Wilson (1944 film)
Wilson | |
---|---|
Directed by | Henry King |
Written by | Lamar Trotti |
Produced by | Darryl F. Zanuck |
Starring | Charles Coburn Alexander Knox Geraldine Fitzgerald Thomas Mitchell Sir Cedric Hardwicke |
Cinematography | Leon Shamroy |
Edited by | Barbara McLean |
Music by | Alfred Newman |
Production company | 20th Century Fox |
Distributed by | Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation |
Release date |
|
Running time | 154 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $2,995,000[1] |
Box office | $2,000,000 (rentals)[2] |
Wilson is a 1944 American biographical film in Technicolor about the 28th American President Woodrow Wilson. It stars Charles Coburn, Alexander Knox, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Thomas Mitchell and Sir Cedric Hardwicke.
Plot
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The story begins in 1909, a time when Wilson (Alexander Knox) is best known as the head of Princeton University and the author of several books on the democratic process. Urged into running for Governor of New Jersey by the local political machine, Wilson soon proves that he is his own man, beholden to no one-and that he is dedicated to the truth at any cost.[3] As the U.S. is going through a progressive change in national politics and a split is developing in the opposing Republican Party, Woodrow Wilson is nominated in Baltimore and wins the Presidency in 1912. He pushes through a series of programs, called 'The New Freedom'. As World War I is breaking out in Europe in 1914, President Wilson tries to keep the U.S. neutral. At this same time, his wife Ellen dies of bright's disease. Overcome with grief and loneliness, the President, carries on. Early in 1915, at around the same time of the British trans-Atlantic passenger steamer Lusitania sinking, he meets Edith Bolling Galt, a Washington D.C. widow. A courtship develops and they find themselves in love and are married in December of 1915. The next year of 1916 brings The President to reelection to a second term, Many feel that he is going to be defeated , and the result is so close that the balance hangs of the returns from California , which goes for President Wilson. As, he starts his second term, the war finally comes to America , The Zimmerman note (Mexico and German alliance) is enough finally to put the U.S. in the war. The Yanks are coming and in 1918 victory is on the side of the Allies. President Wilson travels to France to have a hand in the Peace treaty, but many Republican senators, Henry Cabot Lodge, feel the President is leaving them out of the process and make a decision to kill whatever treaty he brings back or saddle it with reservations. President Wilson takes the issue to the people in a multi state tour, but his health is broken on the trip and days after returning to Washington, has a stroke Edith shields the President and screens visitors, and takes on a role that is controversial. But President Wilson recovers enough to make an orderly transition to President Warren G. Harding in 1921
Cast
- Alexander Knox as Woodrow Wilson
- Charles Coburn as Doctor Henry Holmes
- Ruth Nelson as Ellen Axson Wilson
- Geraldine Fitzgerald as Edith Bolling Galt
- Thomas Mitchell as Joseph Tumulty
- Cedric Hardwicke as Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
- Vincent Price as William Gibbs McAdoo
- Mary Anderson as Eleanor Wilson
- Ruth Ford as Margaret Wilson
- Sidney Blackmer as Josephus Daniels
- Stanley Ridges as Dr. Cary Grayson
- Eddie Foy Jr. as Eddie Foy
- Charles Halton as Colonel House
- Thurston Hall as Senator Edward H. "Big Ed" Jones
- Edwin Maxwell as William Jennings Bryan
- Marcel Dalio as Georges Clemenceau
- Clifford Brooke as David Lloyd George
- Tonio Selwart as Count von Bernstorff
- Francis X. Bushman as Bernard Baruch (uncredited)
- Antonio Filauri as Vittorio Orlando (uncredited)
Production history
The movie was written by Lamar Trotti and directed by Henry King. Wilson's daughter, Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, served as an informal counselor.[4] Journalist Ray Stannard Baker, an authority on Wilson served as an adviser.
Reception
Box Office
The film lost a reported $2 million for Fox.[5]
Critical
Though the film was mostly critically acclaimed[6] and won five Oscars (see below), it is also remembered for being a big financial failure at the box office.
Film critic Manny Farber was particularly unenthusiastic, calling the production "costly, tedious and impotent" while writing: "The effect of the movie is similar to the one produced by the sterile post-card albums you buy in railroad stations, which unfold like accordions and show you the points of interest in the city ... The producers must have known far more about the World War, the peace-making at Versailles, and Wilson himself, but that is kept out of the movie in the same way that slum sections are kept out of post-card albums ... About three-quarters of the way through, a large amount of actual newsreel from the first World War is run off and the strength of it makes the film that comes before and after seem comical."[7]
Awards
Despite the negative press and lackluster box office, it was still nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning five:
- Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color (Wiard Ihnen and Thomas Little)
- Best Cinematography, Color (Leon Shamroy)
- Best Film Editing (Barbara McLean)
- Best Sound, Recording (E. H. Hansen)
- Best Writing, Original Screenplay (Lamar Trotti)[8][9]
Its remaining nominations:
- Best Picture
- Best Director (Henry King)
- Best Actor in a Leading Role (Alexander Knox)
- Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Alfred Newman)
- Best Effects, Special Effects (Fred Sersen and Roger Heman Sr.)
The film was notable for giving character actor Alexander Knox (in the title role) one of his few chances to play the lead in a film.
American president Franklin D. Roosevelt showed the film at the September 1944 Second Quebec Conference with British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill. Churchill was unimpressed, however, leaving during the film to go to bed.
Despite being a pet project personally overseen by 20th Century Fox Studios' president Darryl F. Zanuck (who greatly admired Woodrow Wilson), its failure at the box office upset him to the point that for years he forbade his employees from mentioning the film in his presence.[9]
The film is sometimes shown on cable television, and was first broadcast on Turner Classic Movies on February 8, 2013.
Preservation
The Academy Film Archive preserved Wilson in 2006.[10]
References
- ^ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, p. 242, ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1.
- ^ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, p. 221, ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1.
- ^ http://www.allmovie.com/movie/wilson-v54699
- ^ Knock, Thomas J. "History with Lightning": The Forgotten Film Wilson. American Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 5 (Winter, 1976), pp. 523–543
- ^ "You Can Sell Almost Anything", Variety 20 March 1946
- ^ Codevilla, Angelo (2010-07-16) America's Ruling Class Archived 2011-02-25 at the Wayback Machine The American Spectator
- ^ Farner, Manny, The New Republic, August 14, 1944
- ^ "The 17th Academy Awards (1945) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-15.
- ^ a b Erickson, Hal (Rovi). "Wilson (1944) – Review Summary". The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-02-22.
- ^ "Preserved Projects". Academy Film Archive.
External links
- Wilson at the American Film Institute Catalog
- Wilson at IMDb
- Wilson at AllMovie
- Wilson at the TCM Movie Database
- 1944 films
- 1940s historical films
- 1940s biographical films
- American films
- American biographical films
- American historical films
- English-language films
- Films about Presidents of the United States
- Films shot in New Jersey
- Films shot in Washington, D.C.
- Films that won the Best Sound Mixing Academy Award
- Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award
- Films whose writer won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award
- Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
- Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
- 20th Century Fox films
- Films directed by Henry King
- Films produced by Darryl F. Zanuck
- Screenplays by Lamar Trotti
- Films scored by Alfred Newman
- Films set in the 1910s
- Cultural depictions of Woodrow Wilson
- Cultural depictions of Georges Clemenceau