Employees’ Entrance

Directed by Roy Del Ruth, Employees’ Entrance centers around the happenings within a lucrative, expansive department store and the effect a tyrannical boss (Warren William’s Kurt Anderson) has on his various workers. Filmmaker Del Ruth, armed with Robert Presnell Sr.’s screenplay, delivers a slow-moving and mostly uneventful drama that nevertheless boasts an assortment of compelling attributes, with the picture, in particular, benefiting quite substantially from William’s exceedingly entertaining (and gleefully smarmy) turn as the central protagonist. It’s clear, then, that Employees’ Entrance, though persistently watchable, suffers from a hit-and-miss feel stemming from its episodic structure, as the movie, for the most part, emphasizes the characters’ comings and goings within the company and their interactions with each other and their customers (eg Kurt is forced to give a society type a free baby grand piano after the store’s security guard accuses her of shoplifting). The inclusion of several unexpectedly dark digressions, including ongoing implications of rape (!), perpetuates the film’s watchable vibe, and although the whole thing ultimately doesn’t add up to much, Employees’ Entrance generally comes off as a decent-enough pre-Code drama that receives plenty of mileage out of William’s rather irresistible performance.

**1/2 out of ****