USA, 139 minutes
Director: Otto Preminger
Writers: Allen Drury, Wendell Mayes
Photography: Sam Leavitt
Music: Jerry Fielding
Editor: Louis R. Loeffler
Cast: Charles Laughton, Walter Pidgeon, Don Murray, Henry Fonda, Lew Ayres, Edward Andrews, Burgess Meredith, Gene Tierney, Franchot Tone, George Grizzard, Paul Ford, Peter Lawford, Inga Swenson, Will Geer, Larry Tucker, Betty White
Advise & Consent belongs to a grand American tradition of political movies, usually set in Washington, D.C., endeavoring to explicitly show how sausage gets ground into legislation and/or policy, presented in a brisk spirit of upbeat no-nonsense and glowering knowingness. Maybe it started with Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, or maybe Gregory La Cava's Gabriel Over the White House, or probably way before that even. The most recent example may be Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. Along the way there's Meet John Doe, A Face in the Crowd, The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, All the President's Men, Wag the Dog, Charlie Wilson's War, and many others—also, on TV, The West Wing.
What likely unites them most is their smug sense of realpolitik, as they otherwise wander afield among distractions such as high drama, buffoonery, and plain old shtick. Advise & Consent revels in the amiable corruptions of its early-'60s glamour cast, found wandering the sanctified halls of D.C. power. It's solid storytelling about American political intrigues, marked by shrewd and unguessable moves from all sides. The plot twist that it turns on toward the end feels remarkably fresh and contemporary, which could be happenstance—but at least it's not the only thing that makes this picture so surprising and crackling alive.
