The Candidate
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Josh, thanks for letting me lure you into the studio. I'm excited. Thanks for having me. I was thinking about how it's your birthday coming up. Oh, no. And for once, we're not going to get to spend it together. That's true. We generally do. Yeah, but you're going to be in London. I will indeed. Well, I was thinking about one of my favorite stories that you've told, which is the season six premiere of The West Wing. Sure. When you all went to Camp David.

in the show. And you had Marine One. And on the side of it, they made a typo. Untied. States of America. Untied States of America. And so I thought...

in honor of your birthday. I made this last night. Oh, oh, God, you're good. Oh, it's so good. I love it. Will you describe it? Yeah. Is it going to be a piece of new merch? It's a new t-shirt. It's not available only to me. I won't have the only one. All right, I'm going to measure my excitement. Well, I'm seeing the front and the back. Yeah, the front is our pin, which actually looks amazing on a shirt. This is very exciting. Of course, what's next? Flentil A Veritas. It looks fantastic. It's

And on the back, "Untied States of America." Brilliant! We're gonna offer it in a couple of different colorways. One, just a stark black and white, the way it appears on Marine One, black with white type. But then, I also thought... Oh, my God, that's such a good idea. ...in honor of another moment from this episode that I love, which is when you are running through the woods...

and you rolled up your sleeves against Alex Graves' wishes to show your massive guns on screen in that Carnegie Mellon sort of like athletic shirt. We're also going to do a tri-blend black, sort of like the shirt you're wearing in that episode, so that people who get the shirt can roll up their sleeves and show off their biceps. Yes, maybe we can all show up at Alex Graves' house. So this is going to be a new piece of merch that's going to come out, and we're going to have all of our stuff

for sale at thewestwingweekly.com slash merch. But check out the new Untied States of America t-shirt

in two different ways. And then there's going to be a premium version because you know how whenever the president is on Marine One, he's got the cool windbreaker? Oh yeah, exactly. We're also going to do this as a windbreaker. Are we really? We can do that? We're going to do a black windbreaker. Same thing, the Westman Weekly Seal on the front, Untied States of America on the back. Can't wait to get one. And

And I could just see people all across the country putting it on as Martin Sheen would put it on over his head. Amazing. Oh my God, this is fantastic. And so many people are going to be approached and asked, you know, there's a typo on the back of your shirt. Oh, exactly. It'll just be endless. And that's how you know they are the enemy. They're not in the club. Anybody who points at it, maybe enemy is strong. Yeah.

I want to give a shout out to Chuck Gibbons who sent me an image on Instagram that I think is relevant for anybody who gets this shirt. It's a tweet from Dropped Mike. It says, interviewer, quote, can I get your references? Me, probably not. No one else does. Oh, that's good. That's really good.

I'm also excited at the prospect of, for the next four years, wearing something that says "Untied States of America." I didn't want to get too dark, but this might be a good reflection of how people are feeling at the moment. And then, lastly, in my small contribution to the overall campaign, Josh Molina is Nice.

I'm going to donate proceeds of this piece of merch to the American Red Cross. Wow. That is awesome. Oh, what a gift. Oh, I'm excited. If you want to support the American Red Cross, who's been doing amazing work here in LA as the wildfires have been just... I'm giving on Monday before I fly to London. Ravaging stuff. And yeah, Josh, if people want to join the Josh Molina is nice...

blood donation team, do they give blood or platelets or both? It all counts if you give through the American Red Cross and you join our team through the app. Of course, I'm also just here to generally encourage giving blood, whether you do it through the Red Cross or not. But if you do through the Red Cross, please join our team. Yeah. And if you get the Untied States of America shirt, that's another way you'll be supporting the Red Cross. Yay. I'm going to wear it to platelet donation, not Monday. Yeah.

But as soon as it's available and I can donate again.

And if you have no idea what we're talking about, it might be time to visit or revisit our episode on Season 6, Episode 1, NSF Thurmont. Right. Very good. Not suitable for work, Thurmont. You'll see. That's a joke you made on that episode as well. Of course I did. What do you think? I got a new joke for this? There's a picture of the untied States of America that Josh took before the art department went and fixed it on Marine One.

One of the great photos of all time from the West Wing. By the way, I also, since you mentioned my guns, I occasionally I search my name on Reddit and Reddit is where you get the real honest people who really tell you what they think of you. And there's always something horrible. This comes to us from Cavewoman22. She says, Josh Molina has always had a face made for radio and a body made for late night cinemas. Yeah.

The sad part is I read that and I'm like, oh, it's just saying I'm ugly. But oh, net gain. I was like, for me, that's a rave for Reddit. Amazing. So go to thewestwingweekly.com slash merch to get your Untied States of America shirt or windbreaker. And now, on to the episode.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with AutoQuote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.

You're listening to the West Wing Weekly Political Film Fest. I'm Rishi K. Sherway. And I'm Joshua Molina. And today we're talking about the film, The Candidate.

It was written by Jeremy Larner. It was directed by Michael Ritchie, and it was released on August 5th, 1972. Michael Ritchie directed the original Fletch, the Chevy Chase movie, and he directed the sequel, Fletch Lives, which was my first time on a movie set. I was a production assistant on Fletch Lives in 1989, I think. Did you have any interaction with Michael Ritchie?

Undoubtedly. I feel confident saying, although I don't have specific memories, that he was nice. I feel like everyone was very nice to me, and I want to include Michael Ritchie. But it was a very positive experience. I had a really good time on that. My dad's business partner, Bruce Bodner, is, or was, probably still is, Chevy Chase's manager. And so I nepo-babied my way into a job as a production assistant. It is the way. It is certainly my way.

And look, we've played Six Degrees of Josh Molina and got to the answer very quickly. Already, exactly. Michael Ritchie and Robert Redford had worked together just a few years earlier on the ski film Downhill Racer. Yeah, and this was actually supposed to be the second in a trilogy that starts with Downhill Racer. Downhill Racer, The Candidate, and another movie that never got made, they were supposed to be part of a trilogy about winning, the obsession with winning. Oh, okay.

I thought the connective tissue was that they're all movies. So I was wondering, downhill racer in this one? But now I get it. Sure. All about winning. They couldn't think of a third thing. They could have made the lotto movie starring Robert Redford. What will one man go to to find the winning numbers?

Jeremy Larner won the Oscar for best screenplay for this film. And then he went to go on and not make any more movies. I think his only other credit that I could find, no, I know his only other credit that I can find, and thus I think his only other credit is Drive, He Said, a movie that he wrote for Jack Nicholson to star in and direct. Yep, and that came before this film. That's exactly right. So got the Oscar and retired immediately. Hey, go out on top. Exactly. Retired after Fletch Lives.

It's not too late. You could retire after this. That's true. We won't know if this is the peak of our career until after we record this. Yeah, hopefully we'll plummet even further after this, and this will seem like a high point. And they'll call our story Downhill Racers. Downhills Racer. Oh, sure. My mistake.

I wrote a synopsis of the film. Do you want to hear it? Bring it. The Candidate is the story of Bill McKay, played by Robert Redford, a young, idealistic lawyer and son of the former California governor, as he reluctantly enters the California Senate race as an underdog, running against the Republican incumbent Crocker Jarman, played by Don Porter. The promise made to McKay by his campaign manager, Marvin Lucas, played by Peter Boyle, is that he'd have no chance of winning, but he'd have a real platform to speak about the issues that matter to him.

But as his poll numbers start creeping upwards, the possibility of winning brings a pressure to curb his political views to bring more and more voters to his side. McKay's public persona, and perhaps his private one as well, start to shift as his message becomes more vague and superficial. As election day nears, one central question starts to close in around him. What do you have to lose in order to win?

Wow. God, you're good. You can always write the backs of CDs. If this proves to be the high point, you need work. I mean, DVDs. You know what I mean. Yeah, the backs of CDs is just 12 titles usually. Yeah, exactly. But you'd be good at that too. Oh, thanks. You'd pick a good font. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Wouldn't it be great if writing the copy for something meant you also got to specify the font in which it was set? Yeah, I would like to imagine that world. So you had never seen this movie before, is that right? Yeah, I don't think that I have. I thought that I had when I was like, I was like, oh yeah, yeah, I'll watch this and it'll come back to me. But no, I think I saw this for the first time. So basic, macro, big picture, thumbs up, thumbs down? Yeah.

I thought it was great. I found it quite depressing. Yeah, I really like this movie too. And yeah, I found it depressing too. I was thinking that this film, despite our having watched Doctor Strangelove and In a Loop and...

real dark, cynical satires. This actually felt like the grimmest movie that we have watched so far. Even including Judas and the Black Messiah, which includes an assassination. That is true. Now, is that because the candidate feels so real and maybe accurate? Yes, I think it goes to that feeling because I think what makes it feel real is not just the story, but the way that the movie is told.

There's a kind of documentary naturalism to the way that the movie's made. You know, in, say, Judas and the Black Messiah, there are moments of incredible cinematic magic that happen that we talked about. And in Doctor Strangelove and in In the Loop, there's moments of real silliness and hilarity. There are great jokes.

And this, because of its naturalism, felt just sort of relentlessly, I guess, bleak. You didn't have that same kind of relief to just be like, oh, well, let me pause and take in just how beautiful this visual is or how cool this music is or anything like that, or just the relief of a great joke.

So the whole time you're just living in this world and it's, I think, accurate and depressing. Interesting that we both reacted that way because when I was looking at response from critics and just people in general on the internet, a lot of people talking about how funny it is. And it has moments and I guess it's sort of lightly...

you know, generally kind of comic in a cynical way, but it didn't... I didn't feel like I'm watching a comedy particularly. And I'm wondering, is that because of the times? Would it have been... When it was released in the early 70s, would it have hit us differently? I don't think so. What would have hit you differently? Because you weren't alive when I was six, but...

But you know what I mean. I don't think so. I mean, I didn't find it ha-ha funny. I found it that is funny funny. Yeah, exactly. At times. At best. So now you know what it's like for me to watch anything. Yeah.

Exactly. No, I was surprised that the genre for it was listed as political satire slash comedy. Then again, The Bear just won Best Comedy. So what do you know? Who's to say? Who's to say? I would say I have laughed out loud at The Bear at least once, probably multiple times. I didn't at this. No, nor did I.

At least three of our movies now, including The Candidate, are about truth-telling. And, you know, in one, in Bullworth, it's, well, he's decided he wants to die. He's, you know, committing suicide by proxy. So that frees him up to tell the truth.

In Network, the guy is literally suicidal and he's losing his job. And so that just turns him into what he feels is his version of being a truth teller. And in this one, the candidate is going to lose and he goes into it knowing that. And so that allows him to tell the truth. And it's just interesting that that's a recurring thing because I guess it's such a precious or rare commodity in politics that truth becomes the framework of all these films. You know, I was thinking that this moment

movie more than House of Cards or Veep or Scandal, this movie actually feels like the opposite of the West Wing to me. Even though it has some qualities that it shares with the West Wing, which we can talk about later. But I think that feeling of realism here is the opposite of the fantasy of the West Wing. Like, we were just talking about this, that the opposite of love isn't hate.

like House of Cards and the West Wing in some ways have more in common because their fantasies, they have these kinds of mythic qualities, even if they're in opposite direction. I think that there's more that's similar about them because of the heightened quality of the drama or the language. This is actually the opposite to me where politics is just a job, you know, and the loftiness is all just for

for show, and really it's just a grind. That feels like the actual opposite of The West Wing to me. Yeah. Also, The West Wing is very story-driven, and this film is almost subversively not story-heavy. Can you tell me more about what you mean? Well, I remember liking The Candidate a lot. As I watched it, I sort of was waiting for, but soon realized they would never come, sort of plot twists and more of an overarching story. It's pretty light-hearted,

On story, it's more, to me, a realistic sense of like what you were saying, the grind of day-to-day being in a campaign and for us seeing somebody who was resistant and hesitant get pulled into a campaign and slowly sort of realize what that means for him and his ideals and maybe his own motivations and what he wants as they change. But there are no really big set pieces, even the debate, which is important and significant.

There aren't a lot of huge set pieces that lead to a tremendous amount of conflict and conflict resolution the way there really are in every episode of The West Wing. Right. So you mean like there aren't these strides

structural elements too that you can say like, oh, act one, act two, act three. Right, exactly. Yeah, which feel great in a story. And I think people like to try to apply that to real life. But yeah, usually isn't the case. Yeah. One of the first things I noticed...

I think, ironically, it was taking me out of the movie at first, was everybody talking and overlapping, which, of course, is how people really speak. But it almost took me out of it because it's like, hey, I'm watching a movie. He needs to talk, and then she talks, and then she talks, and then he says something. Like, if you're all going to talk at once, I'm going to have trouble following this.

But it's like a little bit like a Robert Altman movie in that sense. It's just like, oh, this is how people talk. And this is the blur of conversations in life and the grind of a campaign. Yeah, I know Altman has the reputation for that sort of overlapping dialogue thing. But here, I think that this film takes it even further because there is like this less, I don't know,

filmmaker-y quality to it. Like, it just really feels like you're just in a room where there's a bunch of people talking as opposed to, I think with Altman sometimes, you know, everybody knows how cute and clever it is to be making a film that way and like it's often really funny. But here it's just like you're just in the scrum

From the get-go. Yeah, and the people whose voices you hear the most are just like some extras who are having some conversation that you can't even really follow. And you can't even hear the voices of Peter Boyle and Robert Redford as they're talking about whatever's actually relevant to the story.

Right, exactly. As we rehearse this play, one of the things we've been discussing is how a theater director has to take into account and try to direct the audience's attention because they have the entire stage to look at for the entirety of the play. And in film, the director can always guide you and show you exactly what he or she wants you to see and hear. But here, you're kind of on your own. And I think Michael Ritchie's approach here is extremely effective in sort of having us understand

identify with the Robert Redford character who's dropped into a fairly unfamiliar environment. Yeah, neither he nor the audience knows how to get their bearing. Right. What did you think of the title of the movie? I actually like it. I like its blandness. I like it a lot too. And I think it's kind of a statement of intent, even though it's so simple. I feel like it has this kind of objective remove to it.

I don't think that's how Bill McKay sees himself. I don't think he would refer to himself as the candidate. I think that this is being said in sort of like the... Peter Boyle. Voice of, yeah, Peter Boyle and the political consultant or media consultant or whatever his title is, Howard Klein. Played by? Alan Garfield. Whom we know from? The end of your sentence. He is the cut man from Sports Night. Oh my God. The classic episode, the cut man cometh. Wow.

yes that's the cut man great great and how about a prediction well when it comes to this sweet science i'm not much on predictions casey but i will say this one of these fighters is going to win this bout tonight and the other will almost surely not cut man going out on a limb of course he's an excellent actor he's got just sort of uh

He is literally one of those people who has a twinkle in his eye. Like, literally. It's just a mischievous thing to him that I love. He was a wonderful actor and a riot to work with on Sports Night. He was just a little bit of a madman and the most benevolent.

and entertaining way. And he's great in this. And if the character weren't kind of reprehensible, I would say he's pretty funny. But again, everything that he's saying is so terrible that I can't even laugh mirthlessly. People are going to take a look at our stuff and see a guy who's got guts. They're going to take a look at the crock and think maybe you can't get it up anymore. Is he that bad? I mean, I know he's a little shallow or surface or concerned only with winning. Yeah, he might not be actually a bad person in terms of

his moral character. But I think the cynicism is articulated the most by him. Yeah, through that character. That's fair. There's just one weird random, I don't even know what it is, peanut brittle or candy. I don't know what it is. He like hammers some candy on his desk and then eats a piece. Like, it's just so weird. I love it. I love little things like that. I'm like, whose idea was that? Was that an Alan Garfield thing? Like, it's just so weird. But he and Marvin Lucas, I think,

Bill McKay basically is, you know, just a game piece to move around the chessboard. Yeah, a young, good-looking game piece. But calling him the candidate and calling the movie the candidate, I don't know, it made me think that this guy's fungible. Right, well said. It kind of reminded me of, I guess, fantasy football or maybe just sports in general. Specifically, it reminded me of the Seinfeld bit about sports teams. You know, I love the Giants, but when you think about it,

Really funny.

That's awesome. Yeah, I like the reductive nature of the title, and it speaks to...

the extent to which Bill McKay gets reduced over the course of the campaign, you know, his own specific identity and views become less important. In fact, they have to be sort of dulled and danced around to a certain extent. Yeah. So I think that there's like a little bit of cynicism just inherent in the title. Yeah. If this were about the specifics of the candidate, the movie might be called Bill McKay. Right. Exactly. Bill McKay goes to Washington or whatever. Right.

I feel like the movie also kind of shows its hand in terms of its cynical outlook pretty early in the movie, because we start off with this other candidate, the guy who loses his race, Neil Atkinson. And he's about to give his concession speech in the opening minutes, and you're sort of waiting, and he comes out and he says, What really matters is... And it cuts. Yeah, exactly. It cuts away to the campaign professionals who are just sort of drinking in the back,

And for the most part, are kind of unfazed. One of them says, we'll get a live one next time. Meanwhile, on the floor of the campaign event, you know, there's like young women who are crying. There are people for whom their stakes are real. But then for this group in the back, they're just like, hey, you win some, you lose some. Yeah. Someone even says, and he was a great guy too. Yeah, exactly. Great guy. And the cut man says, Yeah, we took two out of three.

It's not bad for an off-year election. Yeah, that's exactly right. How do you like, by the way, a California where the Democrat has no shot to beat an incumbent Republican senator? Yeah, I mean, that's a blast from the past. I had to look it up, and apparently the last Republican senator in California was a guy named John Seymour, whose term ended in 1992, 30-plus years ago. Hmm.

He was appointed to continue to finish Pete Wilson's term, and then he lost a special election to Dianne Feinstein, who would remain for a long time. Yeah, and we're in, I think, still a Nixonian California.

Right, exactly. This would come out in 1972, the year in which Nixon won by a landslide against George McGovern. I found a great interview with Jeremy Larner that had a lot of insights into the making of the movie. Jeremy Larner, we should say, a bit of a proto-Eli Addy. Yeah. He was a speechwriter for Eugene McCarthy. Yeah.

obviously went on to become a screenwriter. And I guess this film is, at least to some extent, based on his experiences with the McCarthy campaign. And I think his cynical feelings about that experience working for McCarthy, and a lot of it is also based on Senator John V. Tunney and his 1970 win, his run for California Senate. Yeah. Did I read somewhere that Michael Ritchie had something to do with Tunney? This is Wikipedia, so may or may not be true.

In 1970, Ritchie worked for John B. Tunney's Senate election campaign. And this claims Tunney was the basis for Redford's character. They both had a connection. I didn't realize that Ritchie had the connection as well. This is what I read in this Brooklyn Magazine interview from 2016 with Jeremy Larner. In the summer of 1971, I was living in Cambridge. I came down to New York. Redford and Ritchie saw 10 different writers with experience on political movies or with experience as speechwriters.

And so that's the summer of 1971. And then this came out in 1972. And they wanted it specifically to come out in the election year. So they had to move really quickly in terms of the writing and the production to meet that deadline. Like us, they were desperate to monetize a presidential election. And he said, here's what I said the first time I met with Redford and Ritchie.

I said, to me, a politician was like a movie star. He could lose himself in a character who resembles himself, only is larger than life, as a symbol of what's beautiful and what's true. And he said, I was aware, of course, that Redford was that kind of a symbol. Right, right. That could have either attracted or repelled Redford, I think, that pitch. I guess it works. Yeah, that's what he said. I thought, I have no chance of getting the job now after saying that. Yeah.

But he, in the interview, talks a lot about how shrewd Robert Redford is. And he is not just the star of this movie, he's also the executive producer. Yeah, I think it's a Redford-Ritchie production we see from the beginning. So I think the casting of Redford as this character was inevitable before a word was written, and the character was written for Redford. But I think the alignment of actor and role are so perfect in this movie.

And I was especially thinking about it, well, the whole time when he's on screen, I just couldn't keep my eyes off him. I mean, he's just... He's magnetic, yeah. He is magnetic, yeah. Absolutely. And so I loved that scene shortly after we first see him, and I'm already, you know, just like, wow, this guy is a real movie star. This is what a bona fide movie star really is like on camera. Yeah. Perhaps my favorite line in the entire film is Melvin Douglas as his dad, the ex-governor, saying... He's not gonna get his ass kicked over here.

he's cute he's cute yeah i was like that's kind of a sum up of the whole movie anyway if you had to pick one single line yeah and so early in the movie marvin lucas comes over to the mckay household and he meets bill mckay's wife nancy and they have this conversation where she's kind of brushing him off he says oh he wants me to run for office and she's like yeah what's new

which office, but then when Lucas says Senate, then she gets interested. And she comes over and they talk about the reasons why he's electable. - She's got the looks. - Right?

And he's got the power. And I thought, yeah, he absolutely does. Like just looking at him on screen in the few minutes that we've been acquainted with this character, you really feel that power and that magnetism. And I love that McKay turns, he's like, what do you mean? He doesn't know what she's talking about. And she looks like she's offended. She has this look like, what do you mean? What do I mean? You can't not be aware of it. Yeah. But because that's what true power, that kind of magnetism is,

I think it's effortless for those people. And it is effortless for him, but it's also something he ought to be aware of, I think. It's the reason why he is a natural leader, why he's already like the first moment when we meet him, why he's successful as this kind of activist public interest lawyer. And again, I guess speaks to what I was trying to say earlier about the relative lack of story. There's certain things that in another movie would be a serious...

beat or a big inflection point in the narrative. He has an affair. Yes. They sort of make nothing of it. And one of the ways he's powerful is obviously he's sexually appealing to women. And we see several instances where women are trying to catch his eye or just exchanging looks. And a lot of Redford's excellent performance is in his eyes.

And then we're just told as a woman sort of they're waiting on the candidate who's not showing up. And then we see him sort of walk down a hallway with a woman we've seen earlier. They had a sort of connection moment earlier. And we're just left to surmise that they have had an affair and just on with the film.

And I love the way that she appears throughout the movie in little glimpses before that. Yeah, it's well done. This is another part of that Jeremy Larner interview. He said,

Wow. That all sounds a little bit creepy.

And I think it's supposed to be. His specifications. And then he's like, and then he picked her out of 12 women and then insisted she not say anything. Right, right, right. I'm sure it shouldn't sound as bad as it does to my 2024 year. Yeah, yeah. You're totally right. That is creepy. But that's interesting. So, I mean, that also, it does, again, speak to the lack of, he decided not to make a,

story point out of it. Like, for instance, if they had dialogue together or should they dialogue with other characters? It was just, I think there's something very subtle and something you don't see a lot in films to go unnoticed

another way with it. Like, no, they're never going to speak. And it's just going to be this little moments, caught moments here and there. And then the suggestion of something that happened. Yeah. There's never a moment. I don't think where Robert Redford is completely alone, alone with his thoughts. The most alone we get is him in the backseat, you know, that sort of iconic scene from the film where he says, this country cannot house. It's houseless feed. It's foodless.

They're demanding a government of the people, peopled by people. Our faith, our compassion, our courage on the gridiron. It's a great scene, great acting. And he's sort of cracking up. Even that isn't a moment where he's by himself. He's by himself in the backseat, but he's being observed by the staff. With concern.

Yeah.

Well, I said earlier, and I've been thinking, I slightly misspoke, that the overlapping talk and the lack of focus sometimes gives us a little insight into what this world looks like through his eyes. But the movie is not really through his eyes. We don't get a lot of his, like you say, very little interior life, if any, and it really isn't this guy's view of everything that he's going through. We're seeing him much more than we're seeing the rest of the world viewed by him. And I think that the

sense of him that is the strongest for me is when we first meet him. And maybe that's intentional because I think he loses a sense of himself as it goes along as well. But when we first meet him, I do find that character very compelling with a clear sense of view. I love the exchange between him and Lucas when he says, I just worked straight through the weekend, 20 straight hours, and I loved every minute of it.

what do i need what you're offering i'm happy that idea i'm happy of being content with the work that you're doing i think there is a sort of moral quality you know like a fable aspect to this where it's like he didn't have to change his life he was doing good and maybe the scale wasn't different but this is sort of like where ambition can butt up against contentment i guess

Yeah, well, that moment resonated with me throughout the film. I kept thinking back to it because in that first moment with Marvin Lucas, he says, what did you accomplish? He does name to, he says, I opened a clinic and saved some trees. And Lucas is like, is that enough? But the truth is, those are the two things

that he accomplishes throughout the entire movie. I mean, he becomes a senator too, but it's like those two things that he said very early in the movie, those are really concrete accomplishments. And although we've had a lot of important issues, sort of name check, like reproductive rights and busing and crime and the environment,

There's no sense necessarily that he's going to accomplish anything on any of these issues. Yeah, I feel like there's a great presentation of who he is because what he says and what he does lines up. And I like the way that he presents himself in the first announcement, his press conference that he's announcing his candidacy. Why are you doing this? Because I don't think the incumbent is really in touch with how people live or what they need. That's what I tried to do as a lawyer, and that's what I hope to go on doing as a candidate.

And then as he starts to make the decisions that he makes to lean into, I guess, the compromises for the sake of winning, he's like,

I start to lose a little bit of like, I'm not quite sure what his motivation is in the way that I am at the beginning. And like I said, it might be by design, it might be very cool and clever bit of filmmaking, but it's also a little, I wouldn't have minded a little bit more of an understanding where that shift is actually coming from.

Yeah, well, I felt myself wavering too between admiring the approach and thinking I wanted a little bit more as an audience member too. But I was just like, maybe that's just my modern sensibility or maybe that's my West Wing-y audience member training.

I wanted to know a little bit more. When I said, oh, what he's saying and what he's doing is in alignment, I think I was subconsciously channeling this quote from Gandhi that goes, happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. And it's a thing that I have been thinking a lot about in my own therapy, you know, this idea of the interior and the exterior all lining up.

I'll have to try that sometime. It sounds wonderful. Let's say we take a quick break and come back later. And now back to the show. Did you ever see Downhill Racer? Not that I recall. I watched the trailer for it, which had the most grammatically inexplicable tagline. Oh, bring it. Can't wait. Very excited. How fast must a man go to get from where he's at?

Ending in a preposition? It's great. I mean, grammatically and also... Where he's at. And how quickly, not how fast. You're right. It's doubly. And what does it actually mean? How fast must a man go to get from where he's at? You're right. It's pretty f***ing terrible. It's really, really bad. A sentence that sounds dramatic, but isn't asking the question...

It means anything at all. No, you're absolutely right. And you're telling me they repeat it three minutes later? Wow. Wow, like you thought you liked it the first time. What do you hear the second time? It still makes no sense. It still makes no sense. That's good. That's very, very good. Did you notice that Beans Morocco is in the movie? I did not notice that.

To be honest, I'm not even sure exactly where, but I saw it in the IMDb list. Beans Morocco. I think unbeknownst to us, we're doing the West Wing Weekly Beans Morocco Film Fest. I think you have a Beans Morocco Google News alert. I've got a little bit of an obsession going. And it made me wonder, did Aaron hire him? Because, I mean, by the way, also early in the movie, oh my God, how did I almost forget this?

Redford McKay says, just give him to Donna, who's an off-camera person. But there's some sort of helper person named Donna. And I would be surprised if it wasn't at least a subconscious pickup from this film that Aaron named the character Donna.

Just to go back to that initial conversation between Robert Redford and Peter Boyle. Yes, yes. Maybe the most West Wing moment for me is when Peter Boyle writes down a little message on the matchbook and hands it to him.

And it says, you lose. He's one of us. Oh, no, it's a weird thing. It said, Bartlett for America. And he was like, who's that? Huh? What is it with writing down a thing and handing it to somebody as opposed to just saying it? It's dramatic. It's very dramatic. They do that a lot in the West Wing. And also, this is this close to, like, this is kind of a set piece, right? Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Their version of a set piece. True. He should have taken the matchbook and been like, why didn't you just say this? Yeah. Exactly. But it also worked. I liked that moment. No, I like it too. I absolutely do. It's sort of inexplicable why, but yeah. And then later they can show it in his drawer as he gets closer to winning. He opens the drawer and he sees that early, he calls it an early return.

I think the Howard character, for me, part of his cynicism comes through specifically in the way that he talks about like moves that not just Bill McKay, but everybody does. When he shows McKay some of the Crocker Jarman TV spots, first of all, he is very complimentary to him. He's a master of the medium of television. But then he starts talking about what their strategy is going to be. And he says...

We'll label him Mr. Geritol and you'll do the I'm my own man bit. This was 12 years ago doing the man of the people number. Guy can go anywhere he wants. And then he says he's doing the man of the people number. And this thing, this like I'm my own man bit and man of the people number, it's like he's talking about

the way politicians present themselves as like a piece of a repertoire. It's like, "Oh, and now here's this old standard." Yeah, he's trying on this outfit. And he's not really interested in the idea of giving people something new. I don't think he's interested at all. He's just saying,

These are the cliches, and these are the ones we're going to use. By the way, Don Porter as Crocker Jarman, fantastic. Incredible. It's a great performance. I mean, just entirely believable. Yeah. Absolutely inhabits the role. The only part that I found a little bit less believable, because he's so smooth and so confident, is the moment when they have the TV debate, and he starts to flounder a tiny bit when you see them together and...

And they're both aware of the fact that McKay is too close to him in the polls for his comfort, really kind of for either of their comfort because he was going to lose. And now he has to do all this wishy-washying. How's that for grammar? Love it. And you see Jarman kind of loses cool, loses grip on his message a little bit. And I was kind of like, is he really that flustered? Didn't buy it? I don't know. I didn't think that his performance was bad. I just didn't see, you know, steps B and C when he got from A to D.

Because I think he does show how ruthlessly chill he is. He meets him and he doesn't even register him. I'm still hoping for a chance to debate you. Don't blame me, I bet. Yeah, I love that.

One horrible, horrible, horrible moment, pet peeve of mine. I don't like seeing babies on screen altogether because if a baby is crying on screen, it's not acting, it's crying. So that always bothers me. But this baby, the baby in the film gets slapped. Oh, the baby in the hospital scene. Oh my God, that made me almost physically ill. Maybe not to over... But I was like, did they do multiple shots of hitting a baby on screen? Like what...

Did we need to see that? Did that need to be done? That was awful. Maybe it was cinema magic and it wasn't a real baby. Probably. It was probably a $25,000 effect. Right, right. Done in post. Or maybe she tapped the baby very lightly and they made it a slappy sound effect in post. That must have been it. I withdraw the comment. In terms of the number of takes, I will say Michael Ritchie,

was a very efficient filmmaker who wanted to do very few takes. He doesn't do a lot of coverage. He just sort of feels like, I've got it, let's move on. Interesting. I mean, the movie has that feel. I also liked, I have this written down, the mall scene, where,

Where Richie really captured the threatening nature of even a friendly crowd. It's just, he's surrounded on all sides and you see Redford's eyes sort of darting. And it almost feels like a moment where we're going to find a guy who's going to make an assassination attempt. But all it really is, is like, God, this audience of people that like me, it doesn't feel great. All the moments with the general public felt so strange and unpredictable with

with this undercurrent of, I don't know, something sinister. I love when he goes to Watts and the guy just keeps asking him, But what do you think about my dog? But look here, look here, what about my dog? What do you think about my dog? I know. And it's so strange and it could be totally fine. He might really just be a guy who's

trying to be friendly in a really strange way. Or like even early when he goes to the beach and he's like, oh, you know what I see when I look around here? And then there's one, he's like, no, I look around this beach and you know what I see? Freaks. Hey, hey.

It just throws him off from the point that he's trying to make. He's trying to ramp up to some political message, but they just have no interest in his agenda necessarily. At all. Right. Exactly. I would say another way that this movie stands out in contradistinction to our beloved The West Wing is that this movie sure doesn't make me want to run for office. Right.

Whereas I think watching the West Wing could, and we know it has, and many people inspired them to do that very thing. But boy, you watch this and it is not appealing. No, no. And, you know, he doesn't really seem to me appealing.

that compelling of a candidate apart from the fact that yeah he's cute i mean in his first speech which i thought was great because it felt so just medium to me he says the fact is in the next few elections we're going to decide just what it's going to be like to live in this country whether people will have more power to shape their own lives or whether we're going to lose that power

It's kind of milquetoast. They should have worked in the slogan from Downhill Racer.

You should have closed with, how fast do I have to go to get from where I'm at? Yeah, no, you're right. That is pretty weak sauce. But people like him and they respond to him. And I think the best thing that someone says is... McKay, I've heard it all before, but never quite like that. And I think that really sums up the appeal of this character. Like if you believe...

the Klein character and there's nothing new in the world, then yeah, he's just doing the I'm my own man bit. But someone's like, well, you know, this time I like the meat puppet that's wearing that particular outfit. Yeah, exactly right. He's really handsome. Yeah.

I don't think that he has that kind of soaring oratory that we've talked about, you know, how incredible that is to watch in movies, to see Daniel Kaluuya or Martin Sheen or, you know, just like characters really give a great speech. Yeah.

Well, that's probably one of the reasons why you and I were all so depressed watching this movie is that we've been weaned on. You want that. I know it's not appropriate in this movie. There's a reason why it's not in there. But that's what I usually want for my political movies. Like, am I going to get that butterfly in the stomach, like, swelling moment? Like, oh, no, you're not going to get it here. No, not at all. Yeah. You know, there is a politician who cited the candidate as an inspiration for his own political career. Like,

I can't wait to find out what dud of a person this is. Oh, yeah. You're not going to be disappointed. Dan Quayle. Yeah. Well, okay. There you go. That's really funny. He publicly said that? Publicly said that, inspiring Jeremy Larner to write an op-ed in response. Oh, really? Where he said, the candidate is not a how-to, it's a watch out. Oh, okay.

That's really good. Yeah. Wow. That's excellent. That's really funny. God, what a bumbler. Mike Wallace is also in this movie. Not just Beans Morocco, we get our second dip on Mike Wallace. Other celebrities, a guy named Fred Van Amburg, who was a big Bay Area news guy. Anyone else? Well, Natalie Wood. Oh, Natalie Wood. That is true. But not as Natalie Wood. No, no, as Natalie Wood.

Wait, she's supposed to be Natalie Wood in it? Yes. Is that true? I missed that. Because she's like a sort of celebrity political fundraiser. Oh, that somehow slipped by me. I recognized her. Yeah, she does this little cameo as herself. Oh, that's funny. Did you know that Natalie Wood and Robert Redford went to high school together? No, that's crazy. I wonder if they were voted best looking. Well, they didn't really know each other in high school. She was already a star.

And he knew of her. And then later he went on and became an actor and worked in theater. And then when she was trying to take control of her career and go from sort of the ingenue roles that she would play to more serious stuff, she

She actually picked Robert Redford to be her leading man in a couple of movies. They were in Inside Daisy Clover and This Property is Condemned. I don't know either film. By the way, I saw somewhere a list of celebrities who appear in this film and one of them listed Groucho Marx, whom I love. And it's like, like...

Like a madman, I'm waiting for him to show up, and then I'm going back and trying to find him. And eventually, I found somewhere else on the internet, somebody pointing out how much Melvin Douglas looked like Groucho Marx. So, somebody just made a mistake. It was like, Groucho Marx is in The Candidate. Okay, no, he's not.

Melvin Douglas also has a connection to politics. Oh, he was married to a congresswoman. Yes, who was also previously an actress. That's Helen Gahagan? Yeah, who ran against Nixon in the era when he got the nickname Tricky Dick when they were trying to, you know, beat him. She became, I believe, a California congressperson? Yeah.

And ran for Senate. And I know that she is name-checked in a Tom Lehrer song where he rhymes Helen Gahagan with Ronald Reagan. And she and Melvin Douglas met on a play that they were both in. Love it. He's so good as the former governor, John J. McKay. Ah, he's a great actor. I love the moment when he leans into Robert Redford's face and says, Son, you're a politician.

And sort of similar to the uncomfortable tongue of Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd, you get his teeth and his smile is so uncomfortable. And what he's saying is not like, you know, is this a compliment? Am I supposed to get the warm fuzzies? Because dad called me a politician. Yeah, he's like, now you're like me. And we know how he feels about his dad. Did the final scene live up to my last week reaction?

referring to it as a classic final scene. Oh, yeah, that was... I actually really liked having that little bit of a pseudo-spoiler. Yeah. Because it kept me a little bit off guard. I was like, what's going to happen? I did, I was wondering, I was like, is he going to get assassinated? Like, is something like that going to happen? I didn't mean to plant that. No, it's okay. It actually made it great because it gave the last line to me sort of like the power of a gunshot. Marvin.

What do we do now? Oh, how great. I love that. I loved it. It was like the last little bullet in how this thing was the opposite of the West Wing. Right. This last line is the opposite of what's next. Brilliant. Oh, so good. That's so good, Rishi. That's exactly right. Yeah, not let's get to work. We've done it. Yeah. What can we accomplish? It's what do we do now?

And on this viewing, for me, it had a reverse Trump III because I thought in an inverse way, Trump was in the same position. He ran, assuming he would lose, to build his brand and further monetize his name. And there must have been a moment where he was like, holy shit.

I'm president. What do we do now? Unfortunately, he would answer that in many, many horrible ways. But it made me think of that when I watched the close of the film this time. And you get the feeling that he's going to answer it not in many, many horrible ways explicitly, but more in the horrible ways of doing nothing at all. Right. He starts off with such a great, easy conviction around his feelings about abortion. What do you think about legalized abortion? I'm for it. I think every woman should have that right. And it

immediately gets told to tone it down by Peter Boyle. And his response when Peter Boyle's like, say it's something we think is worth discussing, he's like, I'll think about it. But the only moment when he really gets asked that, the moment where the stakes are actually at the highest, which is in this televised debate, he goes with Peter Boyle's answer. Because by that point, he's too close to winning. Like, he wants it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I also like how

the movie doesn't explicitly tell us all the time that he's getting sucked in and he wants it now, he wants it now, he's growing, this power thing. A lot of that is in looks,

and gestures and subtleties of reaction. I think that by the end, he's profoundly unhappy compared to the version of him at the beginning where he says, I'm happy, where he knows who he is. I think he has lost himself so much that he's deeply unhappy by the end. And you kind of feel bad for him a little bit, but mostly you don't because it's entirely of his own making.

Even though he seems less and less in control as it goes. I also love the contrast in terms of beginning and end in that first press conference where they say, Bill, would you mind moving over there with your office staff? No, sorry. Any other questions? Why won't you move over there with your staff? They're not responsible for me.

And they all clap. Yeah, and then as the movie goes on, you see him being handled and handled and ushered more and more where people have to tell him where to go and direct him and he can't control his own decisions, what he says, what he wears. The other question that the film provoked in me this time around was, could he have remained true or could he have more closely investigated

kept to his ideals and his thoughts on issues and still won or was becoming the sort of cipher or polishing your, you know, sanding down all his edges. That'd have to be, by definition, like in order for him to win this race, he had to do what his handlers were telling him to do and be whom they wanted him to be. I think he did have to change. I think he had to change significantly. And this is why it isn't like Bullworth.

you know, where someone gets so much attention and rises in popularity because they're telling it how it is. The version of Bill McKay that tells it how it is, Peter Boyle gives him the prognosis. He's like, you're going to get creamed. You're going to be embarrassed. I think I just said creamed because I'm thinking of that's the word that they use when they talk about Sam Seaborn's candidacy. When he goes to run, he's speaking his truth. He's taking the Bartlett administration's messaging to...

a very red constituency. The story's going to be that you had the guts to stick up for what you believe and you didn't cut and run. And people are going to remember that. I'm going to make sure of it. I'm going to lose. Yeah. There's no chance of a miracle. No. And why are you here? You're going to lose...

and you're gonna lose huge. They're gonna throw rocks at you next week, and I wanted to be standing next to you when they did. But when Peter Boyle says, "Hey, you're gonna get embarrassed. You're not just gonna lose, you're gonna be embarrassed," that's too much for him to bear. Right. The indignity of getting destroyed. How you lose, I guess, does matter to him. And he wants to lose with dignity. He couldn't just accept, "Yeah, I lose." Yeah, but the dignity is remaining true to yourself.

despite the fact that you're going to lose. Yeah. And so that's when you realize like, no, actually this guy does have a level of vanity and ego. Yeah. Pure. And so that's why I think, yeah, where he's at at the end is his own making. We know just how fast a man went to get from where he's at. At, at. Yes. Jeremy Larner said that there are a lot of stories of his

actual experience that did make it into the movie. For example, again, like going back to the danger of meeting with the general populace, the guy who hands him a soda and a hot dog. Oh, so he can punch him. That was real? That was real. That actually happened to McCarthy. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Hold these two things so I can punch you in the face. Yeah. Wow. That's wild. A lot of the stuff that Crocker Jarman has to say is not too far off GOP talking points in 2024. I remember my mom and dad went through the 1930s without welfare, without poverty programs. None of us kids even had a social worker. How did we do it? Well, ladies, excuse me, but we worked our butts off.

I mean, that struck me too. I was like, wow. Things don't progress that much necessarily over the course of 50 years in politics. They're also not that different from the things that the senator says in A Face in the Crowd. They want protection, coddling from the cradle to the grave. I say that weakens the moral fiber. Why Daniel Boone wasn't looking for unemployment insurance and old age pension.

All he needed was his axe and his gun and a chance to hew a living out of the forest with his own hands.

You know what? That's also true. This sort of like selling middle class and blue collar people on this anti-entitlement platform. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Exactly. We worked our butts off. That's what we did. Like, that's still working today. How is that effective? And how could it be effective for 50, 60, 70 years? My great grandfather with just one tobacco farm. And...

Only a handful of slaves was finished. He figured out, he made it work. So Josh, what are we going to watch next week?

So we threw it open to our top two tiers on Patreon. They are the Inner Circle and the Super PAC. And there was some overwhelming support for the 1993 political comedy, Dave, directed by Ivan Reitman, written by Gary Ross. I was surprised by how many votes Dave got, but I'm ready to watch it again. Yeah, this is the movie I have not seen since originally watching it, which probably was 1993. So I'm curious to revisit it.

Well, that does it for another episode of the West Wing Weekly Political Film Fest. Thanks so much for listening. We would like to thank, as always, Zach McNeese and Margaret Miller for their invaluable contributions to the final product. Huge shout out to our Patreon subscribers. There it is.

for getting this off the ground and keeping it going. And if you would like to join our Patreon, you can at patreon.com slash the West Wing Weekly. You'll get all kinds of fun other stuff like our community chat, the signal. It's hot. It's happening. Contests where we give away t-shirts and hats and other things. And...

Bonus material. Right. The West Wing Weekly is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. Go to radiotopia.fm. Okay. Okay. What do we do now? Radiotopia from PRX.