I saw this movie for the first time today. The veteran actors of Charles Laughton,Walter Pidgeon, Lew Ayres and Franchot Tone make this movie.
The are all substantive and wonderful especially Charles Laughton in his last role. I was surprised how wonderful this movie was - a great lesson in U.S. Government.
If I had a vote (I was only 15 when the movie was released),I would have lobbied to give Laughton a best actor Oscar (over the 1962 winner Gregory Peck). Sadly Laughton didn't even get a nomination.
shareCharles Laughton was always a joy to watch, but as his friend David Lean once said, he had a tendency to go over the top, and in truth, his performance in A&C was a bit hammy at times. You love watching him, but he did sometimes like to push a characterization for the fun of it.
Laughton didn't deserve an Oscar nomination for his role (and Gregory Peck did deserve his win for To Kill a Mockingbird) but what's surprising is that this film received not a single AA nomination for anyone or anything in any category. In my view, the actor who probably most deserved at least a nomination was Franchot Tone, as Best Supporting Actor for his subdued and subtle performance as the president. But it's amazing this film didn't at least get a nomination in some "lesser" Oscar category.
The cast is almost uniformly excellent, although George Grizzard is too frantic and Don Murray a bit too stiff to be thoroughly convincing.