It all started with a phone call from the Senate Majority Leader, Bob Munson [Walter Pidgeon] to the President of the United States [Franchot Tone]. Munson complained to the president about not being given any advance warning about the appointment of Robert Leffingwell [Henry Fonda] to be Secretary of State. What we see during the phone conversation was the president taking copious amounts of medications – the message: the president is dying. Munson tells the president he’ll support the president’s nomination, but also tells him there will be problems from other senators, notably from Seabright Cooley [Charles Laughton], the senior senator from South Carolina. Cooley is also from the majority party, but he dislikes Leffingwell for personal and professional reasons. The biggest reason for Cooley’s opposition – he thinks Leffingwell is a Communist. There are other players in this drama. Senator Fred Van Ackerman [Don Murray] is a young, impatient, petulant, bomb-thrower from Wyoming who passionately supports Leffingwell. Senator Brig Anderson from Utah is undecided about Leffingwell. Lafe Smith [Peter Lawford] is a senator from Rhode Island. He’s towing the party line on Leffingwell’s nomination. Harley Hudson [Lew Ayres] is the Vice President, who knows he’s the VP only because he was a compromise candidate and doubts his own ability should he become President. Hudson is often ignored by the President [they hadn’t met in the last six weeks], who wanted Leffingwell confirmed because he didn’t think Hudson has what it takes to continue his foreign policy in case he should die and Harley succeed him.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee formed a sub-committee to vet Leffingwell’s nomination. Van Ackerman pestered Munson to head the subcommittee – Munson chose Anderson. Munson sees Van Ackerman for the grandstander that he is. During the course of the subcommittee hearing, Leffingwell was asked point-blank if he was a Communist. Leffingwell denied that he was. But Seeb Cooley wasn’t convinced. Cooley has an intelligence gathering capability that would make the CIA blush. He produced a surprise witness named Herbert Gelman [Burgess Meredith], who accused Leffingwell of being part of a Communist cell with two others at the University of Chicago, including a man using the false name of James Morton. He also found out about James Morton, who was really Hardiman Fletcher, a Treasury official who is an old acquaintance of Leffingwell from Chicago. Leffingwell easily discredited Gelman, but later told the President that he committed perjury before the committee. He said dallied with Communism in Chicago, but realized it wasn’t his thing and ended his relationship with Communists. He also told the President he was withdrawing his nomination, but the President refused.
The focus of the movie shifted to Brig Anderson. Cooley forced Fletcher to confess his involvement with Leffingwell to Anderson, who in turn tells Munson. The President finds out and lobbies Anderson hard for confirmation. Anderson finds himself with a moral dilemma – support the President even though he knows Leffingwell committed perjury, or summon Fletcher before the committee, an action that would kill Leffingwell’s nomination. To add to Anderson’s woes, he and his wife are receiving blackmail threats from an anonymous source. The threat – make sure Leffingwell’s nomination gets a positive recommendation, or lurid details about Anderson’s past will be made public. The blackmailers allude to a “Ray” in Hawaii. To add to even more to Anderson’s torment, the President sent Fletcher out of the country so he would be unavailable for testimony. All during this time, Van Ackerman made an ass of himself in his outspoken support for Leffingwell.
Anderson then made a quick flight to New York to see a friend from his Army days – Ray. He showed up at Ray’s last known address, the current occupant of which directed him to a nightclub. Anderson went to the nightclub and discovered it was a gay bar. After Anderson and Ray talked, Ray told him that he sold information about a homosexual affair that occurred while both were in the Army in Hawaii [and before Anderson was married]. Since Anderson had the information he was looking for, he flew back to Washington. On the flight he saw Vice President Hudson, who knew that Anderson had a problem but didn’t know its nature. Despite Hudson’s efforts to counsel Anderson, Anderson couldn’t reconcile his duty and his past. Anderson went to his office and slit his own throat.
Since information about Fletcher didn’t come to light while Anderson was alive, the subcommittee and the full Foreign Relations Committee reported a favorable recommendation for Leffingwell. Munson had a private meeting with Cooley. Munson was pissed because Cooley knew about Fletcher, but forced Anderson to bear the knowledge about him alone. Cooley offered to not ask other senators to join in his opposition to Leffingwell if Munson permitted a conscience vote on the nomination. During the course of debate in the full Senate, Cooley [having taken Munson’s word about leaving Anderson to twist slowly in the wind] apologized for his vindictiveness. He said he would still oppose Leffingwell, but would not encourage others to follow his lead. Munson reciprocated this by allowing senators to vote their conscience, meaning there would be no retribution if senators didn’t follow the “party line.” Van Ackerman was furious about this and wanted to filibuster the nomination. But the Vice President, as the presiding officer, asked for a quorum call. Munson refused to yield the floor for debate and then called for a roll call vote, which ended all debate. Van Ackerman became more livid with this tactic, but Munson quietly told him that were it not for concern for the privacy of Brig Anderson’s family, he would be censured and expelled from the Senate. Why? He was the one who was blackmailing Anderson. Upon hearing this news, Van Ackerman stomped out of the Senate without voting.
The vote was close. Munson alerted the Vice President that he’ll be needed to break what Munson thinks will be a tie vote. The President watched television coverage of the vote from the Oval Office. But during the vote, he dropped dead of a heart attack. As the voting continued, Secret Service agents entered the Senate chamber. The Senate Chaplain handed the Vice president a note about the President’s passing. The vote ended in a tie. The Vice President read aloud the results of the vote, announced the President died during the voting, and then announced he would not cast the tie-breaking vote. Since the vote to confirm Leffingwell ended in a tie, the Senate did not confirm him. While leaving the Senate chamber, the new President told Munson that he didn’t vote because he wanted to choose his own Secretary of State. As the longest serving member of the majority, Seeb Cooley was the President Pro Tempore. Once the President left the Senate chamber, Cooley took over as the presiding officer. Munson then asked for an adjournment to honor the now late President. And the movie ends…
This was a pretty good movie. It’s not as thrilling as The Manchurian Candidate, but it’s a keeper. It’s in the same league as Seven Days in May, which happens to be one of my favorites. I was surprised to see a movie from 1962 that highlighted a gay bar. Such things weren’t referred to in movies at that time. But Otto Preminger liked to push boundaries, and somehow he got this one past the censors. Gene Tierney was in this movie, her first in many years because she had battled bipolar disorder during the 50s. It was a shame that she didn’t have a bigger part than a Washington socialite. This would be Charles Laughton’s last movie. He died of cancer shortly after the film’s release. I highly recommend it!
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