La sete del potere

In a Friday afternoon in Wall Street, the president of the Tredway Corporation Avery Bullard has just had a meeting with investment bankers and sends a telegram scheduling a meeting at the furniture factory in Millburgh, Pennsylvania, at six PM with his executives. Bullard has never appointed an executive vice-president for the corporation after the death of the previous one but when he is getting a taxi, he has a stroke and dies on the street. A thief steals his wallet to get his money and his body goes to the morgue without identification. The investment banker George Nyle Caswell (Louis Calhern) sees Bullard's body from his window and decides to use the information to make money, asking a broker to sell as much Tredway stocks as possible until the end of the day, with the intention of buying them back Monday morning by a lower price making profit. Meanwhile the executives unsuccessfully wait for Bullard in the meeting room. When they learn that Bullard is dead, the ambitions accountant VP and Controller Loren Phineas Shaw (Fredric March) releases to the press the balance of Tredway showing profit and assumes temporarily the leadership of the company, expecting to be elected the next president by the seven-member board. However, the VP for Design and Development McDonald "Don" Walling (William Holden) and the VP and Treasurer Frederick Y. Alderson (Walter Pidgeon) oppose to Shaw. There is a struggle in the corporation for the position of president and Shaw blackmails the VP for Sales Josiah Walter Dudley (Paul Douglas) that is married and has a mistress, his secretary Eva Bardeman (Shelley Winters), to get his vote. Caswell needs to cover the 3,700 stocks he sold and Shaw promises to give to him the stocks for the price he sold if he is elected president. The VP for Manufacturing Jesse Q. Grimm (Dean Jagger) is near to retire but is a close friend of Frederick and supports him. Therefore the heir of Tredway and Bullard's mistress Julia O. Tredway (Barbara Stanwyck) will be responsible to give the casting vote. But she is disenchanted with the corporation. Who will be elected the next president?

"Executive Suite" is a realistic film about struggle for power in a corporation. Serious films about the Machiavellian competition in a company, such as "Glengarry Glen Ross", "Le couperet" or "El método", are usually engaging and "Executive Suite" is surprisingly great since it is not dated. The film is directed by Robert Wise, who is one of the best directors in Hollywood ever. The cast is top-notch and Fredric March has one of his best performances. The final speech of Don is a lesson for classes of motivation. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Um Homem e Dez Destinos" ("A Man and Ten Destinies")