Power Play
- Episode aired Nov 1, 1970
- 1h
Political powerbroker George P. Mallon tests the integrity Senator Hays Stowe to support Louis Masterson. This causes Stowe to second guess how his Father played the political game when he w... Read allPolitical powerbroker George P. Mallon tests the integrity Senator Hays Stowe to support Louis Masterson. This causes Stowe to second guess how his Father played the political game when he was a Senator.Political powerbroker George P. Mallon tests the integrity Senator Hays Stowe to support Louis Masterson. This causes Stowe to second guess how his Father played the political game when he was a Senator.
- Martin Witt
- (as Bill Wintersole)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaJordan Boyle says he read "The Selling of the President." This bestselling 1969 book by Joe McGinniss documented the role of media in the1968 presidential campaign. The 1968 campaign is referred to again when the young hippie Sylvia mentions attending the Democratic National Convention in Chicago when the riots broke out.
- Quotes
Senator Hays Stowe: George, I have an important education bill in trouble.
George P. Mallon: These party regulars, they ain't like you and me. They couldn't care less about education. They're like these pigs that you don't care too much about. They got their nose in the trough, and you better keep 'em well fed!
Senator Hays Stowe: They looked pretty well fed to me tonight.
- ConnectionsReferences The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962)
Burgess Meredith plays the curmudgeonly old coot with unkempt hair character that Will Geer played last time. These aging power brokers try to bully Hays Stowe, treating him like a fart in a hurricane, reminding him he rode his daddy's coattails to power.
In this story, Stowe is just back from a trip to Geneva and a week luxuriating in nature, "sharing a crag with a mountain goat," as a bellicose Boyle puts it. Why's Jordan so mad? Well, in the time Stowe was incommunicado some political sleight of hand took place back in Stowe's home state. It was agreed an open congressional seat would be filled by the qualified Joseph Bonine, but state party chairman George Mallon has played a shell game on Stowe and is now supporting the unqualified Louis Masterman. Worse, Mallon expects Stowe to toe the party line and back the Masterson nomination.
Stowe is to blame for some of his woes. He was happily globetrotting and now returns consumed with inside-the-beltway concerns. Tip O'Neill had not yet coined his famous adage that "all politics is local," so Stowe can perhaps be given a pass for forgetting the little people back home who elected him. He grumbles and grimaces at the prospect of going back to the unsophisticated flyover country of pig farms and covered bridges. But in his heart, he knows it's right.
Mallon (emphasis on the "mal") is a buffoonish man who puffs a Cuban cigar whilst tending his pigs. His uncombed hair and ungrammatical sentences grate on the sophisticated Stowe, who suffers fools gladly if it meets his end (that annoying education bill). Mallon thinks highly of himself, and likens the "party regulars" to the pigs he raises, saying the people have their noses in the trough and want to be fed. It's practical pork barrel politics--bring home the money and lots of it.
Speaking of lots of money, that is what Masterman has donated to the party. And since he who pays the piper calls the tune, he requests "Hail to the Chief," or at least the congressional equivalent.
To writer Ernest Kinoy's credit, he skillfully balances rose-colored idealism with ugly reality. A highlight of the show is a conversation among Stowe and various stakeholders, from a minority leader, a veteran ward heeler, and a naive hippie. Stowe tries to explain politics is about tradeoffs, quid pro quo, and giving a little to get a little. They don't want to believe that. Isn't Stowe their Mr. Smith gone to Washington? This scene is filmed with handheld cameras and looks amateurish by design. People are talking over one another. It's compelling and captures perfectly the plight of the politician who is acutely aware he can't please everyone.
Mallon claims Hays' father, retired Senator Holden Stowe, played ball and was in fact a "political animal." Distressed by this disillusioning claim, Stowe goes to visit his father, who is repairing a covered bridge. I would have thought Hays would have visited his father immediately upon returning home, but as the pilot movie implied, their relationship is strained. Holden Stowe of course denies he was ever pushed around by the party or by Mallon. He tells Hays to take back whatever power he lost.
Like an Old West showdown, Mallon and Stowe face off. Or maybe it's more like a Cold War standoff, eyeball to eyeball, waiting to see who will blink first. Stowe is initially seen with his back to the camera gazing out a window, yet another of the series' attempts to evoke in the audience's mind iconic images of the Kennedys. That is especially ironic considering a subplot is the pivotal role the media plays in shaping the image of politicians, from Stowe's exploitative photo op at the school to the Masterson-as-Marlboro-Man commercial. Jordan knows all this, having read Joe McGinnis' bestselling book "The Selling of the President."
Kinoy wrote a nuanced story here. Neither Mallon or Stowe come out untarnished. Mallon isn't presented as the villain of the piece. Instead, he's a semi-tragic figure, a man whose indefatigable dedication to the party has driven his neglected wife into alcoholism and a bad habit of three in the morning drunk dialing (poor Erin takes that call and displays her adeptness at diplomacy). Frances Mallon's warning to Erin about how the glamorous jet-set life of a politician's wife will wear thin quickly is one I prayed Erin will take to heart. Did Erin think back to Hays brushing their daughter off the phone soon after bragging to the press about the teddy bear he has for her? The image is a loving dad; the reality is "go 'way kid, ya bother me." Which sadly is probably the childhood Hays himself endured and will now unwittingly inflict upon young Norma. Sobering stuff.
Burgess Meredith was disappointingly underutilized. One key scene was filmed in so dark a shadow his face was almost completely obscured. His chomping on that Cuban cigar did stir up fond memories of his Penguin portrayals of just a few years earlier. Also in the cast was Jon Lormer as Holden Stowe. That was a miscasting in my opinion. Man, couldn't they have filmed a few minutes with E. G. Marshall during a break on his sister series BOLD ONES: THE NEW DOCTORS?
James McEachin is always a welcome face and gives a short but spirited performance in that conversation scene, as does Holly Near as the young campus radical who rang a lot of doorbells for Stowe. I always remember Near from an ALL IN THE FAMILY episode, and damned if she wasn't sitting in Archie's chair in this scene! And then there's Archie's bartender Jason Wingreen opening the show as a reporter peppering our protagonist with inconvenient questions.
Another episode that is more appreciated than enjoyed, that informs more than entertains. Thought-provoking stories without tidy resolutions. Okay, that said, I enjoyed it and seeing Hal Holbrook verbally bobbing and weaving with Burgess Meredith is entertainment of the kind you just don't see anymore.
- GaryPeterson67
- Nov 30, 2022
Details
- Runtime1 hour
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1