Like Gore Vidal himself, THE BEST MAN is a strictly superficial look behind the scenes of party politics, with Vidal taking stabs at the less than perfect candidates vying for the office of President of the United States.
He gets digs at everyone in Washington, D.C., exposing the silly wives with daydreams of becoming First Lady (EDIE ADAMS), the women who know how to play double-cross with charm and skill (ANN SOTHERN), and two men who are entirely different in character--HENRY FONDA (supposedly based on Adlai Stevenson) and CLIFF ROBERTSON (an unethical man who stops at nothing to play dirty and may have been based on Richard Nixon). It smacks of 1960s political scene--but since not much has changed since that time as regards political conventions, it's still timely enough to represent a time capsule of that period.
Fonda is Fonda; Cliff Robertson is a one-dimensional bad guy; but there are some juicy performances among the sterling supporting cast, including LEE TRACY as the current President (an outspoken man of homespun values, based presumably on Harry Truman), and MARGARET LEIGHTON, ANN SOTHERN, KEVIN McCARTHY and GENE RAYMOND doing workmanlike jobs in less substantial roles.
If you like your politics full of cynicism and not necessarily full of wit, THE BEST MAN should appeal to you--especially if you like Vidal's current brand of rather nasty commentaries on today's political scene.
Trivia note: LEE TRACY, as the ill president, did succumb to cancer a few years later, after winning an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor for this film.
He gets digs at everyone in Washington, D.C., exposing the silly wives with daydreams of becoming First Lady (EDIE ADAMS), the women who know how to play double-cross with charm and skill (ANN SOTHERN), and two men who are entirely different in character--HENRY FONDA (supposedly based on Adlai Stevenson) and CLIFF ROBERTSON (an unethical man who stops at nothing to play dirty and may have been based on Richard Nixon). It smacks of 1960s political scene--but since not much has changed since that time as regards political conventions, it's still timely enough to represent a time capsule of that period.
Fonda is Fonda; Cliff Robertson is a one-dimensional bad guy; but there are some juicy performances among the sterling supporting cast, including LEE TRACY as the current President (an outspoken man of homespun values, based presumably on Harry Truman), and MARGARET LEIGHTON, ANN SOTHERN, KEVIN McCARTHY and GENE RAYMOND doing workmanlike jobs in less substantial roles.
If you like your politics full of cynicism and not necessarily full of wit, THE BEST MAN should appeal to you--especially if you like Vidal's current brand of rather nasty commentaries on today's political scene.
Trivia note: LEE TRACY, as the ill president, did succumb to cancer a few years later, after winning an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor for this film.