Executive Suite

While in New York City to meet with investment bankers, 56-year-old Avery Bullard, president and driving force of the Tredway Corporation, a major furniture manufacturing company in the town of Millburgh, Pennsylvania, drops dead in the street. As he collapses, he drops his wallet. It is picked up by a bystander, emptied of its cash, and shoved into a wastebasket. Without the wallet, there is no way to immediately identify the body as Bullard.

George Caswell, a member of the Tredway board of directors and one of the investment bankers with whom Bullard had just met, sees what he believes is Bullard's body in the street below their offices and decides to profit from the information. He engages a broker to make a short sale of as much Tredway stock as he can before the end of trading that Friday afternoon. Caswell plans to make an easy profit and cover the sale by buying Tredway stock at "a 10-point discount" on Monday, when news of Bullard's death will presumably push the stock price down. Caswell begins to doubt that it was Bullard who died, but when he reads in a newspaper that the man had the initials "A.B." on his clothes and cufflinks, he calls the police to tip them off to the identity of the deceased.

Bullard had never named his successor. Over the next 28 hours, Tredway's executives vie for the position of president. Once news of his death reaches Tredway, company controller Loren Shaw takes the initiative in arranging Bullard's funeral and coordinating the company's public reaction. In so doing, he undercuts treasurer Frederick Alderson, one of Bullard's closest friends, and this effectively diminishes Alderson in his own eyes so that he won't seek the presidency.

Shaw also shrewdly releases the upcoming quarterly report so that the good news of big profits can counter the news of Bullard's death and perhaps even raise the stock price when the market opens.

Ambitious, but narrowly focused, Shaw is concerned more with short-term accounting gains and satisfying the stockholders than the quality of the company's actual products and long-term growth. He gains the proxy of Julia Tredway, the daughter of the company's founder, who is still a major shareholder and board member. She had been considering selling her stock after realizing the futility of her difficult romantic relationship with, and true love for, Bullard after many years. She was finally heart-broken after coming second behind the company for both her father and Bullard.

Shaw buys Caswell's vote in exchange for allowing Caswell to purchase 4,000 shares of company stock at the Friday closing price to cover his "shady" short sale. If Caswell does not get those shares, he will be in serious financial trouble. Meanwhile, Walt Dudley, back-slapping Vice President of Sales, is having an affair with his secretary, Eva Bardeman, for which Shaw is now blackmailing him.

In addition, Vice President of Manufacturing Jesse Grimm has decided to retire instead of seek the top job. But while he's no fan of Shaw's, he has serious reservations about the relative youth of the only other potential contender, Don Walling, the idealistic Vice President for Design and Development.

All these machinations result in Shaw having enough votes that he has a virtual lock on the job even before the board meets.

Treasurer Alderson and Don Walling, however, are determined to prevent Shaw from taking over. After considering all the contenders, Walling convinces Alderson that Walling himself should be president. Walling is a strong believer in developing higher quality new products and more efficient manufacturing methods, although his wife, Mary, is against his giving up his dream of being a full-time designer.

At an emergency board meeting on Saturday evening, the machinations, bargaining, and maneuvering culminate with Walling's enthusiasm, vision, and his stirring boardroom speech eventually changing Jesse Grimm's, Walt Dudley's and Julia Tredway's minds. Walling is ultimately elected unanimously as company president.

As the board leaves the meeting room, Shaw tears up a letter ensuring Caswell's share purchase. Caswell will be ruined financially. Meanwhile Walling and his wife embrace in anticipation of the new challenges in front of them.

• William Holden as McDonald "Don" Walling, Vice President for Design and Development
• June Allyson as Mary Blemond Walling, wife of Don Walling
• Barbara Stanwyck as Julia O. Tredway, daughter and heir of the founder of Tredway
• Fredric March as Loren Phineas Shaw, Vice President and Controller
• Walter Pidgeon as Frederick Y. Alderson, Vice President and Treasurer
• Shelley Winters as Eva Bardeman, secretary to Walter Dudley, as well as his mistress
• Paul Douglas as Josiah Walter Dudley, Vice President for Sales
• Louis Calhern as George Nyle Caswell, board member
• Dean Jagger as Jesse Q. Grimm, Vice President for Manufacturing
• Nina Foch as Erica Martin, secretary to the late CEO, Avery Bullard
• Tim Considine as Mike Walling, son of Don Walling

The film was planned to have 145 speaking parts, a record for MGM.[4]

According to MGM records, the film earned $2,682,000 in the U.S. and Canada, and $903,000 outside, resulting in a profit of $772,000.[1]

The film received four Oscar nominations:[5]

• Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Nina Foch)
• Best Art Direction (Cedric Gibbons, Edward Carfagno, Edwin B. Willis, Emile Kuri)
• Best Cinematography
• Best Costume Design

The film also received two BAFTA Awards nominations:

• Best Film from any source
• Best Actor (Fredric March)

The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival for best ensemble acting for the entire cast.

Mitchell Ryan and Wendy Phillips in a 1976 scene from the show.

More than two decades later, the film and novel were adapted into a weekly dramatic television series with the same title. Airing on CBS in 1976-1977, the TV version changed the fictional corporate setting to the Cardway Corporation in Los Angeles. Mitchell Ryan starred as company chairman Dan Walling, with Sharon Acker as his wife, Helen, and Leigh McCloskey and Wendy Phillips as his children, Brian and Stacey. Other series regulars included Stephen Elliott, Byron Morrow, Madlyn Rhue, William Smithers, Paul Lambert, Richard Cox, Trisha Noble, Carl Weintraub, Maxine Stuart, and Ricardo Montalban.

Scheduling opposite Monday Night Football on ABC, and then The Rockford Files on NBC, doomed the show to poor ratings, and it was canceled after one season.

• Executive Suite on IMDb
• Executive Suite at the TCM Movie Database
• Executive Suite at AllMovie