EXECUTIVE SEAT

EXECUTIVE SUITE (1954)
dir: Robert Wise

EXECUTIVE SEAT
Panic #6, January 1955
w: AL Feldstein
a: Wallace Wood

The movie begins from the point of view of Avery Bullard, President of the Tredway furniture company, leaving his office building in New York. He calls for a meeting of the Vice-Presidents at the head office in Millburg, PA that Friday evening.

In the elevator is Jack Davis' caricature of The Continental, a Latin lover whose TV show was concurrently spoofed by MAD.

While hailing a taxi, he drops dead. Someone in the crowd takes his wallet, removes the cash, and throws the rest away, leaving him there without identification. George Caswell (Louis Calhern), one of the stockholders, sees this from the death office window. He doesn't know for sure it's Mr. Bullard, but he's pretty certain, and sees this as and opportunity to sell his stock and buy it back cheaper, as the death will temporarily push the price down.

Alf Landon was Governor of Kansas and an oil millionaire who once ran for President. He was out of politics long before this comic.

In Millburg, they are unaware of Bullard's death. His secretary, Erica Martin (Nina Foch) is rounding up all the Vice Presidents as if this last-minute meeting were still happening. She gets Frederick Alderson (Walter Pidgeon), Walter Dudley (Paul Douglas), Jesse Grimm (Dean Jagger), and Loren Shaw (Frederic March). They all had prior commitments but call them off for this important meeting.

Don Walling (William Holden) is in charge of the factory and is in trouble for spending too much on experiments. Julia Tredway (Barbara Stanwyck), being a major stockholder of the company is at the meeting as well, and is the daughter of the late owner and was once a lover of Bullard.

In New York, Walter Caswell buys newspapers to confirm that it is in fact Avery Bullard that has died so that his stock maneuver will work. Inside the Stork Club, his date is upset that he pays attention to the news and not to her.

Walter Winchell was a New York gossip columnist considered every bit as influential and important as the celebrities he covered.

The meeting has been canceled because they believe Bullard has missed his train, and everyone returns to their weekend plans. News gets out that Bullard has in fact died and another meeting is called to name a successor to the company. In the movie, Walling is actually at a little league game for his son when he is called in.

The vote for new President is between Shaw and Walling. Shaw cares more for profits and Walling cares more for integrity. Walling wins and carries on a new life with his wife. (June Allyson).

EXECUTIVE SUIT From Here to Insanity (Eh!) #8, February 1955
a: Dick Ayers

The book here is a pun on Seduction of the Innocent by Frederic Wertham, the expose of comics from the 50s that led to the Comics Code Authority.