Executive Suite (MGM 1953)  

Thanks.
Barrympls....thanks for this recommendation. I'll certainly try and find that one.
Don't know if you've heard of a book called 'Screen Deco' ? Iv'e found it very useful for tracking down films from the twenties and thirties with mega art deco sets. One of my favourites is The Black cat with Boris Karloff. Unbelievably futuristic for the period when it was made and quite an enjoyable storyline too.
Hope we've moved on from our perplexing punctuation situation 🙂

I thought you didn't want to talk about June...
...so I contemplated the movie awhile and the above is what occurred to me.
As you would like to know my point,think of it this way.
Modernist design got coopted, altered and disseminated by the status quo for many reasons unrelated to the philosophy and spirit of early Bauhaus and Corbusian modernism, became a kind of modernism expressed in this melodrama, then withered away, got replaced by postmodernism, then came back as nostalgia in a modernist revival ( a kindling of collector interest in modernism focused on space), that was quickly, almost simultaneously, eclipsed at the popular scale of consumption by heavy modernism, i.e. post modernism (focused on surface) shorn of ornament.

Black Cat is cool too0
Mojo...Black Cat is cool to.
"Executive Suite" was released recently as part of the Barbara Stanwyck Signature Collection from Warner Bros. It's also available separately, which is how I bought it. About $17.00, region 1.
By the way, the film was
Directed Robert Wise
Produced by John Houseman
Screenplay by Ernest Lehman
Starring
William Holden
June Allyson
Barbara Stanwyck
Fredric March
Walter Pidgeon
Shelley Winters
Paul Douglas
Louis Calhern
Dean Jagger
Nina Foch
some cast of characters, huh?

Let's see...
Robert Wise:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
... aka Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Director's Edition (USA: DVD title)
Audrey Rose (1977)
The Hindenburg (1975)
Two People (1973)
The Andromeda Strain (1971)
Star! (1968)
... aka Loves of a Star! (USA: promotional title)
... aka Those Were the Happy Times (USA: reissue title)
The Sand Pebbles (1966)
The Sound of Music (1965)
... aka Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music (UK: complete title) (USA: complete title)
The Haunting (1963/I)
Two for the Seesaw (1962)
West Side Story (1961)
Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
I Want to Live! (1958)
Run Silent Run Deep (1958)
... aka Run Silent, Run Deep (USA: poster title)
Until They Sail (1957)
This Could Be the Night (1957)
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
Tribute to a Bad Man (1956)
Helen of Troy (1956)
... aka Elena di Troia (Italy)
Executive Suite (1954)
So Big (1953)
Destination Gobi (1953)
The Desert Rats (1953)
Something for the Birds (1952)
The Captive City (1952)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
The House on Telegraph Hill (1951)
Three Secrets (1950)
Two Flags West (1950)
The Set-Up (1949)
Blood on the Moon (1948)
Mystery in Mexico (1948)
Born to Kill (1947)
... aka Lady of Deceit (UK)
Criminal Court (1946)
A Game of Death (1945)
The Body Snatcher (1945)
... aka Robert Louis Stevenson's 'The Body Snatcher' (USA: complete title)
The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
Mademoiselle Fifi (1944)
... aka Guy de Maupassant's Mademoiselle Fifi (USA: complete title)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) (additional sequences) (uncredited)
John Houseman:
Worked on every thing from Citizen Kane to The Paper Chase and more.

pt. 2
Ernest Lehman:
Sabrina (1995) (earlier screenplay)
... aka Sabrina (Germany)
The 62nd Annual Academy Awards (1990) (TV)
"The French Atlantic Affair" (1979) (mini) TV mini-series (novel)
Black Sunday (1977) (screenplay)
Family Plot (1976)
Portnoy's Complaint (1972)
Hello, Dolly! (1969)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) (screenplay)
The Sound of Music (1965) (screenplay)
... aka Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music (UK: complete title) (USA: complete title)
The Prize (1963)
West Side Story (1961) (screenplay)
From the Terrace (1960)
North by Northwest (1959) (written by)
... aka Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (USA: complete title)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957) (novelette)
"Playhouse 90" (1 episode, 1957)
- The Comedian (1957) TV episode (novelette)
The Comedian (1957) (TV) (novelette)
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
The King and I (1956) (screenplay)
... aka Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I (USA: complete title)
"Lux Video Theatre" (1 episode, 1955)
... aka Summer Video Theatre (USA: summer title)
- The Inside Story (1955) TV episode (original screenplay)
Sabrina (1954) (screenplay)
... aka Sabrina Fair (UK)
Executive Suite (1954)
The Inside Story (1948) (story)
... aka The Big Gamble (USA: reissue title)
Producer:
1970s
1960s
Portnoy's Complaint (1972) (producer)
Hello, Dolly! (1969) (producer)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) (producer)
Yeah, I reckon Executive Sutie should have had some chops. 🙂
Wise did The Day the Earth Stood Still. Klaatu mirada nick toe. He could have done nothing else and been hugely important.
Lehman wrote North by Northwest--the Greatest Hitchcock film of all time. Someday, when self-loathing film critics finally understand it is okay to make pretty movies, it will take its place next to Citzen Kane, Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, and Casablanca as the five greatest American films of all time. North by Northwest was so great that even Hitchcock gave up trying to make Hitchcock films after that. he started making slasher movies after that. Ernest Lehman was a beautiful genius in a very crass business.

DC...and your point is?
or are you into lists?

I can
quote a fair bit of dialog from "The Black Cat" -- it was my favorite movie as a kid. Slab doors with brushed-metal center bands and lever handles; impressive floating metal stair against odd eggcrate backwall; nice night-time profile with long lighted strip windows, etc etc.
Hjalmar Poelzig, indeed !

Creepy lairs
Art direction in _The Black Cat_: wonderful. Thanks for reminding me. (Vitus Verdegast?")
Not to belabor the point, but is there something similar going on in the new version of _Sleuth_? Notice how each character's choice of seating (or lack of choice) relates to the action.

More _Black Cat_
Movie stills!
http://xrayspex.blogspot.com/2007/10/x-ray-spex-horror-movie-marathon-bl...