The Solid Gold Cadillac
Encyclopedia
The Solid Gold Cadillac is a 1956 film
1956 in film
The year 1956 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 5 - The Ten Commandments opens in cinemas and becomes one of the most successful and popular movies of all time, currently ranking 5th on the list of all time moneymakers * February 5 - First showing of documentary films by...

 directed by Richard Quine
Richard Quine
Richard Quine was an American stage, film, and radio actor and film director.Quine was born in Detroit. He made his Broadway debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Very Warm for May in 1939 and appeared in My Sister Eileen the following year...

 and written by Abe Burrows
Abe Burrows
Abe Burrows was a Tony and Pulitzer-winning American humorist, author, and director for radio and the stage.-Early years:...

, Howard Teichmann and George S. Kaufman
George S. Kaufman
George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals, notably for the Marx Brothers...

. It was adapted from the hit Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 play of the same name by Teichmann and Kaufman, in which they pillory big business
Big Business
Big business is a term used to describe large corporations, in either an individual or collective sense. The term first came into use in a symbolic sense subsequent to the American Civil War, particularly after 1880, in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at...

 and corrupt businessmen. The film stars Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday was an American actress.Holliday began her career as part of a night-club act, before working in Broadway plays and musicals...

 and Paul Douglas
Paul Douglas (actor)
Paul Douglas was an American actor, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as Paul Douglas Fleischer.-Career:...

.

Plot

At a shareholders meeting for International Projects, a billion dollar corporation, John T. Blessington (John Williams
John Williams (actor)
John Williams was an English stage, film and television actor. He is remembered for his role as chief inspector Hubbard in Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M For Murder, and as portraying the second "Mr...

) announces that he is replacing Edward L. McKeever (Paul Douglas), the company's founder, president and chairman of the board, as McKeever is resigning to go work for the federal government in Washington DC. Laura Partridge (Judy Holliday), a minority stockholder with just ten shares of stock, drives its arrogant, self-serving executives to distraction with her incessant questioning during this and subsequent meetings.

Blessington comes up with the idea of hiring the struggling actress as Director of Shareholder Relations to keep her occupied answering letters from small shareholders. He assigns her a secretary, Amelia Shotgraven (Neva Patterson
Neva Patterson
Neva Louise Patterson was an American character actress.Born on a farm near Nevada in Story County in central Iowa, she and her parents moved to New York City in 1938. She made her Broadway debut in 1947's The Druid Circle. In 1952, she played "Helen Sherman" in The Seven Year Itch...

), with secret instructions to obstruct her as much as possible. The conscientious Miss Partridge, discovering there is nothing for her to do, decides to write the stockholders herself. She gains Amelia's friendship and wholehearted assistance by helping her develop a romantic relationship with office manager Mark Jenkins (Arthur O'Connell
Arthur O'Connell
Arthur O'Connell was an American stage and film actor. He appeared in films in 1941 and television programs...

).

When the directors find out, they fire Amelia. However, Laura discovers that Blessington's thoroughly unqualified brother-in-law, Harry Harkness (Hiram Sherman
Hiram Sherman
Hiram Sherman was an American actor.Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Sherman made his Broadway debut as a playwright with the short-lived comedy Too Much Party in 1934. It proved to be his sole attempt at writing. Two years later he made his first appearance as an actor in Horse Eats Hat...

), has driven a competitor into bankruptcy, unaware that International Projects owns the unfortunate company. With that as leverage, she gets Amelia rehired.

Still determined to neutralize Laura, the board decides to send her to Washington to persuade McKeever to give them some government contracts. She agrees to go, with the secret intention of trying to convince him to return and take back control from his crooked cronies. However, the company directors recall that he has divested himself of all his shares and is thus powerless, so they brush him off.

McKeever takes them to court, arguing that Laura was an unlicensed, illegal lobbyist, but when she is forced to admit on the stand that she had another, romantic reason for seeing him, the case is dropped. However, Laura has forged a warm relationship with many of the smaller investors while working at the company; they responded and sent in their proxies
Proxy voting
Proxy voting has two forms: delegable voting and delegated voting, which are procedures for the delegation to another member of a voting body of that member's power to vote in his absence, and/or for the selection of additional representatives, as in the case with transitive proxies...

, giving her the right to vote their shares. McKeever uses these votes to replace the entire board. He later marries Laura. In gratitude for rescuing the company, the shareholders make a gift of a solid gold Cadillac to the happy couple.

Cast

  • Judy Holliday
    Judy Holliday
    Judy Holliday was an American actress.Holliday began her career as part of a night-club act, before working in Broadway plays and musicals...

     as Laura Partridge
  • Paul Douglas
    Paul Douglas (actor)
    Paul Douglas was an American actor, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as Paul Douglas Fleischer.-Career:...

     as Edward L. McKeever
  • Fred Clark
    Fred Clark
    Frederick Leonard Clark was an American film character actor.-Career:Born in Lincoln, California, Clark made his film debut in 1947 in The Unsuspected. His 20-year film career included almost 70 films, and numerous television appearances...

     as Clifford Snell, the company treasurer
  • John Williams
    John Williams (actor)
    John Williams was an English stage, film and television actor. He is remembered for his role as chief inspector Hubbard in Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M For Murder, and as portraying the second "Mr...

     as John T. Blessington
  • Hiram Sherman
    Hiram Sherman
    Hiram Sherman was an American actor.Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Sherman made his Broadway debut as a playwright with the short-lived comedy Too Much Party in 1934. It proved to be his sole attempt at writing. Two years later he made his first appearance as an actor in Horse Eats Hat...

     as Harry Harkness
  • Neva Patterson
    Neva Patterson
    Neva Louise Patterson was an American character actress.Born on a farm near Nevada in Story County in central Iowa, she and her parents moved to New York City in 1938. She made her Broadway debut in 1947's The Druid Circle. In 1952, she played "Helen Sherman" in The Seven Year Itch...

     as Amelia Shotgraven
  • Ralph Dumke as Warren Gillie, a director
  • Ray Collins
    Ray Collins (actor)
    Ray Bidwell Collins was an American actor in film, stage, radio, and television. One of Collins' best remembered roles was that of Lt. Arthur Tragg in the long-running series Perry Mason.- Biography :...

     as Alfred Metcalfe, another director
  • Arthur O'Connell
    Arthur O'Connell
    Arthur O'Connell was an American stage and film actor. He appeared in films in 1941 and television programs...

     as Mark Jenkins
  • Harry Antrim
    Harry Antrim
    Harry Antrim was an actor in vaudeville, film and television.By 1906, Antrim was working in vaudeville. During the early 1930s, he moved to Los Angeles and secured uncredited parts in several films, beginning with 1936's Small Town Girl...

     as Senator Simpkins
  • George Burns
    George Burns
    George Burns , born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, television and movies, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became...

     as narrator

Reception

Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...

 of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

praised Holliday highly, stating, "the invincible Miss Holliday has dared to project her youthful figure and personality into the character shaped by Miss Hull" (Josephene Hull, the elderly actress who played the role in the Broadway play) and is "knocking the role completely dead." However, he felt that the villains of the piece were neither particularly convincing ("not precisely representatives of the workaday financial world"), original ("cut from a fairly familiar stencil of Kaufmanesque farce"), or formidable enough ("The problems set up by the play-wrights are little barriers of cardboard farce"). He concluded, "it will give you an entertaining ride, but don't expect it to take you or your intelligence very far." The Film4
Film4
Film4 is a free digital television channel available in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, owned and operated by Channel 4, that screens films.-Programming:...

 reviewer agreed that the story was not particularly convincing ("Yeah – like global capitalism gets overthrown that easily"), but "even so, it's undemanding and amusing."

Awards and nominations

Jean Louis
Jean Louis
Jean Louis was a French-born, Hollywood costume designer and an Academy Award winner for Costume Design. Louis worked as head designer for Columbia Pictures from 1944 to 1960...

 won the Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 for Best Costume Design Black and White. Ross Bellah
Ross Bellah
Ross Bellah was an American art director, primarily for Columbia Pictures. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film The Solid Gold Cadillac.-External links:...

, William Kiernan
William Kiernan
William Kiernan was an American set decorator. He was nominated for six Academy Awards in the category Best Art Direction.-Selected filmography:Kiernan was nominated for six Academy Awards for Best Art Direction:...

, and Louis Diage
Louis Diage
Louis Diage was an American set decorator. He was nominated for three Academy Awards in the category Best Art Direction.-Selected filmography:Diage was nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Art Direction:...

 were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction Black and White.

Holliday was nominated for the Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...

 for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, while the film was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
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