One of Ernest Lehman's first jobs as a studio contract screenwriter for MGM was to first write a treatment for an adaption of a Cameroc Hawley novel of the same namen. Having suitably impressed the studio heads with that, he was then given the assignment to write the screenplay for the 1954 movie
Executive Suite, starring William Holden and directed by
Robert Wise.
The movie starts with the sudden death of the president of a furniture company, a man named Avery Bullard who we don't evey see (except for his hands). After Bullard's death, there is a struggle among the directors (the head of development, of production, of sales, the CFO, and so on) to succeed him. The protagonist is Don Walling (played by William Holden), the idealistic head of development. The antagonist is Loren Shaw (played by Fredric March), the over-confident CFO of the company. Sound boring? Actually, it's quite fascinating thanks to the excellent writing by Lehman and the fine acting (Nina Foch, who played Bullard's secretary, got an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress).
While the pdf is (as far as I know) not on the web, I bought a scan of the screenplay from Script City. To learn from Lehman's style, I typed the screenplay into fountain format. In the process, I learned something very interesting!
Lehman does do an excellent job of hiding exposition (as he should - see this earlier post). However, some of the exposition appears as a scene which lacks (for lack of a better word - pun intended) "emotional energy", such as the following.
EXT. PIKE STREET PLANT - DAY
Don walks through the gate to the sidewalk, on all
sides of him factory workers, anxious, depressed,
as they move towards lined-up buses, towards the
nearby parking lot, towards wives and children
waiting for them at the curb. Don looks up the
street, then turns and faces the building, atop
which is a flag at half-mast. As the men and women
stream by, they glance at Don with questioning,
worried expressions. Some of them greet him by name;
others nod or waves some look away, embarrassed.
An old Woman comes up to him, clutches his hand.
WOMAN
Mr Walling ...
DON
Hello, Liz ...
WOMAN
(anxiously)
Everything's going to be all right, isn't it?
Several workers stop to listen.
DON
(puts an arm around her shoulder)
Don't you worry about a thing...
WOMAN
You weren't here in Thirty-three. You don't know
how it was in Millburgh when Tredway shut down.
DON
(sees the faces watching him tensely)
Nobody's shutting anything down around here.
Mr. Bullard brought us a long way from *that*.
The workers glance at each other, then at Don,
with gratitude on their faces. They begin to scatter,
Liz the last to go. Don watches, deeply affected, as
the men are joined by their women and children, and
the family groups go off together by car and bus
and on foot.
I
read the scene quite impressed with the importance and emotinal impact of the scene. (It helps to set-up an important point Don Walling argues towards the end of the film in his confrontation with Loren Shaw in the Director's Room. So, I think this scene counts as being expositional in nature.) However, I couldn't remember
seeing the scene in my viewing of the movie. I actually assumed it must have been cut in the final version. (Actually, Robert Wise often worked with Ernest Lehman and rarely cut scenes from his screenplays.) However, I was wrong - it
wasn't cut. This made me realize, I don't
read scenes with the same engagement that I
view them on screen. Why? What engages my brain in a viewing? The answer, I think, comes from something Mike Nichols (who BTW also worked with Lehman) said:
every scene must be one of three things: (a) a fight, (b) a seduction, or (c) a negotiation. IMHO, the scene above is none of these.
This is why, IMHO, it lacks emotional energy on the screen.
By the way, there is a well-researched and well-written, biography of Ernest Lehman out now:
Jon Krampner, Ernest Lehman: The Sweet Smell of Success, University Press of Kentucky, 2022 (396 pages).
