Wilson

8/1/19442h 34m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ DRAMA AND SPECTACLE UNPARALLELED! ENTERTAINMENT UNDREAMED OF! 12,000 PLAYERS! 200 MIGHTY SCENES! TOLD TO THE TUNE OF 87 BELOVED SONGS! ~

Overview:

The political career of Woodrow Wilson is chronicled, beginning with his decision to leave his post at Princeton to run for Governor of New Jersey, and his subsequent ascent to the Presidency of the United States. During his terms in office, Wilson must deal with the death of his first wife, the onslaught of German hostilities leading to American involvement in the Great War, and his own country's reticence to join the League of Nations. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation in 2006.

Director:

Henry King

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$2,995,000.00

Revenue:

$2,000,000.00

Key words:

usa president
princeton university
biography
historical figure
1910s
1900s
woodrow wilson

Cast

Alexander Knox

~ as ~

Woodrow Wilson

Geraldine Fitzgerald

~ as ~

Edith Bolling Galt

Thomas Mitchell

~ as ~

Joseph Tumulty

Ruth Nelson

~ as ~

Ellen Wilson

Cedric Hardwicke

~ as ~

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge

Charles Coburn

~ as ~

Professor Henry Holmes

Vincent Price

~ as ~

William Gibbs McAdoo

William Eythe

~ as ~

George Felton

Mary Anderson

~ as ~

Eleanor Wilson

Ruth Ford

~ as ~

Margaret Wilson

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

CinemaSerf
Written 3 year(s) ago
6
Had they been contemporaries, one might be forgiven for thinking that Daryll F. Zanuck owed Woodrow Wilson quite a sum of money. The 28th President could hardly have written a more favourable biopic, had he penned it himself. Oscar nominated Alexander Knox is superbly cast, though, in this depiction of the rise of the academic, principled fellow to the White House. Insofar as history in concerned, however - it is pretty factually "loose", somewhat fanciful, and though an interesting assessment of America's leader during the latter stages of WWI - clearly a man of ideals and vision - the only thing it doesn't credit him with is the invention of the wheel. The production looks terrific. especially at the beginning when we are exposed to the hustings of his gubernatorial and then presidential campaigns, when the film is lively and energetic (assisted ably by Alfred Newman's score). Once ensconced in office, the pace slows to that of a snail in a bowl of treacle, and the melodrama of his rather tragic personal life ensures the story just becomes quite dull - more of a rose-tinted chronology. Brief interventions from Sir Cedric Hardwicke as arch-opponent Senator John Cabot Lodge help occasionally, but this is essentially a kindly, very long, retrospective on a man that is pretty much entirely intended for domestic, and sympathetic, consumption.