THE GREAT MAN (1957)

Beloved radio star Herb Fuller has just died in a car accident and Amalgamated Broadcasting System is planning a memorial broadcast. Joe Harris (Jose Ferrer), a drama critic for the network, is asked by Sid Moore, Fuller's former manager, to put together and host the tribute, implying that this might get the network to anoint Harris as their new star, though Carleton, the network boss, is making no promises. A theater that is about to be torn down is rented out for Fuller's memorial and Harris attends, tape recorder in hand, to get the varied reactions of mourners, from people who hung on his every broadcast word to people who barely knew who he was but knew he was a celebrity. But as Harris seeks out comments from people who actually knew him—including an ex-mistress, a press agent, and his first boss—he discovers that Fuller was not well liked. An even more disturbing story crops up when a drunken Moore reveals that Fuller faked some of his respected wartime broadcasts. Harris has to decide whether to present a whitewashed version of Fuller's life for the broadcast, or tell the unvarnished truth, a decision made more difficult when he discovers he's being used as a pawn in a power play between Moore and the network.

Many viewers notice this film's initial narrative and thematic resemblances to CITIZEN KANE (a posthumous investigation behind a great man to reveal a very flawed man) but this movie, though interesting, declines to use visual style in any compelling way and comes off more like a filmed TV play than a richly imagined movie. Ferrer, who also directed, remains a bland, mostly passive observer with little personality—though he does have a breakthrough moment at the end—but the main reason to watch this film is for a handful of non-showy but excellent performances. Julie London (pictured), as the former lover, a singer who was helped then thrown away by Fuller, is subtly heartbreaking; Ed Wynn, known best as a vaudeville comic—and known by me mostly as the floating Uncle Albert in MARY POPPINS—also has a surprisingly subtle turn as the small town radio station owner who was one of the first people that Fuller stepped on; Dean Jagger plays the network boss, whose motives in his game-playing are a bit murky—his scene near the end in which he explains the lay of the land to Ferrer is reminiscent of the darker speech that Ned Beatty gives to Peter Finch in NETWORK. Some critics also like Keenan Wynn (Ed's son) as Sid Moore, but I found him grating and obvious, especially as he is surrounded by quieter, more effective performers. An interesting movie than I wish was a little more powerful. [TCM]