The film version of the television play that garnered writer Rod Serling his initial acclaim, it's a forceful drama of office politics with a somewhat ambiguous ending. Although Serling's portrait of Machiavellian behavior in corporate suites can hardly have the impact it did in the '50s, when the uglier aspects of capitalism rarely made an appearance in popular media, his insights into the painful dynamics of a common dilemma remain compelling. Perhaps more about the anxieties of ambition and success than the inevitability of waning power, the film evinces Serling's particular brand of liberalism, as the rising young executive (Van Heflin) agonizes about the fate of the older man (Ed Begley) he must displace. The coldly efficient CEO, (Everett Sloane) a composite of Serling's wartime commanding officer and CBS president William Paley among others, has verbally hammered Begley so relentlessly in an effort to force his retirement, that the dazed and battered man conjures the punch-drunk fighter of Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962). Despite the all-consuming nature of a job that's damaged his family life, he's still unable to let go. When Heflin challenges Sloane's repellent inhumanity, the magnate makes an apologia for capitalist ruthlessness worthy of Milton Friedman. Whether or not the equivocal and somewhat surprising ending can be interpreted as a victory or defeat for Heflin is very much in the eye of the beholder. Sloane gives the best performance of his career as the driven CEO and Heflin and Begley are also superb. Boris Kaufman, the legendary cinematographer of films such as Zero de Conduite and On the Waterfront makes the dark, tunnel-like office corridors look like something from Kafka.