Guerra bianca

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.

I have never been a fan of William Warren's, but this is the perfect role for him. I usually find him thoroughly unlikable and obnoxious; imagine my surprise when he is cast in just such a role and pulls it off so perfectly I find I must now respect his prowess as an actor. Well done, WW! In Employees' Entrance, we find Warren playing Kurt Anderson, an unapologetic cad who rules the Franklin & Munroe Store like a dictator. He is so flawless at playing someone so reprehensible, I loved hating him, I hoped he'd win. I especially loved him telling off the rich fops who run the store in the opening board room scene, "Do you think YOU did it?!" he demands in reference to the store's unprecedented success. I worked for a man like that once, I was crazy about him. No one ever got more work out of me. And the viewer actually doesn't feel too terribly sympathetic to the people Anderson fires throughout the movie, so much as they wonder why they were ever stupid enough to make such silly suggestions or resist Anderson when they had no ideas of their own.

As the great department store enters the great depression, things get even tougher, and Anderson must drive his staff even more ruthlessly than before; but he does this to protect their jobs. And what an eye-opening time-capsule! The Franklin & Munroe store is said to employ 12,000 people...you'd be lucky to find 12 in a department store today! Imagine a store that actually provides SERVICE.

Note the pre-code relationships between the characters: Anderson sleeps with Madeline twice and neither character seems to feel it is the end of the world as would have been required of them in films just a couple of years later. Further, Anderson literally pimps Polly out to divert the attention of a troublesome board member. She doesn't mind; not because she's easy but because she's figured out how to work the system.

Lots of faces familiar to the Depression-era movie fan. Alice White is perfect as Polly Dale, perhaps the most amusing character in the film. Loretta Young plays Madeline with more depth than was probably written into it. Ruth Donnelly is her usual self as Miss Hall, and Allen Jenkins has an unbilled but significant role as the security chief, Sweeney. Wallace Ford is surprisingly good as Martin West; the scene where he flirts across the store with Madeline by holding up sheet music with titles like "I want to call you Sweetheart" and "You're Beautiful" is adorable.

I highly recommend this entertaining film.

Behind the pedestrian title lurks a rather savage look at survival-era capitalism as played out during that desperate depression year of 1933. Who else is better outfitted to protect the average working stiff from cut-throat competition and unemployment than a tiger shark bigger than those circling around. Department store shark Warren William is in charge of 12,000 average Joe's, and by golly he's going to keep them swimming even if he has to eat half of them in the process. Bravura performance from William-- watch his eyes slink around the hallway before he enters the hotel room to ravish a drunkenly compliant Loretta Young. His authoritative presence commands the movie as completely as he does his underlings. Film may come as a revelation to viewers unfamiliar with pre-Code Hollywood, before the censors took over in 1934. Nonetheless, it was an era of social frankness that would not emerge again until the counter-cultural 1960's, while the movie itself would play as well today as it did then, as one reviewer sagely observes.

Much of film's value lies in getting us to think about the appeal a strongman-tyrant presents during turbulent times. We loathe William's ruthless and often cruel tactics. But at the same time he's inventive, decisive, and brutally logical-- with a single-minded dedication that goes beyond personal happiness. In short, he becomes The Department Store in the same way an effective tyrant can personify The State. He's a figure to be loathed, yet grudgingly admired at the same time, while it's a credit to the film-makers that they pull off the ambivalence as well as they do. Two scenes stay with me that help define William's compelling side--watch him nearly throw up at the smarmy speech given in behalf of the store's worthless owners, plus his face-to-face denunciation of bankers as parasitically unproductive, a passage that probably brought depression-era audiences to their feet.There are also unexpected deposits of humor, such as the bald man/balloon gag that is hilariously inventive and likely a brainstorm from ace director Roy del Ruth. On the other hand, Wallace Ford simply lacks the kind of edge to make his role as William's assistant plausible. Instead, a face-off between William and, say, Cagney would have exploded the screen.

Anyhow, don't let the forgettable title or the now obscure Warren William fool you. There are so many memorable glimpses of human honesty, that the movie must be seen to be appreciated, especially by those unfamiliar with the pre-Code era. So catch up with this cynical little gem if you can.

... 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.

In "Employees' Entrance," Warren William plays Kurt Anderson, a man who runs a department store with ruthlessness, disregarding employees and their private lives. In silent films, this is the type of role he played. But I'm more used to the fun William from "Daytime Wife," a Perry Mason movie, and others. He had a great laugh - but you won't hear it here.

Loretta Young, 20 when she made this film, is unbelievably beautiful as Madeleine, an employee who falls for fellow employee Martin (Wallace Ford). The two marry secretly. The tyrannical Anderson does everything that he can to break up what he thinks is a budding romance - he piles work on Martin and promotes him so that he has no time for women. Anderson, meanwhile, manages to seduce the lovely Madeleine twice! Anderson's tyranny isn't just against this couple - without giving it a thought, he ruins lives and companies. Yet in spite of this, there's something admirable about his innovations, and when he spots a smart, determined individual, he wastes no time promoting him.

A very non-precode ending that will make you really wish the code never existed. This film is not only interesting as a historical piece, but it's a look at the inner workings of a department store -- and a reminder that times really haven't changed that much.