Great Old Classic with an unbeatable moral
Added 9/5/2009
Old America was created by people with strong moral beliefs. Beliefs that affected everything they did. They were willing to take risks for what they believed in and providence paid them dividends. This is a heart warming classic of a battle for control of a company. The people are real, they question themselves and their ability while others are quick to seek personal gain in the present circumstance. Something we have lost or forgotten. I highly recommend this movie.
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Awful Movie - very slow, very tedious, very somber - could only watch half
Added 7/13/2009
The death of the president of a large furniture company... there's the premise of a riveting drama. This was one of the most tedious old movies I've ever seen. I was bitterly disappointed because the cast is an all-star cast. Many old movies are slower than movies today at getting going with the drama, but this one was the worst of them all. There was absolutely nothing about the man who died for the audience to care. He wasn't a famous person. His character hadn't been developed before he died. Nothing. Even the people who have to deal with his death are dull as dishwater.
The actual "drama" is so light. The tension isn't thick. The 'plot' is dragged out with no end in sight. There are no interesting characters. Emotions are toned down. The script isn't clever or interesting. Everybody is in a bad mood. It's all somber and sober. It's like watching a funeral in slow motion. I couldn't watch even half of it.
You won't be surprised to learn that a TV show spin-off of this dull flick died quickly. Note that nobody else has ever since Executive Suite tried to make a similar movie--certainly no remake. There are dramatic business films out there like Wall Street. They have so many qualities that are absent from Executive Suite.
Who might like this? Business school students. Owners of large furniture companies.
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Follow the Money Trail
Added 5/23/2009
Executive Suite The range of personality traits are about as broad and infectious as the plot itself in the hard-hitting gritty performances dominating this indiscreet defection into the greedy world of big business, with one of the finer casts relating to rare solid films of the "corporate-finance" genre, at the helm. Flagged by Bill Holden (driven), Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Pidgeon, Frederic March, Paul Douglas, Nina Foch, and others. The story moves quickly, the players are calculating, and the results are dynamic. A gripping film with an almost sensitive underside which pays homage to those who work hard, and in the end, find just reward. Pay careful attention to this one. The range of human emotions are knit very tightly in a harsh, but realistic, truth.
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Executive Suite
Added 10/6/2008
Another depiction of corporate greed with William Holden playing the good guy and Fredric March the bad guy. An excellent supporting cast featuring June Allyson, Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Pidgeon, Louis Calhern among others.
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Struggle for the soul of a corporation
Added 4/27/2008
This is a wonderful "business" film, one of the few that gives a reasonable treatment to the issues facing business today, not just fifty-five years ago. With a stellar cast, a world-class producer, and zero special effects, "Suite" delivers a powerful argument for the potential of business to do the right thing, to help people, and to serve customers. When William Holden, the brash head of research and development, tears off the leg of one of their products during his climatic tirade in the boardroom, you almost want to stand up and cheer for his cockeyed optimism, as Frederic March sweats in his chair as interim chairman.
As a business professor, I have used the closing boardroom scene in this film for several years (before the DVD, in hard-to-find VHS format) as a vivid contrast to a similar scene from "Other people's money," to illustrate the conflicts within a company, making choices between the short- and long-run, between the customer and the employee, between the shareholder and the local citizen. In the end, we see a powerful argument for wealth creation, not just "maximizing shareholder value", as the most effective, long-term, sustainable business strategy is, as Holden says, to give customers what they want, at prices they can afford and, when better products come along, we give them those. Only then will companies truly thrive.
Some aspects of the film are cliched, somewhat dated, yet effective: Holden's family life and struggle for a work-life balance, the vice president of sales' affair with his secretary, the womanizing director of communications. But they all ring true and they all still exist today, just not in black and white. The compact time line of the story helps build pressure without ringing false. This is a film that can be studied and discussed, not just enjoyed.
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