Really Surprised!

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The Best Man is from 1964 and it could have been made today. Gore Vidal first wrote it as a play which he later adapted for the screen. Vidal had real life experience as an insider in politics. He was on a first name basis with JFK. Henry Fonda stars as an idealistic politician running for president. Cliff Robertson is his opponent in a primary before the election. The man has no scruples and will do anything to win the election. The wheeling and dealing are shown in a very realistic manner. Vidal's script cuts like a razor sharp scalpel. More then fifty years later and nothing has changed. We need more Gore Vidal's today to cut through all the BS.

Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, and written by Gore Vidal, this excellent political campaign drama stars Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson as the two frontrunner candidates hoping to be selected as the Presidential nominee at their party's convention. Lee Tracy (giving his final feature film performance), who received his only Academy recognition with a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role, plays the "hick" President of the United States, who's secretly dying from cancer but still wields a lot of power in the process.Surprisingly still relevant for today, the film delivers an insightful, biting look at the behind the scenes wrangling, wheeling and dealing, that must go on at a wide open political convention where no clear candidate is the right choice, or has sewn up the position in advance: dirty politics, questions of character, decisions as to whether to use damning evidence against one's opponent which may jeopardize the party's chances of winning the overall election, etc..Fonda plays Secretary of State William 'Bill' Russell, whose marriage to his British wife Alice (Margaret Leighton) has been over for a long time due to his multiple affairs over the years. However, on the eve of the convention and for the purposes of his Presidential (and her First Lady) aspirations, the two agree to a "treaty" - to pretend to be as one so that he might win the nomination and (almost by default) then the presidency. She must then deal with Sue Ellen Gamadge (Ann Sothern), a powerful lobbyist who represents women's issues for the party. Russell is thought to be an intellectual who thinks about every issue (perhaps too) thoroughly, which causes some like President Art Hockstader (Tracy) to question his decisiveness. Kevin McCarthy plays Russell's campaign manager Dick Jensen.Robertson plays working man hero and Senator Joe Cantwell, who'd made a name for himself linking the Mafia with communism and writing a book titled the "Enemy Around Us"; Edie Adams plays his loving wife Mabel, the mother of their three children. Gene Raymond plays Joe's brother Don, (a former Senator?) who'd lost to Hockstader in a Presidential campaign of his own years earlier and now acts as Joe's campaign manager. Shelley Berman plays Sheldon Bascomb, a man who surfaces out of Joe's military past with a secret that might destroy his chances of earning his party's nomination - especially since Joe is supported by the conservative wing of the party.Cantwell has a bombshell of his own to drop, a psychiatric evaluation of Russell that calls into question the Secretary of State's mental health, labeling him a manic depressive that might crack under stress. Though Cantwell thinks of bringing this information to the light of day as a public service, his telling this to Hockstader so enrages the President that he withdraws his planned endorsement of ruthless Joe, calling him stupid for using a "cannon to crush a bug". Hockstader then works behind the scenes for Russell, though later lectures him about his indecisiveness to use Bascomb's dirt about Cantwell.Mahalia Jackson appears as herself, singing at the pre-convention banquet; Howard K. Smith also appears as himself, the news anchor correspondent during the convention. John Henry Faulk plays a southern state "Sons of the Confederacy" Governor T.T. Claypoole, who Hockstader kids is a progressive liberal; T.T. is instead a candidate who's not shy about voicing his racial prejudices and is slippery with his loyalties to either of the frontrunners, holding out for whomever will promise him a spot on the ticket as the vice presidential candidate. William Ebersol plays a relatively unknown candidate, western state Governor John Merwin, and Richard Arlen plays the other candidate, the former Attorney General now Senator Oscar Anderson. George Furth plays the President's secretary, aide.

Politics in America since at least the end of World War II hasn't been exactly clean; and over time, it has gotten dirtier and dirtier until one can't tell whether the guys running for high office are really in it for the public good or to smash one another to a political pulp. It was legendary playwright and frequent political pundit Gore Vidal who saw this coming, via his 1960 play "The Best Man." Four years later, with an America still in extreme shock over the assassination of JFK and a looming police action in southeast Asia, that play became the basis of a very solid 1964 film.It is the eve of what is believed to be the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, and two highly different men are vying for the affection and votes of the delegates. One is William Russell (Henry Fonda), a former Secretary of State with strong principles who, much to the chagrin of many, is not willing to stoop to dirty trickery. The other is Senator Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson), a very ambitious politico not above getting down and dirty for the nomination (the similarities between him and, say, Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon are just a bit too obvious to dismiss). Both Fonda and Robertson have dirt on one another. Robertson has documentation detailing Fonda's history of nervous breakdowns, documentation that he is more than willing to use to smear Fonda with. Fonda, meanwhile, has information on Robertson that is extremely seedy, relating to sexual issues dating back to World War II. The battle of wits and words is thus fought out between the two men, culminating in a fierce battle at the convention, and a twist ending.Cagily directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, who later went on to make PLANET OF THE APES and PATTON, and filmed in stark, documentary-style black-and-white by legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler, THE BEST MAN was one of many smartly-made political films of the time, a group that included THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, DOCTOR STRANGELOVE, and SEVEN DAYS IN MAY. It has a fine supporting cast, including Lee Tracy (as a former President), Kevin McCarthy (as Fonda's right hand man), and comedian Shelley Berman as a very nervous informant who rats about Robertson's sexual issues, but the real stars, of course, are Fonda and Robertson themselves. Fonda, who has played fictional presidents a lot, plus one real one (Abe Lincoln in John Ford's YOUNG MR. LINCOLN), does a typically masterful job here; while Robertson (like Fonda a committed political liberal in real life) gives an equally fine performance as the steely and not-all-above-board younger challenger. And finally, Vidal himself adapted his play extremely well to the big screen, with much of its punchy and frequently sardonic dialog intact.What THE BEST MAN says about American politics, much to many people's dismay, seems to be the same now as (if not worse than) it was back in 1964 (and this was even before LBJ's infamous "Daisy" TV ads against Goldwater). But it bears watching just the same, because it makes for something on the order of Great American Theatre, celluloid style, something that really can't be said for too many Hollywood films today.

Very well done movie, giving us a flavor of the classic political conventions of the past. Fonda does a great job as usual, but Cliff Robertson is simply electric as Joe Cantwell. Hollywood being Hollywood though, the conservative candidate is disparagingly portrayed. Nothing much changes does it?The black and white photography is first rate. Fonda's idealism is typical of candidates who want a new approach to politics. As shown, the process itself corrupts the idealistic candidate; compromises have to be made, promises dealt out, and eventually deals have to be made with the devil. The sitting president, played by Lee Tracy, shows a world weary cynicism about the process, which Fonda and Robertson haven't yet grasped. Excellent film.