Themes: Conspiracies, Political Corruption, Flight of the Innocent
Main Cast: James Coburn, Godfrey Cambridge, Severn Darden, Joan Delaney, Pat Harrington, Jr.
Release Year: 1967
Country: US
Run Time: 104 minutes
Plot
The President's Analyst is James Coburn, whose position makes him privy to any number of delicate government secrets. Thus Coburn becomes a most desirable prize for several secret-agent organizations, including the CEA and the FBR (we know who these folks are really supposed to be, even though the phony names were crudely dubbed onto the soundtrack after the film was completed). When Coburn becomes expendable, he finds a pair of strong allies in the form of likeable political assassin Godfrey Cambridge and gay Soviet spy Severn Darden. The main plot involves an insidious, unnamed concern that wishes to harness Coburn's talents in order to brainwash the president -- and everyone else in America -- into submission. The President's Analyst is a terrific, on-target satire of virtually every sacred cow of the late 1960s; the satire was so potent, in fact, that when the NBC network broadcast the film in the early 1970s, it was compelled to remove the picture's punchline. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
The success of the first James Bond movies in the early 1960s inspired a number of spoofs featuring ultra-suave secret agents facing perils even more absurd than the ones thrown at Bond (which already verged on self-parody). The President's Analyst, however, appears to be a parody of these parodies, and it appropriately features James Coburn, the star of one of the best Bond take-offs, Our Man Flint. Overflowing with comic anarchy and a cynically cheeky attitude about the state of the world in 1967, the film runs head first into international espionage, the CIA and the FBI (even if it changes their names), the politics of assassination, the counter-culture, consciousness-expanding drugs, life in suburbia, and the unexplored dangers of the telephone company. It's filled to bursting with inspired ideas, and nearly all of them work, thanks to Flicker's breakneck pacing and top-shelf work by a great comic cast including Coburn, Godfrey Cambridge, Severn Darden, Pat Harrington, William Daniels, and Will Geer. Theodore J. Flicker never made another film that matched the oddball brilliance of The President's Analyst; perhaps he used all his best ideas in one shot, but you can't deny that he made the most of them. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Hal Pereira - Art Director, Al Y. Roelofs - Art Director, Jack Bear - Costume Designer, Kurt Neumann - First Assistant Director, Theodore J. Flicker - Director, Stuart H. Pappe - Editor, Howard W. Koch - Executive Producer, Lalo Schifrin - Composer (Music Score), Theodore J. Flicker - Songwriter, Barry McGuire - Songwriter, Paul Potash - Songwriter, Wally Westmore - Makeup, Emile LaVigne - Makeup, David M. Walsh - Camera Operator, Pato Guzman - Production Designer, William A. Fraker - Cinematographer, Stanley Crea Rubin - Producer, Robert R. Benton - Set Designer, Arthur Krams - Set Designer, Robert Post - Sound/Sound Designer, John K. Wilkinson - Sound/Sound Designer, Theodore J. Flicker - Screenwriter
Dr. Sidney Schaefer (James Coburn), a psychiatrist, is chosen by the U.S. Government to act as the President’s top-secret personal psychoanalyst, through Don Masters (Godfrey Cambridge), a Central Enquiries Agency (CEA) assassin who vetted Dr. Schaefer while undergoing psychoanalysis. The decision to choose Schaefer is against the advice of Henry Lux, the director of the all-male, under-five-foot-six-inch Federal Bureau of Regulation (FBR). Dr. Schaefer is given a home in affluent Georgetown and assigned a comfortable office connected to the White House by underground tunnel. From these locations he is to be on call at all hours to fit the President's hectic schedule. However, the President's Analyst has one problem: There is no one to whom he can talk about the President's ultra-top-secret and personal problems. As he steadily becomes overwhelmed by stress, Schaefer begins to feel that he is being watched everywhere — which is actually true — until he becomes clinically paranoid; he even suspects his sweet girlfriend Nan (Joan Delaney) of spying on him — also true — as an agent of the (CEA).
Schaefer goes on the lam with the help of a typical American family who defend him against foreign agents attempting to kidnap him off the streets. He escapes with the help of a hippie tribe, led by the "Old Wrangler" (Barry McGuire), as spies from all over the world attempt to kidnap him for the secret information the President has confided to him. Meanwhile, agents from the FBR seek him out on orders to liquidate him as a national security risk. Eventually, he is found and kidnapped by Canadian Secret Service agents masquerading as a British pop group. Schaefer is rescued from the Canadians and an FBR assassin by Kropotkin (Severn Darden), a KGB agent who intends to spirit him away to Russia. Kropotkin has second thoughts about his plan, following a psychoanalysis session with the Doctor, during which Kropotkin begins to come to terms with his unrealized hatred of his KGB-chief father. Now feeling he needs the good doctor's help to continue his self-analysis, he instead returns him to U.S. soil.
Kropotkin arranges a pickup with his trusted CEA colleague Don Masters (Godfrey Cambridge), the CEA assassin who vetted Dr. Schaefer while undergoing psychoanalysis, but Schaeffer is kidnapped again — this time by TPC, otherwise known as The Phone Company who has been observing him throughout the film.
The SPECTRE type TPC explains to Schaefer through their spokesman (Pat Harrington, Jr.) how they want people to love them and by showing him an animated Bell Telephone type film they explain their scheme of planting electronic devices inside people to accomplish their plan.
Masters and Kropotkin use their superspy abilities to come to Schaefer's rescue and foil the TPC plan to enslave the human race. They hand Schaefer an M-16 rifle that Schaefer gleefully uses on the phone company staff. The three emerge victorious from the ensuing bloodbath, but, months later, as Dr. Schaefer and his spy friends are enjoying a Christmas reunion, robot executives from TPC look on approvingly.
Production
James Coburn first met Theodore Flicker on the set of Charade where Flicker was visiting his friend screenwriter Peter Stone. Years later Flicker met Coburn at a Christmas party where he showed Coburn the script of the film that Flicker wished to direct. Coburn had just made Waterhole #3 for Paramount and showed the film to Robert Evans who loved it. A deal for production was made in five days.[1]
Evans claimed that during production of the film he was visited by FBI Special Agents who told him that the Bureau didn't want the film made due to the unflattering portrayal of the FBI. Evans refused, then when pressure came from his studio he changed the FBI to the FBR and CIA to CEA by redubbing the voice track. Evans believed that his telephone was monitored by the Bureau (or the phone company) from then on.[2]
Response
The film was a commercial failure, but a favorable critical response and numerous television showings over the years have helped it to develop a cult following. Godfrey Cambridge, Severn Darden, William Daniels, Joan Darling, and Arte Johnson, among other cast members, also give standout performances. The film scores many amusing and surprisingly prescient points about privacy concerns, specifically regarding the U.S. Government’s intrusions into the private lives of its citizens.
Deleted scenes
Television prints and videocassette versions of the film were missing some songs written and performed by Barry McGuire, replacing them with generic instrumental music due to music copyright issues[3]. The 2004 DVD release restores the songs.
Another reportedly missing scene featured glowing eyeballs appearing while Sidney goes paranoid. Some fans claim this scene was in the original cut of the film.
Trivia
The musical band of hippies led by McGuire was a Los Angeles rock group called Clear Light. They evolved from the band Brain Train and were just about to be signed to Elektra Records when they were cast in the film. They were, however, between vocalists (Cliff DeYoung joined them as singer after the film was made and is their lead singer on their sole album); McGuire played that part. The band only released one album and one single before breaking up, yet not only were they lucky enough to be cast in a film, but a few members actually had spoken lines! Reportedly, the role was originally offered to The Grateful Dead but they turned it down.[4]
An important scene is reportedly missing from current editions of the film. Originally, Dr. Schaefer meets his lover Nan seemingly randomly at a 60's style underground movie. It's a satire of the art films of the time and sets the audience up for the paranoia of discovering that she's actually CEA. Some fans believe this is a very important vignette and it is not known why it has not been restored. (A still from the missing scene can be seen at Roger Ebert's site [1])
While fleeing from assassins, Dr. Shaefer runs underneath a theater marquee. The movie listed on the marquee is "No Running".
Director Flicker went on to work on TV's Barney Miller.
