Pat Harrington Jr.

The Candidate -- Superstar Robert Redford ('Up Close and Personal,' 'Indecent Proposal') stars as a young, aggressive lawyer seduced into a political race against a well-respected incumbent Senator.

The President's Analyst is James Coburn, whose position makes him privy to any number of delicate government secrets. Thus Coburn becomes a most desirable prize for several secret-agent organizations, including the CEA and the FBR (we know who these folks are really supposed to be, even though the phony names were crudely dubbed onto the soundtrack after the film was completed). When Coburn becomes expendable, he finds a pair of strong allies in the form of likeable political assassin Godfrey Cambridge and gay Soviet spy Severn Darden. The main plot involves an insidious, unnamed concern that wishes to harness Coburn's talents in order to brainwash the president — and everyone else in America — into submission. The President's Analyst is a terrific, on-target satire of virtually every sacred cow of the late 1960's; the satire was so potent, in fact, that when the NBC network broadcast the film in the early 1970's, it was compelled to remove the picture's punchline.

Superstar Robert Redford ("Up Close and Personal," "Indecent Proposal") stars as a young, aggressive lawyer seduced into a political race against a well-respected incumbent Senator. Trying to do his own thing, he finds it difficult to call his own shots in the face of party efforts to mold him into a winner. Academy Award-winner for Best Screenplay and featuring strong performances by Peter Boyle and Melvyn Douglas. "The best political film ever," praises the National Observer, while Rex Reed declares it "like a string of Fourth of July firecrackers, exploding in joy.... It is clever and riveting and honest."

Superstar Robert Redford stars as a young, aggressive lawyer seduced into a political race against a well-respected incumbent Senator. Trying to do his own thing, he finds it difficult to call his own shots in the face of party efforts to mold him into a winner. Academy Award-winner for Best Screenplay and featuring strong performances by Peter Boyle and Melvyn Douglas. "The best political film ever," praises the National Observer, while Rex Reed declares it "like a string of Fourth of July firecrackers, exploding in joy....It is clever and riveting and honest."