This 12 months marks the sixtieth anniversary of maybe the best political movie of all time, 1964’s The Greatest Man. Based mostly on a play of the identical title by Gore Vidal, who additionally wrote the screenplay, The Greatest Man tells the story of a deadlocked political conference at which two candidates vie for his or her celebration’s presidential nomination. Sixty years on, the movie stays tremendously entertaining: intelligent, suspenseful, with an distinctive forged. The dialogue is excellent. Contemplating what we’ve witnessed within the present presidential marketing campaign—and it’s solely August—Individuals would possibly once more discover curiosity in Vidal’s depiction of the backroom intrigue that determines a nomination.
The Greatest Man holds up for its mordant however profound observations about American democracy. There’s not a lot idealism right here. The movie’s most principled character has flaws that make him unfit to guide and the last word nominee is a “no one” whose lack of file is his highest quality. However there are necessary classes concerning the type of one who seeks excessive workplace in a democracy—and the type of individual excessive workplace requires. Maybe surprisingly, on condition that Vidal was a person of the Left and had a quite acid persona, The Greatest Man gives a mainly truthful, even forgiving, depiction of progressives and conservatives. Neither are wholly good nor wholly dangerous, simply human.
The movie is a fictionalized model of the 1964 conference of a thinly disguised Democratic Get together. That is the period earlier than binding primaries, when celebration conventions selected presidential candidates as a substitute of crowning them. The 2 primary rivals are former Secretary of State William Russell (Henry Fonda) and Senator Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson). Each desperately search the endorsement of former President Artwork Hockstader (Lee Tracy, who steals each scene he’s in), which can put one or the opposite excessive. These three politicians—Russell, Cantwell, and Hockstader—kind a triangle round which the movie’s plot unfolds.
Russell is a liberal mental who helps integration and the Civil Rights Act. The “finest man” to whom the movie’s title refers, he’s wealthy, brilliant, and urbane, the type of one who tosses off quotes from Betrand Russell and Oliver Cromwell. He has political abilities, too, together with the flexibility to evaluate individuals’s character and decode hidden messages in seemingly banal statements. He has wit and integrity, particularly in comparison with different politicians.
However he additionally has flaws. He’s indecisive, apt to hesitate when fast motion is critical. He’s pedantic and self-involved. And he doesn’t have as a lot integrity as he thinks. Outright mendacity is beneath him, however not misdirection. He parades his spouse, Alice, across the conference to recommend a contented marriage, however he’s a compulsive womanizer, and his marriage is a fraud. The long-suffering Alice stays with him solely as a result of she needs to be first girl. Furthermore, he not too long ago had a psychological breakdown requiring an extended hospitalization. However he declines to reveal that occasion to the delegates, who certainly have a proper to know such issues a few potential nominee.
Cantwell, against this, is “the darling of the conservative component of the nation,” an outline that may be stunning for a Democratic politician right this moment, however attainable in 1964. He condemns racism however opposes the Civil Rights Act on federalism grounds. He’s ruthless, humorless, and mediocre, having made his profession crusading towards a communist conspiracy others dismiss as “imaginary.” He at all times assaults, even when pointless and counterproductive. If Russell is predicated on Adlai Stevenson, Cantwell is a progressive caricature of Richard Nixon—and a younger John Kennedy, whom Vidal knew via Jacqueline Kennedy, to whom Vidal was associated by marriage. (Vidal’s unique play was set on the 1960 Democratic conference that nominated Kennedy over Stevenson, and Vidal’s portrayal of occasions reportedly brought about a rift between him and the Kennedy household.)
You’d anticipate such a caricature from Vidal. However he surprises. Cantwell has good qualities, too. He has pulled himself out of poverty. He’s decisive and fearless. And he’s not a phony. His strategies are repulsive, but it surely’s fallacious to say, as Russell does, that Cantwell has no sense of accountability to anybody or something. He genuinely believes in America and thinks a communist menace exists—which, after all, it did, because the Venona Papers subsequently revealed. He and his spouse make a vulgar pair, however in contrast to Russell and his spouse, they love one another.
Former President Artwork Hockstader is the third nook of the political triangle. On the floor, he’s an old school pol, a self-deprecating, glad-handing blissful warrior. However in non-public, he’s a tragic previous man who believes in nothing. In politics as in life, he tells Cantwell, there aren’t any final objectives. It’s all a recreation, a efficiency that can finish within the grave, “the place the mud is neither good nor dangerous.” Hockstader needs one final likelihood to play kingmaker. He likes and admires Russell, a good friend and protégé, however plans to endorse Cantwell. Cantwell is extra decisive.
Even a well-meaning president will often need to betray his associates, double-cross his supporters, make use of underhanded ways, and make selections that result in loss of life and destruction for his nation’s residents.
However then Cantwell makes a mistake. Failing to understand that Hockstader will endorse him, not Russell, he threatens to disclose Russell’s psychological breakdown—a revelation that may end Russell but additionally embarrass Hockstader. Appalled at Cantwell’s lack of judgment, Hockstader modifications his thoughts and decides to work for Russell. (“It’s not that I object to your being a bastard,” he tells Cantwell, “it’s your being such a silly bastard that I object to.”) He begins to line up votes for Russell, and Cantwell prepares to launch Russell’s medical information.
Earlier than Cantwell can achieve this, although, Russell comes into possession of courtroom martial testimony that implies that Cantwell had a gay affair whereas within the military. Russell doesn’t consider the story—” You understand Joe’s not like that,” he objects—however whether or not the report is true or false doesn’t matter to Hockstader, who urges Russell to make use of it to cease Cantwell. When Russell demurs, Hockstader angrily rebukes him, giving him a lesson about what it means to be president:
I’m right here to let you know this. Energy isn’t a toy that we give to good youngsters. It’s a weapon. And the robust man takes it, and he makes use of it. And for those who don’t … beat Joe Cantwell to the ground with this very soiled stick, then you definately’ve bought no enterprise on this massive league. As a result of for those who don’t combat, this job isn’t for you. And it by no means will likely be.
Rejecting Hockstader’s recommendation, Russell decides to not use the courtroom martial information. Why isn’t precisely clear. Cantwell denies the story and claims he has corroborating proof. His accuser has credibility points. Possibly Russell thinks the allegations will backfire. Possibly he can’t deliver himself to combat soiled. Or possibly, as Hockstader suggests, he’s merely not robust sufficient.
However Russell doesn’t need Cantwell, whom he loathes and distrusts, to develop into president. So, in a transfer that surprises everybody, he breaks the conference impasse by withdrawing his title and instructing his delegates to help a younger Western governor named Merwin, about whom nobody is aware of something. Cantwell loses, the conference enthusiastically nominates Merwin, and Russell tells reporters, within the movie’s closing line, that he’s “blissful that the very best man received.”
Two interpretations of this ambiguous line exist, each ironic. The primary is that Russell, the very best man, doesn’t have what it takes. Political management is about energy, as Hockstader says, and requires ugly issues. Even a well-meaning president will often need to betray his associates, double-cross his supporters, make use of underhanded ways, and make selections that result in loss of life and destruction for his nation’s residents. An individual who would scruple at such issues couldn’t do the job. In terms of being president, the very best man isn’t the proper man. Russell “wins” by returning to personal life the place, the movie hints, he’ll patch up his marriage with Alice and discover achievement.
The second is that Merwin, not Russell, is in truth the very best man to be president. Merwin is an empty swimsuit, “a person and not using a face,” however politics is itself empty—enjoyable for those who don’t take it critically, however a recreation. In politics, the very best man, the one most certified for the job, is exactly the person about whom individuals know nothing, whose character is a cipher, and whose objectives are a query mark. “Males with out faces,” Russell remarks, “are likely to get elected president. And energy or accountability or private honor fill within the options, often fairly effectively.”
The second interpretation is extra optimistic than the primary, although neither presents American democracy in an particularly flattering mild. What did you anticipate from Gore Vidal? Nevertheless it’s value conserving the movie’s classes in thoughts in a presidential election 12 months, particularly this one. We hear lots nowadays about preserving our democracy, as if some new menace exists, one facet is uniquely dangerous and the opposite uniquely good, and democracy itself protects us from catastrophe.
None of that’s true. 200 years in the past, the Framers acknowledged the failings inherent in human nature and democracy, which is why they adopted a structure with so many guardrails towards ambition and checks towards the train of energy. It’s these guardrails and checks—along with the sense we’ve had of taking part in a typical enterprise—which have preserved the American Republic. If that Republic goes to endure, it will likely be saved by these issues once more.
