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Wednesday, February 12, 2020

THE BEST MAN (1964)

Gore Vidal’s seriously square (if entertaining) film adaptation of his own seriously square (if entertaining) political play follows two contrasting Presidential frontrunners duking it out at their party convention. (A Lillian Hellman melodrama looks unstructured & spontaneous in comparison.) Tilted toward Henry Fonda’s intellectual man-of-principle (think Adlai Stevenson) over Cliff Robertson’s unprincipled trench-fighter (think 1950s Bobby Kennedy), the film is stolen, in a phenomenal return to the A-list after a ban of thirty years*, by Ex-Prez Lee Tracy (think Harry Truman), there to anoint his pick. The gimmick (and this really is right out of Lillian Hellman) is that each candidate holds dirt on his rival. The suspense: who’ll stoop to conquer. But the main event comes watching Tracy debate himself on whether the end justifies the means. Vidal’s resolution sidesteps any heavy lifting, but in a pleasingly commercial way. And with a rich gaggle of supporting players to carry us there even if director Franklin Schaffner has yet to shed the cramped style of a decade’s worth of work in live tv.

DOUBLE-BILL: Otto Preminger’s far more sophisticated ADVISE & CONSENT/’62 is like a grown up version of this, contract bridge to a game of hearts. So a surprise to note that the B’way play of ADVISE was directed by none other than Franklin Schaffner.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Lee Tracy, the one holdover from the B’way cast, lost the Tony Award that year to Melvyn Douglas who originated Henry Fonda’s role. But Tracy nabbed the film’s sole Oscar nom. as Supporting Actor. No doubt in recognition of his return to the big leagues after M-G-M fired him from VIVA VILLA!/’34, and exiled him to minor studios when he got drunk and peed off his Mexico City balcony onto a passing parade of military cadets!

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