Kasia Orzazewski Movies
Cameron Hawley's novel Executive Suite appeared around the same time as two other tales of big-business intrigue, the 1954 film A Woman's World and the 1955 Rod Serling teleplay Patterns. Elements of all three properties inevitably overlap. In Executive Suite, a furniture-store executive dies suddenly, resulting in a power play between five of his vice presidents. Julia O. Tredway (Barbara Stanwyck), daughter of the company founder and mistress of the president, must choose between solid family man McDonald Walling (William Holden), blackmail-prone Josiah Walter Dudley (Paul Douglas), ruthless Loren Phineas Shaw (Fredric March), duplicitous George Nyle Caswell (Louis Calhern), and eternal corporate bridesmaid Frederick Y. Alderson (Walter Pidgeon). Only Walling, the most honest of the bunch, refuses to campaign for the presidential chair. Despite the presence of the A-list leads and of supporting actors Shelley Winters, Dean Jagger, and Nina Foch, Executive Suite is a true ensemble effort, with everyone carrying like weight onscreen. The property was later adapted into a TV series, which owed more to Dallas than it did to the Hawley novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Holden, June Allyson, (more)
- 1952
An abundance of subplots are expertly woven together by screenwriter/director Richard Brooks in Deadline - USA. Humphrey Bogart stars as crusading editor Ed Hutcheson, whose newspaper is on the verge of closing thanks to the machinations of the mercenary daughter (Audrey Christie) of Mrs. Garrison (Ethel Barrymore), the paper's owner. Though he and his staff will all be out of work within a few days, Hutcheson intends to go out with a bang, exposing the criminal activities of "untouchable" gang boss Rienzi (Martin Gabel). Despite numerous disappointments and setbacks, Hutcheson achieves a pyrrhic victory as the film draws to a close. Throughout the story, the many pressures brought to bear upon a big-city newspaper--political, commercial, etc.--are realistically detailed, as is the relationship between Hutcheson and his ex-wife Nora (Kim Hunter). The cast of Deadline USA is uniformly excellent, from featured players Warren Stevens, Jim Backus, Paul Stewart Fay Baker and Ed Begley to such unbilled performers as Tom Browne Henry, Raymond Greenleaf, Tom Powers, and Kasia Orzazewski (essentially reprising her unforgettable characterization in Call Northside 777). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Ethel Barrymore, (more)
- 1951
The genesis for Queen for a Day was the Dorothy Parker short story Horsie, all about a homely woman who takes a job as a nanny in the household of a selfish, insensitive couple. Months later, the husband receives a gift of an electric razor from "Horsie," out of gratitude for his kindnesses -- kindnesses which, of course, he never consciously extended. "Horsie" ended up as one of three short stories adapted to film by producer Robert Stillman in 1951. The unifying theme of the film was that each of the three female protagonists were contestants on the TV series Queen for a Day. You may remember that this long-running program was hosted by Jack Bailey, who on a daily basis selected one of three deserving women to be the recipient of fabulous prizes, the decision, which was made by the audience (there was an "applause meter" on the set), was predicated upon which of the three ladies had the saddest or most fascinating life story to tell. In addition to "Horsie," aka Miss Wilmarth (Edith Meiser), the other contestants in the film are Phyllis Avery and Kasia Orzazewski. Avery stars in the vignette titled "The Gossamer World," based on a John Answorth story, this episode concerns Avery's son Rudy Lee, a victim of polio. Orzazewski figures into the Faith Baldwyn story "High Diver," wherein she plays the immigrant mother of a college-bound boy (Adam Williams) who takes a job at a carnival to make ends meet. Queen for a Day was originally released as Horsie, until it was decided that the TV series' title was more saleable. (It wasn't, despite an aggressive ad campaign conducted on the Queen for a Day television program.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Phyllis Avery, Darren McGavin, (more)
- 1951
The real Matt Cvetic was a borderline alcoholic with a nasty disposition (he once allegedly beat his sister-in-law so badly she required hospitalization). But Cvetic was also a fervent anti-communist, and so, for a brief period in the early 1950s, he was a folk hero. I Was a Communist for the F.B.I. is the semi-true story of how Cvetic (played by Frank Lovejoy) renounced his friends and family and embraced the Red cause--on behalf of the F.B.I., for whom he was a volunteer undercover agent. The film recounts how Cvetic used his job as a Pittsburgh steelworker to contact various American Communist cell leaders, and how he exposed their insidious plans to overthrow the American government. Since the script infers that among the Reds' "subversive" plans was the Civil Rights Movement, I Was a Communist for the FBI is an embarrassing experience when seen today. Cvetic's memoirs were better dramatized by a 1951 radio series of the same title, starring Dana Andrews. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Lovejoy, Dorothy Hart, (more)
- 1949
One of the more palatable of Hollywood's anti-communist tracts of the late 1940s-early 1950s was MGM's The Red Danube. Janet Leigh plays Maria Buhlen, an Eastern Bloc ballerina who seeks political asylum in the British-occupied zone of Vienna. Maria's plight turns into a political tug-of-war involving a British colonel (Walter Pidgeon) and a Soviet colonel (Louis Calhern). Their ideological hagglings spill over into spiritualism, as represented by Mother Superior Ethel Barrymore, and romance, as personified by Maria's ardent suitor Major John McPhimister (Peter Lawford). Like earlier anti-Red cinematic exercises, The Red Danube failed to connect at the box office. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Pidgeon, Ethel Barrymore, (more)
Thieves' Highway is set in San Francisco and the surrounding countryside. Richard Conte plays Nick Garcos, an American GI who returns from WWII to find that his father Yanko (Morris Carnovsky), a produce trucker, has lost the use of both legs because of a fight with crooked truck driver Mike Figlia (Lee J. Cobb). Nick is a clean-cut guy who was set on marrying his sweetheart Polly Faber (Barbara Lawrence). Instead, Nick gets embroiled in his father's feud with Mike, buying a truck and falling deeper into racketeering. He delivers a truckload of apples to Mike as part of a scheme to expose his cheating. A prostitute, Rica (Valentina Cortesa), tells Nick that Mike has his own plot to trap him. Nick and Rica help Mike's henchmen learn that Mike has also been cheating them, and Nick eventually gets his revenge. But Nick has permanently lost Polly because of his involvement with the gangsters and his change in personality from a good guy to a more sinister businessman. Director Jules Dassin was blacklisted from Hollywood for supposed communist sympathies after making this 1949 picture, but he went on to have success with more caper movies while in exile in France. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Conte, Valentina Cortese, (more)
In this documentary-inspired thriller, P.J. McNeal (James Stewart) is a reporter who is asked by his editor to look into a potential story: their newspaper has been carrying an ad offering a substantial reward for information regarding the murder of a policeman that occurred eleven years ago. It turns out the ad was placed by a cleaning woman named Tillie Wiecek (Kasia Orzazewski); her son Frank (Richard Conte) was convicted of the crime, but she is thoroughly convinced her son had nothing to do with the killing. McNeal doesn't believe for a moment that Frank could be innocent, but he sees a good human interest story in Tillie and writes a piece that receives a great deal of favorable attention. Brian Kelly (Lee J. Cobb), McNeal's editor, thinks there might be more to this story and asks P.J. to look into the original murder case. To McNeal's surprise, Frank passes a lie detector test in which he proclaims his innocence, and the more he digs into records on the case, the more he finds wrong with the original investigation; some evidence is missing, much is inconclusive, and the reporter begins to wonder if Frank might have been railroaded after all, or if the police might be trying to keep something quiet. Call Northside 777 was based on a true story. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Stewart, Richard Conte, (more)
