Whitech
It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.
Ketrivie
It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
Sameer Callahan
It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
Walter Sloane
Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
ctomvelu1
Ya gotta love these pre-code flicks. Women looked and acted like real women, and men acted like the cads they often are. Warren William plays the tyrannical owner of a department store down on its luck. He hires and fires with absolute glee, and is an unrepentant womanizer. He hires a new salesgirl, played by the incredibly beautiful Loretta Young, and soon has his way with her. She falls for a fellow employee (Wallace Ford) and marries him secretly. William then turns his attention back to Young and... The film is an absolute hoot, and even includes a highly suggestive rape about-to-happen. Young is almost ethereal in her beauty, but this one's William's film all the way. His character is a cad, but in a strange way, a likable cad.
mrsastor
I have never been a fan of William Warren's, but this is the perfect role for him. I usually find him thoroughly unlikable and obnoxious; imagine my surprise when he is cast in just such a role and pulls it off so perfectly I find I must now respect his prowess as an actor. Well done, WW! In Employees' Entrance, we find Warren playing Kurt Anderson, an unapologetic cad who rules the Franklin & Munroe Store like a dictator. He is so flawless at playing someone so reprehensible, I loved hating him, I hoped he'd win. I especially loved him telling off the rich fops who run the store in the opening board room scene, "Do you think YOU did it?!" he demands in reference to the store's unprecedented success. I worked for a man like that once, I was crazy about him. No one ever got more work out of me. And the viewer actually doesn't feel too terribly sympathetic to the people Anderson fires throughout the movie, so much as they wonder why they were ever stupid enough to make such silly suggestions or resist Anderson when they had no ideas of their own.As the great department store enters the great depression, things get even tougher, and Anderson must drive his staff even more ruthlessly than before; but he does this to protect their jobs. And what an eye-opening time-capsule! The Franklin & Munroe store is said to employ 12,000 people...you'd be lucky to find 12 in a department store today! Imagine a store that actually provides SERVICE.Note the pre-code relationships between the characters: Anderson sleeps with Madeline twice and neither character seems to feel it is the end of the world as would have been required of them in films just a couple of years later. Further, Anderson literally pimps Polly out to divert the attention of a troublesome board member. She doesn't mind; not because she's easy but because she's figured out how to work the system.Lots of faces familiar to the Depression-era movie fan. Alice White is perfect as Polly Dale, perhaps the most amusing character in the film. Loretta Young plays Madeline with more depth than was probably written into it. Ruth Donnelly is her usual self as Miss Hall, and Allen Jenkins has an unbilled but significant role as the security chief, Sweeney. Wallace Ford is surprisingly good as Martin West; the scene where he flirts across the store with Madeline by holding up sheet music with titles like "I want to call you Sweetheart" and "You're Beautiful" is adorable.I highly recommend this entertaining film.
adverts
A very watchable pre-code film - not so only it's risque elements but for acting (particularly Warren William), plot, comedy and fast pace. One of my favorites of the era.It's very interesting how Warren William - who treats women like objects, tries to break up a budding romance (by seducing and sleeping with Loretta Young, not once but twice!!), indirectly leads to a employees' suicide, etc - manages to "win" in the end. For the most part, the is the "bad guy" in the story...although he has a few redeeming characteristics.It's worth owning the video.
psteier
Warren William (Kurt Anderson) gets to dominate the picture as a ruthless department store manager who throws away employees, suppliers and women without pity. Alice White (Polly Dale) is also exceptional as the women he uses to seduce and control men he can't dominate otherwise.An interesting look at a workplace in the depth of the depression. The department store sets are also interesting for showing retail design of the time.