Everyone should watch the film Executive Suite. I know, it is in black-and-white and was made in 1951. It’s a decade before Mad Men, so the gender politics, believe it or not, are even worse than on that show. The women are secretaries, mistresses or wives, and every single one of them is sad because her man isn’t paying enough attention to her.
It is, however, a truly important and entertaining film that captures the moment in American economics where it all went wrong. I know you were wondering when that moment was and what happened that got us to the economic crisis of 2008. Well, this movie sets it out in heartbreaking black and white.
The movie begins with the death of an industrial giant, a man who came in to run a furniture company after its founder died and turned the company into a household name. He has five vice presidents but never named an executive vice president, a successor to him.
When he drops dead from a stroke on the streets in New York City, the five vice presidents have to work to pick a successor. In addition to them, there are two other voting board members. One, played by Barbara Stanwyck (post her prime but still amazing), is the daughter of the original furniture maker.
Two keep this short, there are two main rivals. One is the vice president of finance, Loren Shaw, played by Frederic March, and the other, Don Walling, played by William Holden, is a visionary who wants to make modern furniture. He’s working on a plastic molding process that will make it possible to produce beautiful, low-cost furniture. However, Shaw keeps undercutting his efforts by cuttting R&D money, postponing tests and generally not wanting to invest in new products.
Walling is the only manager on the production floor. We see the other workers’ dissatisfaction with the decreasing workmanship and hear their complaint about the lack of creativity. Their contention is that the company is in trouble because, basically, they make cheap crap. And though it sells, it doesn’t make them proud and will probably mean the ultimate end of the company.
Shaw acts by one driving principle: making the most money possible for the shareholders. In fact, because he can publish a positive profit report in the paper, they don’t really have to worry about the company failing on Monday morning– Wall Street cares more about the profit report than the death of the visionary man who led the firm’s success. This, Shaw argues, is the future. This is success. It’s worth noting that by the end of the film he and his partner have committed insider trading and blackmail and he is in the act of stealing stock to bribe another board member for his vote.
It is obvious who will win the day in this movie. The American way, after all, is creativity and innovation, and the hero is in touch with the working man and a man who, first and foremost, makes something.
That is not, however, what happened in America in the second half of the 20th century. Shaw won, and that is what made Enron possible. In the end, profit and dividends mattered more than production, creativity, innovation, manufacturing, workers, and companies’ good names. Our economy became virtual, paper, and Wall Street could do whatever they wanted.
If you want to see the moment when there was still a possibility of choosing otherwise and going another way, watch Executive Suite.
(As a sidenote, we rented the movie because it was mentioned in a great documentary about Charles and Ray Eames, Eames: The Architect and the Painter. The resemblance of Holden’s character to Eames is slight, but while you’re filling your Netflix queue, add that one, too!)