The President’s Analyst

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C     Extras: D     Film: B-

 

 

Dr. Sidney Schafer (James Coburn) becomes The President’s Analyst (1967), and it becomes the biggest mistake of his life.  Knowing his psychiatric history makes him a valuable target, either for kidnapping or elimination.  Instead of being an outright thriller, this is a clever comedy that is more ironic than explicit about its humor.  This is assisted by a superior cast that includes Godfrey Cambridge, Severn Darden, Pat Harrington, Barry McGuire (yes, the singer who sings a song on this soundtrack, his scenes are cut up on some copies), Will Geer, William Daniels, Joan Darling, Joan Delaney, and Arte Johnson.

 

Though is has dated in certain ways (the phone company is no longer a monopoly, for instance), it is one of the few Spy-era comedies that the Austin Powers franchise has not had the ability to absorb, which gives you an idea of the difference between this film and the rest of its ilk.  If it was any more serious, it would be an outright thriller.  If it were funnier, it would be the sequences in the original Pink Panther franchise when assassins try to kill Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau and keep failing, however masterful Blake Edwards was in pulling all that off.

 

Coburn also gets to play off of his Derek Flint image and take it into a new direction, though it seems to ultimately be the late Patrick McGoohan who took what is going on here all the way in his even more brilliant TV classic The Prisoner (reviewed elsewhere on this site).  With that said, even decades later, the loyal following the film has is earned and deserved, because it takes risks and even manages to deal with the counterculture in a way most A-films out of the big studios were unable to deal with. 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image recycles the analog master of the letterboxed version that has been on cable networks and 12” LaserDisc format.  The film was originally issued in three-strip, dye-transfer Technicolor, but this transfer only shows that here and there.  Cinematographer William A. Fraker, A.S.C., gives us some memorable shots that seem to be sending up the scope Spy films that began in 1965 with films like The Ipcress File and Thunderball.  That is one of its lasting legacies and helped to establish him as a major cameraman.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is smaller than expected and sounds too compressed for its own good.  This also hurts the score by Lalo Schifrin, which begs the question, why was this film not remixed for anything form stereo to 5.1 sound?  Also, there are no extras, not even a trailer.  The ones made for the film were amusing.

 

Flicker came from great TV shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Dream Of Jeannie and the especially relevant Man From U.N.C.L.E. series, then would later return to work on more classics like Night Gallery, Banyon, Banacek, The Streets Of San Francisco and Barney Miller, so this is a very smart director.  Up In The Cellar would be his other major feature film, made three years later.  It also has a following and we hope to see it on DVD soon.  If you have not seen The President’s Analyst, jump up your attention span and check it out.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo