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.

Most American theater lovers think that greatness descended upon Arthur Miller in 1947 with his great play THE DEATH OF A SALESMAN. It certainly is the play that people remember above all his work, even such later classics as THE CRUCIBLE and A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. But as a matter of fact, just like THE GLASS MENAGERIE preceded Tennessee Williams' A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, ALL MY SONS preceded THE DEATH OF A SALESMAN.

If Williams found a tragic poetry in the soul of his fallen aristocratic characters - his Amanda Wingfields and Blanche Dubois - Miller found a mine of power in the failures of the American cult of business success. In SALESMAN it is Willy Loman's gradual realization that a lifetime of hard struggle and strife serving his company did not result in his being shown any respect when he can no longer bring in any large business. In ALL MY SONS, Joe Keller (Edward G. Robinson) is not a small peg in the economy like Willy Loman. He is the owner of a factory - on his way to being a millionaire which (in 1948) is the proof of success in America. But while Willy Loman has a dirty secret that cost him his son's respect for him as a father, Keller has a dirty secret that makes him a criminal.

The film/play takes place in 1945 - 46. Keller's oldest son has died in World War II, in an military aviation crash. His younger son Chris (Burt Lancaster) has returned too from military service upset - he is aware that something is wrong about the death of his brother, but he is not sure what. He is also aware that his father has a secretive side - one that he is sensitive about. It appears to be connected to the wartime trial of Keller's partner Herbert Deever (Frank Conroy). It seems that Keller and Deever's plant got a big government contract that required the delivery of airplane motors at a particular date. It was a very lucrative contract: in fact, it built their company. But there was a defect in the motors - which did not prevent Deever from completing the delivery of the defective motors. As a result, twelve planes crashed in the South Pacific, killing their pilots and crews. Deever ended up going to prison, but the critical decision was made without Joe Keller being present (he was ill that day) and so Keller did not go to prison.

Somehow, despite Chris's perplexity about his brother's death in the war, the Kellers would seem not to have any problems. Joe is an apparently successful manufacturer and seems well liked. His wife Kate (Mady Christians) is always ready to smooth over any little flurries of difficulties that may pop up. But Chris comes home with his girl friend Ann (Louise Horton). This is upsetting to Joe and Kate, though they try to put their best face on it: Ann is the daughter of jailbird Herb Deever. And sometimes tagging along is angry, troubled George Deever (Howard Duff),who has occasionally visited his dad - and has heard the story of the defective motors from a different perspective. And that perspective raises issues about "good old" Joe Keller.

Up to 1945 the subject of government contracts and corrupt cost cutting rarely popped up on stage or screen. But during World War II it became a big issue because of the huge government contracts that Washington set up for the war effort. In fact, the U.S. Senator in charge of investigating waste and corruption in these contracts made a really big name for himself in the public eye. He was a Senator from Missouri named Harry S. Truman, and by 1944 he had become such a prominent figure that F.D.R. insisted he be his running mate for the Democratic National Ticket. They won, and within a year Truman had a higher office than Vice President.

But the subject never really came up before in film. There was, oddly enough, a film in the 1930s about the Spanish American War "tainted meat" scandal that damaged the career of Secretary of War Russell Alger in McKinley's Administration. This was I LOVED A WOMAN. The meat packer profiteer involved in that film was played by Edward G. Robinson of all people. But that scandal was the only war profiteering one that came to the screen. So when Miller did this film it was, if you will, "virgin territory".

Miller, of course, turned the issue into a morality situation - as Joe Keller comes face to face to his sin against his partner, his country, the war effort, and his own sons. And he does, in the end, learn that the material gain was too costly - as he realizes, the dead pilots were all his sons.

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!