Advise & Consent [VHS]

Advise and Consent is really quite a remarkable film. You'd have to search high and low to find a higher-caliber cast, the script's behind-the-scenes look at the reality of politics remains just a relevant today as it was in 1962, and the whole presentation is just flawless. Heck, even Peter Lawford's good in this movie. That Otto Preminger really knew what he was doing; the man still doesn't get all the credit he deserves. I think he must have had his own super-secret superior cameras because the clarity and overall video quality of this film are beyond amazing. This thing looks sharper and better than most movies being churned out today.

The basic premise of the film is rather simple. The President has nominated a controversial man to become Secretary of State, dropping the nomination like a little bomb on his own party and thus setting the stage for a good bit of ugliness in the Senate - with most of the trouble coming from the President's own majority party. On one end, there's a brash, still-wet-behind-the-ears primadonna who wants to use the media attention to make a name for himself; on the other end is an old curmudgeon of the Senate who opposes the nominee largely for personal reasons. The minority party (led by none other than Will "Grandpa Walton" Geer) pretty much sits back and enjoys the show- but this isn't fun and games, at all. The nominee faces charges that he was at one time a Communist, and the back alley manipulations of unscrupulous Senators push the chairman of the relevant subcommittee to the breaking point. The politics of this era played out in exaggeratedly civil terms, but deep down it was just as ugly as anything you'll see today on the floor of the Senate, where civility has quite disappeared.

The only thing that has been lost over the decades since this film was released in 1962 is the close connection between the men on the screen and the actual power players of Washington during that era. The story was fictitious, but Pulitzer-Prize winning author Alan Drury crafted the novel upon which the film is based on real people and events. Peter Lawford, appropriately enough, played a Senator modeled on JFK, George Grizzard's character supposedly represented Joseph McCarthy (although I find him quite unlike that great patriot), etc. I thought this was going to be some subtle dramatization of McCarthy's crusade against Communists, but it goes much deeper into the heart of power than that. In fact, Robert Leffingwell (played masterfully by Henry Fonda), the nominee accused of Communist associations, gets surprisingly little screen time. Stealing the show, most viewers would agree, is Charles Laughton as the Honorable Senator from South Carolina, a man adamantly opposed to the President's nomination and willing to go to great lengths to see Mr. Leffingwell turned away at the gate. With his charming (albeit unauthentic) Southern drawl and constant the-cat-who-ate-the-canary facial expressions, he proves himself quite a force to be reckoned with. As the movie progresses, however, the focus shifts more and more toward Senator Bigham Anderson, the sub-committee chairman who eventually butts heads with the President and learns that the extraordinary act of putting principles over politics can be a dangerous business. Personally, though, I thought Walter Pidgeon gave the best performance of all in his role as the Senate Majority Leader, one of the few characters to emerge in the end as a man of both practicality and honor.

I have to think this was a pretty bold film for its time, particularly in terms of the story's most startling revelation. Nowadays, we know just how ugly politics really is, but I doubt too many men had shone a flashlight of truth into the Senate's hallowed halls before 1962. Sadly, today's audiences may find all the hullabaloo of this story exceedingly tame, yet there's no taking away from the power this film still possesses. Politics was, is, and always will be a sort of game to many elected officials. They get down in the mud and wallow largely because they enjoy it, especially if it gets their faces on the national news. Far too often, though, the games of these petty men and women are taken much too far, and that leads to tragedy - for individuals, for parties, and for the whole country. This film's truths are today's truths, and as long as Senators pitch hissy fits on all sides over the process of exercising their Constitutional duty to advise and consent and, more importantly, put their own selfish, vindictive motives over the interests of the men and women they are supposed to represent, this film will remain as relevant as it ever was.

If you're interested in how American politics works or doesn't, see this movie now. What a knock-out depressing, inspiring, convoluted, messed up, brilliant piece of work this Otto Preminger film is. Charles Laughton steals the show (his last performance?) as a sleazy southern senator. You won't believe the machinations these people perform in Washington. And while this movie was made decades ago, it's still has so much truth in it today--people set up to be scapegoats, corruption, politics like you've never see it before.

True, this is sometimes touted as a "gay" film because of the one senator who is blackmailed, though is at least bisexual, but the film is more about how the American system is put together.

A frightening, brilliant movie with stellar performances by Don Murray, Henry Fonda, Lew Ayers, Charles Laughton, and a host of others. Fantastic and eye-opening.

Otto Preminger's 1962 film Advise And Consent is a compellingly told, but flawed, political thriller, focusing on the anti-communist hysteria prevalent in the US during the 50s/60s period, and also touching on the issue of anti-homosexual paranoia for good measure. The film was one of a number made by Preminger which challenged the existing Hollywood censorship codes and also the anti-communist blacklist. Impressively shot in black-and-white (and at times with a near-documentary feel) by regular Preminger cinematographer Sam Leavitt (who also shot the director's The Man With The Golden Arm and Anatomy Of A Murder), the style, and, to some extent, the content, of the film is reminiscent of the superior films, John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate and Sidney Lumet's Failsafe.

Overlong at 139 minutes, Advise And Consent gets off to a rather pedestrian start, as the film explores the intricacies of the workings of the US political system (much to the confusion of the watching - and highly patronised - female onlookers). However, the film begins to take a grip on viewer attention as soon as Secretary of State-designate, Robert Leffingwell (played with typical and forthright integrity by Henry Fonda), takes to the Senate witness stand to fend off accusations of communist sympathising levelled by Southern Senator Seabright Cooley, played with ever-increasing assurance (and bluster) by the great Charles Laughton (whose last film this was). These court-room scenes are some of the most effective in the film and also feature a great turn by Burgess Meredith as Leffingwell's accuser Herbert Gelman. In addition to the performances referred to above, there are sterling performances from Walter Pidgeon as Senator Bob Munson, Francot Tone as The President and by (little known cinema actor) George Grizzard as Senator Fred Van Ackerman, who steals many of the scenes in which he is featured.

There is a nice dramatic tension set up by Preminger between, on the one hand, Cooley's scheming to bring down Leffingwell, and, on the other, by the Leffingwell-sympathisers, led by Grizzard's Van Ackerman, as this latter group try to expose previous misdoings by (Cooley-leaning) Senate Leader Brigham Anderson (played by Don Murray), in an attempt to force Anderson to compromise his position. By the same token, however, the film is at its least subtle as it depicts a look of horror on Anderson's face as he enters a New York gay club in search of his past army colleague, and now potential exposer.

A generally engrossing drama that is certainly worth seeing.