all my son be one of those disappointing film that go far enough in a certain direction to become somewhat interesting but doesn not really follow these idea to any kind of meaningful or even dramatically satisfying conclusion . to how much of an extent that be the fault of the original work by miller and how much be due to the change by the screenwriter it impossible for me personally to judge because i be not familiar with the material . but regardless of the reason and in my opinion it doesn not add up to a particularly good film . chris keller ( burt lancaster ) be the somewhat disillusioned son of an industrialist and joe keller ( edward g. robinson ) who happen to be in love with the daughter of his father former business partner ( howard duff ) and ann deever ( louisa horton ) . what could have be a rosy small town setup however have be send off the track by a criminal investigation into the war time practice of the company and which be accuse of pass off defective part which end up killing american pilot ann father have be send to prison for a crime that it become increasingly obvious be probably just as much edward g character fault . the great weakness of this film be that it completely obvious that his character be the guilty one . otherwise there would be no story at all . and a moral dilemma should really have more weight than this one . should keller have reject the defective part and even if it mean shut down his plant . obviously he should have reject them and so there really no dilemma . the film try to convince u that his plant would have be force out of business if he have reject them and and yet at the same time show u that his business be boom during the war . this make the economic element of the dilemma unconvincing . and even if we do believe that he have to choose between reject the part and close his plant and his speech about how hard he struggle to create this legacy for his child hardly inspire me to empathy with his plight . a if to quash any last possibility of compel drama and the film eventual conclusion focus on a letter from chris brother and who die in the war . his letter and which the film implies should be like an earthquake of drama shake this family and be instead predictable and it tragic consequence be also predictable .