Kamala Harris has arrived at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago as the party’s official nominee for president. Things, however, weren’t as smooth in The Best Man: A political endorsement was a chief concern when it hit cinemas 60 years ago.
Written by Gore Vidal and based on his play of the same name, The Best Man follows two candidates — ethical former Secretary of State William Russell (played by Henry Fonda) and the more conniving Sen. Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson) — campaigning to become their unnamed political party’s presidential nominee. There’s no love lost between the candidates, who each vie for the backing of the ailing former president, Art Hockstader (Lee Tracy, reprising his role from the Tony-winning production).
Franklin J. Schaffner, who would win the best director Oscar for Patton (1970), helmed the big-screen version of The Best Man, which United Artists released on April 5, 1964, ahead of Lyndon B. Johnson’s victory seven months later. It has been cited as the first American movie to include the word “homosexual” — used as part of the mudslinging — and earned an Oscar nom for Tracy in his final feature. Frank Capra was initially attached to direct, but Vidal said in a 2008 interview that his contract granted him the power to remove any director from the project. According to Vidal, who died in 2012, Capra — who had tackled politics with his Jimmy Stewart-led 1939 feature Mr. Smith Goes to Washington — was “trying to turn this thing into the most unholy Jesus Christ Christian story that you ever saw, none of which was reflective of what I had written.”
Later, the scribe got a shout-out when his play’s 2000 Broadway revival was officially renamed Gore Vidal’s The Best Man. Producer Jeffrey Richards told THR at the time that the title was their way of honoring Vidal, who had remembered attending a film festival for the adaptation and seeing only Schaffner’s name prominently featured on posters. Added Richards: “There’s no doubt Schaffner did a first-rate job directing the film, but what would it have been without the author? We’re simply giving Gore the ownership we believe he deserves.” In reflecting on The Best Man in 2008, Vidal — a grandson of Thomas Gore, a blind U.S. senator from Oklahoma — saw the film as addressing the need for politicians “to appear to be all things to an awful lot of people.”
This story first appeared in the August 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
