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