The Searching Wind

A smooth and surprisingly sharp-tongued version of Lillian Hellman's play berating America for its persistently blinkered isolationism during the years preceding World War II. The weakness it never quite overcomes is the taint of soap opera apparent in the way every major political crisis, from Mussolini's March on Rome in 1922 to the Munich Pact by way of the Spanish Civil War, is trotted out as yet another stage in the diplomat hero's domestic troubles between wife (Richards, who keeps hobnobbing with well-placed Fascists) and Other Woman (Sidney, a journalist who tries to arouse his political awareness). Heady stuff, but given credibility by fine performances and excellent packaging.