Wilson (1944)

Director:

Henry King

Writer:

Lamar Trotti (screenplay)

Release Date:

August 1945 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama | History | Music | Romance

Tagline:

DRAMA AND SPECTACLE UNPARALLELED! ENTERTAINMENT UNDREAMED OF! 12,000 PLAYERS! 200 MIGHTY SCENES! TOLD TO THE TUNE OF 87 BELOVED SONGS! (original ad - all caps)

Plot:

A chronicle of the political career of US President Woodrow Wilson.

Plot Keywords:

Governor | New Jersey | League Of Nations | U.S. President | Blackface

Awards:

Won 5 Oscars. Another 1 win & 5 nominations

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Charles Coburn	...	Professor Henry Holmes
Geraldine Fitzgerald	...	Edith Bolling Galt
Thomas Mitchell	...	Joseph Tumulty
Ruth Nelson	...	Ellen Wilson
Cedric Hardwicke	...	Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (as Sir Cedric Hardwicke)
Vincent Price	...	William Gibbs McAdoo
William Eythe	...	George Felton
Mary Anderson	...	Eleanor Wilson
Ruth Ford	...	Margaret Wilson
Sidney Blackmer	...	Josephus Daniels
Madeleine Forbes	...	Jessie Wilson
Stanley Ridges	...	Dr. Cary Grayson
Eddie Foy Jr.	...	Eddie Foy
Charles Halton	...	Colonel House
Thurston Hall	...	Senator Edward H. 'Big Ed' Jones

Runtime:

154 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor) | Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | USA:Approved

Filming Locations:

20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The film, a pet project and labor of love for producer Darryl F. Zanuck, was a notorious box-office flop in its day, despite good reviews and several Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Actor, and despite the fact that when it played the Roxy in New York, it grossed more than any one movie had in a single theatre up to then. Zanuck was so heartbroken over the movie's failure that he forbade anyone who came into his presence to ever mention the film again.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: When Wilson is traveling the country promoting the League of Nations in 1919, cars and trucks from the 1940s are visible outside the train's windows.

Movie Connections:

Featured in History Brought to Life (1950)

Old Fashioned and Fun

"Wilson" is in the grand tradition of biopics of great men in which the subject has no significant faults and only a few foibles, and those serve mainly to humanize him. This is an extremely well-made movie on just about every level. It largely gets the history right, except where things have to be fudged to maintain the great man's image. One fact that's never mentioned, for example, is Wilson's reimposition of Jim Crow laws in the District of Columbia.

Perhaps most interesting is how the film handles Wilson's remarriage. His first wife died in 1914, and Wilson remarried in less than two years. His new wife was younger and more glamorous than the first Mrs. Wilson. The filmmakers include a scene in which the dying Mrs. Wilson tells her daughters that their father is a strong and good man, but that he needs the love of a woman. She thus exculpates Wilson from the unseemliness attendant with remarrying so quickly (though this haste was the subject of considerable gossip at the time).

"Wilson" is a well-made, entertaining and interesting period piece that provides some accurate history. Compare its treatment of President Wilson with the way in which presidents are depicted in film today -- Oliver Stone's "Nixon," for example. And can you imagine a widower president carrying on a romance in the White House in today's intolerant political and moral climate?