Skit comedies based on talent gathered from theatrical comedy groups had a pretty spotty record in the '60s. Philip Kaufman's Fearless Frank comes to mind; it put this film's Severn Darden and Joan Darling in with Jon Voight and a comic strip plot about gangsters and a super-cyborg, but was an underfunded, unfocused mess that rarely found time to be funny. In The President's Analyst the stand-up skits are sublimated into a terrific story that moves like a house afire. We no sooner are introduced to a parodic vision of competing security agencies in Washington, when we move on to White House jokes and a devastating lampoon of trends in suburbia. The script always jumps to the next level before ideas become stale, and actually finds something profound to say in its wild Science Fiction ending.

Coburn got to flex a bit of his own personality here, playing a gong-ringing good-guy shrink and amiable straight man to a film-full of crazies. This is Godfrey Cambridge's best role; he starts with a sympathetic soliloquoy to the camera about racism in his childhood, and has us in his pocket from then on. He's best pals with his opposite number, the garrulous, friendly Severn Darden. His KGB top spy turns out to be sincerely in need of Dr. Schaefer's psychoanalysis.

Everybody has room to shine in sketch material neatly woven into the script. Joan Delaney comes on like a submissive love object, and then balks at the perceived constrictions of marriage. Barry McGuire's hippie guru impersonation is priceless, as is Jill Banner's love child. Best of all are William Daniels and Joan Darling as the pistol-packing, karate-chopping "good" liberals proud to be called typically American while they suggest that gassing would be too good for their "fascist" neighbors. Their son bugs Sidney's phone calls and alerts the FBR; when the first spies attack, Sidney escapes because the Quantrills retaliate as a coordinated killing team.

Just when we wonder if the show is running out of steam, Flicker pulls out his science-fiction trump card, a Visit with Mr. Lincoln - like robot (Pat Harrington). It condescendingly explains to Dr. Schaefer why it's imperative he help The Phone Company influence the President in a scheme to implant communication devices into every newborn child and depersonalize them with numbers instead of names. Not only does this perfectly skewer the corporate-serving Epcot mentality seen in the Disney Tomorrowland disc, but it connects The President's Analyst with concepts as varied as Forbidden Planet, cell phones and the Internet. Haven't you ever wondered if cell phones could be implanted in our bodies, like The Outer Limits' Demon with a Glass Hand?

The key moment in The President's Analyst is when Severn Darden offers Sidney an M16 to hold off The Phone Company's private army. Pacifist Sidney at first refuses, until Darden insists: "You wanna change the world? Take the gun!" This one-off joke is pretty scary, as it acknowledges that even here in America, effecting social change is a frustrating process that takes decades and makes do-gooder liberals look ineffective: the opposition is more likely to use force as a first option. As it is, non-violent Sidney is quickly seduced by his machine gun and becomes an instant Che Guevara.

Theodore Flicker's funny-but-chilling conclusion is great Science Fiction; in an It's a Wonderful Life setting of celebration and harmony, more Phone Company automatons are sharing our joy on their spy screens, shedding sincere robot tears for our Yuletide happiness. There hasn't been a better satirical image on film of the Brave New World of the future.

Paramount's DVD of The President's Analyst is a stunner, with great color and clear audio. The enhanced widescreen images make sense of compositions sliced up in flat TV presentations and even the tacky LSD wig-out and Sidney's spy-crazy nightmare now come off as visually inventive. Bill Fraker's excellent images switch between New York normalcy and spy paranoia without a stumble.

As is typical with this studio, there's not even a trailer on board; and the package text trivializes the content of the film by trying to make it sound like a simple comedy thriller. One reason The President's Analyst does so well is that even in the wildest skits, everyone plays straight without trying to milk laughs from the camera. Contemporary critics commented on some of the wild content, but I think The President's Analyst went over a lot of heads. Even the Playboy critic used one of his two paragraphs to make a big point about the lack of realism in Dr. Sidney's "stroll" around New York, that takes him from Central Park to the top of the Statue of Liberty. Well, duh.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The President's Analyst rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: none
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: June 3, 2004