Short Takes: ‘A Fever in the Blood’ (1961) ★★ 1/2

What’s the Fever in the Blood? Not
what this poster is selling.

Though the title (and poster for) A Fever in the Blood suggests a lurid melodrama about philandering husbands and horny housewives, it is actually a discount All the King’s Men, about three men—Judge Hoffman (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.), District Attorney Dan Callahan (Jack Kelly, quickly taking it up to 11), and Sen. Alex Simon (a smarmy Don Ameche)—vying for the governor’s seat of an unnamed state (but probably California). Also, Angie Dickinson is in this movie.

Hoffman and Callahan are friends at the beginning of the movie, with Hoffman asking the D.A. to join him on campaign trail as the lieutenant governor candidate. Callahan is flattered, saying he’d never really considered the office. That is, until Walter Thornwall (Rhodes Reason), the nephew of the former governor, charged—wrongly—with murdering his adulterous wife. The high-profile case ignites Callahan’s political ambitions, only he is not content to be Hoffman’s running mate, he wants the governor’s office for himself. When Sen. Simon approaches him about supporting his campaign for governor, Simon wanting the seat so he can have more control over state delegates for a planned run for President, Callahan’s confidence in his electability is bolstered and just like that he’s an asshole.

Thornwall’s trial ends up in Hoffman’s court (awk-ward). The avuncular judge does his best to keep politics out of the trial but it’s clear no one else got the memo. Callahan grandstands for the jury (and press), and Sen. Simon attempts to sway Hoffman with a quid pro quo offer. Hoffman refuses the senator’s bribe but agrees to remain silent on the incident at the request of Simon’s trophy wife Cathy (Dickinson), who not-so-secretly loves the judge. Hoffman’s moral backbone develops scoliosis, however, and he decides to fight as dirty as his opponents.

A Fever in the Blood, based on William Pearson’s 1959 novel, has the makings of A Serious Movie with Important Themes—like The Young Philadelphians, helmed by the same director, Vincent Sherman. But Fever has more in common with the TV movies Sherman would direct later in his career, playing more like a two-hour pilot for Prime-Time soap (if those were a thing in 1961) than a big screen drama. The TV comparison is further exacerbated by the cast of TV regulars: Zimbalist (77 Sunset Strip), Kelly (Maverick), Dickinson (a movie star, but also future star of TV’s Police Woman), Robert Colbert (The Time Tunnel) and Carroll O’Connor (All in the Family).

Though it’s not as grand—or as sexy—as Warner Bros. wanted audiences to believe, A Fever in the Blood is still pretty damn entertaining (I like Prime-Time soaps). The story about politics corrupting even the best of men is evergreen (no one will buy the ending though, especially today), and Roy Huggins and Harry Kleiner’s script provides plenty of twists and turns, with a healthy amount of camp. Only Dickinson disappoints, cast as little more than set decoration, in one scene literally reduced to just sitting there and looking pretty while the men talk.