State of the Union

The aircraft industrialist Grant Matthews is urged to run for President. The people making the offer picked him for his honesty, and as the campaign advances that honesty is the first thing spent. At the same time his marriage to Mary has broken down, and standing together on a platform requires them to pretend otherwise. Frank Capra's film is adapted from the Pulitzer-winning stage play by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse, the same pair who wrote Life with Father. Capra keeps his habit of approaching politics through personal integrity, but the result here is bleaker: the system nearly succeeds in bending its hero. Spencer Tracy plays the candidate and Katharine Hepburn his wife. Angela Lansbury, as a newspaper owner, is the hardest figure in the film, with Van Johnson and Adolphe Menjou alongside. It was among the biggest earners of 1948. Who it's for: Viewers who like classic Hollywood political comedy and the Tracy and Hepburn pairing. Who it's not for: It is dialogue-heavy and long, and the stage origins show through in places. Capra's optimism still arrives in the final stretch.