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.

Miriam Hopkins (Bitch)/Warren William (Blaggard)

This is the second in the "Bitches and Blaggards" series; monthly posts devoted to my favorite movie bad girls and rogues. A bitch is a selfish, malicious woman. A blaggard is a villain, a rogue and a black-hearted man. Both are bad, both are devastatingly alluring.

Miriam Hopkins

The reaction to Miriam Hopkins is usually one of you either love her or hate her - no in-betweens. Regardless of your feeling for her, it's hard not to admire the elevated level of bitchiness to which Miriam could rise in some of her  portrayals. Even when she wasn't quite a bitch, she sure seemed like one.

Miriam's bitch-career falls into two distinct periods - pre and post "code." The pre-code Miriam was often a saucy minx; a morally questionable cutie with spice and zest. Post-code Miriam had the minx sucked out of her. Apparently, a minx without sauce equals a bitch.

I would never classify Bette Davis as an all-out bitch. Although she played some very nasty ladies, with a few exceptions Bette always had the sympathy of the audience. Miriam, whose delivery was compared to "cracked ice" by film historian David Shipman, rarely played for sympathy. Like all good bitches, she was completely self-sufficient and focused on the mission at hand.  Her pre-code Becky Sharp, Lilly of Trouble in Paradise and Gilda of Design for Living, while not full-fledged bitches, are not burdened by any doubt whatsoever. They know who they are, make a play for what they want, are awfully cute doing  it, and, win or lose, move forward. A favorite of Ernst Lubitsch, Miriam was given some very choice roles in the early 1930s.

Post-code Miriam's bitch persona blossomed. And, just in case there was any doubt, she was actually dubbed a bitch by Bette Davis, who famously feuded with Miriam in 2 of her best films.

The Old Maid (1939)

In Miriam's first film with Bette Davis, she scores points for bitchiness as the spiteful Delia who wrecks Charlotte's (Bette Davis) chance for respectability and tries to steal her daughter's love, to boot. All's well that ends well, but the two divas antics off screen became legend. Bette resented Miriam's shameless scene-stealing and Miriam was convinced that Bette had an affair with her husband, Anatole Litvak. While Delia ultimately does the right thing and reunites mother and daughter, Miriam's bitchiness in 95% of the film is the real treat.

Old Acquaintance (1943)

As the jealous, trashy novelist to Bette's refined and elevated (but unsuccessful) author, Miriam is a dream (or nightmare, depending on how you look at it!). Her Millie is a scheming, devious bitch. But, while not quite BFFs, she and Bette eventually reconcile while the claws are just barely concealed. You just want to slap her - and when long-suffering Bette shakes Miss Miriam within an inch of her life - well, you just know how she feels!

Another great later bitch role for Miriam was Julia Hurstwood in 1952's Carrie. As the rejected wife of Olivier's Hurstwood, she refuses him the divorce he so desperately wants in order for him to act out his autumnal passion for the much younger Carrie. But really, why should Julia give up her social status just because her husband was having a mid-life crisis? Sometimes, a bitch has gotta do what a bitch has gotta do!

Warren William

Unlike Miriam Hopkins, Warren William's best blaggard-roles were pre-code. Prior to 1934, William was a rogue, a scoundrel, and an unscrupulous wolf. After the imposition of the code, he lost most of his mojo and became an  honest and, ultimately less interesting, fellow.

An imposing presence who resembled John Barrymore's slightly sinister brother, Warren William sometimes was called upon to play the good guy, but he was oh-so-much more fun as the embodiment of depression-era urban corruption. William's pre-code career is filled with nasty blaggards. Two of his best were The Mouthpiece and Employees Entrance.

The Mouthpiece (1932)

As corrupt city-slicker attorney Vince Day, William is in full blaggard bloom beating the system, living it up, making the innocent pay while the guilty go free. While cheating an equally dishonest man, William's Day is told "You're an unmitigated scoundrel," to which he replies, "Thank you, but I find it much nicer than being just an ordinary one."

As the successful mouthpiece for underworld criminals, Day lives it up with booze and broads.

Alas, the nice girl he is trying his best to seduce rejects him. Why do these scoundrels always fall for the virtuous girls? The story has him going straight (eventually), but he really was much more fun before being stupidly stung by Cupid's arrow.

Employees' Entrance (1933)

William at his blaggard best! As the soulless Kurt Anderson, he is the department store magnate from hell, a shameless seducer of women, abuser of employees and all-around creep. This film is pre-code at its most bitter and cynical. Poor little Loretta Young, down and out in the Great Depression, sleeps with Anderson to get and keep her job. Alice White frankly acknowledges her employment position as one of the horizontal nature - being the company on-call girl for entertainment purposes only. They are a sleazy, breezy bunch, and William is the king of the urban jungle.

After the enforcement of the Production Code, William kept busy, but he was never again quite as thrilling as he was in the heyday of the nasty man. For more information about the wonderful Warren William check out www.warrenwilliam.com.


Coming in March: Gail Patrick and Clifton Webb