Power and the Prize

Excellent "Big Business Melodrama" - Power and Profits versus Integrity and Ethics
In the mid 1950's movies that depicted the ruthless in-fighting for money and power by ambitious men to dominate and run large corporations were a popular theme. The best known movies of this genre - "Executive Suite" - 1954, "Women's World" - 1954 and "The Man to the White Suit" - 1956 are all excellent examples of this type. However , "The Power and the Prize" released in 1956 is significantly different from these other films in how it depicts some very unusual and disturbing themes of the ruthless nature of American corporate capitalism at its "Eisenhower Era" peak revealing flaws as a viable business model. A Darwinian struggle of "The Survival of the Fittest" would at first seem to be the major theme of this film. The ruthless boss of Amalgamated World Metals George Salt Burl Ives wants control of a revolutionary cold smelting process owned by an old line British West African mining company " Carew Limited " no matter what and sharing control of the process...

POWER AND THE PRIZE IS BRILLIANT
I caught this astounding movie by accident on Turner Classic Movies last month, and attempted to find a public library copy. Not one
library in all of Connecticut had it, so I turned to Amazon.com and had it in a few days. The NY Times called it "impressive...sharp and sophisticated." It made me wish I had written it, though that's overestimating my writing talent. This B&W 1956 masterpiece stars
Robert Taylor, Burl Ives, Mary Astor, Sir Cedric Hardwicke and a magnificent Elisabeth Mueller, known chiefly for this CinemaScope
film and a few others before devoting herself to live theater. The Warner Brothers "Archive Collection" had the good taste to preserve this unique work, adapted from Howard Swiggett's best-selling novel. Bob Cumming



Click to Editorial Reviews