Employees’ Entrance (1933)

Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Starring Warren William, Loretta Young, Wallace Ford, Hale Hamilton, Alice White, Albert Gran, Ruth Donnelly, Frank Reicher, Marjorie Gateson, Charles Sellon, Allen Jenkins.

Pretty good pre-Code survey of unsavory department store shenanigans, mostly relating to heartless general manager William, his business protégé Ford, and a newly-hired employee (Young) that William gladly takes advantage of. Despite being packed full of episodic incidents, the pace dawdles too frequently for what should have been a much snappier seriocomedy, and only two of the actors really shine here: White, attempting a comeback after the fade of the flapper playing a Betty Boop-type, and, of course, William, who’s in his comfort zone as an unscrupulous snake and philandering scoundrel (there’s even the suggestion of rape, which was off-limits even before the arrival of the Production Code). Dog lovers will cringe at a scene late in the film—that wasn’t a prop. Final film for Gran, who died in a car accident shortly after production wrapped.

68/100