Review of The Man

Since today is Presidents Day, I've devoted the past several hours to reviewing past presidential movie bios: Wilson, Give 'em Hell, Harry!, and The Final Days about Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, and Richard Nixon, respectively. Now I'm reviewing one about Douglas Dillman. Who? Well, he's actually a fictional one from a novel by Irving Wallace. Rod Serling eventually adapted it into a TV movie starring James Earl Jones playing Dillman who's depicted here as the first African-American president some 36 years before Barack Obama. He becomes president-previously Senate President Pro Tempore-after the previous president's, not to mention Speaker of the House's, deaths and after the vice president refuses his inauguration for health reasons. He is challenged by Burgess Meredith's racist senator, and by a case involving the assassination of a South African defense minister allegedly by an African-American activist (Georg Stanford Brown). He also has a daughter (Janet MacLachlan) who's very much a "Black Power" activist. In fact, one of her best scenes is her dialogue with a cabinet member's wife (Barbara Rush) on societal graces during an otherwise innocuous cabinet dinner meeting. There's much to admire here though since this was a made-for-TV movie, it only goes so far in discussing certain issues. Still, this was quite a compelling movie about the responsibilities of the presidency. So that's a recommendation of The Man. P.S. I'm guessing this was Jack Benny's last film appearance which was quite amusing especially when he got one more crack about his flop movie The Horn Blows at Midnight!