While in New York City to meet with investment bankers, 56-year-old Avery Bullard, president and driving force of the Tredway Corporation, a major furniture manufacturing company in the town of Millburgh, Pennsylvania, drops dead in the street. As he collapses, he drops his wallet. It is picked up by a bystander, emptied of its cash, and shoved into a wastebasket. Without the wallet, there is no way to immediately identify the body as Bullard.
George Caswell, a member of the Tredway board of directors and one of the investment bankers with whom Bullard had just met, sees what he believes is Bullard's body in the street below their offices and decides to profit from the information. He engages a broker to make a short sale of as much Tredway stock as he can before the end of trading that Friday afternoon. Caswell plans to make an easy profit and cover the sale by buying Tredway stock at "a 10-point discount" on Monday, when news of Bullard's death will presumably push the stock price down. Caswell begins to doubt that it was Bullard who died, but when he reads in a newspaper that the man had the initials "A.B." on his clothes and cufflinks, he calls the police to tip them off to the identity of the deceased.
Bullard had never named his successor. Over the next 28 hours, Tredway's executives vie for the position of president. Once news of his death reaches Tredway, company controller Loren Shaw takes the initiative in arranging Bullard's funeral and coordinating the company's public reaction. In so doing, he undercuts treasurer Frederick Alderson, one of Bullard's close friends, and this effectively diminishes Alderson in his own eyes so that he won't seek the presidency.....
Directed by Robert Wise
Written by Ernest Lehman
Based on Executive Suite
by Cameron Hawley
Produced by John Houseman
Starring William Holden
June Allyson
Barbara Stanwyck
Fredric March
Walter Pidgeon
Cinematography George J. Folsey
Edited by Ralph E. Winters
William Holden as McDonald "Don" Walling, vice president for Design and Development
June Allyson as Mary Blemond Walling, wife of Don Walling
Barbara Stanwyck as Julia O. Tredway, daughter and heir of the founder of Tredway
Fredric March as Loren Phineas Shaw, vice president and controller
Walter Pidgeon as Frederick Y. Alderson, vice president and treasurer
Shelley Winters as Eva Bardeman, secretary to Walter Dudley, as well as his mistress
Paul Douglas as Josiah Walter Dudley, vice president for Sales
Louis Calhern as George Nyle Caswell, board member
Dean Jagger as Jesse Q. Grimm, vice president for Manufacturing
Raoul Freeman as Avery Bullard[4]
Nina Foch as Erica Martin, secretary to the late CEO, Avery Bullard
Tim Considine as Mike Walling, son of Don Walling
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