In this election year, if you get the chance to see the movie “The Best Man,” with Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson, do so. It’s a potent drama about the backstage machinations between two candidates for president during a party convention (back when the party conventions actually got to decide the nominee). Fonda plays an idealistic candidate, albeit with some personal flaws, while Robertson, as his opponent, is a pragmatist who has some dirt on Fonda and threatens to release it. The two men are also maneuvering for the endorsement of a Trumanesque former president (played by Lee Tracy) from their (unnamed) party.
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Tag Archives: henry fonda
The Best Man
Now that the presidential campaigns are thinning out, set your TiVos on Monday to tape “The Best Man,” a great 1964 movie (in the waning days of black and white) starring Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson as competing presidential candidates heading into the convention. Obviously, it takes place back when the conventions played a role in deciding the nominee, as opposed to just coronating the nominee. It’s relevant this year because the whole point of it is the tension between positive and negative campaigns. Both men have to weigh how nasty they are willing to get in pursuit of the nomination. Well written and well-acted, as if “well-acted” needed to be said given the talent involved.
By the way, IMDb’s trivia page says that Ronald Reagan was turned down for a part because a studio executive didn’t think he looked presidential enough!
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He’s fonda Stanwyck
I posted the other day about the fact that The Lady Eve is showing in Nashville this weekend. Well, Jim Ridley at the Nashville Scene posted this little clip:
The Lady Eve
Those of you in and around Nashville really need to head to the Belcourt next weekend for one of my favorite movies, “The Lady Eve”, as part of its series “Family Weekend Classics.”
It’s directed by Preston Sturges — which ought to be enough, right there — and stars Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck in a screwball comedy. (Because when you think “Henry Fonda,” you automatically think “screwball comedy.”) Fonda is the straight-arrow, nerdy, science-minded heir to a brewing fortune (“The ale that won for Yale”) and Stanwyck is a con artist trying to take him for as much as possible. Hollywood being Hollywood, romance ensues, but Sturges is never going to take you directly from point A to point B without a hilarious side trip through points C, D and E.
If you’ve never seen it, it’s not to be missed.
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