Top Secret Affair
Encyclopedia
Top Secret Affair is a 1957
romantic comedy
film made by Carrollton Inc. and distributed by Warner Bros.
that starred Susan Hayward
and Kirk Douglas
. It was directed by H.C. Potter and produced by Martin Rackin and Milton Sperling
from a screenplay
by Roland Kibbee
and Allan Scott.
The plot is very loosely adapted from the 1951 novel Melville Goodwin, U.S.A. by John P. Marquand
, which had previously been adapted in 1952 for television's "Pulitzer Prize Playhouse." The film's credits state that it is "based on characters" in the book, rather than on the book itself.
Like the novel, the movie features a romance between a general named Melville Goodwin and a wealthy journalist named Dorothy "Dottie" Peale. But the storylines are drastically different in the details of the characters' romance and personalities. (In the novel, the affair is adulterous, but in the movie both parties are single.) Some minor characters' names from the book are also used in the movie, but with no particular fidelity to the originals.
The music score was by Roy Webb
, the cinematography by Stanley Cortez
and costume design by Charles LeMaire
.
The film co-stars Paul Stewart
and Jim Backus
. The original leads were to be Humphrey Bogart
and wife Lauren Bacall
, and they were filmed doing a wardrobe test in 1956. But Bogart's illness forced his withdrawal from the project, and Bacall opted to remain at home to care for him until his death in 1957.
Dottie is accustomed to getting her way and decides to do something about it. She gets the Army to send General Goodwin to her estate on Long Island
for a lengthy interview and photo session for one of her popular Peale Enterprises publications. Her plot is to ruin Goodwin's reputation as a squeaky-clean, red-blooded American. Dottie hides a tape recorder in her home, and assigns a photographer to catch Goodwin in compromising situations. Having heard rumors that he is secretly a ladies man, she also hopes to get the general to disclose something scandalous.
Every attempt to catch Goodwin off guard or make him appear a fool fails. Drastic measures are called for, what Dottie terms as "night maneuvers." She takes the general to a nightclub, tries to get him drunk, coaxing him to sing and dance in a vain attempt to humiliate him. Nothing works. A little tipsy herself, Dottie falls off a diving board of her swimming pool at home. Goodwin rescues her, leading to a night of romance.
Dottie's attitude is changed. She plans to marry Goodwin and maybe even help him become President of the United States, which would make her First Lady. To her surprise, the general has no plans to continue this romance. He tells her about a love affair with a woman named Yvette to whom he revealed top-secret information during the Korean War
. When he found out Yvette was an enemy spy, he had to have her shot.
A rejected Dottie goes back to her original plan to ruin him. Her magazine's story, "Blabbermouth Goodwin," results in a Senate inquiry into his behavior. Unfortunately for the general, his activity in the Yvette spy case is still top secret, and he is forbidden to discuss it.
Questioned by hostile Senator Burdick (Roland Winters
) about another girl in the story, Goodwin reveals she was not a grown woman but a seven-year-old orphan. He has explanations for everything else and his conduct has been exemplary at all times. Dottie feels ashamed of her role in this and confirms on the stand his assertion that the article was filled with exaggerations and lies. Yet she cannot say the same about the matter of Yvette.
Goodwin is unable to get permission to speak about her through the usual channels; in desperation, he sends Colonel Homer Gooch (Jim Backus
) to see the President. Finally, the spy case is declassified. He testifies that the Army knew that Yvette was a spy. When he was informed, he decided to break off the affair, but was ordered to feed her false information in advance of an important counterattack. After he is cleared, he drags a not-unwilling Dottie into a waiting car.
1957 in film
The year 1957 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 21 - The movie Jailhouse Rock, starring Elvis Presley, opens.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue-Awards:...
romantic comedy
Romantic Comedy
Romantic Comedy can refer to* Romantic Comedy , a 1979 play written by Bernard Slade* Romantic Comedy , a 1983 film adapted from the play and starring Dudley Moore and Mary Steenburgen...
film made by Carrollton Inc. and distributed by Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
that starred Susan Hayward
Susan Hayward
Susan Hayward was an American actress.After working as a fashion model in New York, Hayward travelled to Hollywood in 1937 when open auditions were held for the leading role in Gone with the Wind . Although she was not selected, she secured a film contract, and played several small supporting...
and Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...
. It was directed by H.C. Potter and produced by Martin Rackin and Milton Sperling
Milton Sperling
Milton Sperling was an American film producer and screenwriter for 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. where he had his own independent production unit United States Pictures.-Biography:...
from a screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
by Roland Kibbee
Roland Kibbee
Roland Kibbee was an American screenwriter and producer.- Works :...
and Allan Scott.
The plot is very loosely adapted from the 1951 novel Melville Goodwin, U.S.A. by John P. Marquand
John P. Marquand
John Phillips Marquand was a American writer. Originally best known for his Mr. Moto spy stories, he achieved popular success and critical respect for his satirical novels, winning a Pulitzer Prize for The Late George Apley in 1938...
, which had previously been adapted in 1952 for television's "Pulitzer Prize Playhouse." The film's credits state that it is "based on characters" in the book, rather than on the book itself.
Like the novel, the movie features a romance between a general named Melville Goodwin and a wealthy journalist named Dorothy "Dottie" Peale. But the storylines are drastically different in the details of the characters' romance and personalities. (In the novel, the affair is adulterous, but in the movie both parties are single.) Some minor characters' names from the book are also used in the movie, but with no particular fidelity to the originals.
The music score was by Roy Webb
Roy Webb
Roy Webb was a film music composer.Webb has hundreds of composing credits to his name, mainly with RKO Pictures, and while most of the movies he scored were fairly light in content, he is today best known for his dark horror and film noir scores...
, the cinematography by Stanley Cortez
Stanley Cortez
Stanley Cortez, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer. He worked on over seventy films, including Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons , Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter , Nunnally Johnson's The Three Faces of Eve , and Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor and The...
and costume design by Charles LeMaire
Charles LeMaire
Charles LeMaire was an American costume designer. Despite his French sounding name, he was born in Chicago.LeMaire's early career was as a vaudeville performer, but he became a costume designer for such Broadway productions as Ziegfeld Follies and The Five O'Clock Girl. By 1925 he turned to the...
.
The film co-stars Paul Stewart
Paul Stewart (actor)
Paul Stewart was an American character actor known for his tough, guttural voice. He frequently portrayed villains and mobsters throughout his lengthy career....
and Jim Backus
Jim Backus
James Gilmore "Jim" Backus was a radio, television, film, and voice actor. Among his most famous roles are the voice of Mr...
. The original leads were to be Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
and wife Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
, and they were filmed doing a wardrobe test in 1956. But Bogart's illness forced his withdrawal from the project, and Bacall opted to remain at home to care for him until his death in 1957.
Plot
Melville A. "Ironpants" Goodwin (Kirk Douglas) is a much-decorated U.S. Army major general who has just been appointed chairman of the Joint Atomic International Commission by the President of the United States. This is upsetting to wealthy Dorothy "Dottie" Peale, a media mogul who wanted a close friend of her father's to get the position.Dottie is accustomed to getting her way and decides to do something about it. She gets the Army to send General Goodwin to her estate on Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
for a lengthy interview and photo session for one of her popular Peale Enterprises publications. Her plot is to ruin Goodwin's reputation as a squeaky-clean, red-blooded American. Dottie hides a tape recorder in her home, and assigns a photographer to catch Goodwin in compromising situations. Having heard rumors that he is secretly a ladies man, she also hopes to get the general to disclose something scandalous.
Every attempt to catch Goodwin off guard or make him appear a fool fails. Drastic measures are called for, what Dottie terms as "night maneuvers." She takes the general to a nightclub, tries to get him drunk, coaxing him to sing and dance in a vain attempt to humiliate him. Nothing works. A little tipsy herself, Dottie falls off a diving board of her swimming pool at home. Goodwin rescues her, leading to a night of romance.
Dottie's attitude is changed. She plans to marry Goodwin and maybe even help him become President of the United States, which would make her First Lady. To her surprise, the general has no plans to continue this romance. He tells her about a love affair with a woman named Yvette to whom he revealed top-secret information during the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. When he found out Yvette was an enemy spy, he had to have her shot.
A rejected Dottie goes back to her original plan to ruin him. Her magazine's story, "Blabbermouth Goodwin," results in a Senate inquiry into his behavior. Unfortunately for the general, his activity in the Yvette spy case is still top secret, and he is forbidden to discuss it.
Questioned by hostile Senator Burdick (Roland Winters
Roland Winters
Roland Winters was an American actor who portrayed Charlie Chan in six films.-Biography:Born Roland Winternitz in Boston, Massachusetts on 22 December 1904, Winters was the son of Felix Winternitz, a violinist and composer who was teaching at New England Conservatory of Music...
) about another girl in the story, Goodwin reveals she was not a grown woman but a seven-year-old orphan. He has explanations for everything else and his conduct has been exemplary at all times. Dottie feels ashamed of her role in this and confirms on the stand his assertion that the article was filled with exaggerations and lies. Yet she cannot say the same about the matter of Yvette.
Goodwin is unable to get permission to speak about her through the usual channels; in desperation, he sends Colonel Homer Gooch (Jim Backus
Jim Backus
James Gilmore "Jim" Backus was a radio, television, film, and voice actor. Among his most famous roles are the voice of Mr...
) to see the President. Finally, the spy case is declassified. He testifies that the Army knew that Yvette was a spy. When he was informed, he decided to break off the affair, but was ordered to feed her false information in advance of an important counterattack. After he is cleared, he drags a not-unwilling Dottie into a waiting car.
Cast
- Susan Hayward as Dorothy "Dottie" Peale
- Kirk Douglas as Maj. Gen. Melville A. Goodwin
- Paul StewartPaul Stewart (actor)Paul Stewart was an American character actor known for his tough, guttural voice. He frequently portrayed villains and mobsters throughout his lengthy career....
as Phil Bentley, Dottie's assistant and conscience - Jim BackusJim BackusJames Gilmore "Jim" Backus was a radio, television, film, and voice actor. Among his most famous roles are the voice of Mr...
as Jim Backus as Col. Homer W. Gooch, Goodwin's Public Information Officer - John CromwellJohn Cromwell (director)Elwood Dager Cromwell , known as John Cromwell, was an American film actor, director and producer.-Biography:...
as General Daniel A. Grimshaw, Goodwin's commanding officer - Roland WintersRoland WintersRoland Winters was an American actor who portrayed Charlie Chan in six films.-Biography:Born Roland Winternitz in Boston, Massachusetts on 22 December 1904, Winters was the son of Felix Winternitz, a violinist and composer who was teaching at New England Conservatory of Music...
as Sen. Burdick - Arthur Gould-Porter as Holmes, Dottie's butler
- Michael FoxMichael Fox (American actor)Michael Fox was an American character actor who was in numerous movies and television roles. Some of his most famous recurring roles were as various autopsy physicians in Perry Mason, as Coroner George McLeod in Burke's Law, as Amos Fedders in Falcon Crest and as Saul Feinberg in The Bold and the...
as Reporter Laszlo "Lotzie" Kovach - Frank Gerstle as Sgt. Kruger
- Charles LaneCharles Lane (actor)Charles Gerstle Levison , better known as Charles Lane, was an American character actor seen in many movies and TV shows, and at the time of his death may have been the oldest living professional American actor. Lane appeared in many Frank Capra films, including You Can't Take It With You , Mr...
as Bill Hadley