Talk:State of the Union (film)

The True Story of State Of The Union

Each person reading this has made a mistake that hurt someone. As he was being sent to war in Europe, Wendell Willkie Esq. impulsively married a sweet and lovely girl, compared to which shrinking violets are as Whoopie Goldberg. Wendell was an extreme extrovert. His law degree was his ticket for a future in the Public Eye. He was masculine, handsome, energetic and flirtatious. Women were drawn to him. At some point the personality mismatch had to be faced, either with divorce or what is called "an understanding". The latter won out. Other than casual sexual encounters, Wendell's partners eventually included Clare Booth Luce and Mme. Chiang kai-Shek. His longest liaison, indeed his backup marriage, was with Manhattan-based Irita Van Dorn, while the Willkie family lived on Long Island.

New York playwrights Crouse and Lindsay knew the score. The titillatingly impossible became possible with Willkie's death in October 1944. SOTU opened in Manhattan 13 months later. Although an artistic success, the play humiliated the widow of Wendell and exposed their teenage son to "adult matters" between his parents. The play won a Pulitzer Prize for drama. With minor difficulty, the play can be still be found in bound books - and that case is important.

New Yorkers forget that one Manhattan Insider is the occupant of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Americans forget the reign of censorship terror promulgated in Hollywood after World War Two by the Catholic League of Decency. They demanded, and usually won, the right to read screen plays of films in early production. They made their objections known to producers. The movie, State Of The Union, which can still be seen today is less attributable to Frank Capra than it is to Francis Cardinal Spellman.

This assertion will anger many people. The fairest among them (as well as academic students of drama) should do as this writer did: watch the movie STOU on DVD/VHS while holding a copy of the Crouse and Lindsay stage play. Note each departure of the film from the play, omissions and insertions and convoluted plot change. By the time of the final scene, in which Spencer Tracy -at a house party- makes a sobbing, wrist-slashing, penitent, grovelling fool of himself to Ms. Hepburn, you may have hurled your last meal across the room.

Via a friend and intermediary, Angela Lansbury indicated that SHE had no idea whatsoever that the stage play was based upon real events, nor that the family of Wendell Willkie was exposed to shame and humiliation by the stage play and movie. She expressed her sincere regret.

As a footnote, when the Catholic League of Decency later attempted to re-write Miracle on 34th Street, making Maureen O'Hara a war widow rather than a divorcee, Producer Zanuck told them to perform a strange act. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.128.142.167 (talk) 06:40, 14 March 2010 (UTC)