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President's Analyst, The

Entry updated 23 February 2017. Tagged: Film.

Film (1967). Panpiper/Paramount. Written and directed by Theodore J Flicker. Cast includes Godfrey Cambridge, James Coburn, Severn Darden, Joan Delaney, Pat Harrington and Barry McGuire. 104 minutes. Colour.

A psychoanalyst (Coburn), hired to listen to the President's troubles, breaks down under the strain. He takes refuge with a "typical" US family who describe themselves as "militant liberals" (the husband collects guns, the wife takes karate lessons and their son specializes in wire-tapping). Pursued by the FBI (all very short men), the CIA (all college graduates with pipes and tweed jackets), Russians, Chinese and others, the hero repeatedly avoids death by a hairsbreadth; he then learns that the power secretly running the USA is the Telephone Company (manned by bland, smiling Robots), which plans to insert a miniature telephone in the head of every person in the world. The film ends with the robots still in control. Flicker's pleasing Satire is witty and literate, and contrives to have it both ways by spoofing Paranoia movies while actually exploiting our genuine (and well grounded) paranoias. [JB/PN]

see also: Cinema.

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