George Clooneyโs political drama, The Ides of March, newly released on DVD, is the latest in a long line of films dealing with American political campaigns.
A timely film, it centers on a fictitious campaign in which dirty tricks abound. Ryan Gosling is the idealistic staffer for George Clooney as a sitting Governor seeking his partyโs Presidential nomination. Second in command to Clooneyโs veteran campaign manager, Philip Seymour Hoffman, he is tempted to join the opposition when made an offer by Hoffmanโs counterpart, Paul Giamatti. An untimely death and the threat of a scandal loom large in the resolution of the plot.
Although the film really offers nothing new, itโs well acted and worth seeing for the performance alone. Itโs available on both DVD and Blu-ray from Sony.
Among past hits concerning U.S. political campaigns now available on DVD are such films as Abe Lincoln in Illinois; State of the Union; All the Kingโs Men; The Last Hurrah; Sunrise at Campobello; Advise and Consent; The Best Man; The Candidate; All the Presidentโs Men and Milk.
Raymond Massey was so into his role as Abraham Lincoln in Broadwayโs Abe Lincoln in Illinois that he famously signed autographs during the run of the show as the 16th President rather than as himself. No wonder then that he is so authentic in his Oscar nominated performance in the 1940 film that he was asked to play the character in numerous subsequent films and TV presentations.
One of the highlights of the film is the Lincoln-Douglas debates between Masseyโs Lincoln and Gene Lockhartโs Douglas. Ruth Gordon also registers strongly as Mary Todd Lincoln.
One of the most authentic film biographies, itโs available from the Warner Archive.
Claudette Colbertโs health issues forced her out of Frank Capraโs 1948 film, State of the Union, allowing Katharine Hepburn to star opposite Spencer Tracy in what became their fifth film together.
Tracy is being recruited for the Presidency by a conglomerate of special interests including Angela Lansburyโs sophisticated newspaper publisher who becomes Hepburnโs rivals for husband Tracyโs affections.
Although not one of Capraโs or Hepburn-Tracyโs best, it is a notable film primarily for Lansburyโs scintillating performance as they โother womanโ, made when she was just 22 years old.
Itโs available on DVD from Universal.
Based on Robert Penn Warrenโs Pulitzer Prize winning novel, 1949โs Best Picture Oscar winner, All the Kingโs Men, is a thinly disguised biography of Louisianaโs notorious governor Huey P. Long. Broderick Crawford had his greatest screen role in his Oscar winning portrayal of the power hungry politician, renamed Willie Stark in the novel and film. Mercedes McCambridge, another Oscar winner, makes a startling screen debut as his loyal secretary. The film features numerous political campaigns, all of them quite nasty.
Although the film doesnโt seem as powerful to modern audiences as it did in its day itโs still worth seeking out and is much more fascinating than its recent remake. Itโs available on DVD from Columbia.
John Fordโs Irish humor is in abundance inThe Last Hurrah, his 1958 film of Edwin OโConnorโs marvelous 1956 novel about the long-time mayor of a fictional New England city, obviously meant to be Boston.
A suspension of disbelief is necessary to accept that Spencer Tracy, the mayor, Pat OโBrien and James Gleason, his cronies, and Donald Crisp, the cityโs Roman Catholic Cardinal, were boys together. Tracy, born in 1900 and OโBrien, born in 1899, were boyhood friends in real life, but Gleason and Crisp were eighteen years their senior, both having been born in 1882. Gleason was OโBrienโs, and later Tracyโs, mentor in real life. Nevertheless it works, as do the performances of Jeffrey Hunter as Tracyโs nephew; Basil Rathbone and John Carradine as members of the cityโs elite and marvelous Jane Darwell as an old lady who shows up at everyoneโs wake talking about how good the deceased looks.
The film, which is about Tracyโs characterโs last election, is a treasure from start to finish and is available on DVD from Columbia.
The emphasis in 1960โs Sunrise at Campobello is on Franklin Rooseveltโs recovery from polio, but the film ends with him standing at the podium introducing Al Smith, the Democratic Partyโs candidate for President in 1928 four years before Roosevelt ran himself. Ralph Bellamy, who had played Tracyโs role in the Broadway production of State of the Union this time gets to repeat his Tony award winning portrayal of FDR while Greer Garson received her seventh Oscar nomination for essaying the role of Eleanor Roosevelt. Itโs a well-made film and definitely should be seen for those two great starring performances.
Itโs available from the Warner Archive.
Allen Druryโs 1959 novel, Advise and Consent was the last number one bestseller of its day to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize as the yearโs best novel. Otto Premingerโs 1962 film is a faithful transcription of the novel about a beleaguered U.S. Presidentโs attempt to have his choice for Secretary of State approved. The superlative cast includes Henry Fonda as the candidate; Walter Pidgeon as the Senate majority leader; Charles Laughton as a wily Southern senator; Don Murray as a naรฏve new Senator; Franchot Tone as the President; Lew Ayres as the Vice President and Gene Tierney as a Washington hostess. The very British Laughton, who died in December of the year of the filmโs release, would have been amused by his posthumous Bafta nomination for โBest Foreign Actorโ.
The film is available on DVD from Warner Bros.
Fonda is back, this time as a Presidential candidate with Cliff Robertson as his chief rival in a brokered convention in 1964โs The Best Man. Lee Tracy returns to the screen for the first time in fifteen years and steals the show as a cantankerous former President obviously modeled after Harry Truman, receiving an Oscar nomination for his efforts in this trenchant adaptation of Gore Vidalโs play. Ann Sothern also manages to steal a few scenes of her own as a loquacious party-giver.
Itโs available from MGMโs movies-on-demand.
Modern politics are mercilessly tweaked in 1972โs The Candidate which received an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Robert Redford has the title role as the resistant at first U.S. Senate candidate from California. Still pertinent today, itโs available on DVD from Warner Bros.
Redford and Dustin Hoffman are unforgettable as Woodward and Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters who uncovered the details of the Watergate scandal that toppled President Nixon in 1976โs All the Presidentโs Men. Jason Robards as Post editor Sam Bradlee is the standout in a remarkable supporting cast for which he won a richly deserved Oscar as the yearโs Best Supporting Actor.
Although the story is well known, how they got it still makes for a riveting suspense-filled drama and is a great sit-through no matter how many times youโve seen it. Itโs available on DVD and Blu-ray from Warner Bros.
More recent history, albeit still history from more than thirty years ago, is recounted in Gus Van Santโs 2008 film, Milk, for which Sean Penn won his second Best Actor Oscar as Harvey Milk, Californiaโs first openly gay politician. The film effortlessly swings back and forth between Milkโs personal life and his political activism, ending in his well-publicized assassination as well as that of San Franciscoโs mayor at the hand of a fellow City Council member. Josh Brolin, James Franco, Emile Hirsch and Diego Luna also excel. Itโs available on DVD and Blu-ray from Universal.
This weekโs new DVD releases include the long-awaited first official U.S. release of Wings, the first Oscar winner, as well as the Blu-ray debuts of three of Alfred Hitchcockโs best, Rebecca; Spellbound and Notorious and two of Woody Allenโs best, Annie Hall and Manhattan.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.