THE BEST MAN remains one of the sharpest peels into the rotten apple of American politics, six decades after it came out in the spring of 1964. When it, along with the year’s other stunners of high-level fever-pitching—Dr. Strangelove, Seven Days In May and Fail-Safe—was filmed in 1963, President Kennedy was alive, and a handily “magic bullet” hadn’t blown away the dream and sealed our fate. In fact, Gore Vidal’s up-close & prescient script had come from his 1960 play, taking the then-leading contestants for the Prez prize to the woodshed. *

“Y’know, it’s not that I object to your being a bastard, don’t get me wrong there. It’s your being such a stupid bastard that I object to.”

At a convention to select their party’s nominee for the next Presidential election, delegates are wooed by the leading candidates, and the former President weighs who he will support. The second-stringers are just for show; the fight’s come down to two men with considerably different outlooks, styles and temperament. Each has private life baggage attached that could sink them. Will one or both of them use what they have on the other? What’s best for the party? For the nation?

Former Secretary of State ‘William Russell’ (Henry Fonda) offers high-level experience and calm, intellectual gravitas but his very thoughtfulness can make him come off as indecisive. Hardline anti-Communist populist Senator ‘Joe Cantwell’ (Cliff Robertson) projects forceful vitality that barely masks cutthroat opportunism. Crafty ex-President ‘Art Hockstader’ (Lee Tracy) sees the strengths and weaknesses in each. Russell’s decency might be a liability. Cantwell will do anything to win, including smearing Russell over marital indiscretions. Then damning secrets from his past are presented to Russell as armor-piercing ammo. Calling, conscience or country—and in what order?

Vidal’s superbly balanced screenplay makes points without banging you over the head via attention-thirsty speeches or cheap shot one-liners. Direction by Franklin J. Schaffner skillfully measures the gradually rising nervous tension, with Haskell Wexler’s sharp black & white cinematography feeling like you’re in the room with the characters.

We are loathe to quote Ronald Reagan for anything outside of one of his movies, but he did offer a great self-tell with “I’ll never forget the reaction of my old boss at Warner Brothers, Jack Warner, when he first heard that I was running for Governor of California. He said, ‘Oh, no, no. Jimmy Stewart for Governor, Reagan for best friend.’ ”  The Gabby Gipper was referring to Stewart in the 1939 classic Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, but in the early 60’s it was conservative Jimmy’s best friend, liberal Henry Fonda, who best conveyed (or conveyed the best of) honorable politicians on screen, first as a nominee for Secretary of State in 1962’s okay Advise And Consent, then closing the ‘missive gap’ in ’64 with this trenchant take and the high(est) stakes nail biting of Fail-Safe, where he was elevated to the top job, and stuck with the worst sort of decision making.

Robertson, 40, had just played JFK as the low-keyed WW2 hero of PT-109. He was serviceable in that watchable but rather mundane actioner. Here, off the leash, he’s terrific as the calculating, whatever-it-takes rabble rouser, so focused he can quick-recalibrate when bad news makes a surprise attack. He was gifted an Oscar four years later for the sentimental Charly, but this decidedly anti-endearing role was his career best. As his trophy wife/beard, the much-missed Edie Adams (36, fresh off It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) scores another win.

The three-decade stranglehold of the Production Code was being pried open to admit ‘forbidden’ subjects, with A-list pictures like Advise And Consent and the remake of The Children’s Hour subplotting or subtexting homosexuality, the recognition that it actually existed (who knew? well, everybody who wasn’t a character on a TV show…or a politician) and the ingrained kneejerk reactions to the very idea. In Vidal’s story, the issue is raised by a witness to furtive frolics that if revealed would shatter a carefully crafted image. The deer-in-headlights messenger is played by comedian Shelley Berman, who expertly tailors his standup comic persona to suit ‘Sheldon Bascomb’s unlikely savior/fink.

Best of all is Lee Tracy, 65, in his first feature film in 17 years. His once busy movie career had faded into radio and TV work until Vidal’s play became a Broadway hit, running 520 performances. Melvyn Douglas was Russell, Frank Lovejoy was Cantwell, and Tracy’s work as Hockstader saw him nominated for a Tony award. Repeating for the screen version struck home again and he was Oscar-nominated as Supporting Actor. Peter Ustinov took the statue for his puckish bumbler in Topkapi, and he was really good—but Tracy is magnificent, no artifice, flinty, sagacious and hard as a diamond, fully convincing in the best role he ever had.

Maybe because the peppermint twisted were (reasonably) still in shock over the high-noon public slaughter of JFK or perhaps it was that the herd collectively just ain’t all that big on ‘smart’ this svelte barracuda gasped at the box office, $2,600,000 and 94th place. Vietwhere?

With Kevin McCarthy (slick as Russell’s campaign manager), Ann Southern (enjoying herself as a pushy hostess/gossip hound), Margaret Leighton (Russell’s wised-up but loyal wife), Gene Raymond, Richard Arlen, John Henry Faulk, Howard K. Smith (was this the first time a journalist played himself in a movie?), Mahalia Jackson (cameo as herself), George Furth (30, debut), Marie Blake/Blossom Rock and Rupert Crosse. 102 minutes.

* Vidal modeled Russell on Adlai Stevenson, Cantwell on both Nixon and Kennedy, and Hockstader on Harry Truman. Where was Ike? Maybe WASPy hornet Vidal didn’t consider Eisenhower’s droning bumble bee sexy enough to sting.

Something as old hat ancient as he-man Cantwell’s sallies into ‘male bonding’ wouldn’t rate a shredded memo in today’s political theater of the grotesque, not when even sex trafficking on an industrialized scale is just another ‘indiscretion’ that can be shrugged off by the red-handed perps and massaged by entire broadcast networks of servile hacks that would sicken the cheerleaders of The Hunger Games.