Spencer Tracy is a joy as usual as dedicated journalist trying to get to the bottom of supposedly patriotic, hero-worshipped man who has died in a car accident. Hepburn plays the dead man's wife who is keeping something secret. It takes a while for it to emerge exactly what is going on, which perhaps works against it a little, and the ending is rushed, and compromised by the censors, but there's a great cast and it's skillfully directed with lots of pleasurable long takes.
Didn't know this cast - Audrey Christie (Hepburn's recommendation) as journalist buddy, Richard Whorf as secretary, Darryl Hickman a boy who's involvement in the story is more than first appears - all good. Hickman (later becoming an acting teacher) helped by Tracy particularly in a long head-to-head scene in which Tracy was 'there for me all the time', even when off camera filming the boy's close ups.
Begins with one of those great Vorkapich-influenced montages. Benefits from moody Bronislau Kaper score. Written by Donald Ogden Stewart from I.A.R. Wylie novel, timely post-Pearl Harbor, based perhaps on a real politician with suspect motives. Photographed by William Daniels, at MGM.
With: Margaret Wycherly (Kate's mother), Forrest Tucker (journalist), Frank Craven (doctor), Stephen McNally, Percy Kilbride (Fallen Angel), Donald Meek, Howard da Silva.
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