Advise & Consent

For the novel, see Advise and Consent.
Advise & Consent

Theatrical release poster by Saul Bass
Directed by Otto Preminger
Produced by Otto Preminger
Screenplay by Wendell Mayes
Based on Advise and Consent
by Allen Drury
Starring Henry Fonda
Charles Laughton
Don Murray
Walter Pidgeon
Peter Lawford
Gene Tierney
Paul Ford
George Grizzard
Music by Jerry Fielding
Cinematography Sam Leavitt
Edited by Louis R. Loeffler
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release dates
  • June 6, 1962 (1962-06-06)
Running time
 139 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Advise & Consent is a 1962 American neo noir motion picture based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Allen Drury, published in 1959.[1]

The movie was adapted for the screen by Wendell Mayes and was directed by Otto Preminger. The ensemble cast features Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Don Murray, Walter Pidgeon, Peter Lawford, Gene Tierney, Franchot Tone, Lew Ayres, Burgess Meredith, Eddie Hodges, Paul Ford, George Grizzard, Inga Swenson, Betty White and others.[2]

The title derives from the United States Constitution's Article II, Sec. 2, cl. 2, which provides that the President of the United States "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States". The film, set in Washington, D.C., follows the consequences of a Presidential nomination for Secretary of State of a man with a hidden past who commits perjury in the course of confirmation proceedings.

Plot

The President of the United States nominates Robert A. Leffingwell as Secretary of State. The second-term President, who is ill, has chosen him because he does not believe that Vice President Harley Hudson—whom both he and others usually ignore—will successfully continue the administration's foreign policy should he die.

Sen. Seeb Cooley (Charles Laughton) speaking against the Leffingwell nomination on the Senate floor

Leffingwell's nomination is controversial within the United States Senate which, using its advice and consent powers, must either approve or reject the appointment. Both the President's party, the majority, and the minority are divided. Majority Leader Bob Munson, the senior senator from Michigan, loyally supports the nominee despite his doubts, as do the hard-working Majority Whip Stanley Danta of Connecticut and womanizer Lafe Smith of Rhode Island. Demagogic peace advocate Fred Van Ackerman of Wyoming is especially supportive. Although also of the majority party, President pro tempore and "curmudgeon" Seabright "Seeb" Cooley of South Carolina dislikes Leffingwell for both personal and professional reasons, and leads the opposition.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee appoints a subcommittee, chaired by majority member Brigham Anderson of Utah, to evaluate the nominee. The young and devoted family man is undecided on Leffingwell. During hearings, Cooley dramatically introduces a surprise witness, Herbert Gelman, A minor Treasury clerk. Gelman testifies that years earlier, while one of Leffingwell's students at the University of Chicago, he belonged to a Communist cell with Leffingwell and two others, all using assumed names. He accuses Leffingwell of having him fired from a government job to cover up Leffingwell's role in the cell. Leffingwell considers revealing the truth of his past, discussing this with Hardiman Fletcher. Fletcher, a friend and senior Treasury Department official, was one of the other men of the cell. Fearing for his future, and arguing that Gelman's testimony was also "chock full of lies", Fletcher convinces Leffingwell to fight back. Returning to the committee, Leffingwell presents evidence showing that Gelman had been fired after suffering a breakdown, and that Leffingwell assisted Gelman in getting a job with the Treasury Department. He also presents proof that Gelman had never been one of Leffingwell's students, and that the location that Gelman identified as the cell's headquarters has been a firehouse for over 50 years. Gelman wilts as his past is revealed, and withdraws his now discredited testimony.

After the committee, Leffingwell meets with the President, confessing that Gelman has actually testified truthfully about Leffingwell's communist past, and that it he himself committed perjury. Leffingwell asks the President to withdraw his nomination, knowing that his own withdrawal would amount to a confession. The President refuses.

Incensed at Leffingwell's defense at the committee hearing, Cooley investigates Gelman's records at the Treasury Department, which reveal that Gelman was able to get his Treasury Department job with the help of Hardiman Fletcher. Realizing that Fletcher had to have been one of the other members of the Leffingwell's communist cell, Cooley forces Fletcher to confess to Anderson, who in turn tells Munson. Despite personal lobbying by the President, Anderson insists that the White House withdraw the nomination due to Leffingwell's perjury or he will subpoena Fletcher to testify. The President angrily refuses, but Munson admits that the White House will soon have to nominate another candidate. Anderson delays his committee's report on Leffingwell but the President sends Fletcher out of the country, angering the senator.

Anderson and his wife receive anonymous phone calls, apparently made by men working for Van Ackerman, warning Anderson against blocking Leffingwell, and that they can reveal information about his past with "Ray" in Hawaii. A worried Anderson visits a fellow Army veteran, Ray Shaff, in New York. Shaff admits that he sold evidence of a past homosexual relationship between the two. Anderson flies back to Washington, visibly distraught. Hudson, also on the plane, and knowing nothing about Ray Shaff, attempts to counsel Anderson, but to no avail. Anderson returns to his office and commits suicide.

Hudson reveals his meeting with Anderson to Munson, and the two confront the President about the blackmailing of Anderson. Both clearly suspect Van Ackerman. Munson warns the President that suspicion will likely point towards him as well, and advises the President to withdraw Leffingwell's nomination. The President denies knowledge of any blackmail. Moreover, he refuses to withdraw Leffingwell's nomination, telling Munson that the President's concentrated power always makes him a target for suspicion. Dismissing Hudson, the President confides to Munson that he is dying and that Leffingwell's confirmation is vital because Hudson won't be able to carry on the President's policies after he's gone.

Returning to the Senate chamber, Munson confronts Cooley, scolding him for opposing the nominee but not exposing Fletcher, forcing Anderson to bear the pressure alone. Anderson's death, nonetheless, permits the subcommittee and the Foreign Relations Committee to proceed with the nomination. Both report favorably to the full Senate.

In the Senate Chamber Cooley apologizes for his "vindictiveness". While he will vote against Leffingwell and his "alien voice", the senator will not ask others to follow. Munson, moved by Cooley's action, cites the "tragic circumstances" surrounding the confirmation. Although the majority leader will vote for Leffingwell, he will permit a conscience vote from others. Hudson's quorum call and the majority leader's refusal to yield the floor prevent Van Ackerman from speaking until Munson asks for the "Yeas and Nays", ending debate. Off the record, Munson confronts Van Ackerman with his suspicions of blackmail, telling Van Ackerman that the only reason he wouldn't move to have the senate censure and expel him is that that would mean publicizing Anderson's secret past. In shame, Van Ackerman leaves the chamber before the vote.

As votes are taken, yeas for Munson's slightly edge out the opposition, Lafe Smith, embittered by Brig Anderson's suicide, votes against Leffingwell. With Van Ackerman having left the chamber before the vote – a tie becomes more likely. Munson advises Hudson that as Vice President, he may need to break the tie in the nominee's favor. Following the vote from the Oval Office, the President collapses. As the vote continues, Secret Service agents enter the Capitol building, and converge on the Senate chamber. Sitting silently during the vote, Hudson receives a written message from the Senate Chaplain. As Munson expected, the vote ends in a tie. Unexpectedly, Hudson announces that he will not break the tie, causing the nomination to fail. Hudson then reveals that the President died during the vote. As he leaves with the Secret Service, Hudson apologizes to Munson for the vote, telling the Senator that as President, he wants to choose his own Secretary of State. Munson assures Hudson that he'll do what he can for Leffingwell's nominee. The film ends as Munson makes a motion to adjourn due to the former president's death.

Cast

Note

Production

Many scenes were filmed at real locations in Washington D.C., including the Capitol, the canteen of the Treasury Building, the Washington Monument and the Crystal Room of the Sheraton Carlton Hotel.[3]

Preminger offered Martin Luther King Jr. a cameo role as a U.S. Senator from Georgia,[4] although there were no serving African-American Senators at the time. King reportedly gave the offer serious consideration but eventually turned it down, feeling that it might cause hostility and hurt the civil rights movement.[5]

Former Vice President Richard Nixon was offered the role of the Vice President, but refused and pointed out some "glaring and obvious" errors in the script, presumably including the critical fact that under Article II of the U.S. Constitution, the Vice President automatically assumes the office of the president upon the president's death; in Advise & Consent, the new president is no longer president of the Senate, and therefore has no power to cast a tie-breaking vote.[6] However, after learning of the President's death during the vote, the new President carefully says "the Vice President" will not cast a vote (and a tie vote defeats the motion).

Advise & Consent was one of a sequence of Preminger films that challenged both the Motion Picture Association of America's Production Code and the Hollywood blacklist. It pushed censorship boundaries with its depiction of a married senator who is being blackmailed over a wartime homosexual affair, and was the first mainstream American movie after World War II to show a gay bar.[4] Preminger confronted the blacklist by casting left-wing actors Will Geer[7] and Burgess Meredith.[8] It was the first of five films in which Preminger cast Meredith.

It also marked the screen comeback of Gene Tierney, whose breakthrough to major stardom came in Preminger's 1944 film Laura. Tierney had withdrawn from acting for several years because of her ongoing struggle with bipolar disorder. Advise & Consent was the last of four films she made for Preminger and one of her last major film roles.

Actress Betty White (best known for her later roles in the sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls), made her film debut in Advise & Consent, appearing in one scene as a young senator from Kansas.[9]

Henry Fonda's character Leffingwell was seen as drawing particularly on real-life State Department official (and Soviet spy) Alger Hiss.[10][11][12]

It was Charles Laughton's last film; he was suffering from cancer during filming, and died six months after the film's release. There was genuine lingering animosity between him and Fonda, stemming from his having directed Fonda in the 1954 Broadway production of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, during which production, Fonda had insulted Laughton, and made sneering reference to his homosexuality, according to Elsa Lanchester and others.

Meredith's character draws on real-life Soviet spy (and, later, apostate Communist) Whittaker Chambers.

Peter Lawford was John F. Kennedy's brother-in-law when the story was filmed. He plays Lafe Smith, identified as a senator from Rhode Island (and modeled on Kennedy), although in Drury's book the character represents Iowa.

It should be noted that the Vice President was riding on a civilian airliner returning from New York City with the stricken senator from Utah. It was not the custom at the time for the Vice President to have a special plane as he does today.

Critical reception

The staff of Variety liked the acting but believed the screenplay was problematic. They wrote, "As interpreted by producer-director Otto Preminger and scripter Wendell Mayes, Advise and Consent is intermittently well dialogued and too talky, and, strangely, arrested in its development and illogical… Preminger has endowed his production with wholly capable performers… The characterizations come through with fine clarity."[13]

The film critic for The New York Times, Bosley Crowther, did not like the contrived storyline of the script, and he wrote, "Without even giving the appearance of trying to be accurate and fair about the existence of a reasonable balance of good men and rogues in government, Mr. Preminger and Wendell Mayes, his writer, taking their cue from Mr. Drury's book, have loaded their drama with rascals to show the types in Washington." Crowther also was bothered by the use of the "homosexual affair." He wrote, "It is in this latter complication that the nature of the drama is finally exposed for the deliberately scandalous, sensational and caustic thing it is. Mr. Preminger has his character go through a lurid and seamy encounter with his old friend before cutting his throat, an act that seems unrealistic, except as a splashy high point for the film."[14]

The Academy Film Archive preserved Advise & Consent in 2007.[15]

Awards and honors

Wins

Nominations

See also

References

  1. ↑ Harrison's Reports film review; June 9, 1962, page 86.
  2. ↑ Advise and Consent at the Internet Movie Database.
  3. ↑ IMDb – Advise and Consent – Locations
  4. 1 2 Holm, D.K. Advise and Consent Review. The DVD Journal 2005
  5. ↑ IMDb – Advise and Consent – Trivia
  6. ↑ Alan Schroeder, Celebrity-in-Chief", p. 293
  7. ↑ IMDb – Will Geer – Biography
  8. ↑ Burgess Meredith web site. Last accessed: November 29, 2009.
  9. ↑ Betty White at the Internet Movie Database.
  10. ↑ Rich, Frank (15 May 2005). "Just How Gay Is the Right?". New York Times. Retrieved 13 February 2013.
  11. ↑ Kaplan, Roger (1 October 1999). "Allen Drury and the Washington Novel". Hoover Institution. Retrieved 13 February 2013.
  12. ↑ Ringle, Ken (4 September 1998). "Allen Drury, Father Of the D.C. Drama". Washington Post. Retrieved 13 February 2013.
  13. ↑ Advise and Consent Review. Variety June 1962.
  14. ↑ Crowther, Bosley. Advise and Consent (1962) Review. The New York Times June 7, 1962.
  15. ↑ "Preserved Projects". Academy Film Archive.
  16. ↑ "Festival de Cannes: Advise and Consent". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-02-22.

External links

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