Review of The President's Analyst (1967) by Kevin M — 12 Apr 2009

What begins as a semi-serious analysis of, well, analysis, slowly morphs into one of the goofiest government paranoia stories ever filmed. While some of its late-60s period trappings may date "The President's Analyst", the humor remains just as prescient and its central themes are timeless at heart. James Coburn is a brilliant Greenwich Village psychologist who likes to bang his gong around. One of his high-paying clients is Godfrey Cambridge, who is a bottom-tier operative for the "C.E.A.", going directly to his therapy session after murdering an innocent laundryman in broad daylight. The session is a magnificent two-character scene that turns from unearthing childhood trauma, stemming from racism, to the displacement of violent urges through his dubious "job", to the necessary evils that come with doing government wetworks assignments -- airing out "dirty laundry", so to speak.

Coburn, who didn't do a whole lot of comedy between this and the Derek Flint adventures, proves himself equally adept at the intellectual high-wire act of psychotherapy and the great deal of slapstick paranoid espionage hijinks that result from being appointed as the Big Kahuna's personal shrink. A strange Semi-Obligatory Lyrical Interlude and makeout session with his girlfriend later, Coburn's shuttling back and forth between his swanky Georgetown digs and La Casa Blanca for long therapy sessions at the weirdest times, signaled by a red floodlight and alarm. We never see the President, but the reactions of his analyst as he leaves the Oval Office speak volumes. It's only a matter of time before he hatches a plan to escape his "dream job", but the evil forces of the "F.B.R." and the "S.S.", with its contingent of midget assassins, conspire to silence our hero with his head full of state secrets. Of course, this taking place during the Cold War, we have a Bolshevik spy (with a strange New York accent) betting Cambridge that he'll acquire the missing analyst before the US government can kill him.

At this point, "The President's Analyst" becomes a hybrid of a road movie, a Hitchcockian thriller, and a spoof of the cloak-and-dagger genre. Coburn goes to New Jersey and hides out with a family of right-wing, gun-toting "liberals", evades swarms of agents of every nationality, drops acid with some hippies in the requisite VW Minibus, and gets to play gong in a psychedelic band. Meanwhile, the mysterious forces of evil, taking form in the most innocuous visages, are always listening in on his every phone call. As the story gets weirder, the situations become increasingly absurd, yet the deadpan acting and epic sweep of the story elevate this slick satire to ever loftier heights. The clashing story threads hilariously collide during one scene, taking place in a grassy field, that might be one of the funniest sequences in anything, ever, in cinematic history.

Keeping with this bizarre trajectory, Act 3 officially turns batshit insane as we learn the true nature of the conspiracy. While Ma Bell might have been ordered to break up her monopoly, the Evil Plot might be even more eerily plausible in the era of cell phones and bluetooth headsets, approaching the true headiness of Hard Sci-Fi. Don't worry, we don't approach "2001" metaphysics or see any floating Star Children, thanks to Godfrey Cambridge and the Brooklyn Bolshevik. As our hero learns to channel his aggression at a worthwhile target and we get a strangely upbeat ending straight out of "A Christmas Carol", director Ted Flicker smoothly undercuts the jollity with a chilling final image. This movie is fucking brilliant, delivering on all counts with an intelligence uncharacteristic of most "spoofs", especially nowadays when the axis of Friedberg, Seltzer and the Weinsteins and their cut-and-paste "____ Movie" template creating a new evil breed of Anti-Comedy.

Now there's a worthwhile target to hate. Where did I leave my M-16?