A number of American sacred cows are exposed as so much bull in this 1947 satire that treats politicians, from the President down to the campaign manager, with complete irreverence. William Powell looks like George Washington himself, wig and all, as “United States Senator Melvin Ashton” (full name only, please), a doddering incompetent who dreams of retiring into the Oval Office. With the help of a diary of his supposed indiscretions and those of the Party (“like a mother to her sons, we fed you, clothed you and saved you from work”), he cons his way into becoming the “fighting non-candidate,” the dark horse that everyone knows is a silly nag. Much of its humor places this film squarely in the Cold War era--e.g., the Senator's rabidly pro-American antics, a Bolshevik bellboy who pops in and out of the picture like a red menace, and its surprise ending which one-ups and updates Preston Sturges' “Banana Republic” coda with a vengeance! But the only film directed by humorist George S. Kaufman finds him better left at the typewriter; the film begs for the pacing and bite of a Sturges to do justice to scriptwriter Charles MacArthur's satiric intentions. But more than anything it cries out for a Sturges cast, revealing the sad truth that, if politicians were half as quick and clever as Sturges' crooked comics, what a wonderful world this would be! As it is, The Senator Was Indiscreet is both more accurate and more timely, its politicians a decidedly unspicy lot who might as well be selling Arrow Shirts as selling themselves.