The Worst Film Ever

Simply A Masterpiece

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Producer: Frank Capra. A Liberty Films Production. Copyright 23 March 1948 by Liberty Films, Inc. An M-G-M picture, released through Loew's Inc. (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 22 April 1948. U.S. release: 30 April 1948. U.K. release: 4 October 1948. Australian release: 19 August 1949. 11,139 feet. 124 minutes. U.K. and Australian release title: The WORLD AND HIS WIFE.SYNOPSIS: "Liberal" aircraft tycoon Grant Matthews is touted as a dark horse contender for the Republican nomination in the upcoming Presidential campaign. Mary Matthews, estranged from her husband, is asked to join Grant on his cross-country platform-thumping tour, to quell rumors about his liaison with Kay Thorndyke, the newspaper publisher backing his campaign bid. NOTES: The play opened on 14 November 1945 at the Hudson and ran a most highly successful 765 performances. Ralph Bellamy, Ruth Hussey, Myron McCormick, Minor Watson and Kay Johnson starred. The play was directed by Bretaigne Windust for producer Leland Hayward.COMMENT: When Spencer Tracy is not handing us the "wonderful America for honest men" bit, this film is quite entertaining. A pity producer/director Frank Capra couldn't make virtue as attractive or interesting as the less savoury characters so well portrayed by Menjou, Lansbury, Dingle, Watkin, Turner, Smith, Walburn et al, who, of course, have all the best lines. One suspects most of these are lifted from the original play by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and that screenwriters Anthony Veiller (who also acted as Associate Producer) and Myles Connolly contributed most of the dull stuff spoken by Tracy and Hepburn as well as the irrelevant and utterly incredible business in the airplane. George J. Folsey's photography is far more attractive than the careless mis-spelling of his name on the film's credits would indicate.Despite the billing, it's actually Menjou's picture, not Tracy's. Nor Hepburn's. Menjou has all the memorable lines of caustic wit and delivers most of the trenchant satire. Tracy is stuck with all the Boys Town rhetoric and empty jingoism; whilst, Hepburn, making a late entrance, is the Voice of Conscience. That her voice is tiring and tiresome is not her fault. The part was originally tailored for Claudette Colbert with all the wit and snappy comebacks of the Broadway Mary removed. When Colbert walked out and Miss Hepburn was signed, there was no time to put all the crackle back into the part (not that Tracy minded this, as he had no wish whatever to be up-staged).

When State of the Union started, I was at the edge of my seat. Angela Lansbury, newspaper tycoon, has handpicked the next Republican candidate for president, and she sells the idea to Adolphe Menjou, a top political adviser, and Van Johnson, a campaign manager. The man she wants has no political background. He's a successful businessman and a millionaire, and he connects with the common man because he's not a typical politician. Sound familiar? Here's the even better part: It turns out Angela is having an affair with the candidate, and when his wife shows up to squelch infidelity rumors and promote a good family image, Angela sneaks into their bedroom and places her reading glasses on the nightstand, knowing the wife will find and question them. Exciting, isn't it? Well, that's as exciting as it gets. The rest of the film tries to show the dirtiness of politics, but to anyone who's ever paid attention to the political realm, it doesn't even scratch the surface. Spencer Tracy is cast as the likable, honest politician, but he comes across as neither. He seems angry and stupid, even though that's not how his character is written. Fredric March would have been a better casting choice, in my opinion. He pontificates and gets in his own way—and on the audience's nerves—while his wife, Katharine Hepburn pretends to argue but really always goes along with whatever the politicians tell her to do. Normally, she's a fantastic actress, but in this film, she rushes her lines and says them without much feeling. It felt like a rehearsal the actors didn't know was being filmed. She does say one funny line, though: "No woman could ever run for President. She'd have to admit to being over thirty-five!" Boring and corny to the very end, this is a movie to skip unless you're a die-hard Tracy-Hepburn fan. As for me, whenever I see them on screen together, I can't help but remember how mistreated Kate was. I don't think they're movie-magic, and I don't see sparks flying off the screen. I see an angry, arrogant man and his abused partner.DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, there's a scene in this movie that will not be your friend. When Spencer Tracy pilots his airplane, the camera swirls excessively and it will make you sick. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"

Sadly, politics haven't changed, and probably never will, in the intervening 61 years since this movie was made. As with most Capra movies, it's not hard to get the message, but that doesn't make it any less hard hitting. Also, as with most Capra movies, it allows the viewer to wonder "what if" if only for a couple of hours. All of the major actors are stellar, but then again, they were seldom anything but in most of their films. It was a little distracting to see Spencer Tracey looking down to apparently read some of his final speech, but the speech and the entire movie were very powerful. It should be required viewing for today's political science classes.

This political comedy wasn't a success and consequently it isn't revived much. It's based on a play and it shows. It's made up of 'scenes' and with one exception, (some hi-jinks involving airplanes), it's set mostly in one or two rooms, (in one scene the actors keep entering and exiting through doors to the left and right of the screen as if in a play). In some respects it represents the very pinacle of Capra-corn but by the time it was made audiences had grown tired of this kind of liberal chest-thumping. (Had it been made fifteen years earlier it would probably have been a huge success). And yet it is very well played and highly enjoyable and, on at least one occasion, it seems to be ahead of it's time. Maybe Tracy's vision of the future was as unpalatable to the American public of the period as Adolphe Menjou suggests it would be in the film. But if one is going to get slapped up the face with political sentiments aren't they better to come from the liberal left? The climatic scene may be preposterous, (I can't believe anyone on the verge of being elected President is going to turn down the job because of his wife's liberal conscience. Don't these people think things through?), but at least it's preposterous in a gooey, rose-tinted and embarasingly sincere way without an ounce of cynicism.Of course, Capra picked the most liberal, grand-standing actors on the planet to portray the potential President and his wife when he chose Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn and, of course, they're marvellous. They cut through all the goo and marshmallow stuff to get to the heart of their characters. You just wish at times they had better material to work with. As the unscroupulous, unfeeling newspaper woman with whom Tracy has been having an affair and who is doing all she can to put him into the White House, (and, therefore, vicariously herself), Angela Lansbury is terrific. She was still very young when she made this film but you would never know it and her performance here prefigures her work in "The Manchurian Candidate" some fourteen years later. And as Tracy's cynical young campaign manager, Van Johnson does the best acting of his career. In a just world both he and Lansbury would have been Oscar nominated.After the relative failure of this film, Capra's career began to wind down, (he only made four other films). Perhaps he felt that any change in direction at this stage would be a sell-out. At least he escaped with his integrity intact.