Robert Forrest, a political hero on the verge of assuming power in Washington, is killed in a car crash. When an admiring reporter (Spencer Tracy) attempts to get Forrest's widow (Katharine Hepburn) to cooperate in preparing a biography, he comes up against a menacing web of secrecy on a Xanadu-like estate decked with “no trespassing” signs. Hepburn and Tracy of course fall in love, and as they do her iron-willed defense of her dead husband's public image is worn away. The two unite to do battle with Forrest's sinister secretary (Richard Whorf) and crazed mother (Margaret Wycherly), who are bent on keeping secret the fact that Forrest was the leader of a vast underground organization planning a fascist takeover of America.
The film has been criticized for its gothic murk and the improbable immediacy of its plot, but director George Cukor, in an interview with Gavin Lambert, comments, “We made this picture during a period of undercover Fascism in this country, you know. Certain things were in the air but hadn't come out into the open. I suppose, to draw attention to them, we exaggerated,” and Lambert adds, “...the film is still full of chilling contemporary echoes. The attack on hero worship really strikes home.... The glimpses of the dead man's effect on youth look frighteningly real - the funeral with all those sullen Boy Scouts....” (in “On Cukor).