All My Sons on AllMovie

All My Sons is the 1986 TV adaptation of Arthur Miller's 1947 Broadway play (a film version, starring Edward G. Robinson and Burt Lancaster, was produced in 1948). James Whitmore stars as Joe Keller, a bullying industrialist who'd been accused of selling defective weapon parts to the government during World War II. He was acquitted when the court decided that it was his business partner who was responsible. Keller and his family desperately await the post-war return of son Larry, who was officially listed as missing in action. Larry's fiance Ann (Joan Allen), the daughter of Keller's imprisoned business partner, is attracted to Larry's brother Chris (Aidan Quinn), but she has vowed to remain faithful to her missing fiance. The play's third act reveals that it was indeed Joe Keller, and not his partner, who was responsible for the defective material -- and that his penny-pinching carelessness ended up costing the life of his own son Larry. Michael Learned co-stars as Keller's wife, who like her husband vainly tries to lock out the truth. First telecast January 19, 1987, All My Sons was the sixth-season opener of PBS's American Playhouse.