My Fellow Americans is a 1996 comedy film starring Jack Lemmon and James Garner as feuding ex-presidents. Dan Aykroyd, Lauren Bacall, John Heard, Wilford Brimley, Bradley Whitford and Jeff Yagher also appear in supporting performances. The film is named for the traditional opening of Presidential addresses to the American people.
Originally Lemmon's perennial collaborator, Walter Matthau, was slated to co-star. However, health problems kept Matthau from appearing in the film and Garner was instead chosen to star opposite Lemmon in their only project together.
Synopsis
Former United States Presidents Russell P. Kramer (Lemmon) and Matt Douglas (Garner) have spent the past thirty years hating each other. The movie starts out with the Republican Senator Kramer of Ohio winning the Presidential election, narrowly defeating Democratic Indiana Governor Douglas in a very close race. We hear Kramer's trademark speech, "Our dreams are like our children ... " He says he hopes their stay in Washington is for a long time to come.
The film then skips forward four years, to the Democrat Douglas's landslide win over the incumbent Kramer. (Kramer later states that 80 million voted against him.) The film next skips forward another four years to the point where Kramer's former Vice President William "Bill" Haney (Aykroyd) defeats incumbent Douglas (by which time Douglas has become well-known for his infidelity). Ted Matthews (Heard), the Vice President under the new President William Haney, is widely seen as an idiot and becomes a continuing embarrassment for the Haney administration. Next, the film skips forward three years.
At this point, Kramer is spending most of his time writing a large number of books, and speaking at various inconsequential functions. Kramer continues to use the "Our dreams are like our children" line at every opportunity. Douglas is in New York, putting the finishing touches to his own book. Douglas is also going through a divorce. Kramer and Douglas are sent to a funeral aboard Air Force One by Haney, and spend almost the entire trip arguing with each other.
Soon, the Democrats find out about "Olympia", a series of kickbacks to a defense contractor named Charlie Reynolds (James Rebhorn) organized by Haney when he was Vice-President, and which Kramer, according to Haney himself in a scene at the beginning of the movie, knew nothing about. Democratic Party Chairman Joe Hollis (Brimley) encourages Douglas to investigate further while Haney and his Chief of Staff, Carl Witnaur (Whitford, who appears in The West Wing in a similar role), plot to have Kramer take the blame. Hollis tells Douglas that the Democrats would support him if he wanted to run for office again. Douglas takes the offer hoping to beat Haney and get back into the Oval Office. When the rumors of Olympia begin to suggest that Kramer was involved, Kramer begins his own investigation.
At this point, Reynolds becomes very nervous. The NSA Chief, Colonel Paul Tanner (Everett McGill), has Reynolds assassinated while Douglas reads a subpoena in his car. White House officials then take both former Presidents on Marine One, and tell them that Haney wants to see them at Camp David. Some way into the flight, it turns out the helicopter is heading in the wrong direction, toward what will later be revealed as North Carolina. When Douglas realizes the error, he and Kramer force the pilots to land the helicopter. They leave just before the helicopter explodes.
Kramer and Douglas are left in the middle of nowhere. They decide to go to Kramer's Presidential Library in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio to obtain a record the penny-pinching Kramer kept of all meals served during his time in the White House, which will prove Haney was present at a key meeting with the contractor. During a series of misadventures, the two ex-Presidents meet a variety of ordinary Americans and see the effects their terms in office have had.
After several close encounters with NSA agents, they arrive in Ohio and discover there is no evidence. Whoever is behind the plot had broken into Kramer's Presidential Library and changed the official record of the meeting so it looks like Kramer (not then vice-President Haney) met with Reynolds, as actually happened. A security guard at the library hands Kramer a message from Reynolds secretary who was concerned about his "disappearance." The message mentions that President Haney's Chief-of-Staff had visited Reynolds. Douglas and Kramer then kidnap Witnaur and take him to Hollis's home, where he is forced to reveal the full plot to blame Kramer for "Olympia," which he admits was a Haney project.
When Douglas and Kramer mention the attempts to kill the Presidents, Witnaur is shocked and obviously knows nothing about it, indicating that it was all Tanner's doing, likely on Haney's orders according to Hollis. Hollis arranges for Douglas and Kramer to meet with journalist Kay Griffin to tell their story, but they decide to go straight to the White House to confront Haney directly.
Colonel Tanner knows that the two ex-Presidents will be coming to the White House and imposes strict security. Douglas and Kramer slip through with the help of a White House cook named Rita (Esther Rolle). They make it through to the Oval Office only to discover Haney is giving a press conference in the gardens, and the story of their deaths in a helicopter crash has been released to the press. The NSA traps them in one of the White House guest rooms, which was Tanner's plan. However, they use a secret tunnel in the room to exit the White House. They hijack and ride police horses through the grounds to get to Haney, pursued by the NSA, police and security. The two are finally saved when a Secret Service sniper recognizes the "intruders" he was instructed to shoot as the real Presidents Kramer and Douglas and decides to disobey orders to shoot them. Instead, he shoots Tanner, who is himself about to shoot the ex-Presidents.
Arriving in the middle of the president's speech, Douglas is reluctantly welcomed by Haney (Kramer's horse doesn't stop), and Douglas tells him they need to talk. Back in the Oval office, they play him a tape of his Chief of Staff's confession. Haney agrees to resign, while Douglas and Kramer are introduced to the sniper who saved them, who turns out to be a gay man they had encountered earlier in the film during a Gay Pride parade in West Virginia. As Haney delivers his resignation speech, Kramer and Douglas muse on Ted Matthews's elevation from Vice-President to President. They realize that the only way he could have become President was if something like this had happened.
Kramer and Douglas confront Matthews and he admits the truth, that he, not Haney, had actually engineered the entire scheme in an effort to elevate himself to the presidency, knowing that Haney would likely take the fall since he really was culpable in the kickback scheme and the ensuing cover-up. Thinking he's now safe, Matthews explains that his apparent stupidity was really just a "big fakade" [sic]. But Kramer and Douglas have the last laugh, recording his admission for later release to the press. This leads to Matthews' ouster from office and a stretch in a Federal Prison.
The film concludes nine months later, with Matthews set to begin his prison term and Douglas and Kramer, running on the same ticket as independents in the Presidential election, arguing which of them will be the nominee for President. Douglas first takes the podium when he throws a dollar on the floor to distract Kramer. As Kramer bends over to pick up the dollar, Douglas takes the mic and says: "My fellow Americans," presumably to announce himself to be the nominee, and causes Kramer to swear in front of the crowd, when the film cuts out mid-sentence.
Filming
Most of the principal filming for the movie was done in the mountains of western North Carolina including scenes: along the Rocky Broad River where it flows into Lake Lure in Rutherford County, Dillsboro, along the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad; Waynesville, where a giant clown sign crashes through their windshield as they try to flee; and in Asheville, at the Biltmore Estate.[1]
In Asheville, the downtown area stands in for an unnamed town in West Virginia. There, the Western Carolina University Marching Band portrays the "Marching Dorothys" (a fictional group based upon gay icon Judy Garland's character from the Wizard of Oz), at a gay pride parade.
References
- ^ Visit Western North Carolina Foothills
External links
