DIRECTOR: Otto Preminger
BOTTOM LINE: Preminger always liked to be innovative, and he was with “Advice and Consent,” a beautifully written, acted, and directed movie. It also treats its gay subplot with great tenderness and respect, with the consistently superb (and underrated) Don Murray playing a gay senator who is being blackmailed as a new Secretary of State is going through the Senate Approval process. Preminger also likes to play tricks, and Anderson’s arch nemesis, a reactionary Southern senator, is played by gay actor Charles Laughton in his final film role.
Only those scenes with the awful George Gizzard prevent “Advice and Consent” from becoming a classic. He gives a master class in lousy acting while such luminaries as Henry Fonda, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, Walter Pidgeon, Lew Ayers, and Franchot Tone, in addition to Murray and Laughton, do some of the best work of their illustrious careers.
A minor deduction, too, for having to endure a sadly faded Gene Tierney as a Washington socialite whose sole purpose seems to be the thankless and needless task of explaining to the ladies who lunch (and the viewer) the difference between the House of Representatives and the Senate!
Based on the novel by Allan Drury.
STREAMING: Amazon Prime and Apple TV+
https://thebrownees.net/sixty-five-queer-films-made-under-the-hays-code-1934-1967
https://thebrownees.net/sixty-five-queer-films-made-under-the-hays-code-1934-1967-table-summary
https://thebrownees.net/fifty-two-post-hays-code-queer-films-released-in-the-decade-1967-1976
