ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Wild satire starring James Coburn ("Our Man Flint") as a psychiatrist whose professional services are required by a troubled President. When the President unloads his Cold War anxieties on Coburn, it makes the Chief Executive feel much better but it drives Coburn crazy, turning him into a raving paranoid. After suffering a breakdown, Coburn escapes from Washington when he starts imagining spies everywhere.

The right-wing conservative head of the FBR (Federal Bureau of Regulations) orders Coburn killed because he's now a security risk. The left-wing liberal head of the CEA (Central Enquiries Agency) wants to bring him back alive. The film's parodies are ruthless: all the FBR agents look like "Jack Webb" clones, and all the CEA agents look like hippies and college students.

Coburn is eventually kidnapped by Canadian secret agents, rescued by a friendly Russian agent (Severn Darden), and kidnapped again by the real villains of this wild story agents of TPC (The Phone Company!). A smiling, cour??teous robot (Pat Harrington) explains The Phone Company's frightening plan to implant microscopic phone circuits in everybody's brain so people can make telepathic phone calls.

Think about it: cell phones are just a short hop away from this creepy idea. Beware, America!

If you're old enough to remember those great Bell Telephone Hour science shows from the 1950s, you'll recognize the slick, cartoon-assisted lecture which Harrington uses to reveal Ma Bell's Master Plan.

Watch for the futurist sets and matte paintings of The Phone Company's master control center. Fine comic performances by all concerned, including Godfrey Cambridge and Will Geer. One reviewer stated that parts of the plot originally belonged to an unmade third "Flint" film. Seems unlikely, since "Flint" is from 20th Century Fox, and "The President's Analyst" is from Paramount.

Written and directed by Theodore J. Flicker.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]

The organizations were originally the FBI and CIA, but the government objected. It you look at the actors mouth's they are saying FBI and CIA.

The FBR, all short men dressed in dark trench coats and hats. The CEA, tall men, all dressed in tweed jackets, and smoking pipes.

The movie is one of the earliest movies, if not the first, to use the S&W .44 magnum revolver.

The DVD for some reason, omitted the scene where James Coburn first meets his girl friend.

Severn Darden. His first name is from a street in Metairie LA., where his family owned a lot of land.

David.

[scotpens]

Don't forget a great comic turn by William Daniels ( the voice of KITT the talking car from Knight Rider) as the father of a proudly "liberal" family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgKqo3TvZoI

[Bud Brewster]

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Enjoy this trailer for the movie.
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_____________ The President's Analyst - Trailer


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Jack Deth]

Noted not only for James Coburn and Godfrey Cambridge's excellent comedic turns., but, also for William Daniels and his family's "Car Gun" .357 Magnum. And "House Gun" .38 Special.

And Pat Harrington long before handyman Schneider and 'One Day At a Time'.

Playing the robotic representative of The Phone Company. Complete with a coaxial cable feeding into the heel of one of his dress Broughams.
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No Matter Where You Go.
There You Are.

[Krel]

Something I found out recently: the yacht in the movie actually belonged to John Wayne.

David.

[Bud Brewster]

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I was thinking about doing a Thinking Outside the "Plot" post for this movie by looking for articles about presidents who needed (and used) psychotherapy to deal with the pressures of the highest office in the land.

What I found, however, was several articles which discussed what mental health professionals think about our erratic Commander in Chief!

Here's what the most respected psychologist and psychotherapist think about the current president. This is scary stuff. Science fiction has become science fact!

From the POLITICO website.

America's therapists are worried about Trump's effect on your mental health!



The article starts out with these rather damning remarks.

What is Donald Trump doing to Americans' mental health?

It came up in the debate Sunday night, when Hillary Clinton pointed to a "Trump effect", an uptick in bullying and distress that teachers are noticing in classrooms as their students are exposed to a candidate who regularly attacks his opponents in bombastic, even threatening terms.

The new revelation of Trump's crude boasts in 2005 about being able to kiss and grope women and "move on" a married woman "like a bitch" gave new fuel to the charge that his candidacy might be normalizing aggressive, disparaging talk and behavior.

If ever we needed a "President's Analyst", it's NOW!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

I'm even beginning to feel more charitably toward George W.

I went to add The President's Analyst to my Netflix queue, but it had one of those green buttons that says "Save to DVD queue". That means they don't currently offer it and will never get it. (The 151 titles in my currently-unavailable-or-not-yet-released-but-thanks-for-asking Netflix queue outnumber the scheduled DVDs by over 5 to 1, and the scheduled discs include the 10-disc set of Ken Burns' Vietnam series plus a couple other multi-disc series.)
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Bud Brewster]

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I took another shot at finding articles about whether or not sitting president's do have their own therapists who are authorized to hear anything the president needs to share, for the sake of his mental health.

What I found was that such therapist either don't exist or their existence is so secret nobody will admit it.

As a writer, that tantalizes me. The basic premise of The President's Analyst is so plausible and logical that I have trouble believing there really isn't somebody who secretly meets with sitting presidents and helps them stay sane while doing the most stressful job on Earth!

This movie needs a remake that tells a serious version of the story. I think is would terrific!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)