Ridiculously entertaining Wash, DC meller (ailing Pres tries to ram a new Sec. Of State thru congress) with an All-Star cast and plenty of tasty bits for them to chew on. (The famous faces also help in keeping the multiple plotlines clear.) Otto Preminger was on a "mise-en-scene" high when this was made and it's a constant pleasure just watching the matchless WideScreen compositions & camera moves roll by. Wendell Mayes’ script over-simplifies motives, but there's clever deviousness in his use of boilerplate patriotic puffery. And the narrative scaffolding, with Henry Fonda’s central character washing out of the picture, is unusually sophisticated. It's nice to see Peter Lawford keeping up with all those big guns (Fonda, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone, Burgess Meredith, wonderful Paul Ford, Walter Pigeon, George Grizzard, et al), and Laughton’s vocal delivery at the climax, "Something’s haa...appened," is one of the all-time great line readings.
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