Executive Suite (1954) on Netflix
When Avery Bullard of the Tredway Corporation drops dead in the street, his vice presidents scramble for his job. Comptroller Loren Shaw and research chief Don Walling both want it.
- Netflix4.4/5
- IMDb7.4/105,324 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Avery Bullard, president of the Tredway Corporation, wires his secretary Erica to call a board meeting, then drops dead in a New York street before he can fly home. His wallet is taken by a passerby, and the body is filed as a John Doe. Board member George Caswell, who saw the ambulance, sells Tredway stock short and then needs the price to fall. At headquarters the meeting is canceled until the death becomes public. Comptroller Loren Shaw takes charge, stopping work on the experimental furniture line Don Walling has been developing and trading favors for votes. Julia Tredway, the founder's daughter and a major shareholder, wants the company out of her life. Treasurer Frederick Alderson tries to line up support for Walling, but manufacturing chief Jesse Grimm, a thirty-year veteran, refuses.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Executive Suite (1954)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Only a handful of Executive Suite's all-star leads were under contract to MGM, so the studio set an "inflexible" starting date two months before shooting, the first time MGM had ever done so.
- Executive Suite was planned with a record 145 speaking parts for MGM, but the finished film ended up with just 66 actors listed in the credits, far fewer of whom actually had lines.
- MGM production head Dore Schary wanted Executive Suite to have no musical score at all, using only diegetic sounds such as bells, sirens and the roar of traffic.
- Lehman's first produced screenplay was Executive Suite, whose plot deviates substantially from the novel, and he went on to write Sabrina, North by Northwest and West Side Story.
