|
|
| STATE OF THE UNION (1948) |
A Liberty Film Production
A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture
B&W, 124 minutes
|
|
|
|
CAST
Grant Matthews: Spencer Tracy
Mary Matthews: Katharine Hepburn
Spike McManus: Van Johnson
Kay Thorndyke: Angela Lansbury
Jim Conover: Adolphe Menjou
Sam Thorndyke: Lewis Stone
Sam Parrish: Howard Smith
Lulubelle Alexander: Maidel Turner
Judge Alexander: Raymond Walburn
Bill Hardy: Charles Dingle
Grace Orval Draper: Florence Auer
Senator Lauerback: Pierre Watkin
Norah: Margaret Hamilton
Buck: Irving Bacon
Joyce: Patti Brady
Grant, Jr.: George Nokes
Bellboy: Carl Switzer
Barber: Tom Pedi
Waiter: Tom Fadden
Blink Moran: Charles Lane
Leith: Art Baker
Jenny: Rhea Mitchell
First Reporter: Arthur O'Connell
Blonde Girl: Marion Martin
Wrestler: Tor Johnson
Senator: Stanley Andrews
Pilot: Dave Willock
Politician: Russell Meeker
Joe Crandall: Frank L. Clarke
Rusty Miller: David Clarke
Broder: Dell Henderson
Bradbury: Edwin Cooper
Crump: Davison Clark
Josephs: Francis Pierlot
Editor: Brandon Beach
|
 |
CREDITS
Director: Frank Capra
Producer: Frank Capra
Associate Producer: Anthony Veiller
Scenarists: Anthony Veiller, Myles Connolly
Based on the Play by: Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse
Photographer: George J. Folsey
Art Director: Cedric Gibbons
Associate Art Director: Urie McCleary
Set Decorator: Emile Kuri
Editor: William Hornbeck
Sound Recorder: Douglas Shearer
Musical Score: Victor Young
Costumer: Irene
Special Effects: A. Arnold Gillespie
Assistant Director: Arthur S. Black Jr.
|
|
|
|
|
SYNOPSIS
Mary Matthews joins her estranged husband-candidate Grant to bolster his political chances for the Republican nomination by pretending they enjoy a happy marriage. Pushed by people like Kay Thorndyke, a shrewd newspaperman's daughter, who also loves him, and Jim Conover, a sharp old-line politician, Grant gradually sacrifices all of his principles in favor of his "White House fever."
|
|
|
|
|
|
CRITIQUES
"When State of the Union most closely follows the Lindsay-Crouse play from which it derives, it is a fairly enjoyable business, but when it lights out on its own, it becomes a sad spectacle. Still, Mr. Tracy is often persuasive, and Katharine Hepburn, as his wife, manages to say as if she meant them such lines as 'Grant likes to get up on the mountains and slap the hurricanes down.'"
- John McCarten, The New Yorker, 1948
"Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in a large, expensive political melodrama with satirical and romantic overtones, based on the play by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, and directed by Frank Capra. Tracy is the Republican candidate for the Presidency, and Hepburn is his estranged wife, who agrees to come home for appearance' sake to help him win the election. It's a shallow but generally entertaining show, with lots of devious characters (such as Angela Lansbury and Adolphe Menjou) doing dirty deeds. Hepburn is wasted in her pillar-of-rectitude role, but she's still a dervish of a performer, and more fun to watch than just about anybody else who might have played it. Van Johnson, Lewis Stone, Raymond Walburn, and Charles Dingle are in the cast, along with such troupers as Marion Martin and Tom Pedi. The ending has the Capra sentimentality familiar from the 30s: the little people always know the truth - they can spot a phony or a sellout, and they know when a man is on the level."
- Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
"A wheezy populist parable from Frank Capra's declining years. Spencer Tracy is running for national office, playing along with a group of questionable backers (led by Angela Lansbury) until wife Katharine Hepburn convinces him to stand up for his principles. The public humiliation scene - always an integral part of Capra's comedies - seems unusually sadistic this time, and most of the gags are drowned by the pompous political sermonizing. A footnote to the Hepburn-Tracy myth, better left to the hard-core."
- Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
"An over-long and over-emphatic political satire, in which Tracy's presidential candidate enlists the help of his estranged wife (Hepburn) in order to present a happy, respectable front to the voters (as always with Capra, seen as gullible little people, here in danger of being duped by corrupt industrialists). It's the usual Capra recipe of homespun sentiment and mindless optimism, enlivened a little by the performances (though one can only dream of what Cukor might have done with Hepburn and Tracy), but turned unusually bitter by Cold War cracks. Horribly dated, too."
- Geoff Andrew, Time Out
|
|
|
|
|
|
COMMENTARY TRACK
"Kate and Spencer may have hated Menjou, but it never showed. They were far too professional for that. However, I think some of the scenes when Kate collides with Menjou were played with unusual sharpness, even for her. They detested each other, but they played beautifully together. Here was Tracy, head of the 'Irish Mafia,' Menjou, head of the right-wingers, and Hepburn, the bell-ringer of the left. What a parlay! But it worked. I had to keep the reporters constantly off the set because they kept trying to make a controversial story about the clash between Hepburn and Menjou, and they kept trying to steam one up against the other."
- Frank Capra
"There are women and there are women - and then there is Kate. There are actresses and actresses - then there is Hepburn. A rare professional-amateur, acting is her hobby, her living, her love. She is as wedded to her vocation as a nun is to hers, and as competitive in acting as Sonja Henie was in skating. No clock-watching, no humbug, no sham temperament."
- Frank Capra
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Links are provided for information only, and are not endorsements. Please ensure that your player is compatible with the region or standard before purchase.
 Watch the trailer (WMV, 4.8 MB)
NTSC Standard:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson, Angela Lansbury
|
Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy
|
Angela Lansbury, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
|
Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Van Johnson, Angela Lansbury
|
Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy
|
Angela Lansbury, Katharine Hepburn
|
Adolphe Menjou, Katharine Hepburn
|
Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Adolphe Menjou
|
On the set: Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy
|
On the set: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
|
|
|
