All My Sons (1948)

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

What begins as a feel-good-human-interest story turns into a mystery, then a tragedy, and ultimately an outrage.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

All My Sons was Arthur Miller's second produced play and first commercial success winning Tony Awards for Best play, a Tony for stage director Elia Kazan and a run of 347 performances for the year of 1947. But when the film version was made the following year the House Un- American Activities Committee was taking a long hard look at All My Sons and all who were associated with it.Universal Studios which produced the film version did more than just expand a play that had a one set setting on stage, that set being the backyard of the Keller family. A whole lot of references to the capitalist system built on greed and the notion of anything for a profit were carefully eliminated. Miller's protagonist Joe Keller becomes a monstrous aberation as opposed to a symbol. That being said the adaption by Chester Erskine is still a fine drama with the polemics trimmed.Taking over from Ed Begley who did the role on stage is Edward G. Robinson as Joe Keller the owner of a factory which had shipped some bad engine parts for airplanes and caused the crash of several of them. Robinson managed to skate responsibility and the blame fell on his partner Frank Conroy who is now in prison. Incidentally one of the changes is that on stage Conroy's character is never seen only talked about. Here Burt Lancaster as Robinson's surviving son has a new scene with Conroy visiting him in prison to learn the truth about his father as doubts of his innocence have crept into his mind.The House UnAmerican Activities Committee was all over this work in their glory days of 1948. Arthur Miller was blacklisted, so was Mady Christians who played Mrs. Keller. Elia Kazan as we know turned friendly witness for the hounds of HUAC and Edward G. Robinson in the Fifties was what was termed 'gray listed'. Not forbidden to work per se, but studios were not giving A budget work any more and wouldn't until Cecil B. DeMille hired him for The Ten Commandments.In the end Robinson has to take responsibility for what he did and he does it in the most dramatic way possible. Aficionados of Arthur Miller's work will note the similarities between the Keller and the Loman families in Miller's next production Death Of A Salesman.Possibly one day we'll get another film version that is more true to what Arthur Miller had in mind. This will due until that happens.

. . . remain the five most bittersweet words in Illinois history, so it's natural for playwright Arthur Miller to set ALL MY SONS in the Land of Lincoln, and name his main character so he can rephrase "Shoeless" Joe Jackson's Black Sox Scandal epitaph as, "If you want to know, just ask Joe." Mr. Miller did not believe in the American Way (which is the main reason that his wife, Marilyn Monroe, dumped him). Arty campaigned against our credo, "See something, say something" with his hysterical story, THE CRUCIBLE. He denigrated the American Way (Amway, for short) which recognizes that "You cannot have your One Per Cent of Big Winners without enduring whining from the 99% of Deluded Losers" with his DEATH OF A SALESMAN "Willie Loman" character. Most glaringly, here in ALL MY SONS, it never crosses the mind of war profiteer "Joe Keller" to fix his warplane faulty cylinder peccadillo the C of C way, by making substantial "campaign contribution" bribes to the Party of Lincoln. Had he written off the cost of doing business with a well-placed $500 here and a thousand there, his patsy partner Herb Deever never would have been indicted in the first place. There would have been no scandal (and NO play or movie, either!). Pinko fellow traveler Arty's sad tales all rely upon his near-total ignorance of the American Way.

Enjoyed this Edward G. Robinson, where he plays the role of Joe Keller, a self made man who was poor and built up a very profitable business. Joe has a nice family he is very proud of and works hard to give them all the comforts he never had when he was a child growing up. During World War II Joe started bidding for government contracts and he was making good money until American pilots started having problems with their aircraft and many pilots were killed because of faulty parts. There is a big scandal and Joe Keller faces some very serious problems. Burt Lancaster, (Chris Keller) plays the role of one of Joe Keller's son's and he gives an outstanding supporting role in this film. After this airplane scandal, many people started saying, "Ask Joe Keller" what really happened. Edward G. put his heart and soul in his role and clearly showed his great professional acting abilities. This is a rather sad story, but true to life.

"All My Sons" was on Broadway in 1947 and starred Ed Begley Sr. and Arthur Kennedy. It was a timely play, as stories of wartime corruption had started to surface. Considered anticapitalist, it was suspected of being pro-Communist, so the film version is somewhat modified from the play. It stars Edward G. Robinson, Burt Lancaster, Mady Christians, Howard Duff, Louisa Horton, and Arlene Francis.Edward G. Robinson plays Joe, a man who worked hard to build his factory along with his partner, Herbert Deever. During the war, Deever was put on trial and found guilty of shipping cylinders from the factory that he knew were defective, which, when put into planes, caused the deaths of many war pilots. Though Deever claimed that Joe knew about the shipment, he wasn't believed - Joe was home sick at the time the cylinders were sent. Though the cloud remained over Joe, his business stayed highly successful, and he enjoyed a good place in the community. His son, Chris, however, comes home and announces that he wants to marry Deever's daughter Ann - who had been engaged to Chris' brother Larry, lost during the war and presumed dead. This fact has never been accepted by Chris and Larry's mother (Christians), and Joe is anxious that Chris put aside his idea of marrying Ann. Then Ann's attorney brother calls her from the prison where their father is incarcerated. He believes Joe is guilty and wants to reopen the case.This is a very well acted film that suffers from the miscasting of Edward G. Robinson. Robinson was a magnificent actor but is so obviously guilty, one wonders how he escaped prosecution, especially when one sees the sincerity of Herbert Deever when Chris visits him in prison. The Broadway star, Ed Begley Sr., had a friendly face and a good deal of warmth; Robinson is scrappy, defensive, plus he looks like a thug. It was more of a Spencer Tracy role - it called for a more lovable man that you want to believe, doubts to the contrary. Mady Christians, who was blacklisted, is very sympathetic as Joe's wife.Burt Lancaster insisted on this role; early on, he saw a career as a hunk beginning to take form and fought it. This led to interesting parts for him later on, and he made a great transition to character actor later in life. One can certainly understand the temptation to cast him as a hunk, with his broad shoulders and great build. Lancaster was the whole matinée idol package, right down to his full lips. Apparently the actor knew how handsome he was and was very competitive with other stars of that era, such as Tony Curtis, and like Curtis, he wanted more than romantic leads.Despite its flaws, All My Sons is a strong drama about a son breaking away from his father, the strength of denial, the importance of penance for one's acts and of moving on. A Chinese woman who saw "The Crucible" was certain that Arthur Miller had been in prison in China, so universal was the language of that play. That was Miller's gift, the ability to tell a deeply human story that, politics and social change aside, can still resonate today.