 The staff of "Variety" liked the acting but believed the screenplay was problematic.They wrote, "As interpreted by producer-director Otto Preminger and scripter Wendell Mayes, "Advise and Consent" is intermittently well dialogued and too talky, and, strangely, arrested in its development and illogical... Preminger has endowed his production with wholly capable performers...The characterizations come through with fine clarity."