Allen Drury is recalled for one single novel he wrote in the 1950s that became a bestseller and Pulitzer Prize Winner. It is ADVISE AND CONSENT. There had been many political novels before Drury. Ignatius Donelly's populist novel, CAESAR'S COLUMN was a best seller in the 1890s, and Jack London would write the first American anti-Utopian novel THE IRON HEEL in the early 20th Century. In the 1930s Sinclair Lewis would satirize Huey Long with with IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE (about a Fascist America). Long cast a long shadow (his career influenced two novels turned films: A LION IS IN THE STREETS and Robert Penn Warren's ALL THE KING'S MEN). But Drury's novel picked up on a single procedure of government: the way the appointments of the U.S. President are reviewed by the Senate through subcommittees who decide whether or not to support the choice. Taking a seemingly dull process, Drury showed the machinations and maneuvers of the President, the Senate Majority Leader and Majority Whip, the Subcommittee chairman, and the candidate himself to demonstrate it was really great drama here.
As was pointed out in another review here, the characters are based on real parties in the Washington of the late 1940s and 1950s. The President, who enjoys cruises on the Presidential yacht and is a chain smoker, is based on F.D.R. The Vice President (frist name Harley) is Harry Truman - kept out of the loop by the President who isn't interested in preparing him for office. THe Majority Leader is based on Vice President Alben Berkeley, a wise politico type. Seabright Cooley is a combination of South Carolina's Senator Strom Thurmond and Mississippi's Senator Eastman. The Washington Hostess who has a side affair with the Majority Leader is a combination of Pearl Mesta and Alica Roosevelt (who had an affair with William Borah, Senator of Idaho in the 1920s and 1930s). Leffingwell's confirmation as Secretary of State is based on many hearings up to 1962 where there were serious questions, here tied to Communist leanings due to the date of the story (post-McCarthy, but the effect of the Wisconsin Senator was still there). The fate of one of the Senators is based on the tragedy of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt.
Preminger reduced the plot line of the novel, making Senator Orrin Knox (Edward Andrews) a minor figure. That can't be done if there was a remake today - I'll get back to that. He concentrates on how Robert Leffingwell's confirmation is a political football because Leffingwell may be too soft on the Communists. Since Preminger casts Henry Fonda as Leffingwell, the audience tends to support him. But during the confirmation hearings Leffingwell is confronted by a former acquaintance played by Burgess Meredith who claims Leffingwell was a communist. Meredith is based, of course, on Whittaker Chambers, confronting Alger Hiss. But here he is briefly discredited by Leffingwell. Then it comes out that Leffingwell covered up the truth and lied to the subcommittee. Cooley (who hates Leffingwell) finds out, and decides to bring this to the attention of Senator Brigham Anderson (Don Murray) who wants Leffingwell to withdraw his candidacy.
The tragedy of the story is the pressures brought on Anderson by the President (Franchot Tone) and by the party leaders led by the Majority leader (Walter Pidgeon). Then he and his wife (Inger Swenson) get mysterious and threatening phone calls that Anderson understands the import of. They deal with a sexual incident that Anderson hoped would never be revealed, and he tries to find the person who is the key to destroying him. He fails to do so in time. He kills himself as a result. But his death leads to complications too. It ends with the disgrace of a fellow senator, and the last minute change of mind of a young New England Senator (based on John Kennedy and played by Peter Lawford) changing his vote. It all hinges on the Vice President at the end.
The novel shows how the Senate protects it's dignity by an inner circle that (at least until the 1980s) was inclusive of the leaders of both parties. It also shows how it treats obnoxious outsiders (George Grizzard as Senator Van Ackerman). But it gives a good look at the process - a process that we are more aware of now after the Bork, Thomas, and Sotomayer Supreme Court appointment hearings.
In the original novel Senator Knox was to have been more important. Today that would have to be shown in a remake. And that is the odd sequel to this fine movie. Drury continued a whole series of novels about his Washington scene, in which he gradually showed his super-conservatism (Knox eventually becomes a President in several of the novels). But Drury really could not see how our country would get out of the polarizing mess in Congress: the Liberals were too willing to give into the enemies and the Conservatives too reactionary. Ironically in later novels like COME NINEVEH, COME TYRE he concluded that the Communsts were doomed too - because he foresaw China and Russian going to war over Asia. The later books were not as well received as the first one. But the film version of ADVISE AND CONSENT does show Drury at his best, when he told a story well and to an understandable conclusion.
As was pointed out in another review here, the characters are based on real parties in the Washington of the late 1940s and 1950s. The President, who enjoys cruises on the Presidential yacht and is a chain smoker, is based on F.D.R. The Vice President (frist name Harley) is Harry Truman - kept out of the loop by the President who isn't interested in preparing him for office. THe Majority Leader is based on Vice President Alben Berkeley, a wise politico type. Seabright Cooley is a combination of South Carolina's Senator Strom Thurmond and Mississippi's Senator Eastman. The Washington Hostess who has a side affair with the Majority Leader is a combination of Pearl Mesta and Alica Roosevelt (who had an affair with William Borah, Senator of Idaho in the 1920s and 1930s). Leffingwell's confirmation as Secretary of State is based on many hearings up to 1962 where there were serious questions, here tied to Communist leanings due to the date of the story (post-McCarthy, but the effect of the Wisconsin Senator was still there). The fate of one of the Senators is based on the tragedy of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt.
Preminger reduced the plot line of the novel, making Senator Orrin Knox (Edward Andrews) a minor figure. That can't be done if there was a remake today - I'll get back to that. He concentrates on how Robert Leffingwell's confirmation is a political football because Leffingwell may be too soft on the Communists. Since Preminger casts Henry Fonda as Leffingwell, the audience tends to support him. But during the confirmation hearings Leffingwell is confronted by a former acquaintance played by Burgess Meredith who claims Leffingwell was a communist. Meredith is based, of course, on Whittaker Chambers, confronting Alger Hiss. But here he is briefly discredited by Leffingwell. Then it comes out that Leffingwell covered up the truth and lied to the subcommittee. Cooley (who hates Leffingwell) finds out, and decides to bring this to the attention of Senator Brigham Anderson (Don Murray) who wants Leffingwell to withdraw his candidacy.
The tragedy of the story is the pressures brought on Anderson by the President (Franchot Tone) and by the party leaders led by the Majority leader (Walter Pidgeon). Then he and his wife (Inger Swenson) get mysterious and threatening phone calls that Anderson understands the import of. They deal with a sexual incident that Anderson hoped would never be revealed, and he tries to find the person who is the key to destroying him. He fails to do so in time. He kills himself as a result. But his death leads to complications too. It ends with the disgrace of a fellow senator, and the last minute change of mind of a young New England Senator (based on John Kennedy and played by Peter Lawford) changing his vote. It all hinges on the Vice President at the end.
The novel shows how the Senate protects it's dignity by an inner circle that (at least until the 1980s) was inclusive of the leaders of both parties. It also shows how it treats obnoxious outsiders (George Grizzard as Senator Van Ackerman). But it gives a good look at the process - a process that we are more aware of now after the Bork, Thomas, and Sotomayer Supreme Court appointment hearings.
In the original novel Senator Knox was to have been more important. Today that would have to be shown in a remake. And that is the odd sequel to this fine movie. Drury continued a whole series of novels about his Washington scene, in which he gradually showed his super-conservatism (Knox eventually becomes a President in several of the novels). But Drury really could not see how our country would get out of the polarizing mess in Congress: the Liberals were too willing to give into the enemies and the Conservatives too reactionary. Ironically in later novels like COME NINEVEH, COME TYRE he concluded that the Communsts were doomed too - because he foresaw China and Russian going to war over Asia. The later books were not as well received as the first one. But the film version of ADVISE AND CONSENT does show Drury at his best, when he told a story well and to an understandable conclusion.