''The President's Analyst'' is a 1967 American
satirical
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
black comedy film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the olde ...
written and directed by
Ted Flicker and starring
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III (August 31, 1928 – November 18, 2002) was an American film and television actor who was featured in more than 70 films, largely action roles, and made 100 television appearances during a 45-year career.AllmoviBi ...
. The film has elements of
political satire
Political satire is satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where Political discourse analysis, political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing ...
and
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
, including themes concerning modern ethics and privacy, specifically the intrusion of the telecommunications monopoly, working with the U.S. government, into citizens' private lives. The film was released theatrically on December 21, 1967, and was initially not a commercial success. However, it was reviewed favorably and eventually achieved
cult status
A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...
.
Plot
Psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Schaefer is chosen by the U.S. government to act as the president's top-secret personal psychoanalyst, from a referral by Don Masters, a Central Enquiries Agency (CEA) assassin who vetted Schaefer while undergoing his own
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
. The decision to choose Schaefer is against the advice of Henry Lux, the diminutive director of the all-male Federal Bureau of Regulation (FBR). ("Lux" resembles "
Electrolux
Electrolux AB () is a Swedish multinational home appliance manufacturer, headquartered in Stockholm. It is consistently ranked the world's second largest appliance maker by units sold, after Whirlpool.
Electrolux products sell under a variety ...
," which like "
Hoover", was once a famous make of
vacuum cleaner
A vacuum cleaner, also known simply as a vacuum or a hoover, is a device that causes suction in order to remove dirt from floors, upholstery, draperies, and other surfaces. It is generally electrically driven.
The dirt is collected by either a ...
.) Schaefer is given a home in affluent
Georgetown and assigned a comfortable office connected to the White House by a secret tunnel. From this location he is to be on call at all hours, to fit the president's hectic schedule.
However, the president's analyst has a unique problem: there is no one with whom he can talk about the president's top-secret and personal problems. As he steadily becomes overwhelmed by stress, Schaefer begins to feel that he is being watched everywhere until he becomes clinically
paranoid
Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concer ...
; he even suspects his sweet girlfriend Nan of spying on him as an agent of the CEA. All of Schaefer's paranoid suspicions eventually turn out to be true. Still worse, Schaefer has a habit of
talking in his sleep.
Schaefer goes on the run with the help of a "typical" American family in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
who defend him against foreign agents attempting to kidnap him off the street. He escapes with the help of a
hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
tribe led by the "Old Wrangler", as spies from many nations attempt to kidnap him for the secret information that the president has disclosed to him. Meanwhile, agents from the FBR seek him on orders to '"
liquidate
Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a company is brought to an end in Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign coun ...
" him as a
national security
National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...
risk. Eventually, Schaefer is found and kidnapped by
Canadian Secret Service agents masquerading as a
British pop
British pop music is popular music, produced commercially in the United Kingdom. It emerged in the mid-to late 1950s as a softer alternative to American rock 'n' roll. Like American pop music it has a focus on commercial recording, often orienta ...
group. Schaefer is rescued from the Canadians and an FBR assassin by Kropotkin (
Severn Darden
Severn Teakle Darden Jr. (November 9, 1929 – May 27, 1995) was an American comedian and actor, and a founding member of The Second City Chicago-based comedy troupe as well as its predecessor, the Compass Players. He is known from his film appe ...
), a Russian
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
agent who intends to spirit him away to the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. Kropotkin has second thoughts about his plan following a
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
session with the doctor during which Kropotkin begins to come to terms with his unrealized hatred of his KGB-chief father for having his mother shot during
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
's
Purge of 1937. Now feeling that he needs the 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, but Schaefer is kidnapped again, this time by TPC (The Phone Company), a far more insidious organization than the CSS, the FBR, or the KGB, which had been secretly observing him. Taken to TPC headquarters in New Jersey, he is introduced to its leader, who wants Schaefer's help in carrying out their plan for world domination. As the TPC leader makes his presentation, a camera closeup reveals electronic cables connected to one of his feet, revealing that he is actually an
animatronic robot.
TPC has developed a "modern electronic miracle", the Cerebrum Communicator (CC), a microelectronic device that can communicate wirelessly with any other CC in the world. With the CC
implanted in the brain, a user need only think of the phone number to be called, and is instantly connected, thus eliminating the need for The Phone Company's massive and expensive
wired infrastructure. For this to work, every human being will be assigned a number instead of a name, and will have the CC implanted prenatally. Schaefer is to be forced to assist the TPC scheme by
blackmail
Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...
ing the president to pushing through the required legislation. TPC uses a short animated sequence (a parody of the animation in ''
Our Mr. Sun'') to explain the plan to Schaefer.
Masters and Kropotkin use their
superspy
A superspy is a glamorous, important spy, especially seen in spy fiction
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intr ...
abilities to come to Schaefer's rescue. They hand Schaefer an
M16 rifle
The M16 rifle (officially designated Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16) is a family of military rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States military. The original M16 rifle was a 5.56×45mm automatic rifle with a 20-roun ...
that he gleefully uses on The Phone Company's security staff. The trio emerge victorious from the ensuing bloodbath, but months later, as Schaefer and his spy friends are enjoying a Christmas reunion, animatronic executives from TPC are seen staring approvingly at a secret monitor, while "
Joy to the World
"Joy to the World" is an English Christmas carol. The carol was written in 1719 by the English minister and hymnwriter Isaac Watts, and its lyrics are an interpretation of Psalm 98 celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Today, the carol is usua ...
" plays in the background.
Cast
*
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III (August 31, 1928 – November 18, 2002) was an American film and television actor who was featured in more than 70 films, largely action roles, and made 100 television appearances during a 45-year career.AllmoviBi ...
as Dr. Sidney Schaefer
*
Godfrey Cambridge
Godfrey MacArthur Cambridge (February 26, 1933 – November 29, 1976) was an American stand-up comic and actor. Alongside Bill Cosby, Dick Gregory, and Nipsey Russell, he was acclaimed by ''Time'' in 1965 as "one of the country's foremost celeb ...
as Don Masters
*
Severn Darden
Severn Teakle Darden Jr. (November 9, 1929 – May 27, 1995) was an American comedian and actor, and a founding member of The Second City Chicago-based comedy troupe as well as its predecessor, the Compass Players. He is known from his film appe ...
as V. I. Kydor Kropotkin
* Joan Delaney as Nan Butler
*
Pat Harrington, Jr.
Daniel Patrick Harrington Jr. (August 13, 1929 – January 6, 2016) was an American Emmy Award-winning stage and television actor, best known for his role as building superintendent Dwayne Schneider on the sitcom '' One Day at a Time'' (1975 ...
as Arlington Hewes
*
Barry McGuire
Barry McGuire (born October 15, 1935) is an American singer-songwriter primarily known for his 1965 hit " Eve of Destruction". Later he would pioneer as a singer and songwriter of Contemporary Christian music.
Early life
McGuire was born in O ...
as Old Wrangler
*
Jill Banner
Jill Banner (born Mary Molumby, November 8, 1946 – August 7, 1982) was an American film actress. She played Virginia, the "spider baby" in the 1968 cult horror-comedy film ''Spider Baby''. She also had roles as James Coburn's flower child fr ...
as Snow White
*
Eduard Franz
Eduard Franz Schmidt (October 31, 1902 – February 10, 1983) was an American actor of theatre, film and television. Franz portrayed King Ahab in the 1953 biblical low-budget film ''Sins of Jezebel'', Jethro in Cecil B. DeMille's ''The Ten C ...
as Ethan Allan Cocket
*
Walter Burke
Walter Lawrence Burke (August 25, 1908 – August 4, 1984) was an American character actor of stage, film, and television whose career in entertainment spanned over a half century. Although he was a native of New York, Burke's Irish ancest ...
as Henry Lux
*
Will Geer
Will Geer (born William Aughe Ghere; March 9, 1902 – April 22, 1978) was an American actor, musician, and social activist, who was active in labor organizing and other movements in New York and Southern California in the 1930s and 1940s. In Ca ...
as Dr. Lee Evan
*
William Daniels
William David Daniels (born March 31, 1927) is an American actor, who is best known for his television roles, notably as Mark Craig in the drama series '' St. Elsewhere'', for which he won two Primetime Emmy Awards; the voice of KITT in the tel ...
as Wynn Quantrill
*
Joan Darling
Joan Darling (née Kugell; born April 14, 1935, Boston, Massachusetts, United States) is an American actress, film and television director and a dramatic arts instructor.
Biography
Born Joan Kugell in Boston, Darling began her career with the ...
as Jeff Quantrill
* Sheldon Collins as Bing Quantrill
*
Arte Johnson
Arthur Stanton Eric Johnson (January 20, 1929 – July 3, 2019) was an American comic actor who was best known for his work as a regular on television's ''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In''.
Biography
Early life
Johnson was born January 20, 1929, in ...
as Sullivan
* Martin Horsey as 1st Puddlian
Production
James Coburn first met Theodore Flicker on the set of ''
Charade
Charade or charades may refer to:
Games
* Charades, originally "acting charades", a parlor game
Films/TV
* ''Charade'' (1953 film), an American film featuring James Mason
* ''Charade'' (1963 film), an American film starring Cary Grant and A ...
'' where the screenwriter was visiting his colleague and friend
Peter Stone Peter Stone may refer to:
*Pete Stone, Australian footballer in the 1956 Summer Olympics
* Peter G. Stone (born 1957), British archaeologist
*Peter Stone (cricketer) (born 1938), New Zealand cricketer
*Peter Stone (professor) (born 1971), professo ...
. Years later, Flicker met Coburn at a Christmas party, where he showed Coburn the script of a film that the screenwriter wished to direct. Coburn had just made ''
Waterhole #3'' for
Paramount
Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to:
Entertainment and music companies
* Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...
, and showed the script to
Robert Evans
Robert Evans (born Robert J. Shapera; June 29, 1930October 26, 2019) was an American film producer, studio executive, and actor, best known for his work on '' Rosemary's Baby'' (1968), '' Love Story'' (1970), ''The Godfather'' (1972), and ''Chi ...
, who loved it. A deal for production was made in five days. It was the first movie Evans
greenlit
To green-light is to give permission to proceed with a project. The term is a reference to the green traffic signal, indicating "go ahead".
Film industry
In the context of the film and television industries, to green-light something is to ...
as the new head of Paramount Studios.
The film was shot in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and the Paramount Studios in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
. Evans claimed that during production of the film, he was visited by
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
agents who told him that the agency did not want the film to be made because of its unflattering portrayal of the FBI. Evans refused, but when pressured by his studio, he changed the "FBI" to "FBR", and "CIA" to "CEA" by
redubbing the voice track slightly out of sync.
Evans believed that his telephone was monitored by the FBI (or the phone company) from that point on. The film's opening credits include a disclaimer that it was made without cooperation from the FBI or CIA.
The musical band of hippies led by McGuire was a Los Angeles rock group called
Clear Light
Clear Light was an American psychedelic rock band that was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1966. The group released one studio album, ''Clear Light''. It had moderate national success before the group disbanded.
History
In 1966, The Brain Tr ...
. They evolved from the band Brain Train and had recently been signed to
Elektra Records
Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the 1 ...
when they were cast in the film, with a few band members given lines of dialogue. However, the band soon replaced its vocalist. (
Cliff DeYoung
Clifford Tobin DeYoung (born February 12, 1945)According to the State of California. ''California Birth Index, 1905-1995''. Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento, California. At Ancestry.com is an Ame ...
joined the band as singer after the film was made and was their lead singer on their sole album; McGuire had played that part in the film.) The band released just one album and three singles before breaking up. Reportedly, the role was originally offered to the
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...
, but they turned it down.
The ship used by the Canadian Secret Service was
John Wayne
Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Gol ...
's personal yacht, the ''
Wild Goose''.
Critical reception
The film was a commercial failure, but received positive reviews from critics. , it holds a 77% rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
based on 22 reviews.
Deleted scenes
Some television prints and videocassette versions of the film were missing some of the songs written and performed by Clear Light with
Barry McGuire
Barry McGuire (born October 15, 1935) is an American singer-songwriter primarily known for his 1965 hit " Eve of Destruction". Later he would pioneer as a singer and songwriter of Contemporary Christian music.
Early life
McGuire was born in O ...
, with the songs replaced with generic
stock
In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...
instrumental music because of
music copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
issues. The 2004 DVD release restored the songs.
A scene missing from current editions of the film involves Schaefer meeting his lover Nan seemingly by chance at a 1960s-style underground movie.
In popular culture
The internet fax service The Phone Company took its name from this film.
TPC.INT: FAQ: The History of TPC.INT
See also
*List of American films of 1967
This is a list of American films released in 1967.
'' In the Heat of the Night'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
A-D
E-H
I-P
R-Z
Documentaries
Other
See also
* 1967 in the United States
External links
1967 filmsat the In ...
*List of films featuring surveillance
There is a significant body of films that feature surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observa ...
*List of films featuring hallucinogens
This is a list of films featuring hallucinogens.
List of films
See also
* List of drug films
References
{{Reflist, 30em, refs=
{{cite news , last=Arnold , first=Joel , url=https://www.npr.org/2013/07/12/199110836/to-the-beaches-of-chile-h ...
References
External links
*
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:President's Analyst
1967 films
1960s black comedy films
1960s spy comedy films
American black comedy films
American political comedy films
American political satire films
Cold War films
Films scored by Lalo Schifrin
Films about psychiatry
Films directed by Theodore J. Flicker
Paramount Pictures films
Films about telephony
1967 comedy films
1967 drama films
Films set in the White House
Films set in Washington, D.C.
Films set in New Jersey
Films about the KGB
Films about Canada–United States relations
Films shot in Los Angeles
Films shot in New York City
1960s English-language films
1960s American films