Plot
Kurt Anderson is the ruthless, hard-driving general manager of the Monroe department store. The store is a financial powerhouse because of Anderson's brutally efficient strategies and autocratic leadership.
When a new clothing supplier, Garfinkle, tells Anderson that part of the large first order will be delayed three days because of labor trouble, Anderson cancels the order and instructs his secretary to sue for damages. Garfinkle is ruined, but Anderson doesn't care.
After closing, Anderson overhears Madeline Walters playing a store piano. Broke and unemployed, she is going to apply to work at Monroe's first thing in the morning. When she finds out who he is, she allows herself to succumb to his power and artificial charm, which ensures she gets a job as a model in the clothing department.
With the Great Depression cutting into the store's business, Anderson demands new ideas from his department heads. When Martin West comes up with an innovative idea, Higgins, the longtime head of men's clothing does not approve; but Anderson is impressed. He promptly tells Martin to go ahead, and fires Higgins. Seeing promise in West, Anderson makes him his assistant. He tells his new protégé that he must devote himself completely to business and nothing else if he is to get ahead; he asks if Martin is married, and is relieved when the answer is no. Anderson, a compulsive philanderer, holds women in contempt, believing that all they seek is financial security and control over their husbands. He views marital commitment as incompatible with running a successful business. However, unbeknownst to Anderson, Martin and Madeleine have fallen in love. He tells her that he cannot marry until his position is more secure, but, on an impulse, does so anyway, though he keeps it a secret from Anderson. This puts a strain on the marriage.
Anderson doubles the salary of employee Polly Dale, (Alice White), to keep his nominal overseer, Denton Ross, occupied, leaving him a free hand to manage the store without interference. Higgins tries repeatedly to see Anderson to ask for his job back, but fails. Finally Higgins commits suicide by jumping out of a ninth floor store window. Martin is dismayed when Anderson is unperturbed by the news.
After the Wests quarrel at the annual office party about Martin's neglect of her, Anderson finds a vulnerable Madeleine alone and gets her drunk on champagne. When she decides to leave, he offers the inebriated Madeleine his upstairs hotel suite to rest and to clear her head. After she falls asleep on the bed, he enters the room and rapes her. The next day, an embarrassed Madeleine insists that Anderson leave her alone. During their heated conversation, she lets slip that she is married to Martin. After she quits and threatens to take her husband with her, Anderson tries to get Polly to seduce Martin, but she refuses. He then has Martin eavesdrop on the intercom while he summons Madeleine to his office. Martin learns of the times Madeleine slept with Anderson.
Madeleine unsuccessfully attempts suicide with poison, prompting a furious Martin to confront and threaten to kill his boss. Anderson, facing his own dismissal by cautious bankers afraid of his expensive plans, dares him to do it, even providing a gun. Martin shoots, but only inflicts a minor wound. When employees dash in, Anderson acts as if nothing had happened: Martin quits.
Ross manages to contact the store's frequently absent owner, Commodore Franklin Monroe, and gets his proxy just in time for the vote of the board of 40 directors. Anderson keeps his job. Polly, having just been told to pick out a new wardrobe so Anderson can take her to Paris, comes in with her dog, only to learn the holiday is off and to return the duds. She flounces out in a huff, leaving the dog, whom Anderson deposits in a waste basket. He promotes Garfinkle, embittered and now just as ruthless as him, to be his new assistant; Garfinkle says he will try to ruin him. Anderson fully approves of the attitude change. The film ends with Anderson experiencing neither redemption nor punishment. In the final scene, Martin is reunited and reconciled with his recovering wife Madeline.
