So you have the potential to be the CEO of some corporation. Why does it matter? 100 years from now, we'll all be dead and it won't matter who was CEO.
So why do these people waste so much time/stress over it?
Makes no sense.
I'm thinking in the mid-1950s, there were less high status jobs around other than CEO. At least the way success was defined then.
Now, we define success in different ways. Having a high powered CEO job isn't the only way.
Just a shot in the dark.
>>Oh, well that's different. Nevermind!<<
That's the beauty of this film. Everybody had a different motive. Greed in some cases; ambition in others. The filmmakers -- and see producer John Houseman's hand throughout this piece -- definitely were conveying a strong point of view with the arguments presented in the board meeting and the outcome.
This story is particularly fun to ponder in the context of today's business climate. Hedge funds are represented by the Shaw character, for example. The dividend vs. R&D/quality discussion at the board meeting -- put another way, short-term stockholder payoff vs. long-term corporate/business goals -- remains an issue in corporate America today.
This movie would be good material for viewing and discussion by business school students, especially business ethics classes.
I agree that the movie had some good concepts, mgrimaldi. Maybe a re-interpretation and updating of some ideas would be good
This story is particularly fun to ponder in the context of today's business climate. Hedge funds are represented by the Shaw character, for example. The dividend vs. R&D/quality discussion at the board meeting -- put another way, short-term stockholder payoff vs. long-term corporate/business goals -- remains an issue in corporate America today.
In response to electrictroy,
I have often wondered the same kind of thing. When I look into the sky over my house and I see some private jet flying by I wonder: "Is that person really any happier than I am?"
I guess it's just a power trip. But I'll be damned if I can see what's so great about being "better" than anyone else...or richer...or the Boss.
But I've only met a few members of the "Cynics Club"...I didn't see you there. I'll see that you get an invitation.
Ciao, e buon auguri
I can't add much to what's been said, but I always thought that Mac (Holden's character) was a bit naive about what he cared about, even though I agree with him--that quality of product is more important than making sure investors get a return on their investment. And after his pontificating, he kinda had the job thrust upon him, even though he had no reluctance in accepting it. The end of the movie is so good that you wonder what happened after everyone left. Great movie.
shareIn response to the OP, if you say that since we'll all be dead in a hundred years anyway, why bother to aspire to power (or whatever) -- the same could be applied to anyone in any endeavor, no matter how grand or modest. If everyone thought that way, no progress would ever be made. The human race would have remained just a subsistence species, eating and reproducing, to no end. We have a drive to improve our lot, our own and (sometimes) others', and that's what keeps us going, thinking, striving, creating -- on small or large scales...usually for the good, occasionally to evil purposes.
This movie answers that question, too. Remember Walling's dissection of what drove Bullard -- the urge to create, to do things no one else in the world could do. (A bit overstated, since we're talking about furniture, but the point is good.) Wealth and success are part of it, and makes one's own life comfortable, and for some people that's the be-all and end-all, that plus power. (Caswell.) But for others it's not -- and that's why, as Walling says, Bullard had become lost in recent years, as his creative impulses had run dry, "there were no more worlds to conquer", and he needed something else to satisfy his pride -- in his case, the lure of bigger profits dangled by Shaw. One of the strengths of this film is that it draws a distinction between success as a limited end in itself (Shaw, and Bullard), and succeess as measured by how you improve the world and benefit others (Walling). We may all be gone in 100 years, but we'll have helped make the world a better place for those who come after -- as those before us did, and as those who come after will, we hope, also do.
I pretty much agree with you hob,
We cynics were just having a little fun. You used the words "progress" and "improve". We were just questioning the definition of words like that.
Cioa, e buon auguri
Hi Jeff,
Yeah, when I went back and read over what I'd written I was slightly taken aback too -- I sounded like Ayn Rand or something! I was just trying to make the point that if one was simply to throw up one's hands and say, what's the use, we'll all die someday, then nothing would ever get done. Might as well pull the trigger today.
I have a very hard time balancing my own cynical side with my higher aspirations!
Hello hob,
I'm right there with you, I teeter on that balance beam myself.
Nice to talk with you again.
Ciao, e buon auguri
You, too, Jeff. Still no word about NO HIGHWAY IN THE SKY, btw.
On the other hand, EXECUTIVE SUITE is in my top five favorites list, so the fact that it's finally out on DVD makes me feel empowered -- positively Randian. The -ian suffix in lieu of a -y being a critical distinction.
Talk to you again soon I hope.
Very clever with the suffix hob!
By the way, can I ask you another question about credits? What does "casting by" mean? I see the name Lynn Stallmaster on a lot of movies.
Oh, and I just happened to read the comments of the aeronautical/environmental engineer who responded to you on the "No Highway" board. I had remembered seeing a documentary about the Comet which explained the fuselage failure but was glad to read his explanation.
Always nice to chat with you.
Ciao, e buon auguri
Oh, yes, good old Lynn Stallmaster -- and her unnamed "Associates". Truthfully, I'm a bit hazy on the specifics of just what precisely a casting company does, but it is involved in acquiring the cast members, just as it sounds. To what extent they deal with agents, or have to do with legal matters, I don't know. I believe they're probably more deeply involved in acquiring lesser players than the top stars, but this may not be quite correct. I'll see if I can find out anything more specific -- or accurate!
By the way, since our chats over on NO HIGHWAY I bought the book. It's pretty good, more fleshed out in its characters as you'd expect, but the movie follows the novel pretty closely. Good job, both in print and on screen.
If only the execs at the Royal Aircraft Establishment had had the sense to install Don Walling as CEO, none of the problems with the Reindeer would have happened! Fools.
(Oh, here's an interesting bit of trivia: you know the movie THE DESPERATE HOURS with Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March? That was made in 1955, the year after E.S., Bogie heading a band of prison escapees who hold March's family hostage in their home? Anyway, near the end the police bring March into the home of the family next door to him...whose last name is -- Walling! Quite the "coincidence". Or maybe he just felt guilty about beating him out for the top job the year before!)
hob,
Thanks for the info on "casting". I think I assumed that the job of casting director was to take care of the ancillary cast (not including the stars and co-stars, etc.), but I wasn't sure. Your explanation makes sense.
By the way, am I correct in assuming that "producers" are primarily money people?...and that the amount of money they provide determines whether they are just regular producers, or associate producers, or executive producers. And I assume that since they provide the money they are entitled to (or think they are entitled to) meddle in the making of the film.
With respect to Walling, I guess we'd have to read the novels of "Executive Suite" and "The Desperate Hours" to see if the characters mentioned are, coincidentally, named Walling. An odd coincidence for old Fred March. He might have entitled a chapter in his memoirs "The Wallings in my life...aargh".
Ciao, e buon auguri
Jeff,
MacDonald Walling is indeed a character in Cameron Hawley's novel "Executive Suite", published I believe in 1952. Most of the same characters are there but there was another member of the Tredway board, a character whose name I can't recall (I last read the novel years ago and the book is at my other house), but whose traits were largely subsumed into Caswell for the screen version. This guy was an opportunist and sought to make a killing, but not dishonestly or blatantly like Caswell, and in the end he just decides to accept Walling as president and see how he can maneuver the new situation to his advantage -- not illegally or unethically, a la Caswell, but simply by being an elbows-out, pushy businessman.
I also remember Mary Walling was described in the book as dark and of Greek extraction, quite unlike June Allyson!
Also (these are spoilers about the book, if you want to quit here!), the final boardroom showdown in the novel veers off most uninterestingly, as Walling so lifts the others' spirits and imaginations as to what is possible for the company, that even Shaw leaps up to endorse him! (Shaw's later shown resigning himself to never reaching the top, but has found a rough contentment.) And in the book (as is pointed out on another thread around here), Walling says he intends to name as his executive vice president -- Loren P. Shaw! Because, as he tells his surprised wife, he's the best manager and financial man they've got.
THE DESPERATE HOURS was based on a real incident and was a play and novel before being filmed. (Don't know if there were next-door neighbors called "Walling" before the movie!) It actually became the subject of what turned out to be a landmark lawsuit filed by the real family to whom the events (approximately) happened. They sued the writer Joseph Hayes, claiming invasion of privacy, and libel. The suit took years and went all the way to the Supreme Court, which unanimously sided with Hayes, arguing that the family had become "public figures" owing to their well-publicized true-life ordeal, and that therefore they had no expectation of privacy and could only recover damages if they could prove malice or reckless disregard of the truth; and since Hayes's book, play and screenplay, though fictionalized, were based on a real incident, the Court found they were not libeled. It's loosely known in legal circles as "The Desperate Hours case" and really was a precedent-setting landmark in libel law.
You're basically right, the "producer" these days is largely a money man who works with the "talent" (director, writer, actors, etc.), often playing a role in selecting one or more such people but not always every one. The reason you see dozens of so-called "producers" listed in films and on TV shows is that the title has degenerated into a dumping ground for anybody and his brother who merits (or thinks he does) some mention as having been involved with the film or show. Only a few really make truly important contributions to the production. Often they're just buddies of the people who really made it, and they're given a producer credit as a token gesture, and to give the guy a paycheck. In fact, that's often what you hear -- a star or studio suit or someone will say, "give him a producer credit" about someone who has some vague link to a film or series. Many producers do, of course, actually work on the production and contribute meaningfully to it, but a lot don't...as the plethora of producers of one sort or another attests.
It's a far cry from the situation up until the early 80s or so, when a film really did have just one producer (maybe two co-p's), who in those days really was the guy who not only arranged the money but who more importantly shaped the entire film: acquiring and developing the property, hiring the actors and director, arranging for all aspects of the film from music to costumes to set design. In fact, at the height of the studio system the producer usually had more to do with the final cut of a film than the director or anyone else -- the director would finish his work and turn the film over to the producer (who was sometimes the studio chief himself, like Zanuck or Warner), who completed it usually with just the film editor.
Most producers in those days worked for particular studios -- Mervyn Leroy, John Houseman (who produced EXECUTIVE SUITE), Sol C. Siegel, Hal B. Wallis, Charles Brackett, Arthur Freed, William Perlberg, Sam Zimbalist, scores of others were mostly studio-based producers. Besides A-list producers, there were producers who worked exclusively in B films -- Val Lewton and Sam Katzman, for instance. Later on, as the studio system declined, some, like Wallis, became independents, packaging their films and releasing them via deals with individual studios. Wallis was a great example: after leaving Warner Bros. after Jack Warner jumped up at the 1943 Academy Award ceremony and grabbed the Oscar for Best Picture for Wallis's CASABLANCA (a film's producer gets the Oscar if it wins Best Picture), Wallis turned independent and was responsible for "discovering" and bringing to the screen people such as Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Shirley MacLaine and dozens more. He produced into his late 70s and had lots of critical and commercial hits to his credit. Many directors also eventually functioned as their own producer, including Billy Wilder, William Wyler, Alfred Hitchcock and Frank Capra. (When Sam Zimbalist died suddenly early in the production of BEN-HUR, MGM made Wyler the producer, with a studio man dispatched to Rome to handle day-to-day chores. Wyler was entitled to co-producer credit but refused it, insisting that Zimbalist receive sole credit -- and so it was his widow who accepted the Best Picture Oscar in his stead on April 4, 1960, 17 months after Zimbalist's death on November 4, 1958. Some film people did decent things in those days.) Independent producers with their own studios were men like Samuel Goldwyn and David O. Selznick. They did it all, and were real producers.
Genuine producers of today have talked about trying to recapture the value of their title by banning all these mythical associate, co-, line, assistant, executive and other types of producers, who mostly do not "produce". But so far they haven't managed to change anything. I wish they would.
God, Jeff, sorry for the long reply! But I'll be gone for a couple of days. Take care.
h
hob,
No apology needed. You are a wealth of information and it is always a pleasure to read your posts.
Assuming you are reading this after you have finished being "gone for a few days", welcome back. Hope you had a nice break.
Ciao, e buon auguri
Hi Jeff,
Back, but not from a break. We were discussing how to implement emergency evacuation plans from a coastal community where I sit on the village board, in case of a hurricane. Fun stuff.
That's the place where I run classic movies each Thursday night during the summer and this year at long last I'll be able to run a film I've been dying to show since I began this thing -- EXECUTIVE SUITE, of course! Sometimes if someone's passed away I run a film as a memorial to them, but I've had to wait so long for this to come out on DVD that I have a backlog of four deaths to note -- screenwriter Ernest Lehman and director Robert Wise (both died 2005) and Shelley Winters and June Allyson (2006). Plus I intend to add a teaser as to a fifth "death", also in '06, of a very important player in the movie...the Western Union telegram! The last one was sent in Feb. 2006. Just think how cell phones might alter the plot of ES today!
And here's a trivia question for you...the film takes place over a period of about 28 hours, from around 2:30 p.m. Friday, June 19, 1953, through about 6:30 p.m. next day, Saturday the 20th. Remember the scene where Dean Jagger and his wife are driving home Friday night, talking about the company, while the news plays on the radio, and they turn it off just as the report about Bullard's death is about to come on? Well, there was one really major piece of news that evening, and when I realized this I kind of laughed because in real life the radio and newspapers would have been full of it. What do you think it was? Hint: it occurred not too far north from where Avery Bullard dropped dead that afternoon!
As always, you're great to chat with and are most kind and generous in your compliments!
Hi hob,
I won't try to bull**** you...I had to look it up: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed. You're right...ole Bullard's death would probably have been the last story in a five minute radio newscast on that day.
I would have been about five and a half and therefore not yet aware of such things. I tried to figure it out before looking it up, and the only thing that came to my mind was something to do with Korea...maybe Eisenhower fulfilling his promise during the campaign that "I will go to Korea!" Would that Bush would "go to Tehran"...or, all these years later, Korea (North).
Thanks for the mental exercise.
I've been watching a lot of films on TCM lately. Among those I have enjoyed: "Tomorrow is Forever"; "Between Two Worlds"; "The Bad and the Beautiful"; "The Last Hurrah"; "The Dark Past" and "Blind Alley"; "Berlin Express"; "The October Man". I really enjoy those old fliks. They put me in mind of a world which I remember fondly. I'm sure it didn't seem any better a world then to conscious adults than the world we live in now seems to us. But reminiscing is fun just the same...and so I think I enjoy these films today more than I might have had I been an adult when they were new.
And now it's a rainy Sunday afternoon...a perfect time to watch a great old Black and White film. Let me see what I can rustle up.
Always a pleasure chatting with you. Jeff
Ciao, e buon auguri
Well, at least you 'fessed up about looking up the answer, Jeff! (Ike fulfilled his campaign promise by going to Korea in Nov. '52, after he was elected.)
I was about three and a half MONTHS old at the time, and, so, remember approximately nothing about it personally! But a few years ago I read something that mentioned their date of execution and it came back to me that that was Bullard's DOD as well. Dreadful, isn't it -- I remembered the date of death of a fictional character in a movie but not the actual and controversial deaths of two convicted spies? Art subliminating life, I guess.
I think one reason we look back so fondly on the past is that we know what happened, that the world didn't blow itself up, and that its problems were manageable, at least in retrospect. But I suspect that if any of us was thrust back into the early 50s, besides the positive things we might find, we'd suffer a shock at the absence of a lot of little, day-to-day things we take for granted today -- microwaves, DVDs, cell phones (and not having to place "long-distance" calls!), seat belts, and, oh, yes, these things we're talking on...what do you call them? Electronic brains?
And I surely wouldn't want to be a black man in Mississippi in 1952.
Terrific film choices, btw.
Speaking about the travails of Tredway, however, as the nation's third largest furniture manufacturing firm I wonder whether they might have tried to cash in on the notoriety of the Rosenbergs and had Don Walling's R&D division come up with the brand-new, space-age, push-button, 1954 Electric Chair? Perfect for the living room with all the latest zippy gadgets.
I mean, this was 50s capitalism, there had to be a bright side to the story. Executing Sweet?
hob,
You're a character! How about a slogan for the electric company in New York: "Edison...when it comes to providing power, we execute!"
Which reminds me...a century or so ago when Edison was clinging doggedly to Direct Current, and Westinghouse was touting the advantages of Alternating Current, Westinghouse acknowledged the superiority of DC as the more effective way to power...wait for it...electric chairs.
Well, I spent the rainy afternoon watching "M" (Frits Lang, 1931)...not the genre of films we've been discussing, but a real classic nevertheless...with some inovative camera techniques.
Finally, you are right, of course, about memory versus reality. What would I do without a cel phone, etc? And it was my good fortune NOT to have been black in the South. And yet here we are facing the distinct probability that the next president will be either black or female! Who'd a thunk it?
Watching these old movies is a pleasant part of reminiscing. When I want to seriously examine the progress we've made as a society, I watch historical documentaries...all the specials commemorating the 40th anniversary of MLK's assassination, for example. And I have a pretty good collection of programs like "Eyes on the Prize", "The Jewish Americans", "America's War on Poverty" as well as numerous "American Experience" (PBS) programs. The 20th century was certainly "America's Century"...I wonder whose century the 21st will be.
"Good luck to all of us" - Phil Ochs
Ciao, e buon auguri
Well, Jeff,
As to "executing" [an adjective, not verb] power in NY -- why do you think they call it CON Ed?
God, I had heard about that corporate pitch of Westinghouse's, long, long ago...thanks for the memory! Well, I mean, I suppose they had to tout some utility for their utility, and electric chairs were quite the power-draining fashion in their day, at least until the advent of home dishwashers.
Yeah, I too have a number of historical and similar type programs in my collection (carefully segregated from movies!), including "The American Experince", also a few things from The History Channel and the like. My favorite, speaking as we were on the light topic of assassinations, was the two-hour program debunking the lies and myths surrounding the JFK murder. I think it might originally have been seen on ABC but in any event is rerun periodically on The History Channel, and the technology and testimony brought to bear in asserting the truth about the event is fascinating. Too many people still prefer to cling to their conspiracy myths, however -- some for profit (lots of dough in such books), most out of an inability to face facts. Great program, anyway -- "The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy" is I believe the correct title.
Just to show how my mind is going I remembered putting down an erroneous timeline for my age as of June 19-20, 1953. I was only three and a half months old, not 5 1/2. Now, well, of course, it's understandable why I remembered none of it. Thanks to the magic of the internet I have corrected the error in that post even more deftly than Winston Smith rewrote articles for the Times in "1984"! (Did Phil Ochs also say "Ignorance is Strength"? He also worked for the Times.)
The 21st century? Easy. The Chinese Century. They already own most of our debt. Tredway Corporation, Xianjiang, whom shall I say is calling? Manufacturers of fine furniture and chopsticks. Made from American wood processed from pulped homes in default on their mortgage.
MacDonald Walling in his president-making speech was more right than even he could ever have realized. Ah, once again, a sigh for the lost simplicities of 1954.
Good night, my friend.
Good Morning,
I may be a little more cynical than you...my mind is still not settled about the JFK assassination. I have collected at least a dozen hours worth of different documentaries about this subject, and seen many more hours worth than that. There are lots of crackpot conspiracy theories and theorists to be sure. But there are still some peculiarities which I don't think have been entirely explained (magic bullet...chip on curb, etc.) And the Oswald/Ruby/mob/Castro connections could stand more examination. Perhaps future declassifications will clear that up. Though I don't have as much faith in our government as I would like to have.
Actually the Phil Ochs quote is "Good luck to all of you" (last line from the song "Joe Hill" from the 1968 album "Tape from California"), but I take the liberty to change "you" to "us". By the way, I did some research on Phil Ochs. According to Wikipedia his father was a doctor, but there is no mention of any connection to the family of Adolph Ochs who acquired The New York Times in 1896. Do you know of any connection between these Ochses?
And now I'm reminded of a pet peeve of mine with respect to pluralization and/or the indication of possesiveness for names which end in "s". When I was a kid I was taught that to show possesiveness for such a name it was necessary only to add an apostrophe ('), as in Jones'. But we now commonly see an extra "s" added, as in Jones's. So my question is: if we want to show possesiveness for more than one member of a Jones family should we write (and say) Joneses's? I understand that language can evolve and that rules are often as arbitrary as logical...and perhaps I'm just being old fashioned and pedantic, but that still irks me.
And where did this excessive use of the word "is" come from? (no Clinton jokes here please). As in "the point is is..." After some protracted period of irritation about this I decided to see how many times in a row I could legitimately use the word "is". I came up with five. See what you think...and pay close attention to punctuation. Here goes: The problem I have, when I hear someone say something like "The point is is", is "is" is being used too many times in a row. Or alternatively: The question I have, when I hear someone say something like "The point is is", is is "is" being used too many times in a row?
Yes, it looks like the 21st Century will be China's century. And just how long will it be before China forecloses on our debt? And how would we prevent them from evicting us?...military?...hmmm...this could be real ugly. With compassion for my descendents, I am, nevertheless, glad I shall not live to see that. MacDonald Walling's words were indeed prescient...perhaps way beyond the author's imagination.
"Good luck to all of us"
Jeff
Ciao, e buon auguri
Is that you is, is Jeff you is???
Sorry!...but the "is" phrase I hear a lot is "The thing of it is, is" -- I mentally insert the comma, which I suppose is optional. You could substitute your five ises (okay, we'll get to that one) in that construct, too. I think you've maxed out on the number of ises one could figure to utter in a row...but it is a brain-teaser. Or is it brain-taser?
How 'bout them plurals? Ises? That never occurred to me until I wrote it. As to the Joneses (plural), a singular word or name ending in s would take an 's to make the possessive. Thus: Mr. Jones's overuse of the word "is" is driving me crazy! Not, as many would write, Mr. Jones'.
The construct s' is used for a plural possessive.
Thus, ergo, hence and therefore, the plural of Jones being Joneses, the possessive thereof is Joneses' -- not Joneses's -- as in: The Joneses' garden is certainly growing better since the family planted Mr. Jones in it for overusing the word "is".
Equally fun is a word ending in a double s, and making plurals and possessives out of it: The hostess's panties were found in the souffle after her kitchen rendevous with the ice man. Or, in the case of multiple individuals: The five air hostesses' plane took off without them and the passengers had to get their own nuts. Everyday situations like these.
The thing that irks me no end, especially on these boards, is all the people who write the possessive of it as it's. It is, of course, its. In short: It's its. A grand failure of modern American education, ain't it?
No, I knew your Ochs wasn't related to the Times Ochs but I couldn't resist dragging in the coincidence from the rest of the post. Mighty Ochs from little asides grow, or something.
As to JFK, it's not to me a matter of trusting the government or not. I say, let the chips fall where they may, and other pithy aphorisms I just made up. No, seriously, if there had been a conspiracy, that's fine, I have no preconceived notions, which is what I dislike about most conspiracy theorists. They aren't setting out to honestly and carefully investigate whether there was a conspiracy or not; their foregone conclusion is that there was and they will bend, invent or ignore any fact to make their case...and the resultant bucks from the books they publish.
A major point is [note: just one!], if there had been a conspiracy to kill JFK, then that's what there was: "A" conspiracy. Not 167, or 212, or 85. One. But where is the conspriacy theorist who does his so-called research and then announces, "Hey! Know what? That guy who wrote that book 37 books ago was right! Guess there's nothing left for me to do!" How come no two conspiracy theorists agree? If there was indeed a plot, two or more -- more -- "investigators" would certainly have unearthed it and reported the same thing. But then, of course, there are no more book deals or cottage conspiracy industry to profit off of. Besides, in a world where everything is eventually revealed and no one can keep a secret, does anyone truly believe that a massive conspiracy as far-ranging as alleged (and as would have been necessary), involving organized crime, or government operatives, or jealous husbands, or all the other suspects, would actually have been kept quiet for 45 years? With, among other things, all the mob guys ratting each other out all these years and spilling what they know? Preposterous. A government that leaks like a sieve and is so often inept keeping this covered up all this time? Ridiculous. The whole thing is nonsensically illogical.
By the way, the "magic bullet" is another lie/fantasy of the conspiracy liars. If you accept the assassination as it was depicted by Oliver Stone in "JFK" you'd say, wow, this is impossible. If you learn the truth about how Kennedy and Connally were sitting, how Oswald in fact made his shots and so forth, you'd see right away that there was nothing magic about the bullet: its trajectory was exactly as indicated, the wounds perfectly matched, even the Zapruder film captures the moment the men were hit, and the way they were hit. Which also, by the way, dismisses the so-called grassy-knoll shooter fantasy as another lie.
What bugged me most of all about the movie "JFK" was that, of all its lies and inventions and distortions, the notion of Oswald as an uninvolved innocent, as depicted in the film, is outrageous. Leaving Kennedy aside, Oswald shot and killed Officer J. D. Tippet a half hour after the assassination, in front of four witnesses, plus another six who saw him running away seconds after the shots, he had the gun on him when he was arrested, and the bullets matched his gun. Of this there is positively no doubt. Some innocent. Even most conspiracists agree he was involved, just not working solo. Stone's use of Jim Garrison's outright lies and abuse of the DA's power is about the least credible theory he could have made the centerpiece of his dishonest and false film, and again, even most conspiracy theorists saw Garrison for the lying con artist he was.
Wow! How did we get onto this subject on a thread for EXECUTIVE SUITE? Oh, I know...we thought this was the site for the film EXECUTIVE ACTION. A 1973 nut-job precursor to JFK. Our mistake...we mistyped! (Stick with that story, Jeff, so as to throw off suspicion!)
Now...who shot Avery Bullard? Stroke, my eye. Tis a mystery, is it not, it's true, in its fashion.
hob,
Do conspiracy theorists' mistresses' witnesses dismiss the theorists' theories?...or do they accept the mistresses' theories that there will be enough blackmail money for everyone? I guess my memory of singular possessive and plural possessive was in error for names or words ending in "s". So I thought that when I see, in the many books I read "s's" that what I was seeing was a change from what I was taught. But apparently not. Thanks for setting me straight. My 8th grade English teacher would thank you.
I agree with you about the trajectory of the magic bullet...I just wonder how it could have ended up on the stretcher in such pristine condition. But your arguement about the possibility of maintaining the conspiracy for so many years is solid and logical.
As for Oliver Stone...I admire his artistic talents, but I agree with those who say that he does a disservice to people whose education about such things is insufficient, inasmuch as, because they don't know better, they believe his stories and pass them on...until a whole generation is misinformed. I think he does bear a responsibility to tell a story based on the best truth available...or identify his film as fantasy.
Just one more example of the misuse of plurals and possesives. I occasionally drive by a place which has a sign out front which I believe is intended to advertise the fact that the residents breed Doberman Pinschers. But every time I drive by I'm tempted to stop and walk up to the door and ask if this is the home of the Doberman family. The sign says Dobermann's (sic). Misspelling aside, it's its misinformation which makes me wonder who's breeding whose.
Whew, I'm tuckered...I don't get this much mental exercise very often. Fun!!
I wonder what people think who stumble upon this thread. Well, I guess if they're stumbling on this thread...maybe they should pick up their feet. "On"?..."upon"...no, nevermind...that's a whole 'nother tangent...along with my contention that "people are WHO...things are THAT". I hate it when people talk about someone THAT is...whatever.
And how long will it be before the "administrator" says: "Enough!", and cleans all this out?
Ciao, e buon auguri
Jeff,
I do believe the administrator has left the building...permanently. He's probably as bewildered by all this as Oliver Stone.
Of course, we could always get ourselves deleted by tossing in a few four-letter words and racial slurs. I had an exchange with someone over on the BEN-HUR board who mentioned some nut with whom he's had many vitriolic run-ins, apparently, and every time this guy's deleted he reappears in another nom-de-IMDb. There are a number of these types...too many of whom are still posting.
At least we've raised the level of intellectual discourse, or so we like to convince ourselves, so maybe we're safe. Not sane, necessarily, but safe.
Oh, there was no "pristine bullet". Another myth/fantasy/lie. The bullet removed from Connally, which first passed through Kennedy, is in the evidence file and is anything but pristine: flattened, spent, badly damaged.
But you raise another issue...people who make plurals using an apostrophe: plural's. Drive's me crazy. (Third person singular verbs too. Pardon me: verb's.)
And in that seminar I attended Saturday I saw an example of your whose/who's dichotomy. Can't recall the exact wording, but something along the lines of "agencies who's personnel are involved". Whose sorry now?
I'm trying to justify this post by dragging SOMETHING about EXECUTIVE SUITE into the discussion, even if by the heels, through the keyhole, kicking and screaming.
Okay: Why do the Wallings have a giant 3 hanging on their rumpus room wall? Or whatever they call the room Don devotes to drawing naked women on his scratch pad before Mary comes in and he covers it over with a page of furniture schematics. When I first saw this movie I thought, hmmm, how early-50s arty, though not something I'd expect to find in a good solid Pennsylvania living room. But so many years went by before I saw it again that in my mind the number had changed to a big 5. Or perhaps that was in the director's cut. Anyway, their grandkids probably got rid of it in a garage sale years ago, and today it'd be worth $22,000. Nice to contemplate, anyway. Maybe by 1960 Don had replaced it with a giant 7. One for each Board member.
Dobraya noch!
hob,
Hmmm...good question about the "three". Actually, I don't remember noticing it. But I only saw the movie recently...and I don't remember if I'd seen it before. This interest in movies is only just beginning to be a real hobby. Which is why I'm so thrilled to have found someone like you THAT can facilitate my learning and enjoyment.
You made a comment a few posts ago about June Allyson (not Greek, as in the novel). Somehow I can never see her without thinking of the stereotypical stay-at-home-and-raise-the-kids '50s wife and be ever loyal and supportive of her husband who actually has "important" work to do...as in "Strategic Air Command". Kind of like my mother until she finally said: "I've had enough of this", and went back to college. (And perhaps I only ever paid attention to that movie because my father spent quite a few years in the '60s assigned to SAC when he was an officer in the Air Force) Apparently, while June's movie public preferred her in these unfeminist roles, her personal life was somewhat less stereotypical. I was just reading the imdb bio on her. What's the deal with this Glenn Maxwell fellow? Sounds like she couldn't make up her mind about him.
Meanwhile, Barbara Stanwick's role was of a much more substantive woman...or at least she played it that way. And Nina Foch was very good...nearly oscar quality (sorry, it was there...I had to use it). I'm afraid I'm not at all familiar with her career, but it seems to me that she should have become better known (even to a novice like me) than she was. Perhaps we can justify our continuing conversation on this board if you'll share your thoughts with me (and all of us) about these women.
Kala nita
When Mary gets up in the middle of the night and Don's in his den fiddling with his pencil (okay, okay), there's this artwork with a big, fancy 3 on it, on the left wall. Just too self-consciously artsy, in my view. But in thinking about it, I suppose, after winning the presidency, Don would have substituted a big 1.
But I have to commend MGM or Robert Wise or whoever it was who instructed June/Mary not to stop and put on a robe and slippers and housecoat and chastity belt when she got out of bed to go in to her husband, no doubt with the object of inducing him to go in to her, anon. Notice how they always did this in 50s movies? What woman would stop to put on all that stuff just to go into the next room, especially when it's only her husband in there, who presumably has seen her undressed when she gets into her separate-but-equal bed in the same room each night, and he peeks out from under the covers, and they both wonder where that kid came from? Anyway, probably the most June ever exposed on camera. Or even in camera, with Dick Powell.
And so to the women...when she died I read about June Allyson's two marriages to Dick Powell's hairdresser, Glenn Maxwell, in, what, 1963-65 and then 1966-70? In checking over her IMDb board someone wrote that she had this long affair with a guy who refused to marry her, and it said she carried this on from 1963-1975 -- which would have meant through both her marriages to the hairdresser. No wonder they had two divorces. Somehow I suspect this account may not be entirely accurate. Anyway, I do know that she and Alan Ladd, of all people, got into this really torrid affair while co-starring in THE MCCONNEL STORY in 1955, and both wanted to leave their spouses and get married. In the end they decided not to but I've heard he was really the love of her life. It's also true that despite her goody-two-shoes image she and Dick Powell had a very rocky marriage, nearly divorced a couple of times, but ended up together until he died in 1963. In view of all that I found her insistence on referring to him in later years as "Richard", and requiring everyone interviewing her to do likewise -- in spite of the fact that in life he was never known by his full name -- obnoxious and arrogant. Probably the result of guilt. I'm also amused that since beneath her veneer of the perfect wife she carried on several affairs and had a couple of divorces and so on, she was a loudly moralistic and conservative Republican. Hypocrites are so much fun.
Barbara S. took her relatively modest role mainly to appear in another film with her longtime pal, Bill Holden. Of course, she had been the star of Holden's first major film, GOLDEN BOY in 1939, and he was doing so poorly that the studio was about to replace him. But Stanwyck told Harry Cohn that she would work with Holden to improve his acting; she did, and Holden always credited her with saving his career. They also supposedly became lovers for a while in real life, though Holden was 11 years younger. Babs had flings with a few younger men, including Robert Wagner during and after TITANIC (1953) -- he was 23 years younger; and her second husband, Robert Taylor, was four years her junior.
Anyway, they made only these two pictures together. Holden used to send her flowers on her birthday, in gratitude for her saving his career, and when the Academy decided to award her an honorary Oscar in the 1981 ceremonies (to be held in spring 1982), they asked Holden, as her old friend, to present it to her. (She had been nominated four times but never won.) Shortly afterward, Holden died from that fall in his apartment. When Barbara accepted her lifetime Oscar a few months later, she teared up in announcing that Holden had been chosen to present her the statuette, recalled that he had always wanted her to win an Oscar, and then -- holding up the Oscar and looking skyward, with tears welling up in her eyes -- said, "Well, my golden boy, you've got your wish." There wasn't a dry eye in the house, and even writing this I find myself tearing up a little, remembering. Quite a class act. And everbody who worked with her praised her dedication, generosity and no-nonsense approach to acting. Cecil B. DeMille, who directed her only once (UNION PACIFIC, 1939), wrote in his memoirs twenty years later that she was his favorite of all the actresses he'd worked with because of her hard work and consummate professionalism.
As to Nina Foch, you hit the nail exactly -- she was the only performer in EXECUTIVE SUITE to receive an Oscar nomination for their performance. (She lost to Eva Marie Saint in ON THE WATERFRONT, one of those inappropriate nominations, as hers was a leading role but they stuck her in the supporting category to increase her chances of winning.) She was -- is -- an excellent actress, did a lot of films from the mid-40s on, but never quite had the glamour to catapult her into the front rank of leading ladies. She had also starred with Holden -- as his girlfriend, or I suppose, moll -- in a movie called THE DARK PAST, a somewhat silly (by today's standards) 1948 film with Holden a psychopathic criminal who with his gang (and moll) holds a family hostage in their mountain vacation home. The owner, Lee J. Cobb (Holden's father [!] in GOLDEN BOY -- an incestuous bunch!), happens to be a court shrink who dignoses Holden's psychological make-up and gets him to realize he's a killer because he hated his father or something, and he gives himself up (and is executed anyway for all the murders he committed before Lee J. cured him in a couple of hours). Nina was a very dedicated moll, encouraging Holden to consult the doc. Well-acted, but one of those exceptionally naive and simplistic postwar we've-got-to-understand-what-makes-these-killers-tick films. (Yes, a whole genre of those films!) In this one, Holden's psychoses also take on a physical manifestation, in that several of his fingers are "permanently" closed inward and seemingly paralyzed that way. But after Lee J. recites some psychobabble to him, Holden's fingers suddenly uncurl, enabling him to hold a tommy-gun normally once again. It is then we know he's really cured. Sniffle-sniffle.
Anyway, Nina had a fairly good career, but wasn't I think so much underrated as under-used, or wastefully used. She could be good and sweet, or tough and calculating, or cruel and evil; she's a real cold, vicious bitch in SPARTACUS, a smallish but memorable-ish role. She worked into the 90s at least. She'll turn 84 in twelve days (April 20 -- she has the distinction of having been born, in the Netherlands, on Adolf Hitler's 35th birthday in 1924...yecch). And, she is the last remaining member of the principal cast of EXECUTIVE SUITE, perhaps not surprising as she was the youngest. Unless you count Tim Considine, who is sort of a principal cast member (Don & Mary's kid). A couple of other cast members are also still around (Bill Phipps, Don's assistant at the plant, is one), but alas, time moves on, and since this 1954 film is 54 years old, I suspect the coming decade may finish off the group for good. Sad, inevitable, and appalling. We grew up with these guys!
Those annoying opening and closing bells toll no longer only for Avery Bullard, I'm afraid.
Oh, by the way, Virginia Brissac, who played Edith Alderson (Walter Pidgeon's wife), the next year played James Dean's nasty grandmother in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. Neat change of pace! That was her last role, after which she retired and died in the 70s.
A person of true character and imagination wants to make a difference.
share[deleted]
What a ridiculous statement! Why does anyone care about anything? The company was important to all of them. If none of do anything because 100 years from now it wont matter then the future will be a wasteland because no one in the present cared about anything! Get a grip!
shareEach person who aspires to be CEO of a corporation probably has his or her own set of reasons for why he or she wants the job. We see this in the movie. Both Shaw and Walling want the job but they have very different motivations.
We get the impression Shaw wants the power and status that goes with the job a bit more than Walling does. He also wants to focus on profits and efficiency. Walling, on the other hand, is more interested in having control over the direction the corporation goes. He wants to focus on improving quality and innovation. He wants to strengthen the corporation for the long run; making it more appealing to employees, customers, and investors.
Both of them probably expect to work hard and put in long hours. It's a stressful job from which one never really gets time away. Still, based on what he says we can imagine Walling will avoid making the same mistakes Bullard made. He won't let the job take over his life.
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate]