Genre:
Political drama
Distributor:
Simply Media
Rating: PG
Director:
Franklin J. Schaffner
Cast:
Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Kevin McCarthy, Lee Tracy
Release: 23rd February 2015
Gore Vidal always bit the hand that fed him; he grew up in the world of politics, so it’s no wonder he wrote the savagely satirical The Best Man. He originally wrote it as play in 1960, and was partly a parallel to that year’s election - John F. Kennedy of course won and Gore Vidal had a very mixed view on the man. The film very deliberately never mentions what party the two candidates are in but one is clearly the liberal and one is more conservative.
Henry Fonda plays the liberal candidate William Russell and Cliff Robertson plays the conservative Joe Cantwell. Both have fatal flaws, which may cost them the presidential nomination. They can’t stand one another and both teams of advisors try to dig up dirt on the oppositional party to win the nomination.
Henry Fonda is of course one of the greatest actors in the history of the silver screen. He is a perfect choice for the role because he was one of the biggest faces of liberal Hollywood.Cliff Robertson also oozes ruthlessness as the type of conservative who would do whatever it takes to win the nomination. Cantwell was a mix of JFK, Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy, and some of the characterization quite prophetically nails Richard Nixon’s own time in the oval office. Kevin McCarthy also puts in a great supporting turn as Russell’s campaign manager. Lee Tracy was nominated for an Oscar for his role as Art Hockstader, a former president who both candidates are after for his endorsement.
The script is just full of witty smarmy lines like “nice thing about you, Joe, is that you can sound like a liberal, but at heart you're an American” and “the only known link between the NAACP and the Ku Klux Klan.” Vidal was known just as well as a political commentator as he was as a novelist/screenwriter etc. and very few men understand the inner workings of the US government as well as him. It’s a shame he didn't get more chances to write such savagely funny screenplays.
It’s one of the few cases in cinema where the auteur is the screenwriter, but it wouldn’t be fair to not mention the work of director, Franklin J. Schaffner. It was only his second feature film, and like The Manchurian Candidate director John Frankenheimer, he did a large amount of live television plays in the 50s. He was a director for hire, but had a very diverse of body of work including the original Planet of the Apes, Patton and The Boys from Brazil. The Best Man was shot expertly by the cinematographer Haskell Wexler who would later direct his own film about a presidential convention Medium Cool. Wexler would also shoot a dozen of the best films of the 1970s.
2015 is the year of a generation election in the UK and the start of 2015 sees a presidential campaign in the US for 2016. There is no better time to revisit one of the more biting satires on the process. The film is also extremely funny and moves along at a wonderfully fast pace at 97 minutes and it very enjoyable from beginning to the end.
★★★★½
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