NFR Project: 'Employees' Entrance' (1933)

 

NFR Project: ‘Employees’ Entrance’

Dir: Roy Del Ruth

Scr: Robert Presnell Sr.

Pho: Barney McGill

Ed: James Gibbon

Premiere: February 11, 1933

74 min.

This curio is an example of why I have taken on this project. It’s a hidden gem, something I’d never heard of. It was fascinating.

This isn’t a bubbly comedy, or a musical, or a gangster film. It’s simply the story of an enormous son-of-a-bitch, and as astute a critique of capitalism you’re likely to find in mainstream cinema.

The lead character, Kurt Anderson, played to straight-faced perfection by Warren William, is a complete bastard. He runs a major department store with an iron hand, ruthless ruining people who cross him. He is all business, 24/7. He demands complete and total dedication from his subordinates. He has no use for women, except sexually. He is a cad and a bounder.

The movie simply retails his business decisions and how they mar the lives of people under him. He is attracted to the young employee, Madeleine (a 19-year-old Loretta Young!), but she prefers his assistant, Martin (Wallace Ford). Martin and Madeleine marry secretly, but Anderson finds out – and gets Madeleine drunk and seduces her.

She quits, Anderson gets her to reveal her infidelity to Martin, Martin shoots him, but not too badly. Madeleine takes poison, but recovers. Martin quits as well, and he and Madeliene reconcile. Anderson, wounded but unmoved, continues being a total cock. The End.

Who greenlit this? It’s utterly unlike even the social-realist, social problem films Warner Brothers specialized in. It simply relates the story of a bad man. He’s isn’t really punished, as in many moral-lesson films, nor is he redeemed, nor is he rewarded. He’s a jerk, but he makes the company plenty of money, so he gets to screw up people’s lives, break them apart, drive them to suicide, ruin their businesses. This is the rule of unvarnished capitalism – nothing is off limits and nothing matters except money and power. A more brutal takedown of the entrepreneurial, can-do American spirit has hardly been screened.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt h.to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: 42^nd Street.