Saturday, June 13, 2020

THE CANDIDATE 1964 (TUBI)

An interesting and obscure little film.

Ted Knight stars as Frank Carlton, a man running for a Senate seat in Washington D.C.

His career seems to be on the rise when he puts it all in jeopardy and befriends a beautiful English immigrant named Angela Wallace (JUne Wilkinson). They hit it off very well and become sexually involved which leads to trouble.

While this is going on, Carlton's campaign manager, Buddy Barker (Eric Mason) gets involved with a beautiful woman named Christine Ashley (gorgeous Mamie Van Doren) and the two become quick lovers.

All of this is presented in flashback during hearings aimed at Barker, During the hearing a stag film starring Angela is brought out and it causes Carlton to have a heart attack which proves to be his demise.

The downbeat ending shows us Buddy Barker, once high in the political world now a totally broken man with no friends. Christine tries one last time to break thru, but it does no good, so we see Barker sitting in his dark office, a shell of what he once was.

This is an excellent little satire on the politics of the times. It may seem tame today, but back in the early 60's things were very different. It's a great cast with Mason and Knight doing fine jobs, but the standouts of course, are Mamie and June.

June was once the most photographed woman in the world. The rest of the cast includes Rachel Roman, Herb Vigran, and George Cisar. If you like obscure and off the wall films, you might like this. It was one of the few Mamie Van Doren films I hadn't been able to see until now.

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