Our Leading Citizen
Cast & Crew
Alfred Santell
Bob Burns
Gene Lockhart
Susan Hayward
Joseph Allen Jr.
Charles Bickford
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Practicing law in a once small town that has evolved into an industrial city, attorney Lem Schofield has not lost sight of his ideals. Lem is joined in his firm by his deceased partner's son, Clay Clinton, who is in love with Lem's daughter Judith. The young man is too anxious for quick success, and disdainful of Lem's homespun philosophy, however and soon leaves for the grandiose quarters of the town's most influential industrialist, J. T. Tapley. Tapley, unknown to Clay, is planning to use the attorney's good name as a political stepping stone to gain patronage. When Tapley imposes a ten percent wage cut at his factory, the workers walk out on strike, precipitating a labor war. Lem immdiately withdraws as Tapley's attorney, but Clay, ignorant of the nefarious tactics that Tapley is planning, stays on. To crush the strike, Tapley calls in a gang of strikebreakers led by Shep Muir. While pacifist union leader Jim Hanna struggles to end the strike peacefully, communist agitator Jerry Peters arrives in town to advocate radicalism and violence. Riots break out, and amid an atmosphere of fear and suffering, Lem steps in to quell the unrest. After insuring the arrest of agitators Peters and Muir, Lem works to institute a labor settlement, and Clay, finally recognizing Lem's virtues, nominates him for the position of United States Senator.
Director
Alfred Santell
Cast
Bob Burns
Gene Lockhart
Susan Hayward
Joseph Allen Jr.
Charles Bickford
Elizabeth Patterson
Clarence Kolb
Paul Guilfoyle
Fay Helm
Kathleen Lockhart
Otto Hoffman
Kathryn Sheldon
Hattie Noel
Monte Blue
James Kelso
Harry C. Bradley
Frances Morris
Thomas Louden
Olaf Hytten
Phil Dunham
Gus Glassmire
Sid D'albrook
Oscar G. Hendrian
Paul Kruger
Harry Tenbrook
George Magrill
Galan Galt
Mae Busch
Phyllis Godfrey
Nell Craig
Peggy Leon
Lillian West
Ruth Robinson
Marty Faust
Howard Mitchell
Max Wagner
Edmund Elton
Helen Brown
Wesley Giraud
Gaylord Pendleton
Ed Lesaint
Heinie Conklin
Sid Saylor
C. L. Sherwood
Walter Shumway
Charles Hamilton
Bernie Lamont
Ethan Laidlaw
Jane Webb
Gertrude Messinger
Florence Dudley
Sam Hayes
Russell Hicks
Paul Everton
Larry Steers
Bert Wilson
Broderick O'farrell
Arthur Arlington
Cyril Ring
Clark Morgan
Wally Maher
Harry Bailey
Hayden Stevenson
Harry B. Stafford
Helen Dickson
Jack Richardson
Ethel May Halls
Thomas Curran
Frank O'connor
Crew
Roland Anderson
George Arthur
Hugh Bennett
Irvin S. Cobb
Hans Dreier
A. E. Freudeman
Earl Hayman
Don Johnson
William Le Baron
Russell Mathews
Victor Milner
John C. Moffitt
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of this picture was Us Americans. According to an unidentified but contemporary source in the AFI library, Martha Raye was to have starred in the picture and Frederick Hazlitt Brennan was to have scripted, although his participation in the final film was unconfirmed. Reviews note that labor groups picketed this film in protest of its representation of the labor movement.
