956). What would you do if you worked for the world's worst boss? If you answered "quit, of course," then this movie is for you! Last year, I showed Patterns to a group of senior managers and we spent over an hour discussing it. Van Heflin portrays a promising junior executive who gets promoted to vice president at Ramsey & Co. He soon realizes that the company's ruthless head (Everett Sloane) wants to push a decent, but now ineffective, older executive into retirement. When the latter takes a hard stand, Ramsey makes his life hell. But here's the catch: Ramsey truly has the best interests of the company at heart. Rod Serling adapted his own acclaimed television play.

2. Executive Suite (1954). When the president of Tredway, the nation’s third-largest furniture manufacturer, dies unexpectedly, two executives (Fredric March and William Holden) battle each other for the control of the company. I've also referenced this engrossing look at corporate politics in the real world. It provides an interesting discourse on quality (represented by Holden's engineer) vs. profits (March's VP of finance). It also raises an interesting point about career progression. If you don't want someone one else as your boss, are you willing to step up and do the job yourself?

Judy Holliday as Miss Partridge.

3. The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956). Judy Holliday is sublime as Laura Partridge, a (very) minority stockholder in a major corporation who keeps questioning the company’s crooked board members during its public meetings. To keep her from badgering them, the board members hire Miss Partridge as their Director of Shareholder Relations—a “do nothing” job until she decides to make something of it. It's my favorite Judy Holliday comedy, but also a sharp satire about the power of stockholders.

DeVito as Larry the Liquidator.

4. Other People's Money (1991). Danny DeVito stars as Larry the Liquidator, a corporate raider who targets a struggling company run by a kindly executive (Gregory Peck) who cares deeply about his employees. Larry, on the other hand, just wants to make money for stockholders--and himself. Peck and DeVito share a great scene at the climax in which each of their characters makes a compelling case for his viewpoint.

5. The Man in the White Suit (1951). Alec Guinness plays Sidney Stratton, a research chemist who invents a fiber that never gets dirty and never wears out. Sounds like a marvelous invention, right? Well, the textile industry--to include both management and the union--isn't thrilled at all. Naturally, Sidney's white suit will bankrupt companies and eliminate jobs. Since this is an Ealing comedy, there's a witty ending that (sort of) works for everyone. Still, it makes one wonder how many great inventions may have been stifled in the real world!

Note: I focused my picks on movies that deal with traditional businesses. Yes, you could make the argument that The Godfather is a film about a family-run business, but I think it's outside the scope of this list. Likewise, businesses play an important role in films like Citizen Kane, Mildred Pierce, and The Bad and the Beautiful. I still wouldn't call them movies about big business.

My 100 Favorite Films: From 40 to 31

This month’s countdown list features a double dose of Sidney Poitier and two very different science fiction films. As always, please keep in mind that these films are not what I'd consider the best 100 movies ever made. They are simply one classic fan's favorites. (An underlined title means there's a hyperlink to a full review at the Cafe.)

40. Out of the Past- My favorite film noir has Robert Mitchum as a man who has put his shady past behind him and found love with a good woman in a small community where he operates a gas station. But, as is often the case in the movies, his past catches up with him when a former acquaintance passes through town. With its contrasts of bright lights and dark shadows, Out of the Past is a visual feast. It’s also a compelling tale of a man pulled back into the shadows of his past—no matter how hard he tries to escape them. Kirk Douglas nails the manipulating villain; too bad he didn’t play more bad guys. Yet, despite the presence of Mitchum and Douglas, the film belongs to Jane Greer, an underrated and under-utilized actress who created one of the genre’s best femme fatales.

39. The Andromeda Strain – This superior science fiction outing pits four dedicated scientists against a microscopic menace capable of destroying all life on Earth. Its critics have labeled it slow-moving and overlong, but I find it intellectually exciting. Its thrills come not from action sequences (though there’s a doozy at the climax), but from the time-sensitive need to determine: What is the Andromeda Strain? How can it be destroyed? Why did a 69-year-old man and a six-month-old baby survive when Andromeda wiped out a New Mexico town of 68 people? Part of the appeal for me is that The Andromeda Strain includes one of my favorite plot devices: the forming of a team in which each member is introduced to the audience.

38. Lilies of the Field – A quiet film that has grown in my affection, Lilies contains my favorite Sidney Poitier performance. His Homer Smith is a stubborn man who is delightfully at odds with himself… and with a savvy Mother Superior. A drifter, Homer stops at a small farm run by nuns in the Arizona desert. He agrees to do a small roof repair and winds up building a chapel. The gentle conflict between Homer and the Mother Superior (wonderfully played by Lilia Skala) forms the heart of the film. But I also love how Lilies captures the flavor of the community, encapsulated in my favorite scene in which some local workers gradually force their assistance on Homer as he builds “his” chapel.

37. In the Heat of the Night - This racially-charged mystery, 1968’s Oscar winner for Best Picture, has aged gracefully over the years. The secret to its success can be attributed to its many layers. Peel back the mystery plot and you have a potent examination of racial tension in the South in the 1960s. Peel that back and you have a rich character study of two lonely police detectives, from completely different backgrounds, who gradually earn each other’s respect. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger shine in the lead roles and Sidney delivers one of my all-time favorite lines of dialogue.

36. Executive Suite - The president of Tredway, the nation’s third-largest furniture manufacturer, dies unexpectedly in the opening scene. With no successor named, the company falls into the hands of five vice-presidents with equal authority. Since Wall Street viewed Tredway as a one-man company, the VPs realize the criticality of naming a a new president over the weekend—thus creating a high stakes battle for company control. The all-star cast (which includes Holden, March, and Stanwyck) is in fine form. However, it’s the film’s theme of quality vs. profit that always intrigued me. Indeed, I first saw this film in a college business course. It’s often compared to Rod Serling’s Patterns, another corporate drama made in the 1950s. It’s very good, with a killer ending, but Executive Suite is more entertaining.

35. To Kill a Mockingbird – For many fans, this film’s appeal lies with its literary origins and Gregory Peck’s powerhouse performance. While that’s also somewhat true for me, my favorite part of Mockingbird is its portrait of a time and a place through the eyes of a child. I don’t think any movie has done a better job of that (my runner-up is the French two-part film My Father’s Glory/My Mother’s Castle). Additionally, Mary Badham and Phillip Alford give incredibly naturalistic performancea as the children. Badham was equally good in This Property Is Condemned. Mockingbird is full of magical moments, with my favorite being Atticus’s formal introduction of Boo Radley.

34. Von Ryan’s Express - Released in 1965, just two years after The Great Escape, Von Ryan’s Express also tells the tale of a daring escape from a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during World War II. While both films split their running times between scenes inside the camp and outside the fence (once the prisoners break out), the similarity ends there. A near-perfect blend of suspense, intense action sequences, and occasional humor, Von Ryan’s Express takes off when the prisoners hijack a German train. OK, I admit I’m a sucker for train movies—but this one is a gripping thriller with a flawed hero well-played by Frank Sinatra. I always thought Sinatra was an odd star, capable of excellent performances (here and in The Manchurian Candidate) and truly awful ones (The Detective).

33. Picnic – William Holden stars as a handsome drifter who wanders into a small town to see old chum Cliff Robertson…and inadvertently steals his girlfriend Kim Novak. Based on William Inge’s play, Picnic is about taking chances, whether it’s in the pursuit of passion (and perhaps love) or whether it’s two lonely middle-aged people willing to take a chance on each other. I know film buffs who may cringe when I say it, but Picnic is at heart a big screen soap opera—and that’s not a bad thing. My Mom loved this genre and when I watched these soaps with her as a kid, I called them “people stories”—apparently because characters talked a lot instead of engaging in swordfights, hunting vampires, etc.

32. The Leopard Man – Set in a small New Mexico town, this fascinating Val Lewton-produced suspense film concerns a black leopard that escapes during a foolish publicity stunt. When a young girl is found clawed to death, the leopard is blamed—but was it the killer? Leopard Man is justly famous for what Exorcist director William Friedkin once called "one of the greatest horror sequences ever filmed." However, it’s more than a one-trick pony. I’m surprised that film critics rarely note its complex, interweaving narrative structure in which the plot sometimes zigs and zags as the characters interact. I can’t think of many other films like it, except for La Ronde, in which the narrative device is much more obvious.

31. Quatermass and the Pit – Construction workers uncover the ancient skulls of “ape men” while working in a deserted underground subway station in the Hobbs End area of London. A scientist dates the ape men’s remains as five million years old, making them the earliest known ancestors of humans. His work comes to a sharp halt, though, when the excavations unearth a large metallic-like object in the rock. Is it a bomb? A spacecraft? And what does it have to do with stories of former Hobbs End residents claiming to have heard odd noises and experienced visions of “hideous dwarfs”? Writer Nigel Kneale hatched this incredibly inventive melding of science fiction and horror, the third film in the Quatermass series. Too many films are labeled “one of a kind,” but this little gem truly fits the definition.

Next month, I’ll count down the next ten, which include a gimmicky mystery, the greatest color film ever made, and a whole lotta dogs.

Corporate Politics Take Center Stage in "Executive Suite"

I first saw Executive Suite in an unlikely setting: a broadcast manage-ment class at Indiana University in 1978. I don’t remember how the film pertained to the class (or if the professor just wanted to take a break from lecturing). But the film, an engrossing look at corporate politics, stuck with me over the years. I didn’t see it again until my wife and I discovered a copy at a local video store in the 1990s. This second viewing surprised me—Executive Suite was far better than I remembered.

The opening scene, shot in first-person, has business executive Avery Bullard entering a skyscraper, taking an elevator, and sending a telegram to his board of directors about a meeting at six o'clock. Bullard then leaves the building, hails a taxi, and keels over dead. It’s a terrific sequence, all the more effective for its lack of music (which is replaced by bells and street sounds).

We quickly learn that the 56-year-old Bullard was president of Tredway, the nation’s third-largest furniture manufacturer, located in Millburgh, Pennsylvania. After the death of his second-in-command, Bullard delayed in naming a successor. As a result, Bullard’s untimely death places the company in the hands of five vice-presidents with equal authority. Since Wall Street viewed Tredway as a one-man company, the VPs realize the criticality of naming a replacement to Bullard over the weekend.

Walter Pidgeon tries to reason with Barbara Stanwyck.

Loren Shaw (Fredric March), Tredway’s

ambitious VP of finance, quickly starts lining up the required votes to become the company’s new president. But his “profit first” approach clashes with the philosophy of board members Fred Alderson (Walter Pidgeon) and Don Walling (William Holden). They believe that investing in research and producing quality furniture will attract loyal customers and, eventually, generate long-term company growth. Alderson and Walling launch a frantic drive to find their own candidate capable of defeating Shaw. Blackmail, illegal stock trading, and a spurned lover all come into play before the board of directors finally selects Avery Bullard’s succesor.

I admit a penchant for movies where the plot builds to a event scheduled for a specific time (e.g., the assassination in Day of the Jackal). Director Robert Wise, one of Hollywood’s most versatile directors, expertly shapes Executive Suite into a “time ticking” film. As the clock counts down to the climatic vote, it’s fascinating to watch alliances shift and deals fall through. It’s equally compelling to follow the philosophical underpinnings of the decisions made (e.g., profit vs. quality, traditional methods vs. new ones).

It's all about profit according to March's Shaw.

The superstar cast includes Holden, Pidgeon, Barbara Stanwyck and June Allyson. For my money, the standout performances are delivered by Fredric March and Paul Douglas. After two decades as a leading man, March gave some of his best performances in supporting roles in the 1950s and 1960s (see also Inherit the Wind and Seven Days in May). He captures the ruthlessness and the impatient frustration that makes Shaw such a vivid character. Paul Douglas is equally good in a smaller role, as a confident executive who gets backed into a corner. It’s a nice change-of-pace for Douglas, who specialized in playing nice guys in comedies like The Solid Gold Cadillac and It Happens Every Spring.

Executive Suite is often compared with 1956’s Patterns, another boardroom drama that was adapted from a Rod Serling TV play. Most critics prefer Patterns, which we finally saw in the late 1990s. We find them hard to compare; they’re two very different films, each fine in its own right. Patterns may be the more realistic of the two, but Executive Suite offers an optimistic viewpoint that works better as sheer entertainment.