For no particular reason, I was thinking about this movie when I was
thinking about Ava Gardner, but she's in Seven Days in May (1964). This
movie has Gene Tierney, gorgeous, still in her early 40s. She'd stepped
away from pictures for a few years. She plays a famous Washington
hostess named Dolly Harrison. Get it?

I like this movie. It's a drama set in the United States Senate, adapted
from the 1959 novel by Allen Drury. Drury was a political reporter in
the Washington bureau of the New York Times. The novel was a success, so
he quit reporting. Every character in the story is based on a real
Washington politician. You'll recognize everybody.

Directed by Otto Preminger who defies the Hays Commission with all sorts
of unapproved plot points.

A dying president (Franchot Tone) nominates Henry Fonda to be Secretary
of State. Fonda has a world view of appeasing the Commies that doesn't
sit well with the minority party nor the older farts in the majority
party, led by curmudgeonly Charles Laughton (in his final role). Walter
Pidgeon is the majority leader. Paul Ford, the whip. Pidgeon is an old colleague and great admirer of the president.

Gene Tierney shows up in the gallery with two foreign women (from
delegations) in tow explaining the American constitution to the
audience. She has to explain why the vice president is president of the
senate but not party of the Senate but he votes in the case of a tie.

She fails to explain why it's Dr. Kildare.

The evil George Grizzard lobbies to be the subcommittee chairman to push
the nomination through on behalf of the country, but Pidgeon hates his
immoral politics. Don Murray (Brigham Anderson of Utah, get it?) gets
the job instead and takes it seriously. Laughton isn't on the committee
but sits in to ask questions.

Laughton despises Fonda (in real life as well!) for a personal insult
years ago and will do anything to sabotage the nomination. There's
Communist intrigue as Fonda attended meetings in the '30s like everyone
else. He's accused by Burgess Meredith who is telling the truth but got
all his facts wrong so Fonda humiliates him. Fonda then confesses to the president that everything Meredith said was true and Fonda hid his past. There's another man who can confirm what Meredith said, also hiding his identity, now a big man at Treasury. Laughton figures it out and extorts
him into calling Don Murray, which forces Murray to hold up the
confirmation. The president tries to intimidate Murray into moving ahead
with the nomination but Murray stands up to him.

Meanwhile the evil Grizzard deploys the blackmail material he bought
from Murray's male lover back in army days in Hawaii! Murray is trying
to keep it secret from his wife Inga Swenson (the German housekeeper on Benson). She doesn't quite figure out what's going on till too late, but
at one point threatens to leave him and take their daughter. (In the
novel, he does confess to her. She's too shallow to support him.) He
heads to New York to confront the lover who betrayed him. In the brief
gay scene in New York, Murray speaks in a slightly higher pitched voice,
which is a clever bit of acting.

On the way back, in a scene that would horrify BTR1701, he takes a
shuttle flight to Washington. The vice president is on the flight flying
back from a speech he gave in New York. The vice president is so little regarded they make him fly commercial! He has no bodyguards.

Both the vice president and Charles Laughton try to get Murray to open
up about being blackmailed; both sincerely want to help him.

But Murray is so despondent he commits suicide in his Senate office. The
evil Grizzard gets the nomination reported favorably out of committee.

Pidgeon and Laughton have it out. Laughton then gives a speech of
contrition on the Senate floor and Pidgeon releases pledges.

It's going to be a tie! Will the vice president have to cast a vote?

The president, listening to the news, starts getting ill but ignores
symptoms. He dies before the roll call vote is finished. The vice
president is informed. He says he won't cast his vote as vice president.
I think technically he's no longer vice president despite not yet having
been sworn in. But he doesn't want Fonda, wants to appoint his own man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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