In “Female”, a 1933 film, a woman in the automotive industry

The cinema is more interested in the stories of private detectives than in the intrigues of business leaders. So if the boss is also a boss, the field is reduced even more. In this summer series, we have selected four films, French and American, from 1933 to 2017, in which the heroine is a leader. Tough or sensitive, in the world of industry or fashion, respected or hated, virtuous or scandalous, they all say something about the society in which they evolve and the way they are perceived. For L’Express, today’s great bosses have taken a look at their fictional counterparts.

EPISODE 1 – “The Banker”: Romy Schneider, an Amazon of finance

EPISODE 2 – “Number one”: Emmanuelle Devos seen by a leader of Vinci

EPISODE 3 – Anna Wintour, look and management: “The devil wears Prada” seen by Valérie Messika

When anything goes, why not imagine a woman running a car company? This is the starting point of Femalea 1933 film directed by Michael Curtiz, known for Casablanca. A subversive and explosive story of the so-called “pre-Code” era. Nothing to do with the Highway Code. To cut short the Hollywood debauchery, the Puritan Senator William Hays had worked in 1927 on various recommendations aimed at encouraging the film industry to conform to good morals. But the famous “Hays Code” will not be strictly applied until 1934. In the meantime, filmmakers have had a field day, featuring Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck or Joan Crawford in ambiguous situations , shocking, sulphurous or violent. Female is emblematic of this parenthesis of semi-freedom. His heroine, Alison Drake, inherited an automobile company from her father. If car sales are declining, his love life is on the contrary prosperous. This comedy plays on the comical inversion of masculine/feminine roles to better denounce the abuses of dominant males in the world of work. “I decided to go the same route as the men. To be as sexist as them,” Alison confides to a former classmate, who has chosen the conventional path of marriage and children.

Virginie Bernard, too, entered the world of the automobile thanks to her father, head of fleet sales at Renault. She studied with the French manufacturer and has never left the sector, imposing herself in this world of men. “I always felt like them, I would have been very unhappy at Chanel”, admits this leader based in Turin, who spent a good part of her career at Fiat until becoming director of fleet sales, then lived the merger with PSA and the creation of Stellantis. “I have never suffered from being the only woman among twenty men on management committees, I have proven myself,” she adds. This is evidenced by the creation of Leaseway Italia, a subsidiary of a French group specializing in the rental of courtesy vehicles to car garages, which she now manages. His credo: “Authority comes first through competence”.

“No sentimentality, we make cars here!”

In Female, Alison Drake, interpreted by Ruth Chatterton, opts for a sharp management and does not let herself be told. “I pay you to sell,” she tells her team. Imperious during the day in business, she is captivating in the evening with her conquests, drawn from among… her employees, secretary included. “Miss Drake” invites her favorites to dinner, on the pretext of talking about design or sales promotion, in her sumptuous villa. A few glasses of vodka served at the right time and the young employee willingly falls into his net. As soon as consumed, it is forgotten. And beware of those who fall in love with their seductive boss, one of them will be sent immediately to take up a position in Montreal. “No flowers, no sentimentality. We make cars here,” she says to another spurned suitor. Only one will prove able to resist his advances like vodka: Jim Thorne, poached from a competitor to save Drake Motor Car thanks to his innovative gearbox technology.

The end of the film, obviously designed to appease the do-gooders of the time, is disappointing. The uncompromising Alison Drake agrees to drop everything to marry a reaction engineer and dreams of a family of nine toddlers. “She understands that you have to let go. But that doesn’t mean you had to abandon the business!”, regrets Virginie Bernard. And then, who said that doing business and having children were incompatible? “I never sold as many cars as when I was pregnant up to my eyes, she recalls. A future mother inspires confidence… And I tried, of course, to make the most of it !”

Female (1933) by Michael Curtiz, with Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Ferdinand Gottschalk…