State of the Union (1948)

I didn't think I'd care to see a political comedy-drama on screen after getting so much of it in reality lately. But when Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, and 22-year-old Angela Lansbury are being directed by Frank Capra, the subject hardly matters to me.

There appears to be a double meaning to the title. The marriage of airplane industrialist Grant (Tracy) and Mary (Hepburn) Matthews is on the rocks, with Grant having a paramour in newspaper magnate heiress Kay Thorndyke (Lansbury). But Kay is willing to sacrifice her extramarital relationship for political sway as she taps Grant to run for president, which pretty much requires the apparent support of his wife. He warms up to the idea in light of his strong convictions, and so does Mary, despite his continual business-related proximity to Kay. The real trouble arises when his backers talk him into compromises to maximize his chance at election.

Also appearing are Van Johnson as the campaign manager, frequently the butt of a joke; Adolphe Menjou as the chief strategist; Raymond Walburn as a bumptious southern judge; and Maidel Turner as his heavily drinking wife, who brings out another side of Mary. Incidentally, the politics of Menjou and Hepburn clashed mightily. I think Capra did right to bar the press from the studio.

In case you're wondering, Grant runs on the GOP platform. Don't let that discourage you if you're liberal; he doesn't seem much like a typical modern Republican, and it's kind of a foregone conclusion that he doesn't beat Harry Truman. But the details hardly matter. One of the explicit points of the story is that the differences between parties are trivial where candidates are concerned.

Cynical? Perhaps. It does feel truer to life than usual for Capra, with less corruption than Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Personally, I don't agree with all of Grant's unencumbered ideals (e.g., a United States of the World), but I recognize the misfortune of watering down your message until you sound like anyone else -- and start to believe it. Not to mention the practice of demonizing a given demographic to drum up passion in another. The movie implies that backers exaggerate their importance in elections, so Grant would have at least as good a chance without compromise; I'm not so sure of that. If they're right, then I'm afraid the most effective president would have little choice but to lie.

Grant's predicament reminds me of both Citizen Kane and All the King's Men. Ironic that he's not the character with the admittedly biasing media at his disposal. Kay projects a stone-cold demeanor most of the time -- one of the few obvious exaggerations the film's major characters have to offer. I'm left to wonder how a woman like that wins the love/lust of so many men, especially Grant when he has Mary and their children.

You probably won't get a whole lot of laughs from SotU, but you should find it moving on its own terms. And of course, it's interesting to compare and contrast the political scenes of 1948 and the present.