The film Advise and Consent is an abridged edition of Allen Drury's best selling novel about political Washington, DC. The novel is a bit more complex. One major element of it that is removed is that the character of Orrin Knox who is played by Edward Andrews is the one who takes the lead in opposition to the nomination of the Henry Fonda character, Robert Leffingwell after Don Murray as Brigham Anderson commits suicide. Here he's a minor character.
Allen Drury was the New York Times Washington correspondent and in fact was assigned specifically to the Senate for 1943-1945. Before turning to fiction, Drury kept a daily journal of what he saw and later that was published. Readers of that will recognize Franchot Tone as the president who was named Roosevelt back in the day, Harley Hudson played by Lew Ayres as Harry Truman, and Walter Pidgeon's Majority Leader Robert Munson is Alben Barkley.
What the film is about is that the president has nominated Henry Fonda as Secretary of State and a certain southern Senator played by Charles Laughton has a personal vendetta against him. He uses the Senate hearings on the nomination to launch a charge of Communism against Fonda. The result of all of Laughton's machinations is the suicide of one of his colleagues.
This was Charles Laughton's farewell performance and he went out in a grand bravura style. His Seabright Cooley is an amalgam of a whole lot of southern characters who represented the south back in the day before the Voting Rights Act. There's a story that Laughton spent some time visiting with Robert Mitchum who had a farm in the rural Maryland area near Washington and Laughton confessed to Mitchum he was having trouble getting the proper accent down. Mitchum who had an uncanny ear for accents demonstrated it for him right on the spot. He might have even helped Laughton with it because Laughton had it and the character spot on.
The hearing where witness Burgess Meredith accuses Fonda of being a Communist is taken of course from the Alger Hiss-Whittaker Chambers drama. And the suicide of Don Murray's character because of an expose of a homosexual affair is taken from the suicide in 1955 of Senator Lester Hunt of Wyoming. Hunt was not being pressured for himself, but for his son. That's a story that could rate a film treatment.
Advise and Consent was one of the first films to have a gay subplot in the proceedings, handled ever so gingerly back in 1962. It's a milestone in gay cinematic history. I'm not sure that Don Murray's character wasn't just a guy who had a gay fling back in his youth and was probably essentially straight. Still back in the day such exposure would have been ruinous. Just look at Brokeback Mountain if you don't agree.
One thing I will never understand though is why Otto Preminger had Frank Sinatra record a half a song specifically for the gay bar scene. Sinatra fans will search in vain for that record, there's no such song, it's only a few lines of some sappy lyrics made better by Sinatra singing them. Why he didn't just use one of Sinatra's records is a mystery.
Advise and Consent is one of the best ensemble dramas ever done on screen. Even those who are not really political will appreciate the array of talent Otto Preminger assembled and directed to perfection.
Allen Drury was the New York Times Washington correspondent and in fact was assigned specifically to the Senate for 1943-1945. Before turning to fiction, Drury kept a daily journal of what he saw and later that was published. Readers of that will recognize Franchot Tone as the president who was named Roosevelt back in the day, Harley Hudson played by Lew Ayres as Harry Truman, and Walter Pidgeon's Majority Leader Robert Munson is Alben Barkley.
What the film is about is that the president has nominated Henry Fonda as Secretary of State and a certain southern Senator played by Charles Laughton has a personal vendetta against him. He uses the Senate hearings on the nomination to launch a charge of Communism against Fonda. The result of all of Laughton's machinations is the suicide of one of his colleagues.
This was Charles Laughton's farewell performance and he went out in a grand bravura style. His Seabright Cooley is an amalgam of a whole lot of southern characters who represented the south back in the day before the Voting Rights Act. There's a story that Laughton spent some time visiting with Robert Mitchum who had a farm in the rural Maryland area near Washington and Laughton confessed to Mitchum he was having trouble getting the proper accent down. Mitchum who had an uncanny ear for accents demonstrated it for him right on the spot. He might have even helped Laughton with it because Laughton had it and the character spot on.
The hearing where witness Burgess Meredith accuses Fonda of being a Communist is taken of course from the Alger Hiss-Whittaker Chambers drama. And the suicide of Don Murray's character because of an expose of a homosexual affair is taken from the suicide in 1955 of Senator Lester Hunt of Wyoming. Hunt was not being pressured for himself, but for his son. That's a story that could rate a film treatment.
Advise and Consent was one of the first films to have a gay subplot in the proceedings, handled ever so gingerly back in 1962. It's a milestone in gay cinematic history. I'm not sure that Don Murray's character wasn't just a guy who had a gay fling back in his youth and was probably essentially straight. Still back in the day such exposure would have been ruinous. Just look at Brokeback Mountain if you don't agree.
One thing I will never understand though is why Otto Preminger had Frank Sinatra record a half a song specifically for the gay bar scene. Sinatra fans will search in vain for that record, there's no such song, it's only a few lines of some sappy lyrics made better by Sinatra singing them. Why he didn't just use one of Sinatra's records is a mystery.
Advise and Consent is one of the best ensemble dramas ever done on screen. Even those who are not really political will appreciate the array of talent Otto Preminger assembled and directed to perfection.