"The world needs honest men today more than it does presidents!"
Frank Capra built his reputation on trans-ideological appeals to Man's better nature, arguing that political, business and social interests were less important than the fate of the Little Guy. State of the Union (1948) rests on the peculiarly American idea that all we need to cut through gridlock and ideological stagnation is a tough-talking businessman who speaks his mind and doesn't care about political conventions. Boy, how little we've changed.The Republican Party heads into the 1948 Presidential campaign with the electoral field deadlocked. Conservative publisher Kay Thorndyke (Angela Lansbury) decides to push Grant Matthews (Spencer Tracy), an airplane tycoon (and not coincidentally, her lover) as presidential timber. Matthews warms to the idea, but is less than crazy about his campaign manager's (Van Johnson) suggestion that he reconcile with estranged wife Mary (Katharine Hepburn). Nonetheless the Matthews come together for Grant's sake, with Grant becoming a hit through radical statements of policy. When it actually seems like Grant might win, he starts modulating his rhetoric into more conventional platitudes.
State of the Union is a charming enough comedy, with Capra and screenwriters Myles Connolly and Anthony Vellier playing with familiar tropes of the genre. Where most political films are resolutely non-partisan, State not only identifies its protagonist's affiliation but references real politicos like Thomas Dewey, Robert Taft and Harold Stassen (before he became a quadrennial joke). The movie contrasts love scenes and banter between candidate and wife with scenes of party leaders plotting in smoke-filled rooms, until the two strands converge in uneasy compromise between principle and personal beliefs. And hence the movie's awkwardness.
Americans since George Washington's days have distrusted politicians, an idea which movies like State of the Union perpetuate. Howard Crouse and Howard Lindsay, authors of the original play, drew inspiration from Wendell Willkie, the corporate lawyer and businessman who captured the Republican nomination in 1940. Like Willkie, Matthews runs with a reckless disregard for political niceties, infuriating both business and labor interests and proposing a "One World" government that sounds alarmingly Communist. Also like Willkie, his poorly-hidden fling with a media magnate (Irita Van Doren in Willkie's case) threatens to sink his campaign.
It's all well and good with State, where the tycoon is a noble idealist with a charmingly boisterous, eccentric personality (even sky-diving like a proto-Richard Branson). In more recent history, we've seen similar anti-Establishment posturing used to toxic effect, not to uplift and unify but to divide and incite. Nor does the ability to run a business or speak "honestly" translate to presidential acumen. In its own way, State of the Union is less realistic than wild fantasies Wild in the Streets or Bulworth, assuming that Americans can discern between hard truths and unprincipled ravings.
Then again, Capra's worldview was always appealingly vague, something people of any persuasion could embrace. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Meet John Doe make similar appeals to idealism, casting career politicos as crooks that the noble Commoner transcends through his mere existence. While his heroes often espouse socialistic bromides, Capra was a conservative Republican who probably identified more with Matthews' traducers than him. Thus viewers can project their own ideologies onto the film's heroes, allowing hucksters, demagogues and orange hell-beasts to debase their message.
Since we're currently watching the Businessman-President idea implode in real time, it's hard to watch State of the Union without wincing. The cast is game: Tracy and Hepburn show all their usual fiery chemistry, Angela Lansbury makes a forbidding Republican matriarch, with Adolphe Menjou, Van Johnson and Margaret Hamilton giving fine supporting turns. As filmmaking, it's dependably slick. As a prescription to societal ills, oh brother.