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The Power and the Prize (1956)
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Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
1957 (Austria) moreTagline:
A PICTURE THAT BRINGS BACK GREAT ACTING BY GREAT ACTORS AND ACTRESSES (original print ad - all caps)Plot Keywords:
Awards:
Nominated for Oscar. moreUser Comments:
Partly effective look at big business ethics and private lives moreCast
(Complete credited cast)| Robert Taylor | ... | Cliff Barton | |
| Elisabeth Müller | ... | Miriam Linka (as Elisabeth Mueller) | |
| Burl Ives | ... | George Salt | |
| Charles Coburn | ... | Guy Eliot | |
| Cedric Hardwicke | ... | Mr. Carew (as Sir Cedric Hardwicke) | |
| Mary Astor | ... | Mrs. George Salt | |
| Nicola Michaels | ... | Joan Salt | |
| Cameron Prud'Homme | ... | Reverend John Barton (as Cameron Prud'homme) | |
| Richard Erdman | ... | Lester Everett | |
| Ben Wright | ... | Mr. Chutwell | |
| Jack Raine | ... | Mr. Pitt-Semphill | |
| Thomas Browne Henry | ... | Paul F. Farragut | |
| Richard Deacon | ... | Howard Carruthers |
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Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
98 minCountry:
USALanguage:
EnglishColor:
Black and WhiteAspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 moreSound Mix:
4-Track Stereo (Western Electric Sound System)MOVIEmeter: 
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This is a good blueprint for a study of corporate power and the dichotomoy between required public life and the need for privacy. Robert Taylor has been primed by corporate head Burl Ives as a surrogate son to replace him as head of the corporation. He sends him to England to negotiate a deal, where Taylor is both taken aback by the ethics and morality of the men he is dealing with and manages to fall in love with a refugee while he's at it. He comes back emtpy handed, having done his duty but having told the truth to the English about his motives. He attempts to marry the refugee rather than the boss's niece and so begins an attempt by Ives to discredit the refugee as a suitable wife for a corporate executive. It could have been gritter, nastier and less romantic - the amount of time spent on the romance skews the film away from the points it's trying to make about corporate ethics.
Somehow the costume design was nominated (undeservedly) for an Oscar - it's all business suits and the two women in the film dress conservatively - studio politics at work yet again, no doubt.
What is stiking however is the black and white CinemaScope cinematography which is excellent - this if anything deserved the Oscar nom. (It was MGM's first 'Scope film in B&W).
Not as good as it could have been but not terrible either.