Trivia / Advise & Consent

• All-Star Cast: Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Don Murray, Walter Pidgeon, Peter Lawford, Gene Tierney, Franchot Tone, Lew Ayres, Burgess Meredith, George Grizzard, Inga Swenson, Betty White...
• Multiple Endings: The novels have two "final installments" with drastically different outcomes. The first, Come Nineveh Come Tyre, features liberal Ted Jason becoming president after Orrin Knox's assassination, which leads to the dismantling of American democracy, Soviet victory in the Cold War and ultimately, the United States becoming a Soviet puppet state under Senator Van Ackerman. The second, The Promise of Joy, inverts the previous novel with Knox surviving and Ted Jason dying and his wife Ceil surviving and becoming Knox's U.N. Ambassador, while Van Ackerman dies as a result of an argument with his fellow extremist leaders in which he proposes assassinating the Vice President, Cullee Hamilton, who is a longtime - though estranged - friend of Le Gage Shelby, the Black Power leader, who murders Van Ackerman to protect his old friend, which triggers the collapse of Communism and a nuclear war between the USSR and China.
• Playing Against Type:
  • While not as drastic as some other examples from his career, Henry Fonda playing a duplicitous politician is definitely unexpected.
  • Paul Ford was mostly remembered for playing comedic blustery buffoons. While he does have a few comedic moments, his character Senate Majority Whip Stanley Danta is neither blustery nor a buffoon.
• What Could Have Been: The filmmakers approached several real political figures to appear in cameo roles, including Richard Nixon as the Vice President and Martin Luther King Jr. as a Senator from Georgia, but they declined. Nixon felt the novel portrayed the Senate inaccurately and King feared his appearance would generate negative publicity for the Civil Rights Movement.
• Write What You Know: Allen Drury covered the US Senate for the Associated Press during the '40s and drew heavily on these experiences for the novel. He published a nonfiction account of his experiences, entitled A Senate Journal 1943-45, after Advise and Consent became a hit.

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