The Man (1972)

An African-American senator becomes the designated survivor of a tragic accident that kills the President of the United States. Now the first black President, he attempts to end the bigotry and divide standing in his way.

Director:

Joseph Sargent

Writers:

Irving Wallace (novel), Rod Serling (screenplay)

Stars:

James Earl Jones, Martin Balsam, Burgess Meredith

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
James Earl Jones	...	Douglass Dilman
Martin Balsam	...	Jim Talley
Burgess Meredith	...	Senator Watson
Lew Ayres	...	Noah Calvin
William Windom	...	Arthur Eaton
Barbara Rush	...	Kay Eaton
Georg Stanford Brown	...	Robert Wheeler
Janet MacLachlan	...	Wanda
Martin E. Brooks	...	Wheeler's Lawyer (as Martin Brooks)
Simon Scott	...	Hugh Gaynor
Patric Knowles	...	South African Consul
Robert DoQui	...	Webson
Anne Seymour	...	Ma Blore
Edward Faulkner	...	Secret Service Man
Gilbert Green	...	Congressman Hand

Storyline

When the President and Speaker of the House are killed in a building collapse, and the Vice-President declines the office due to age and ill-health, Senate President pro tempore Douglas Dilman (James Earl Jones) suddenly becomes the first black man to occupy the Oval Office. The events from that day to the next election when he must decide if he will actually run challenge his skills as a politician and leader.

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Plot Keywords:

president | vice president | u.s. vice president | political candidate | american president | 

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Taglines:

The First Black President of the United States. First They Swore Him In. Then They Swore to Get Him.

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

G

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 July 1972 (USA)

Also Known As:

Le numéro quatre

Filming Locations:

Samuel Goldwyn Studios - 7200 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

ABC Circle Films, Lorimar Productions

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Originally made for television, but released theatrically instead. A "Publisher's Weekly" article from 1972 claimed that the decision was due to the quality of the film, but contemporary sources claimed that the controversial elements scared off potential sponsors.

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Quotes

Wanda: How are you, Dad?
Douglass Dilman: Numb! Numbness being a, er, defence mechanism.
Wanda: Against what?
Douglass Dilman: Against... against breaking into small pieces. They flew you here? From Ohio?
Wanda: On an Air Force jet, no less. Two Secret Servicemen came right into my dorm and got me.
Douglass Dilman: What's known as the long arm of Government!
Douglass Dilman: It's nice to have you in the nation's capital for something other than a protest march.
Wanda: Well, I guess I'll have to cool that sort of thing for a while.
Douglass Dilman: I think maybe so. You are now a member of the nation's ...
[...]

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Connections

Referenced in Isn't It Shocking? (1973)

User Reviews

Starvation

Not just another cheap, throwaway ABC Movie of the Week, Joseph Sargent's The Man, written for the screen by Rod Serling and based on an Irving Wallace novel, this movie has the potential to be a very good political thriller. The performances are from journeyman to excellent, the dialogue, at times, crackles, and the story is a mixture of the catastrophic and the mundane (the death of the president and speaker of the house being the former and the pervasive racial dismissiveness directed toward James Earl Jones' president pro tempore-to-president is the latter).

Yet.

It's obvious ABC got a higher quality product than they wanted. The Movie of the Week series cranked out one piece of clichéd garbage after another during its 1969-1976 run, and the occasional brilliance (That Certain Summer, Katherine, Duel come to mind) would catch everyone by surprise.

What do you do with something good, when you're regularly paying for crap?

Sheesh, people might begin to expect quality.

So, ABC puts The Man into limited release. The movie looks like a TV flick because it's on a MOTW budget. Probably made $37.26 nationwide. That'll teach 'em to make something good!

But.

I'd put The Man in the box set of post-Twilight Zone Rod Serling work along with the white-knuckled Seven Days in May, the original Planet of the Apes, and some of the better episodes of The Night Gallery. Serling was a great writer, but the trouble with The Man is that it's so starved for time and funds, so shoestrung by lowest common denominatorism from the network, that the movie never gels.

That's catastrophic for the viewer and mundane for the world of networkthink.