Main Cast: Robert Redford, Peter Boyle, Don Porter, Allen Garfield, Karen Carlson
Release Year: 1972
Country: US
Run Time: 109 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
"What do we do now?" Director Michael Ritchie and executive producer/star Robert Redford satirically explore the machinations and manipulations of media-age political campaigns in this cynical political drama. Rumpled left-wing California lawyer Bill McKay (Redford), the son of a former governor (Melvyn Douglas), is enlisted by campaign maestro Marvin Lucas (Peter Boyle) to challenge Republican incumbent Crocker Jarmon (Don Porter) for his Senate seat. McKay agrees, but only if he can say exactly what he thinks. That approach is all well and good when McKay does not seem to have a chance, but things change when his honesty unexpectedly captivates the electorate. As McKay inches up in the polls, Lucas and company start to do what it takes to win, leaving McKay to ponder the consequences of his political seduction. Working without studio interference from a script by Jeremy Larner, a speechwriter for 1968 Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, Ritchie enhanced the behind-the-scenes realism of Larner's insights with a realistic, cinéma vérité approach. He orchestrated a campaign parade for "candidate" Redford that drew such a considerable unstaged audience that local politicians wanted to draft Redford for a real election. Redford's resemblance to the telegenic Kennedys, and his character's resonance with the future career of California governor Jerry Brown, only emphasized how close to the bone The Candidate was (and is). Released the fateful year of Richard Nixon's reelection, the film garnered accolades, if not substantial box office; Larner won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and thanked the "politicians of our time" for inspiration. Creating a documentary fiction about the semi-truths manufactured to market a candidate, The Candidate shrewdly exposed the effects of the media on the increasingly cynical political process, posing unanswerable questions that have become all the more pressing with every soundbite-ruled election. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Review
A dryly funny and pungent satire of the gamesmanship of contemporary politics, The Candidate suggests that the desire for power, no matter how well-intentioned, is the first step down the primrose path to purgatory. While Robert Redford (in a fine, understated performance), director Michael Ritchie, and screenwriter (and former Eugene McCarthy speechwriter) Jeremy Larner almost always suggest that McKay's intentions are pure, they make clear that, the more McKay turns himself into a smooth-talking, blow-dried congressional candidate, the more he betrays his original intentions; the transformation is so gradual that McKay doesn't always seem aware of it, though the audience is, and, when McKay quizzically asks "What do we do now?" in the film's famous conclusion, it's the ultimate sign of how far he's strayed from his original intentions. Ritchie's sharp but subtle style and cinematographer Victor J. Kemper's clean, pin-sharp framings give The Candidate a smart and incisive feel that's never too obvious, and its satire is all the more effective as a result. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Melvyn Douglas - John J. McKay; Broderick Crawford - Jarmon Narrator; Tom Dahlgren - Pilot; Cedrick Hardman; Pat Harrington, Jr. - Dinner M.C.; Fred Harris; Gerald Hiken - Stationmaster; Ken Jones; Dudley Knight - Magazine Editor; Michael Lerner - Paul Corliss; Terry McGovern; Quinn K. Redeker - Rich Jenkin; Howard K. Smith; Barry Sullivan - McKay Narrator; Jenny Sullivan - Lynn; Kenneth Tobey - Teamster Leader; Morgan Upton - Henderson; Dick Whittington; Natalie Wood - Herself; Joseph Miksak - Neil Atkinson; George Meyer - Man in Urinal; Leslie Allen - Mabel; Christopher Pray - David; David Moody - Watts Heckler; Bill Stout
Credit
Pat Norris - Costume Designer, Michael Daves - First Assistant Director, Michael Ritchie - Director, Robert L. Estrin - Editor, Richard A. Harris - Editor, John Rubinstein - Composer (Music Score), David Colloff - Songwriter, John Rubinstein - Songwriter, Gary D. Liddiard - Makeup, Gene Callahan - Production Designer, Victor J. Kemper - Cinematographer, John Korty - Cinematographer, Walter Coblenz - Producer, Robert Redford - Producer, Michael Ritchie - Producer, Patrizia Von Brandenstein - Set Designer, Gene S. Cantamessa - Sound/Sound Designer, Richard Portman - Sound/Sound Designer, Jeremy Larner - Screenwriter
