Advise & Consent (1962)

Robert Leffingwell: Son, this is a Washington, D.C. kind of lie. It's when the other person knows you're lying, and also knows you *know* he knows.

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Robert Leffingwell: I'm an egghead. I'm not only an egghead, I'm a premeditated egghead. I set out to become an egghead and at this moment I'm in full flower of eggheadedness, and I hope to spread the spores of egghead everywhere I go.

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The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Allen Drury, who was a congressional correspondent for The New York Times during the 1950s, while he was writing the book. Nearly every character is based on a real person (Lafe Smith is based on John F. Kennedy; Orrin Knox is based on Robert A. Taft, Fred Van Ackerman is based on Joseph McCarthy and the president is modeled on Franklin Delano Roosevelt). Even the blackmailing pf Brig Anderson, and how it's resolved, is based on a real incident. And the Leffingwell nomination is based on the House Un-American Activities Committee investigation of Alger Hiss.
The man who is seen turning down a drink from a passing waiter is then-U.S. Senator and future Democratic presidential candidate Henry Jackson, (aka "Scoop" Jackson), who appears uncredited. At a special private preview of the film for members of Congress, the sight of Jackson refusing a drink drew gales of laughter from his colleagues.
Charles Laughton's final film.
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