Ada (1961)

(On Cable TV, November 2022) If you’re just going down the list of Dean Martin films and expecting Ada to be another fun romp featuring the King of Cool in his debonair signing persona, then you’re in for quite a surprise. Sure, the film’s first few minutes will lull you into a sense of complacency: Martin is presented as the lead character: a hayseed bumpkin whose campaign to become governor is going well thanks to authentic plain-talk and a little bit of singing to go along with the guitar. But then things start to slip sideways as Susan Hayward’s character is introduced. She’s a saloon floozy meant as a diversion, but he takes a liking to her and before long they’re wedded—a move that upsets the powers-behind-the-throne expecting a document-signing simpleton doing their work as governor. The film’s shift from one character to another becomes more obvious as they move into the governor’s mansion and she starts poking at the machinations in which he’s supposed to meekly agree. By the time Ada ends, it’s clear that this was her story all along (as per, ahem, the title), and that Martin is just along for the ride. As American political films go, Ada (adapted from a novel) falls somewhere in the middle of the more idealistic or more cynical takes—it’s darker but not hopeless in depicting how ordinary people can fight back against the establishment. Now, Ada isn’t that good of a film: the script is sometimes rough, and the depiction of corruption can seem rote. It doesn’t quite manage the bridge the personal with the political in anything but the broadest sense, and the rug-pulling may annoy a few Martin fans expecting simpler fare. (Although it does bring credence to the idea that Martin was a more astute actor than many assume based on his lazier films.)  Still, I’ll take an interesting imperfect film over a slicker but emptier package, and that’s Ada for you—not the film you expect, and all the more unusual for it.