Employees' Entrance

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Movie
Original title Employees' Entrance
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1933
length 75 minutes
Rod
Director Roy Del Ruth
script Robert R. Presnell senior
production Lucien Hubbard for Warner Brothers
music Leo F. Forbstein
camera Barney McGill
occupation

Employees' Entrance is an American social drama starring Loretta Young and directed by Roy Del Ruth . The film is a typical example of the lax handling of the applicable censorship regulations before the Production Code came into force .

action

Kurt Anderson performs as General Franklin Monroe Department Store with an iron hand by the global economic crisis . For him, everything has to be subordinated to the pursuit of profit, especially the concerns of the staff. His sometimes brutal, exploitative methods make him hateful in the company, but at the same time he successfully leads the department store through the difficult times. One day he meets Madeline, who is applying for a job as a saleswoman. After Madeline has met him sexually, she receives the position. A short time later she met the successful representative Martin West and introduced him to Kurt Anderson. Outwardly, Kurt is very impressed by Martin's ideas to increase sales. At the same time he is more interested in attractive men than just professionally. He therefore urgently warns Martin not to marry, as career and marriage would be mutually exclusive. Despite the warning, Martin and Madeline secretly marry, but the relationship suffers from the endless conferences Martin and Kurt have late into the night. In order to get revenge on Martin, who, in his opinion, spends too much time with Madeline, Kurt wants to assault the drunken, almost mindless Madeline after a company party. The girl defends herself with the last of her strength and reveals that she is married. Kurt Anderson bribes Polly Dale, who is known for her sexual permissiveness, to destroy their marriage. Madeline tries to take her own life when Kurt tells Martin about his affair with Madeline. She is rescued at the last minute, and the couple decide to start a new life in another city.

background

In the early 1930s, Warner Brothers had gained a reputation for producing films about current problems and social grievances. The studio therefore often addressed the exploitation of the working population during the global economic crisis and thus deliberately created a counter-image to the sometimes unrealistic productions of other companies such as MGM , which portrayed the carefree life of the upper ten thousand.

Several strips from the time explicitly dealt with the worries and needs of the female employees as well as the permanent sexual assault, which the women mostly faced without protection. The advertising slogan for Employees' Entrance was therefore deliberately:

Department Store Girls - This is your picture, about your lives and your problems! See what happens in department store aisles and offices after closing hours! Girls who couldn't have been touched with a 100-ft yacht - ready to do anything to get a job! Beautiful models who whisper their dread of the "Boss" who can "make" or break more women than a sultan!

The plot of Employees Entrance was loosely based on the true events of Klein's Department Store in New York, where the management was using dubious methods to generate financial profits even in the worst years of the Great Depression.

Warren William , who was mostly used in a supporting role as an unscrupulous seducer or gangster by the studio, interpreted the managing director Kurt Anderson as an unscrupulous, cynical person who has lost all respect for other people. For him there is only one goal of profitability and he is correspondingly tough with his judgments.

A member of the supervisory board means something casual,

I don't know if there's very much to be said. There's a depression and everybody's affected. I should say the thing to do is retrench, economize.

Kurt Anderson hits him straight away

Get out! You're dead weight!

The man was deeply hit and a short time later he committed suicide. When Anderson gets the news, he says dryly:

When a man outlives his usefulness, he ought to jump out a window!

Anderson's attitude towards the predominantly female employees is characterized by contempt and arrogance. He seduces the young Madeline and shamelessly takes advantage of her naivete and worries about the workplace to blackmail her. He treats the easy-going Polly Dale like a prostitute, whom he gives money for services. At the same time, his behavior towards Martin West is rather ambivalent. So he asks the young man in a scene with a lascivious voice:

Come to my office later. I want to hear all about men's shorts.

Even at the end of the film, Kurt's character gets away with it more or less unscathed despite all the crimes that have been committed (sexual harassment, attempted rape, insulting subordinates, etc.). The stipulation of the censorship guidelines, according to which immoral behavior should not be worthwhile, was openly disregarded.

The studio's first choice for the role of Kurt Anderson was Edward G. Robinson , but he declined. Loretta Young was a bigger star than Williams at the time and had played heroines with a more proletarian background on several occasions, such as in Life Begins , Midnight Mary and Man's Castle .

Alice White , who was still a star in the late days of the silent film , was forced to accept a supporting role after her popularity fell rapidly. A scandal in their private environment ended hopes of a comeback in the same year.

criticism

The New York Times read:

[...] Mr. William rather overacts at times, but there is no doubt that he supplies a definite characterization and one that is on the whole interesting. Miss Young is ingratiating as Madeline [...] Alice White is really amusing as a flirtatious blonde
[...] Mr. William sometimes exaggerates, but there is no doubt that he creates a real character and one that is very interesting. Miss Young is more satisfactory as Madeline [...] Alice White is really amusing as a frivolous blonde.

Web links

Sources and further literature on pre-code films

  • Mark A. Vieira: Sin in Soft Focus. Pre-code Hollywood . Abrams Books, New York 1999, ISBN 978-0-8109-4475-6 .
  • Mick LaSalle: Complicated Women. Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood . St. Martin's Griffin Press, New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-312-28431-2 .
  • Thomas Doherty: Pre-Code Hollywood. Sex, immorality, and insurrection in American cinema, 1930-1934 (Film & Culture). University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 978-0-231-11095-2 .
  • Lea Jacobs: The Wages of Sin. Censorship and the Fallen Woman Film, 1928–1942 . University Press, Berkeley, Calif. 1997, ISBN 978-0-520-20790-5 .