Other Titles • Tempesta su Washington (1962) • Advise and Consent • Sturm über Washington (1962)
Synopses for Advise and Consent (1962)
1.
The setting is familiar. A Senate subcommittee meets to confirm the President's controversial nominee for Secretary of State. A TV camera rolls. And the wolf is at the door Three years after Anatomy of a Murder, Otto Preminger examined the body politic in Advise & Consent. The story is one of power and procedure: deals become extortion, closets reveal skeletons, careers are crushed. History buffs may think they recall real-life counterparts to the characters depicted. Movie fans can revel in a rare starpower array: Henry Fonda, Walter Pidgeon, Don Murray, Gene Tierney, Peter Lawford, Franchot Tone and Charles Laughton in his final role. The gavel has sounded. Let the proceedings - and backstage maneuverings - begin.
2.
Otto Preminger expanded his vision in the 1960s with a whole series of ambitious, expansive dramas with huge casts and big themes. Advise and Consent, an examination of deal making, party politics, and congressional diplomacy in Washington's legislative halls (based on the novel by Allen Drury), is one of his best. Preminger broke the blacklist with his previous film, Exodus, and it rings through in this drama about a controversial nominee for secretary of state (a confident, stately Henry Fonda) accused of being a Communist. The nomination process becomes the center ring of the political circus, with fidgety accuser Burgess Meredith in the spotlight; devious, silver-tongued Charles Laughton cracking the whip as a southern senator with a grudge against Fonda; and party whip Walter Pidgeon lining up votes behind the scenes. Arm twisting and diplomatic hardball turns to perjury and blackmail, and a melodramatic twist gives this lesson in party politics a salacious soap opera dimension. Preminger's style has been hailed as "objective," but it's really a matter of attentiveness: he gives all the character their due and their say, eschewing heroes and villains for an exploration of people clashing over opposing goals. In fact, the weakest elements of the film are the unscrupulous populist senator played by George Grizzard and the badly dated caricatures that populate a notorious underground club. The video preserves the handsome widescreen black-and-white photography, keeping Preminger's careful and measured editing intact. --Sean Axmaker
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