![]() Elsewhere, the movie jumps around to sidebar stories (cowardly James MacArthur becomes a leader, wheeler-dealer Telly Savalas falls in love) while messing around with the historical facts of the battle. Shaw is certainly the most compelling thing about the film, especially in his philosophical debates with ambivalent underling Hans Christian Blech. Henry Fonda is an officer who predicts the assault, Robert Ryan and Dana Andrews are Army brass skeptical of his intuitions, and Robert Shaw is a German officer leading the tank attack. The German offensive in December 1944 became the basis for the all-star Hollywood Battle of the Bulge. Arm twisting and diplomatic hardball turns to perjury and blackmail, and a melodramatic twist gives this lesson in party politics a salacious soap opera dimension. The nomination process becomes the center ring of the political circus, with fidgety accuser Burgess Meredith in the spotlight devious, silver-tongued Charles Laughton cracking the whip as a southern senator with a grudge against Fonda and party whip Walter Pidgeon lining up votes behind the scenes. Preminger broke the blacklist with his previous film, Exodus, and it rings through in this drama about a controversial nominee for secretary of state (a confident, stately Henry Fonda) accused of being a Communist. Advise and Consent, an examination of deal making, party politics, and congressional diplomacy in Washington's legislative halls (based on the novel by Allen Drury), is one of his best. ![]() Otto Preminger expanded his vision in the 1960s with a whole series of ambitious, expansive dramas with huge casts and big themes. Actor: Henry Fonda, James Cagney, Robert Shaw, Vera Miles, William Powell ![]()
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