The Best Man.

A little something as we await results from Indiana and North Carolina. Back in January 05, Filmbrain caught Franklin J Schaffner's The Best Man (1964); adapting his own play, Gore Vidal's wrote the screenplay. "[I]t's hard to watch the film and not think about the recent election," he wrote, and lo, Vidal's "prescience" is being noted all over again by Evgenia Peretz in VF Daily.

Briefly, the film's depicts a standoff between two candidates at an unnamed political party's convention. Neither can round up enough votes to secure the nomination. If they start slinging mud, they could well not only bring each other down but the party, too. "Sound familiar?" asks Peretz. "There's more":

In one corner is William Russell (Henry Fonda), a measured intellectual who quotes Bertrand Russell, who is charged with being out of touch, and who is determined to bring American politics back to its noble ideals. In the other is Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson), a Nixonian senator who preys on citizens' fears and who crudely tries to sell himself as the everyman. Trailing in delegates when the movie begins, he has zero qualms about bringing down Russell, no matter how ugly the means.

Peretz notes that TCM will show The Best Man again on June 20 and 28.

Posted by dwhudson at May 6, 2008 11:44 AM