Employees' Entrance

Ya gotta love these pre-code flicks. Women looked and acted like real women, and men acted like the cads they often are. Warren William plays the tyrannical owner of a department store down on its luck. He hires and fires with absolute glee, and is an unrepentant womanizer. He hires a new salesgirl, played by the incredibly beautiful Loretta Young, and soon has his way with her. She falls for a fellow employee (Wallace Ford) and marries him secretly. William then turns his attention back to Young and... The film is an absolute hoot, and even includes a highly suggestive rape about-to-happen. Young is almost ethereal in her beauty, but this one's William's film all the way. His character is a cad, but in a strange way, a likable cad.

I ran across this movie by chance and then ran to IMBD to learn more about it. I was amazed by how the film enlightened me on the era and actually how similar corporations and people in them still behave today.. William Warren is excellent in the role of the tyrannical boss with the hots for the married sales girl (Loretta Young). I was surprised by the the openness of the film (for the time), but apparently after reading some of the other comments, this is typical of the pre-code era of films. Too bad things had to change. You can pick up a lot of social history from this kind of film despite it being a bit one dimensional.

This is a remarkable little movie.

It has a bad guy that you actually have to like. Most of the story is spent setting him up as a conventional villain, a ruthless guy who capriciously ruins lives. A hateful, selfish man, arrogant and exploitative.

Along the way, he sleeps with a pretty employee and then when he finds she is married to his protégé he tries to ruin the pair. A man he fired kills himself, and the pretty girl (Loretta Young) tries to. In his manner, he is as brusque and offensive as he can be. He hires a floozy to compromise a fellow executive. He harangues everyone.

And yet by the end you actually like the guy and are surprised at being tricked into doing so. He fights to avoid laying off thousands of employees (because of the depression) in a fight to the death with the bankers. He proves to be honest, if misogynistic.

The two girls are incredibly sexy, as this was made just before the code slammed the shutters on women in film.

Alice White plays the floozy just before a sex scandal ruined her career a second time. She had previous been "helped" by a few directors including Chaplin. We are seeing a real fading flapper here.

Loretta Young, at 20 is as beautifully photographed as she would ever be. How odd to see the pretty girl as one who could be seduced so... twice.

But that's all by the way. The writing of this thing is so competent it rocked me back. I watch a lot of movies and usually have to let my imagination fill in for various deficiencies. Not so here. The writer of this also did the "Kennel Murder Case" of the same year, also excellent.

Excellent again. A good old straight ahead movie that fools you into thinking it is straight ahead and then it turns things a bit upside down.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

... Warren William appears to be the whole show. Sure, you have a great supporting cast, but Warren William's character, tyrannical department store manager Kurt Anderson, is the center of the universe. You dislike his character when you first meet him, but as the film goes along, you begin to understand him and almost pity him by the end of the film. What a brilliant piece of acting.

It's one of several films made in the 20s and 30s centered around those giant department stores of New York City with that special brand of humor and pathos that was so unique to Warner Brothers at the time. Kurt Anderson's curse, besides being completely aware that he would be old and "through" someday just like all of the people that he fired, is to not actually control his empire. He is technically just an employee. He works for the board, for the banks, and the actual owner who seems only good for writing pronouncements for special occasions from his yacht in the Mediterranean.

Loretta Young plays a girl, Madelene, that sleeps with Anderson in order to get a job there - she is starving at the time. Later she develops a romance with Martin West (Wallace Ford), who becomes like a son to Anderson, somebody he is grooming to take over for him someday. The complication is that Martin and Madelene secretly marry because Anderson doesn't like the idea of married executives - they spend too much time at home. This means that Anderson thinks Madelene is still available, and although Anderson is not the marrying kind, he still finds Madelene desirable. Complications ensue.

Albert Gran didn't have too many talking film roles, and in fact this film was released six months after he died. But he is hilarious here as a rather useless executive who Anderson has to keep around because he is related to the actual invisible store owner. Alice White probably has better comic timing here than in any role I've seen her as Anderson's gold digging on-again-off-again mercenary mistress. She is much better as the cherry on top rather than the whole pie.

The running gag for me? The actual owner of the store - you never see him - always starts his letters by saying he is descended from both James Monroe and Benjamin Franklin. As far as I know there is no such person.

This has to be one of the best B movies. Don't miss it. While it is no Citizen Kane, I found it to be a flawless 1 hour, 14 minute joy -- great satire, comedy, social and economic commentary and a fast-paced, well written, interwoven and witty screenplay . There is not a dull or wasted moment in the movie. It moves along and builds as it goes. All the loose ends are tied together and resolved in the exciting conclusion as Warren William juggles a frantic attempt to get a last minute voting proxy, a number of romances, some personnel changes and alliances and even some gunplay. Wow! And there is a huge number of situations and strategy about department store management and sales promotions. It is also an unusual movie in that it is gloriously politically INcorrect: the "bad guy" triumphs for a change. It is quite risque; a good example of a pre-code movie. Warren William gives an "over the top" bravura performance. Albert Gran and Alice White shine. Wallace Ford and Loretta Young do fine.

I see that most users gave it an 8 out of 10. I gave it a 9.