Jun 19 movie: The Best Man. I greatly enjoyed this 1964 political drama about presidential candidates struggling for the nomination. Henry Fonda stars as a man who seems inconceivable as a presidential front-runner: a liberal intellectual who quotes Bertram Russell, is an avowed atheist, refuses to lie to further his campaign and has a British wife. (When I found out the script was written by Gore Vidal this made much more sense.) Cliff Robertson is the villain, a sleazy muckraker who rose to power by inventing a Communist threat. I guess a combination of Nixon and McCarthy, or maybe Johnson and McCarthy. Lee Tracy is wonderful as the ex-president whose endorsement will hand the nomination to whichever candidate gets it.
The best thing about the movie was the depiction of a convention that meant something. I've never seen a political convention that wasn't pure theater. I do my best to avoid convention coverage for that reason. It was really interesting to see the candidates jockeying for position at a convention where the nomination hasn't been decided in advance. Do conventions serve any purpose now besides a massive pep rally?
ETA: I forgot one excellent line from the movie. Tracy's ex-president asks Fonda's character whether he believes in God. Fonda says no, and that he isn't willing to pretend for the candidacy. Tracy replies, "The world sure has changed since I was politicking. In those days you had to pour God over everything, like ketchup."
I saw this live on Broadway a couple of years back. Spauldng Grey was the good guy and Peter Noth the heavy; Charles Durning was the elderly Eisenhower figure. I thought it was brilliant. The line that still echoes with me is "Power isn't a prize we hand out for being a good boy."
The only role that the conventions give in modern politics is still important. The conventions, and the debates, are the only times that the candidates get to speak, unmediated, to the public for more than 20 seconds at a time. Well, outside of C-Span, which most people won't watch. The conventions bring the parties and the candidates in broadcast primetime. They're not drama, despite the fact that the reporters want drama, but they are an important part of the process.
Wow, that must have been an amazing show. The casting sounds inspired.