User reviews

Since this movie had no particular reputation, I expected a somewhat ho-hum adaptation of Arthur Miller's play. In fact, the movie somewhat improves on the play. It's not afraid to be a little more "superficial" than the play, opting less for profundity than for solid melodrama, and I do mean solid. Robinson is superb, but the real surprise for me was the unshowy, very subtle (for him) performance by Lancaster, never a favorite of mine in his latter-day, hammy period. Here he seems content to be an ensemble player, supporting Robinson and playing a relatively quiet, Gary Cooper sort of role, and therefore he comes off more of a genuine star than usual. When he does finally explode in physical violence, the effect is truly shocking.

ALL MY SONS may have been slightly diluted for the screen as compared to the stage play which implicated corruption and wartime profiteering on a higher level than just one or two business men, but it's still powerful stuff and extremely well directed by Irving Reis. Individual scenes have a strength that is impressive, largely due to the excellent central performances of BURT LANCASTER, EDWARD G. ROBINSON and MADY CHRISTIANS. Robinson, in particular, makes the most of a meaty role that has him cocky and confident one moment, then bruised and bitter the next as his past crimes catch up with him--and his conscience.

Seems that during WWII, he and his partner (FRANK CONROY) were pressured to finish making cylinder parts for airplanes on the government's tight schedule and knowingly sent defective parts which caused the death of twenty-one pilots when their planes went down. Robinson has been hiding the truth from himself and his neighbors ever since, concerned only with making a decent living for himself and his family in suburban America.

Conflicts arise when others around him begin to question his role in the crime that sent his partner to jail. The son of the jailed partner, played in rather stiff fashion by HOWARD DUFF, is unforgiving when he realizes Robinson shared the guilt with his father and yet let his father take the blame for the incident. Lancaster, too, and his girlfriend (LOUISA HORTON) who happens to be Duff's sister, also bring the conflicts into the open when they start asking for answers and probing for the truth. Horton is rather colorless in what is meant to be a sympathetic role and spent her remaining years in TV roles.

But it's EDWARD G. ROBINSON who makes the biggest impression as the father, proud of his achievements and obviously in denial until his son, Lancaster, makes him realize why his other son never returned from the war--which leads to a tragic ending.

Summing up: Somber drama never quite overcomes its stage origins but it's still powerful stuff.

Trivia note: The only implausible factor in the casting--the physical impossibility of BURT LANCASTER as Robinson's son, when he bears no physical resemblance whatsoever to Eddie--nor Mady Christians for that matter!

Playwright Arthur Miller had a great deal at stake when his play 'All my Sons' opened on Broadway in 1947. He later admitted that had the play failed he would have been obliged to find another line of work. Directed by Elia Kazan and featuring a top notch cast it ran for almost two years. The rest, as they say, is history.

It did not take long of course for Hollywood to pounce and to make a version that Miller himself came to despise. This play is not the last in which Miller would show the darker side of the American Dream. Adaptor Chester Erskine has however, carefully removed any of Miller's leftist sentiments and the crime committed by Joe Keller in selling defective cylinders to the US Airforce, which results in the death of 21 pilots, is blamed on Keller's own greed rather than the Capitalist system that created him and so many like him.

To my knowledge there is nothing in the previous films of Irving Reis that would suggest his being capable of doing justice to this material and his direction lacks fluidity. He is aided by the 'noirish' touches of cinematographer Russell Metty and an understated score by Leith Stevens. In keeping with the inevitable compromise of film, some characters, notably Dr. and Mrs. Bayliss, have been diminished. Keller's business partner Deever who has taken the rap for the crime and is only spoken of in the play, is here given a speaking role which is filmically very effective. Deever's daughter Ann is played by Louisa Horton who is not a typical Hollywood glamour puss by any means but whose directness and sincerity make her excellent casting. This was to be her first and only film role of note. Burt Lancaster plays Keller's son Chris. Although keen to improve as an actor, Lancaster's charisma works against him here and he does not really convince as an average Joe. As Deever's son, Howard Gruff is as Duff as ever and strictly one dimensional. The strength of the film lies in the performances of Edward G. Robinson and Mady Christians as Joe and Kate. Robinson is superlative as a man whose outward bonhomie and confidence conceal a terrible sense of guilt. His assertions that he did it 'for the family' have a hollow ring. Kate is living in a fantasy world, clinging to the belief that their son Larry, reported lost in action, will return. The devastating scene in which she reads the letter confirming his death is beautifully played.

Ironically Miller, Robinson and Christians were all summoned by the HUAC for alleged Communist leanings. Miller emerged unscathed, Robinson's 'A' listing suffered throughout the 1950's until Cecil B. de Mille came to his rescue but Christians was not so fortunate. Her outspokenness not only shattered her career but ended her life.

This piece is decidedly not filmed theatre. It is cinema but alas, not great cinema.

Excellent film dealing with Arthur Miller's story of a man who sold defective plane parts to the military during World War 11 resulting in the death of many pilots.

Edward G. Robinson gave us an outstanding performance as the conflicted individual, who did this for his own selfish-interests only to escape prosecution but to see his partner jailed.

This is a story of intense inter-family conflicts. The partner's daughter was to be married to Joe's (Robinson's) son Larry in the film. The picture begins with the fact that Larry is missing in action. Ann, played by Louisa Horton, is now becoming engaged to Joe's other son, Chris, played with marvelous insight by a young Burt Lancaster.

Mady Christians is also a standout as Joe's devoted wife, who herself is in denial that Larry is probably dead and knowing full well what her husband did was wrong.

This is a terrific film dealing with moral conflict and the ultimate tragic resolution to it.

You have to wonder what Edward G. Robinson had to do to be nominated for an academy award.

This is Arthur Miller at his best writing. A truly American classic.

The movie version of Arthur Miller's All My Sons is yet another excellent example of how a fairly dreadful play can make a watchable, even beautiful film. In its day quite relevant, the play now reeks of the stuffily leftish Old Testament pieties of the Group Theatre of the thirties, and in style, if not content, anticipates the think-piece, more mainstream television dramas of the fifties. The plot is worth going into only briefly, and concerns a morally corrupt though not innately bad manufacturer of aircraft parts whose cost-cutting was responsible for the crashing of several planes during the then recent Second World War. Set in what appears to be either a New York suburb or a leafy section of one of the city's outer boroughs, the films is beautifully photographed and designed. It isn't quite realistic, as it is obviously a studio product, but it is far less artificial-looking than most movies of the period, and is singularly evocative in every detail of a way of middle class life, leisurely and informal, egalitarian and yet conscious of social distinctions, that has long passed into history. Beautifully rendered also is the large, very comfortable house in and around which much of the film takes place. Not quite a mansion, it is nevertheless roomy and in its way elegant, of Victorian vintage or nearly so. We get to see so much of it. The dining room, with its fluffy, lacey things all about; the heavy soup bowls and plates decorated with vines and flowers; and in its somwhat retro feeling it appears, like the family itself, both vaguely European and wholesomely American. Everything in the house seems heavy and solid, nailed down, as it were, as if this way of life was going to go on forever. The scenes in the backyard show the lazy, hazy summer afternoons of lemonade and hammocks, before the arrival of television, interstate highways, and shopping malls. Overall the picture is so brilliantly and minutely detailed, whether the set is a restaurant or a factory, that it is astonishing that it didn't win the Academy Award for set design. The action, consisting mostly of people either arguing with one another, lying, or expressing strong emotions, like love and hate, is very well presented and framed within the various settings. None of the actors in the film, including a young Burt Lancaster, is at his absolute best, though Edward G. Robinson, as the paterfamilas, in snugly in his element here, and quite credible, if not moving. There's a cockiness to Robinson which, though quite charming in certain roles, works against pathos or sympathy of any kind. Thus, in the end, the film is strangely fails to tug at the heartstrings, so to speak; it worked better in the earlier scenes, before the story built a head of steam. A few behind the scenes things are worth mentioning, not the least of which director Irving Reis, whose orchestration of this and several other films of the period showed great potential. Like Robert Wise, Mark Robson, John Sturges, Edward Dmytryk and Jules Dassin, Reis was a strong up-and-comer in the Hollywood pecking order of directors of the time, and was, sadly, to die just a few years later. Mady Christians, who plays Robinson's foreign-born wife, was blacklisted shortly after the film came about. All My Sons was one of the films that was presumably going to launch its studio, the newly reorganized Universal-International, into the big leagues. It didn't, but that's another story.

I saw this movie today for the umpteenth time and it finally occurred to me... Weren't both men to blame? Wasn't Herbert Deever really just as guilty as Joe Keller? No matter who "says" they are responsible, anyone involved in knowingly shipping faulty parts that could kill people is responsible. Deever shouldn't have sent them out, no matter what he was told. Isn't that what all those Nazis claimed when asked how they could commit so many atrocities? "I was just taking orders." That doesn't wash with me or with most people. We all have a responsibility to follow our own consciences with regard to right and wrong.

They were both guilty....

It's a wonderful story and very well performed and written, but that fact remains to be discussed.

A businessman's son (Lancaster) finds out that his father sold defective airplane parts to the army during the War,which led to the killing of many young men.

A fine drama based on the play by Arthur Miller.Edward G.Robinson gives a very fine performance as the businessman who finally realizes his guilt.The other actors also register strong,among them Mady Christians and young Burt Lancaster.

You can sense this film is made for the stage. This is Arthur Miller's best work; not Death of a Salesman, which is heavy-handed and, at time, corny. This play is rock-solid, with very little corn, and enough sub-plots to fill a season of soaps.

But make no mistake; this film is not completely a soap. It is a superb play written by Miller. I Burt Lancaster is one of my favorite actors, and gives a textured performance, while Robinson gives one of the best performances of his career. The supporting cast is superb as well. Howard Duff stands out dramatically, and one can see why Ida Lupino married him.

Think of Our Town with a rotten foundation and you have All My Sons. A film not to be missed.

... in that in most noirs you see the dilemma up front in its compexity and completion. And then you watch the protagonist stumble through a series of decisions in which the noose just tightens.

Here the opening scenes are middle class and almost mundane and so post war. A son (Burt Lancaster) has returned from war and is planning to marry the girl of his dead brother, killed in the war. The living son's mother can't deal with the fact that her dead son is indeed dead - he died on an aerial mission and his body was never recovered. And thus she is not very supportive of this prospective union.

But this film turns out not to be about war and remembrance and the new middle class at all. Instead it is about a deed past done, and apparently the perpetrator has gotten away with it, and only as the film wears on are all of the secrets revealed, as well as the real reason the mother cannot accept her son's death.

Edward G. Robinson is terrific as the father who is living the American dream after being set out on the sidewalks by his own family since the age of ten. Lancaster with his beaming smile and his head full of bushy hair would look at home in a collegiate letter jacket, and this is a good early showcase for his talents. Harry Morgan appears in a minor role as one of the fathers of the ongoing baby boom.

I haven't said much here about what is really the conflict in this film, because I don't want to give anything away. However, it is a great film about moral conflict versus friend and family and even patriotic obligations, and it is a shame it is so obscure.

Heavy, Dialog Driven, and Downbeat Film.

Arthur Miller's Hit Play Won a Pulitzer and Saved the Struggling Scribe.

The Movie Changed some of the More Left-Leaning Aspects and Miller was Not at all Happy.

Edward G. Robinson in a Show-Case Performance and an Early Burt Lancaster Solidifies the Family Focused Film.

With a Strong Melancholic Performance from Mady Christians as the Matriarch.

Unhinged Capitalism is the Culprit that Corrupts Defense Plant Owner Robinson.

Film-Noir with a Missing, Presumed Dead Son by All but Mom is a Haunting Layer that Noir Often Brings to the Ambience.

The Movie Drapes the Proceedings with Fish-Net Shadows and Angles that Announces the Distortion Among the Family.

Dour Dramatic Displays of Guilt, Uncertain Young Love, Tainted Friendships, and Desperate Mysterious Questions that Linger Throughout.

The Film Does Play Like a Play where Most Scenes have the Characters Motionless and Anchored to the Ground.

But it is a Powerhouse Display of some Fine Acting.

It's a Disruption of Post-War Suburbia by Lingering War-Crimes that Don't Always Take Place on the Battlefield.

For Fans of the Actors and Arthur Miller Sensibilities, it's...

Worth a Watch.

All My Sons (1948) : Brief Review -

A terrific human guilt drama that reflects family pressure and a long-living conscience. Irving Reis's family drama is neither entertaining nor strained, but quite suspenseful. The idea of keeping the mystery unwrapped till the end was certainly new for family dramas back then, or is even today. Also, World War reference and the corporate business culture during the war period fit perfectly here. Joe Keller had been accused of murdering army officers due to a faulty shipment years ago. The court and juries acquitted him and grabbed his business partner, Herb. Now, years later, Herb's daughter and Joe's son want to get married, but Herb's son learns the truth and wants his sister to stay away from Joe and his family. The girl was previously engaged to Joe's first son, who disappeared years ago, and that's why the other son can't marry her as the mother is still hoping for that son to return home. What is the truth? Well, I guess you know it by now, or you can sense it halfway while watching the movie, but that doesn't kill the suspense at all. It eventually becomes more interesting because of its consequences. Things are predictable, but never boring. Every character offers something different. Every character has a problem of its own, and that's how they get involved with each other and then find a solution. The film has terrific speed, and the screenplay makes sure you don't get away from your sofa. The tension feels real and intriguing. Edward G. Robinson is fantastic as the man of the family, the man with the guilt, and the man with the responsibility. I couldn't have imagined him and Burt Lancaster playing father and son in the 40s, but it came out so well. Louisa Horton is another star performer, along with Mady Christians. I shall give full marks to Irving Reis for keeping me hooked and gripped for 95 minutes with the drama that I thought couldn't hold me. Reis makes sure the engagement gets an intellectual and burning ending, so don't miss it.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.

A standard 1940s group of ensemble players, coupled with the strength of an Arthur Miller project. All cast principles and minor players were at the top of their forms when they stood before the cameras. None were noted as powerful stage actors in their own right. Yet when they appeared in this film, they succeeded in doing what I think a significant stage work should do. Carry the viewer into the stage (not film) theater, and give them the unique experience of a Broadway or Off-Broadway theater seat.

The production style and direction (for reasons of cost and utility) let the words of Miller's play take center stage. In beautiful black-and-white, the Art and Set direction are spare, firm, and commanding. They command our attention. Miller is big on attention to the issues his characters are grappling with and their impact on the significant issues of our (and all) time.

As Miller repeats in Death of a Salesman, there are layers of meaning and understanding between his characters and the issues they confront internally and externally. The two business partners have had a long, intimate family relationship (like Cain and Able). So close a connection that his son could have married his partner's daughter. And she, of course, is the only one who has always known (from that son) the truth about the son's death. And the fact (s) about the father.

Miller shows us that the father's Horatio Alger lies are at the foundation of who we are individually and collectively as Americans; the lies can almost thoroughly wash out what individuals and a community should think about its leading citizens. It is an interesting plot twist that, as Miller's script points out, the low-class birth and poverty of the father embed him into the fabric of the community.

That the film faithfully carried Miller's message of contempt and loathing not only for the worship of that false god(capitalism) but also for the whole Horatio Alger hero myth (that both American liberals and conservatives embrace) is quite daring. Even for a film world that had not yet descended into the long night of the "Black List."

Although Edward G. Robinson was most famous for playing gangsters, he was a very versatile actor, playing comedies, dramas, and even period pieces. He even took on the very heavy lead in the Arthur Miller play All My Sons. Upsetting, intimate, and one you'll probably watch only once, All My Sons is worth it for the acting. Eddie G is fantastic! His long-suffering wife Mady Christians (really only remembered today as Shirley Temple's aunt in Heidi) won a Rag award for her performance. Though filmed in 1948, everyone is very realistic and subtle in their deliveries. This may be a play adaptation, but it's as much of an eavesdropped slice of life as it can possibly be.

Even starting with the opening credits, it feels like you're observing a family, not watching a movie. From the dawn of Tinseltown, credits preceded the film with music (or silence) and black and white titles. All My Sons was either the first or one of the first films to show footage behind the text instead. Immediately, you're immersed. When Burt Lancaster shares scenes with his girlfriend, Louisa Horton, you hear them whispering while in dim lighting. This is an entirely different type of drama. There aren't spotlights, strategically turned heads during important lines, and shouting to the back row.

If you like upsetting dramas, this might become a favorite of yours - especially if you're an Arthur Miller fan. Director Irving Reis got the best performances from his actors and brought what could have been a melodrama into a family's living room. It's a very good film, but it might be too heavy for the average viewer.

Irving Reis's "All My Sons" is based on one of Arthur Miller's lesser known plays, but I would call it just as important as "Death of a Salesman" or "The Crucible". Edward G. Robinson's businessman is the embodiment of evil. It's easy to see this as a one-time story, but it has repeatedly happened. From insufficiently armored Humvees in Iraq to peanut butter tainted with listeria (when the CEO knew that it was), these stories are a rebuttal to all who rail against regulations. Regulations exist to keep society safe: building codes, speed limits, etc. The idea that the market will solve everything results in the sale of dangerous products and the refusal to maintain infrastructure, leading to bridges collapsing. Does the relative of a celebrity have to get killed in a collapsing bridge before we fix our infrastructure?

Anyway, this is a good movie. Everyone should see it. No surprise that many of the performers faced HUAC.

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.

I was shocked to see the viewers at rated this as 6.6 or something. If this is a 6, Gone With the Wind is a 4. A moral conflict that all should be able to identify with. Edward plays the role beautifully, he makes the call or rather has someone else make the call to preserve the status quo but it does anything but that. Anyone else playing the lead it might have been a lesser movie.

I was disappointed that it was not on the best 100 movies list in last years pole.

This film takes place three years after World War 2 with a young man named "Chris Keller" (Burt Lancaster) telling his father "Joe Keller" (Edward G. Robinson) that he wants to marry a young woman by the name of "Ann Deever" (Louisa Horton). Unforunately, there are several problems Joe Keller has with this. For starters, Ann had been engaged to Chris' brother Larry who is still listed by the Army as "Missing in Action" after a combat mission three years earlier. To that effect, Chris' mother "Kate Keller" (Mady Christians) still hasn't come to terms with the fact that he was killed and Joe feels that any such marriage announcement at this time would greatly disturb her. Not only that, but Joe was previously involved in a scandal which Ann's father "Herbert Deever" (Frank Conroy) was sent to prison over and there is much speculation that he was used as a scapegoat by Joe to avoid any responsibility. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that Ann's brother "George Deever" (Howard Duff) is determined to expose Joe so that his father doesn't end up taking the entire blame all by himself. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a pretty good drama which benefited from solid acting on the part of Edward G. Robinson, Burt Lancaster and Louisa Horton. On the other hand, the film suffered from too many unrealistic subplots which strained its credibility. Even so, all things considered this was an enjoyable film for the most part and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.