Such a frustrating disappointment

Best movie ever!

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Edward G. Robinson on the top of his career and Burt Lancaster in the beginning of his as his son must turn into something absolutely special, and it does, with a vengeance. To this comes the very ingenious composition of the play. It's impossible to guess anything of what is going on in the beginning, as all you get glimpses of to begin with is some relationship problems. Gradually the war gets involved, and then the trauma starts building up.Larry has not returned from ther war, and his mother is still expecting him every day. His girlfriend Ann is coming for a visit, and Larry's brother Burt Lancaster wants to marry her, certain that Larry never will come back. Both his parents advise against it, but she is willing, and Burt is difficult to turn off. Other relatives turn up, especially young families, and then there is some problem about Ann's brother and their father, who is in jail. Gradually it dawns on the audience that Burt's father got him there and that there still is some unfinished business around somewhere.This is just some contours of the very complicated mess of family intrigue, which constantly turns more complex and difficult to cope with, as also the other father in prison finally gets an important part in the play.This could be the greatest of American family dramas. Arthur Miller would never succeed in writing anything like it, and his following plays are shadows of it. The actors are all at their best and make the drama truly a Greek tragedy widely transcending anything Eugene O'Neill has written. Tennessee Williams would find a more stable standard though than Miller in keeping up a high level of drama in many plays.

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.

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.