Allen Drury’s 1959 novel, Advise and Consent, a political potboiler involving an attempt to blackmail a U.S. Senator with evidence of a consensual same-sex relationship in the Senator’s past, spent two years on the New York Times Best Sellers list and won the Pulitzer Prize. Otto Preminger’s 1962 film adaptation flaunted the production code by setting a scene in a gay bar and discussing the existence of gay couplings with relative candor. After you file your taxes, you can spend the evening of April 15 at AFI Silver Theatre taking in a 35mm print of Preminger’s film, its stacked cast led by Henry Fonda (playing a character widely believed to be based on Alger Hiss, a government official convicted of lying about his past membership in the Communist party in 1950) and featuring the film debut of Betty White. It also features far more location photography than most D.C.-set films, with scenes shot both inside the Capitol and the Russell Senate Office Building. After the movie, James Kirchick—author of last year’s Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington—will conduct a Q&A. Advise and Consent screens at 5:30 p.m. on April 15 at AFI Silver Theatre. silver.afi.com. $11–$13.
Advise & Consent
