Review of Advise & Consent

Based on Allen Drury's 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, later adapted into a Broadway production, Advise & Consent offers the audience a glimpse behind the curtains in the U.S. Capitol, revealing "how the sausage is made." With Director Otto Preminger at the helm, he shows us the controlled chaos of what it takes to get a new Secretary of State nominee, played by Henry Fonda, into the President's Cabinet.
Preminger and the production had unique access to the Capitol, which gives us a sense of the scale of this hallowed building. Through a series of masterful long takes, tension is built, as our attention is directed from one area to another, which ends up making us feel like a fly on the wall.
Along with Fonda, we are introduced to the Senate Majority Leader, played by Walter Pidgeon, who is the point man with respect to getting a new Secretary of State. To counterbalance, we meet Senator Seab Cooley from South Carolina, who most certainly does NOT want Robert Leffingwell to get anywhere near that leadership position. Through the course of the movie, we see the back and forth between the Senators and begin to understand just why things take such a long time to get done.
Fans of American Treasure Betty White will be happy to see her as a Senator from Kansas and hold her own against the hot-headed Senator from Utah. Her performance is worth at least a 1/2 a star in my estimation.
All and all, I enjoyed Advise and Consent for Premminger's take on the source material, the location shoots around Washington, D.C., and some outstanding performances from all of the cast.