Employees' Entrance

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Audience Member This just may be the perfect pre-code Warren William film. Warren plays a hard-nosed, hard-charging department store executive. He seduces gorgeous but broke & unemployed Loretta Young with a meal and a job. Loretta then falls for Wallace Ford, who is being groomed by Warren to be another hard-nosed executive. One thing leads to another and Loretta and Wallace wed (secretly so Warren doesn't find out). However, there's trouble in paradise and after a tiff at an employee's party, a drunken Loretta once again sleeps with Warren. In the meantime, the bankers are plotting to oust Warren, which causes him to seek the proxy votes of the vacationing fatuous store owner. In the course of his machinations, the caddish Warren has Wallace listen in secretly to a conversation twixt himself and Loretta in which she admits to cuckolding Wallace. Time is getting tight, with the board of directors meeting at 10AM. At the last minute, Warren gets the proxy votes he needs to forestall the bankers. Loretta and Wallace kiss and make up. The End. I give this film an "A". Excellent acting and direction. The minor players (almost all familiar to pre-code film fans) are great. Warren William is in his element here, playing a cad and brutal businessman. He was never better. Loretta Young is beautiful and turns in a very good performance too, as does Wally Ford. This aired on TCM the other day and, given TCM's film rotation, is likely to show up again in the next few moths. Not to be missed!!! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/16/23 Full Review Audience Member 12,000 workers pass through the 'EMPLOYEES' ENTRANCE' of Franklin Monroe & Co., the world's largest department store. Hounded & harried by their merciless management, they have produced a superior retail establishment. However, the cost in broken hearts & lives has been tremendous, as greed & ambition struggle for control of the entire corporation... 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... Hugely entertaining. Enjoyable throughout-True today as ever!! Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member More truthful, and maybe even more charming, romantic, and amusing, than The Shop Around the Corner. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review Audience Member hardcore precode with warren william, terrific as a ruthless executive and womanizer, firing people left and right and even driving one employee to suicide. the film still packs a punch 80 years later Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/09/23 Full Review Audience Member pre-code hollywood films are fascinating to me and this is a great example, with a story like one found in some racy old romance magazine. a great cast. unapologetic villain. end of story melodrama. sex and sin. snappy dialogue. so interesting to see films from that era made without the constraints of the code. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member Warren William and Loretta Young star in a story about a department store in NYC, back then a very big deal. We see the appeal of Williams as a star in the very first scene with his speech in front of the department store executives, he is the focus and a focal point. Williams is a ruthless store manager, Curt Anderson, a role that he portrays par excellence. Loretta Young is Madeline, an unemployed looker seeking employment at the department store. The two meet after hours at the store and through mutual flirtation they agree to dinner and ...uhm...her employment. To increase sales Anderson holds a meeting with the executives to brainstorm ideas, one of which is to sell men's boxers next to men's ties next to women's articles because women buy men's boxers. As we progress Madeline and Mr. West, Wallace Ford, become an article just as Mr. West is promoted to Mr. Anderson's assistant, to the chagrin of Madeline, who despite what Martin says she does know Mr. Anderson better than Martin. The ruthless nature of the store is apparent when Higgins, an employee of 30 years is dismissed and then commits suicide outside the store after Anderson fires him and tells him he is useless. There is a scene at a party when Anderson and Madeline are under the influence and Madeline then pops a number of balloons with a cigarette, perhaps I read to much into this but I believe that this is symbolic of Anderson taking Madeline's virginity and a reason why she is seduced/raped by him at the party. Once Anderson is aware that West and Madeline are married he becomes enraged and tries to break up the marriage. The ending is complicated and great, Madeline drinks poison, West shoots Anderson, Anderson forgives him, Anderson hooks up with the hussy, Anderson gets the store back on track and the hussy gets left in the dust. In one of the great modern day scenes Williams drops the hussy's toy dog in the trash can when he informs her that he still has a job. If only we could do that with all the reality TV women who have a small dog, and drop the women in the can instead of the dog. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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