Matière à scandale

I've always been drawn to Van Johnson. I think he is a highly underrated actor. In Washington Story he shares double duty with Patricia Neal in making the flick work. It's an absorbing story concerning the machinations of the press and cynicism about Washington. An added plus is the fine work of character actor Louis Calhern, and also the choice to use Washington D. C. venues as the site for actual filming, giving it a "you are there" feeling. The script is very well written and maintains one's interest throughout. A nice touch is the cinematic bookends of the tour bus at the beginning and at the end. Not at the level of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," but a more than decent runner up.

Reporter Alice Kingsley (Patricia Neal) comes to Washington to do a story about the professional life of a congressman and is steered toward Congressman Gresham (Van Johnson) in Washington Story from 1952.

In actuality, Kingsley works for a tabloid, and she wants something juicy. Her attitude changes when he impresses her with his commitment and honesty.

Gresham is dealing with a problem- the constructive of a ship building facility, great for his constituents but with negative national implications. Voting against it will cost him the election.

Both Johnson and Neal are very good, Johnson with that great all-American boy presence and charm, and Neal, a wonderful actress with an earthy sexiness.

Entertaining and at least nowadays, total fiction.

Joe Gresham is a hardworking but taciturn congressman from Massachusetts. Reporter Alice Kingsley arrived in Washington, DC and was hired by Gilbert Nunnally, a tabloid columnist and cynic, who wanted Alice to expose a mature political scandal. Their goal was "No Comment Joe" Gresham, and she began to make up a story about him, telling him it would be a benign "personal profile." Gresham is struggling with real legislative dilemmas, weighing funding for shipbuilding facilities, which will benefit his own region and broader defense requirements. In order to get to know him better and dig up some appropriate dirt, Alice agrees to go to his hometown with Joe, where she meets his mother and observes him in his local situation. She finds that Gresham's healthy image does not seem to have any pretense, and is in a dilemma between her commission to write an "almighty" story and her growing appeal to Joe.

Washington Story promises to be a lot grittier than it ends up being, but this non-Red-scare movie nonetheless says a lot about America during the height of the Red scare (1952, actually). Van Johnson plays a hard-working, honest congressman who runs foul of a venomous columnist. The columnist sets an idealistic young reporter (Patricia Neal) on him to dig up, or manufacture, dirt. At first wary, the two grow -- naturally -- close, only to draw apart from unfounded suspicions. The appeal of Johnson and Neal make this a passable diversion, and there's some nice observation of the Georgetown cocktail-party circuit and of close friendships between ideologically incompatible colleagues, but the underlying message is never far from the surface: It's unpatriotic to talk against the "Government," and the press is nothing but a pack of subversive malcontents.

A young generation of American movie viewers cannot possibly appreciate the significance of Washington Story and the performance of Philip Ober as a Drew Pearson type columnist. But back when I was a lad, his was a name that struck fear in the hearts of many Washington politicians, mostly those of the conservative bent. His column from the capital was a weekly expose of all the crooked wheeling and dealing going on there, written in a Walter Winchell like vein. Like Philip Ober in this story, Pearson was a man both feared and despised in many quarters.

A lot of people thought Pearson was a crusading hero, but Washington Story doesn't make Ober anything like that. He's a raker of tabloid mud who's currently drawing a bead on young Congressman Van Johnson from Massachusetts. To do his dirty work Ober gets young Patricia Neal, an ambitious reporter herself, to get close to Johnson and dig up the top soil.

Of course as what usually happens in films like these Johnson and Neal fall for each other with unforeseen consequences for Ober. Louis Calhern is in the film as a wise older Congressman from the other party who befriends Johnson and helps steer him through the crisis. And Sidney Blackmer does a nice job as a lobbyist for the shipping industry whose pet bill is giving Johnson a lot of grief.

If you think Johnson and Neal sound a lot like James Stewart and Jean Arthur you'd be right. MGM filmed Washington Story inside the environs of the real Capitol Hill. It's not Mr. Smith with Jimmy Stewart fighting against a blind establishment, blind to the corruption in Stewart's state. Here the establishment is given a nice coat of whitewash. Remember this was the beginning of the Cold War when we were putting our best foot forward at all times. The villain here in fact is our press.

Or at least a part of it as represented by columnists like Drew Pearson. I have a funny feeling that the genesis of Washington Story came from someone at MGM running afoul of Pearson and getting back at him cinematically speaking.