El senador Douglas Dillman es designado superviviente de un trágico accidente que mata al presidente de los Estados Unidos y se convierte en el primer presidente negro de los Estados Unidos,... Leer todoEl senador Douglas Dillman es designado superviviente de un trágico accidente que mata al presidente de los Estados Unidos y se convierte en el primer presidente negro de los Estados Unidos, intenta acabar con la intolerancia en su camino.El senador Douglas Dillman es designado superviviente de un trágico accidente que mata al presidente de los Estados Unidos y se convierte en el primer presidente negro de los Estados Unidos, intenta acabar con la intolerancia en su camino.
- Dirección
- Guionistas
- Elenco
- Premios
- 1 nominación en total
- Wheeler's Lawyer
- (as Martin Brooks)
Opiniones destacadas
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.
The Presidency falls to a surprizing fourth in line.
It's a great story and I don't understand why it isn't on video yet.
The only small flaw is that it is time dated with the premise of Apartied in South Africa. Everyone write to the studio and get them to put it out on video. It has appeared on TV but they cut it to ribbons and destroy the continuity. -ARBY
When the POTUS, the Speaker of the House, and others are killed in a very unfortunate accident, and the VP declines being sworn in due to his health, the next in line for the presidency became Senator Douglas Dilman (James Earl Jones). The initial thought was that the Secretary of State would be the next in line, but due to the Succession Act of 1947 the hierarchy was the President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, then President Pro Tempore of the Senate. This thrust a Black man into the presidency for the first time in U.S. history.
Naturally, the implications, expectations, and non-expectations were tremendous. This movie could've gone in almost any direction and that's what we were waiting for as viewers: to see what direction it would go.
The plot thickened as did the agendas once Dilman was sworn in. I think we only got a small taste of both the positive and negative expectations placed upon Dilman by Blacks and Whites. The movie settled in on one hot button issue surrounding the apartheid country of South Africa. It was an intricate hot mess President Dilman had to deal with. He was in a most unenviable position and I think the film (and Jones) conveyed that well.
This was a bold and brave movie for 1972. The dialogue was excellent as was the script. I only wonder if Obama ever watched this?
Enter US Senator Douglass Dillman, who is president pro tempe of the senate. He is also black. He accepts the presidency to the discontent of many cabinet officials, especially the secretary of state. He would be president if not for Dillman.
Racial feelings are revealed among several politicians as Dillman sits in the oval office, determined to overcome the bigotry of those around him and to be as good a president as he can be.
An early vehicle for James Earl Jones, who as Dillman, is brilliant. Excellent performances by the supporting cast. Hopefully, this film will one day be on DVD or VHS. It's also a good potential historical lesson to be absorbed by Americans if this situation should ever happen.
¿Sabías que…?
- TriviaJames Earl Jones was interviewed about portraying a fictional black U.S. president a few days before Barack Obama was sworn in as President. Jones said that he had misgivings about the film, mostly because they were blindsided when the project (which was planned and budgeted as a TV movie) was released in theaters, and he wished that they'd had more time and resources to make a stronger final film.
- Citas
Douglass Dilman: We live in a time when violence is offered up as the panacea. The bullet seems to be the final instrument of political discourse. Men die violently, we bury them, we mourn for them and we seek retribution. It's a deadly pattern... a quote from Genesis: "Behold the dreamer. Come now therefore and let us slay him and we shall see what has become of his dream." We cannot murder the tyranny by murdering the tyrant and we cannot murder the dream by murdering the dreamer. And if we justify the taking of any life in the name of our morality, we've done nothing but murder our morality.
- ConexionesFeatured in The Dick Cavett Show: Episode dated 19 July 1972 (1972)
Selecciones populares
- How long is The Man?Con tecnología de Alexa