Well, what a racy little feature this is. Made just before the introduction of the Hays Code, it purports to lift the lid on the goings on behind the doors of a modern-day major department store in New York. So we get to see at close quarters the complacency of its board of directors, especially its chairman who's more concerned with attending high society engagements and holidaying on his boat to be concerned with the well-being or morale of the staff and has allowed the ruthless and heartless store-manager Kurt Anderson, played by Warren Williams, to run the shop along strict factory lines. Anderson's behaviour is outrageous whether ruining the business and therefore livelihood of a supplier who misses a delivery deadline, sacking a thirty-year kindly store veteran for not being dynamic enough and who then proceeds to commit suicide directly as a result, setting a go-ahead, pretty young secretary to honey-trap an elderly board member who is resistant to his working practices and worst of all use his vaunted position to twice bed a pretty young girl Madeline Walters, played by Loretta Young, who is desperate for a job in the shop, the second time when, now an employee of his, he's so plied her with drink that she's clearly helplessly drunk and in fact brings up the suggestion of rape.
There are sub-plots too, particularly the romance between Young and her ambitious boy-friend Martin West played by Wallace Ford, the latter of whom Anderson attempts to take under his wing as a protege when the young man starts to demonstrate a similar profit-besotted outlook to his own. Confirmed bachelor Anderson sees red however when he learns that Martin and Madeline have arranged a lightning marriage which motivates him to force himself on the poor girl a second time at the office party.
While the story here is painted in broad strokes and Anderson with his pencil moustache and steely gaze can seem a mere devilish laugh away from being an over-the-top pantomime villain, there's just enough ambivalence to stop the film flying away into lurid caricature. Anderson gets results you see and in Depression-era America that's what seems to count with the shop's board who vote near unanimously to keep him on, even when they know full well his working practices. Even the small-fry supplier who Anderson callously ruins now has a new, hardened "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" outlook now he's been forced to take the king's shilling and work for the shop. Martin, with only some reservations, hero-worships his can-do boss only to find his confidence misplaced when Anderson purposely ruins his young bride.
Especially with the #MeToo movement of today, the treatment of women in the film is deplorable, not only in the way that Young's character is targeted by Anderson but also the casual way he employs his willing, starry-eyed young P.A. to pander to the whims of the one, aged board member who questions his methodology.
Nevertheless this few-holds-barred expose of naked capitalism, as well as the divide between the haves, the have-nots and those that want to have, makes for both an interesting social document and entertaining movie.
There are sub-plots too, particularly the romance between Young and her ambitious boy-friend Martin West played by Wallace Ford, the latter of whom Anderson attempts to take under his wing as a protege when the young man starts to demonstrate a similar profit-besotted outlook to his own. Confirmed bachelor Anderson sees red however when he learns that Martin and Madeline have arranged a lightning marriage which motivates him to force himself on the poor girl a second time at the office party.
While the story here is painted in broad strokes and Anderson with his pencil moustache and steely gaze can seem a mere devilish laugh away from being an over-the-top pantomime villain, there's just enough ambivalence to stop the film flying away into lurid caricature. Anderson gets results you see and in Depression-era America that's what seems to count with the shop's board who vote near unanimously to keep him on, even when they know full well his working practices. Even the small-fry supplier who Anderson callously ruins now has a new, hardened "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" outlook now he's been forced to take the king's shilling and work for the shop. Martin, with only some reservations, hero-worships his can-do boss only to find his confidence misplaced when Anderson purposely ruins his young bride.
Especially with the #MeToo movement of today, the treatment of women in the film is deplorable, not only in the way that Young's character is targeted by Anderson but also the casual way he employs his willing, starry-eyed young P.A. to pander to the whims of the one, aged board member who questions his methodology.
Nevertheless this few-holds-barred expose of naked capitalism, as well as the divide between the haves, the have-nots and those that want to have, makes for both an interesting social document and entertaining movie.