Guerra bianca

A standout performance by Warren William as Anderson, the hard, uncompromising, ruthless and feared-by-most General Manager of a giant department store helps make this a really excellent and interesting film. With climbing profits over the years, the depression has hit the store with a downfall and Anderson is put in complete charge to boost up sales - and he will go so far as to ruin any man who doesn't live up to his high expectations. He likes women, but not for marriage - his motto towards females is "love 'em and leave 'em". He soon meets beautiful Loretta Young who is desperate to get a job at the store, apparently a hard nut to crack (and she, apparently, will do whatever it takes to get it as she spends the night with him at his apartment despite her indication she would like to go home). Anyway - she's hired on as a model even after she said she would like to be hired for her "brain" - okey dokey - and soon has met and married a gung-ho salesman (Wallace Ford) who has been promoted as Anderson's new assistant. Anderson believes that a man should be married to his "job" only - so the marriage is kept a secret, and the workaholic boss expects his assistant to be there by his side pretty much night and day.

Okay, this is a really terrific pre-code film, entertaining through every scene, and featuring one of my thirties favorites, Warren William, who pretty much steals the film. As for the women, though Loretta Young is fine in her part here and looks really gorgeous - it is the scenes with adorable Alice White that are the most fun to watch as she plays Polly, a blonde who takes extra pay from Anderson to do his bidding seducing male employees for various purposes. A very enjoyable film and a treat to see.

A very watchable pre-code film - not so only it's risque elements but for acting (particularly Warren William), plot, comedy and fast pace. One of my favorites of the era.

It's very interesting how Warren William - who treats women like objects, tries to break up a budding romance (by seducing and sleeping with Loretta Young, not once but twice!!), indirectly leads to a employees' suicide, etc - manages to "win" in the end. For the most part, the is the "bad guy" in the story...although he has a few redeeming characteristics.

It's worth owning the video.

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.

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 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.