Nice effects though.

Instant Favorite.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Producer: Frank Capra. A Liberty Films Production. Copyright 23 March 1948 by Liberty Films, Inc. An M-G-M picture, released through Loew's Inc. (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 22 April 1948. U.S. release: 30 April 1948. U.K. release: 4 October 1948. Australian release: 19 August 1949. 11,139 feet. 124 minutes. U.K. and Australian release title: The WORLD AND HIS WIFE.SYNOPSIS: "Liberal" aircraft tycoon Grant Matthews is touted as a dark horse contender for the Republican nomination in the upcoming Presidential campaign. Mary Matthews, estranged from her husband, is asked to join Grant on his cross-country platform-thumping tour, to quell rumors about his liaison with Kay Thorndyke, the newspaper publisher backing his campaign bid. NOTES: The play opened on 14 November 1945 at the Hudson and ran a most highly successful 765 performances. Ralph Bellamy, Ruth Hussey, Myron McCormick, Minor Watson and Kay Johnson starred. The play was directed by Bretaigne Windust for producer Leland Hayward.COMMENT: When Spencer Tracy is not handing us the "wonderful America for honest men" bit, this film is quite entertaining. A pity producer/director Frank Capra couldn't make virtue as attractive or interesting as the less savoury characters so well portrayed by Menjou, Lansbury, Dingle, Watkin, Turner, Smith, Walburn et al, who, of course, have all the best lines. One suspects most of these are lifted from the original play by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and that screenwriters Anthony Veiller (who also acted as Associate Producer) and Myles Connolly contributed most of the dull stuff spoken by Tracy and Hepburn as well as the irrelevant and utterly incredible business in the airplane. George J. Folsey's photography is far more attractive than the careless mis-spelling of his name on the film's credits would indicate.Despite the billing, it's actually Menjou's picture, not Tracy's. Nor Hepburn's. Menjou has all the memorable lines of caustic wit and delivers most of the trenchant satire. Tracy is stuck with all the Boys Town rhetoric and empty jingoism; whilst, Hepburn, making a late entrance, is the Voice of Conscience. That her voice is tiring and tiresome is not her fault. The part was originally tailored for Claudette Colbert with all the wit and snappy comebacks of the Broadway Mary removed. When Colbert walked out and Miss Hepburn was signed, there was no time to put all the crackle back into the part (not that Tracy minded this, as he had no wish whatever to be up-staged).

This somewhat forgotten 1948 dramedy is not the undiscovered gem of the Tracy-Hepburn pairings, but the 2006 DVD provides an opportunity to take a look at the political corruption running rampant in Washington at the time, clearly as prescient now as it was relevant then. The subject is well suited to film-making legend Frank Capra, who made the classic "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" a decade earlier and echoes a similar theme of an honest man surrounded by those who tear at his ethics. Adapted by Anthony Veiller and Myles Connolly from a play by Russel Crouse and Howard Lindsay, the plot centers on Grant Matthews, a pulled-from-his-bootstraps industrialist who has not lost touch with the common folks, a quality seized upon by Machiavellian newspaper publisher Kay Thorndyke, who uses her considerable media power to shape him into a viable candidate for the presidency.Thorndyke also happens to be Matthews' lover, even though he is still married to stoic, disillusioned Mary, his estranged wife who has remained in the marriage not only for the sake of their two children but also in the dimming hope that he will come back to her. Initially, Matthews balks at the idea of becoming President, but he recognizes an ambition to improve the country. At the same time, Thorndyke and her cohort, proto-Karl Rove political adviser Jim Conover convince him to make compromising speeches to win the votes of powerful lobbies. If you know Capra films, you know how it will all turn out. The main problem I had with the film is the pacing and the relative inconsistency in tone. Much of the time, it feels truncated with little transition between scenes, and farcical moments are mixed with more serious ones in ways that make the film feel emotionally askew at times.The performances can't be faulted. Spencer Tracy is well cast as the plainspoken Matthews, while Katharine Hepburn lends her much-needed verve and snap to the cautiously hopeful Mary. All of 22 but looking far more commanding and mature, Angela Lansbury almost steals the picture as Kay, even though her character is so venal and humorless that it is hard not to hiss when she's on screen, especially with her dragon-lady cigarette holder. It's easy to see the future Mrs. Iselin in John Frankenheimer's "The Manchurian Candidate". Adolphe Menjou plays Conover in his typical blowhard manner, while Van Johnson is unctuous in a likable sort of way as reporter Spike McManus. Capra lays out his familiar flag-waving cornpone thickly here, sometimes quite effectively, but the attempts at slapstick humor are pretty laborious. This remains an interesting curio in his canon. The DVD provides a fairly clean print but has absolutely no extras, not even chapter stops.

What Frank Capra did here was take a stage script, assemble the finest actors available, add a couple of scenes not seen onstage, and deliver a thoroughly entertaining still politically-relevant showcase.Tracy and Hepburn, as always, are solid and fascinating. Did anybody ever "catch" Spencer Tracy "acting?" That's the advice Burt Reynolds said Spence gave him on acting: "Don't let 'em catch you at it." There, in seven words, is the most profound advice ever given to actors. And Tracy absolutely embodied it throughout his long career.The single "stagiest" moment in "State of the Union" is Tracy's long speech to the old man at the wrought-iron fence in front of the rear-projection White House. An utterly impossible catalogue of history's "heroes," fictional and non-, who "spiritually" inhabit the White House -- "that noble edifice." The speech is a mouthful and pedantic to boot. But somehow, Tracy manages to pull it off.Hepburn, as always, is thoroughly captivating, both as a performer and in the character. Yet, as always, there are moments you "catch" her acting. Say, in her "drunken" transition from laughter to tears in the broadcast sequence that concludes "State of the Union." Hepburn's best and bravest work, perhaps, was in "Long Day's Journey Into Night." Her silliest and phoniest? "Bringing Up Baby." (Yet even there, she's still delightful!) Who else in "State of the Union" do you catch "acting?" Van Johnson. Margaret Hamilton. Taken as "comic relief," however, they're fine -- in a stagy sort of overplayed way.Certainly not Angela Lansbury or Adolphe Menjou. Both fine actors who long understood the different demands for stage and film. And delivered.What's alarming is the shoddy "continuity" early on. Perhaps for budgetary reasons, Capra couldn't reshoot the initial scene in Kay Thorndyke's (Angela Lansbury's) office. Or perhaps the continuity girl was home sick that day. Or the actors' couldn't remember their positions from setup to setup. Or Capra didn't care.Whatever. Virtually every cut in that office scene finds the participants (except Tracy, tellingly) in significantly different postures than from a split-second ago. Lansbury leans back in her chair behind her desk. CUT: she's sitting forward, leaning over papers on her desk. Etc., etc. It's jarring and sloppy.The highlight, among many highlights, of "State of the Union" is the near-end entry of Judge and Lulubelle Alexander at the home-broadcast of Tracy's pre-election address to the nation. Played by Raymond Turner and Maidel Walburn. You don't catch them acting, either. Maidel Walburn is particularly impressive as the jolly matronly alcoholic wife of a Louisiana politician. Walburn is the very definition of "supporting actor" here. She and Hepburn play off each other with seeming spontaneity and obvious great humor.Amazingly, one knows more about "Lulubelle" from this brief sequence -- her background, her humor as self-protection, her shallowness, her heartbreak, her essential goodness, her need for alcohol -- than one knows about the backstories of either Spencer Tracy's or Katharine Hepburn's characters. And it's not in the writing. It's in Walburn's effortless performance.Then "State of the Union" devolves into a Capra-esquire feel-good ending featuring a crowd of extras singing "for-he's-a-jolly-good-fellow" bromides as the wife and children huddle for a closeup. Better done in "It's a Wonderful Life" because Christmas was thrown into the mix. But still effective. In a cheaply manipulative kind of way.Great scenes. Wonderful performers. A rare gem.And you still can't catch Spencer Tracy acting.

This is my favorite Tracy-Hepburn film and one of my favorite Frank Capra films. I recommend reading Capra's out-of-print biography, "The Name Above the Title" for the interesting story of the reaction to this film by official Washington in 1948.Quite reminiscent of "Meet John Doe," the story tests the character of a man against the political power-brokers who want to use him for their own purposes. Ideals battle pragmatism in ways that still ring true 50+ years later.Angela Landsbury is a wicked woman (can we call her a fem fa tale?) in an amazing performance foreshadowing her role in 1962's "Manchurian Candidate." Adolphe Menjou's sleazy political boss is about a greasy as they come.All in all there is nothing like a Capra film to make me what to stick to my principles and listen to the people who really love me. Add to Capra's theme of the inherent wisdom of the people this first rate group of actors and you have two hours of time well spent.