Employees' Entrance: The Monsters We Make

This is my entry in The Classic Movie Blog Association Early Shadows and Pre-Code Horror Blogathon. Click HERE for more monstrous fun.

This store is an HR nightmare

Film and literature have given us non-human monsters who sometimes serve to instruct us about or illuminate our own inhumanity. Some are fearsome, some are weirdly touching, some bring out the best in mankind, and some bring out the worst. But there is no more horrid monster than the kind our society makes and allows; you know, the ones who walk among us and look just like us. They are the ones who not only are allowed to live, but are encouraged to thrive. They are the ones who gleefully hold up a mirror to our society and proudly say "look what you've made."

A wolf in a Brooks Brother suit is still a wolf

1933's "Employees' Entrance" is such a fun Pre-Code feast that it is easy to check your emotions at the door and enjoy all it has to offer. First and foremost, it has Warren William at his leering, lupine best. Here he is Kurt Anderson, the manager of a large department store. It is a position of considerable power and he wields it with glee and gravitas. How tiresome his day is! He is surrounded by ninnies everywhere. From the snooty do-nothings that make up his Board of Directors (but who love that fact that he makes them money), to his uninspired co-workers and business associates (one whose suicide elicits the bloodless response from Anderson that the man had outlived his usefulness), Anderson is the ruthless self-made man rising from the ashes of the Great Depression. So, who would begrudge this hard-driving workaholic a little fun? After all, even monsters need to relax.

The job interview

And boy does this guy take his relaxation seriously - almost as seriously as his work. You see, Anderson just loves the ladies, especially those young, vulnerable ones who depend on him for a living. He is the classic predator. And who was more vulnerable and lovely in 1933 than the moist and luscious Pre-Code  Loretta Young? While Loretta later became rather great lady-ish on screen, her Pre-Code films reveal a very sexy gal of fungible morality. Here she is the perfect prey, a down-on-her-luck beauty who desperately needs a job. She tries that old trick of keeping Anderson at bay without insulting him, but this wolf will not be denied. He's played with amateur babies before. After a night of too much drink (Prohibition has ended. Yay!) and some personal turmoil due to the fact that she is secretly married to another employee, Anderson makes his move and rapes her. 

Some store goods are not for sale to the general public

Make no mistake. Although he has been given a bit of a sorrowful back story (love lost and all), Anderson is a monster. But monsters can not move among us unless they have help. In "Employees'' Entrance" the chief helper in the seduction game is Alice White at her cunning, conniving but somehow pathetic best. She, too, needs to survive and she throws her lot in with the monster. She helps Anderson in a direct, quid pro quo way, but there are other helpers, so many of them, whose silence enables Anderson to thrive.

Alice White reminding her boss of her value to the company

Now before I get all huffy, let me say this is quite an eye-opening, fast-moving and sometimes funny film with lots of snappy dialogue peppered throughout. Was anyone as dangerously oily as Warren William? Was anyone more beautiful than Loretta Young in 1933? Add the always welcome Alice White and the stable of Warner Brothers supporting players and you will definitely be entertained for 75 minutes. Because it is Pre-Code, Anderson is not required to pay for his past bad behavior and he is allowed to soldier on behind his power desk even though Loretta manages to escape his clutches. However, there are those lurking in the shadows who seek to supplant him - monsters that Anderson has helped create. So, maybe karma awaits Kurt Anderson after all.

A Pre-Code feast: back off, Barrymore - Warren William is the real "great profile." And any time Alice White appears, everything just seems better.

Now for the rant. "Employees Entrance" is one of those films that you can only enjoy is you are able to view it through the lens of the time it was made. Once you do that, you can sit back and enjoy. But I'll wager you will find it impossible to watch this film in 2025 in America and not draw parallels to our current headlines. Monsters and their helpers still exist. And it is not funny, and it is not charming. Victims rarely get a happily ever after and it all doesn't go away in 75  minutes. That, to me, is scarier than any fantasy monster born in a laboratory.

Evalyn Knapp: Not Just Quite.....

Why do some performers make it into the unquestioned "star status" stratosphere and others not? Many are just as talented, just as beautiful and just as willing as some of Hollywood's classic greats, but why do some make it into that special circle and others just fall short? It must be that intangible special quality called "star power."

Evalyn Knapp looking like she should be a star

Betting on Evalyn: Lucky 15

Take for instance Evalyn Knapp. She was one of 15 hopefuls in 1932, part of that promising gaggle of gals known as WAMPAS Baby Stars, that annual promotional affair run by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers. The purpose of the campaign was to select 13 young actresses who the association was betting on becoming bigger stars. While most of these ladies failed to live up to the promise of great stardom, a few, such as Clara Bow, Colleen Moore, Joan Crawford, Joan Blondell, and Loretta Young did manage to fulfill their promise. The class of 1932 was so  filled with promise that 15 young actresses were selected. This embarrassment of riches included Evalyn along with Lona Andre, Lilian Bond, Mary Carlisle, June Clyde, Patricia Ellis, Ruth Hall. Eleanor Holm, Dorothy Layton, Boots Mallory, Toshia Mori, Ginger Rogers, Marian Shockley, Gloria Stuart, and Dorothy Wilson. Many went on to respectable careers in film, but clearly Ginger was the best of the bunch. 

From her earliest appearances in film in 1930,  Evalyn was under contract with Warner Brothers. Another ingredient in Hollywood success is the faith that a studio has in their performer. The studio had to believe that the person they had under contract was worthy of the investment: the publicity, the parts, the grooming. Evidently, Warner Bothers felt Evalyn was worth it and they bet on her becoming a bankable star.

Evalyn (top right) along with her fellow WAMPAS Baby Stars
Joan Blondell (1931), Lilian Bond (1932) and Marian Marsh (1931)

Looking glamorous as she seduces and cons
Edward G. Robinson in "Smart Money" (1931)

From 1930 to 1943 Evalyn was featured in over 50 films. She worked a lot, often with the biggest names at the time, but rarely made it into the name above the title category in major studio productions. The few times she did get star billing, it was at poverty row-type studios such as Goldsmith Productions, Chesterfield, Monogram and Screencraft  where she worked more frequently during the 1930s. Eventually, Warners lost interest.

See? Just not that interesting

There is definitely something interesting about Evalyn, but just not that interesting. She doesn't light up the screen the way fellow Warners performers Blondell and Rogers did. She seemed nice - and maybe in those days of Depression cynicism that was the problem. Or maybe it was just her vibe that says "I'm not really all that interested in being a movie star."

At any rate, Evalyn did find her groove in film, just not in parts dripping with jewels. She became the reliable heroine of westerns such as "In Old Santa Fe" and  "Rawhide" (starring Lou Gehrig) and serials like "The Perils of Pauline."

Evalyn married in 1934 and remained married until her husband's death in 1977. She dabbled in film and made some appearances where her name appeared way down in the cast list, sometimes even uncredited. Her last appearance on film was in 1943. She passed away in 1981 at age 74. A nice career, just not the one on which Hollywood placed a bet.

Crying at the Movies

This is my entry in the Classic Movie Blog Association Cry Me A River Tearjerkers Blogathon. Click HERE for more weepies - and don't forget to bring a hanky.

So, here's my story.

I was walking down a dark street of the soul when James Cagney grabbed my hand and pulled me into the light. He did this not once, at least twice, and maybe a few more times that I can’t specifically recall.

The last time this happened was a month or so ago at a screening of "Ragtime." Of course, it wasn’t the real and long-dead James Cagney. No, it was the glittering, electric, oh so alluring silver screen shadow Cagney. The one that never dies.

The first time this happened was when I was 12. Oh gosh, I loved that adolescent girl, standing on the brink, thinking and believing everything she desired was possible. Time was an unending runway. Like a cattle brand, those first and early passions that rise past mere wants were imprinted in me. And even now, after the slow, sometimes dreary, sometimes wonderful blink of an eye that passes for life I can rub my figurative finger over my true self and still feel the faint impressions of that brand.

Funny. We seem to spend the first part of our life developing an armor against hurt and then the remainder peeling away that armor in search of our authentic emotional self. This leaves a tender spot, and as a consequence, we cry a lot. And not just over sad things. Which brings me to this little clip, the closing credits of 1984's "All of Me."

Cute, right? Yet, every time I see it, I start to sob real tears. But all tears are not an expression of sorrow or hurt. At this point in my life, those emotions bring a frown and something in my chest that feels like heartbreak. Now it is joy and beauty that elicit those tears. Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin are pure joy, happiness, unbridled silliness -a great and beautiful thing. 

I've been writing about movies for quite some time now. I'm not much of a reviewer. I like to explore the emotional experience of watching a particular film, which brings me to "Ragtime." Cagney was 82 at the time that movie and his role was small, yet the sight of him made me cry. I cried not because he was so changed from the way he looked in his prime. No, I cried because in his face on the screen I saw all of the history and stories I had written on my heart tangled up with his cinematic history and how grand a ruin he appeared and how raw and real I felt in my seat, in the dark, deep in rapture, crying and filled with joy.