O Presidente Negro

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.

Although dated this is an excellent movie with Jones as commanding as usual. One of the most intriguing phenomena to watch is how his character grows into the bold and confident president one would expect of one who has tasted the power of the office. The ubiquitous theme of racism is dealt with adroitly. Moreover the Rod Serling screenplay makes one wish the old master would have left a greater body of work along these lines. The Movie is however much different from the book but this was for me a very enjoyable find, especially after a near 30 year search. I recently got a fair copy from videogrill on Ebay. As of this date 4-20-6 there is another copy being offer through the same online group.

First off, the last reviewer doesn't know what he's talking about when he says the Constitutional fluke that makes James Earl Jones president is "fictional." It is indeed true that when the President, Vice-President and Speaker Of The House are all dead and/or incapacitated the President Pro Tempore of the Senate becomes President. The only stretch is that the job usually goes to the most senior member of the majority Party of the Senate, and not to someone as young as Jones' senator is.

Also, there is no assassination plot against the President in the movie.

As for the movie itself, despite the fact that it is penned by Rod Serling (from Irving Wallace's novel), it is remarkably less free of the kind of pretentious liberalism that marred his script for "Seven Days In May." In fact, what is remarkable for the film is how it falls much closer to the center of the spectrum politically in comparison to what Hollywood churns out today like "West Wing".

Jerry Goldsmith's score is the best work he ever did for a TV-movie and hopefully some day it will find its way to CD as many other obscure TV scores of his have.

I think I can breathe now. The political and racial tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. But this wasn't a sledgehammer movie beating us over the head with a political or racial message, it was very intelligently done.

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?

I was interested in reading the comments on the message boards at the base of the IMDb listing for THE MAN.

This is only one of several novels written by Irving Wallace that has been transferred to "the big screen." Irving Wallace did NOT like the treatment that THE MAN received in the translation from his written words to the screen. In that I agree.

I have read ALL of his books and found each one to be a "page turner" regardless of how many times I have read them over the years. He was a superb writer and I'm only one of a legion of his fans.

I was very disappointed in the screen adaption of THE MAN. The novel was approximately 800 pages in length and the screen version covered about the first 150 pages. The other 650 pages were lost to Rod Serling's abilities. Very unusual for Serling and I find it very disappointing to say the least.

I agree, this movie should be released on DVD. It's an excellent movie even taking into consideration the "adaption" to the screen. I also happen to be a great fan of James Earl Jones and for that reason alone I think it should be released.

As a side point, every novel written by Wallace had been opted for screen or mini-series treatment. Unfortunately, he died in 1990 and I do recall him saying that as a result of ABC's treatment of THE MAN he would not allow any of his novels to be made into motion pictures unless he was in control of the process. He died - unfortunately. I was so looking forward to the CBS mini-series on his novel THE MIRACLE! If you can find any of his books I highly recommend that you buy and read them. Every one of them was a "page turner" and you won't be disappointed.