A House Divided

By JAY COCKS

THE MAN

Directed by JOSEPH SARGENT

Screenplay by ROD SERLING

In this kindergarten political charade, a black man becomes President of the U.S. because the roof falls in --and vice versa. The incumbent, the Speaker of the House and a gaggle of dignitaries are touring Frankfurt when disaster rains down on their good gray heads. "That ceiling was 500 years old," the German ambassador defensively informs a shocked Cabinet back in Washington. The Vice President (Lew Ayres), the victim of a recent stroke, lolls in his wheelchair like an unstrung marionette and proclaims his inability to take office. The torch is passed to Douglass Oilman (James Earl Jones), President Pro Ternpore of the Senate, prompting the Capitol's most prominent Dixiecrat (Burgess Meredith) to snort "the White House doesn't seem near white enough for me tonight."

The mere thought of holding such an august office sets Jones to trembling. "How are you, Dad?" inquires his daughter (Janet MacLachlan). "Nuuummmb," Jones replies, drawing the word out of his mouth as if it were a piece of bubble gum. His militant daughter regards him as little better than a token black, a mild-mannered professor willing to tap-dance to the white man's tune. Everyone else around Washington has more or less the same impression.

Jones confounds them all. He casts aside his prepared notes at his first press conference, glances balefully at Aides Martin Balsam and William Windom, and lets go with a series of scorching comments about South African racism. It seems that a young American black (George Stanford Brown) has been accused of attempting to assassinate the South African Defense Minister. He has confided to Jones that the whole thing is a frame-up, and Jones believes him, laying himself open for an international wrangle over extradition.

Scenarist Serling's adaptation of Irving Wallace's novel is full of cheap chatter and the kind of bombast ("We cannot murder tyranny by murdering the tyrant") that even a Washington speechwriter might discard as overly florid. As portrayed by Jones, the hero is certainly fulsome enough to be a major political figure. Joseph Sargent's direction is energetic, consisting in large measure of dogging his actors with a mobile camera as they bolt through endless doorways along the corridors of power. --Jay Cocks

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