The President's Analyst is a 1967 American satirical black comedy film written and directed by Ted Flicker and starring James Coburn. The film has elements of political satire and science fiction, including themes concerning modern ethics and privacy, specifically the intrusion of the telecommunications alliance, working with the U.S. government, into citizens' private lives. The film was released theatrically on December 21, 1967, and was initially not a commercial success. However, it was reviewed favorably and eventually achieved cult status.
Plot Psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Schaefer is chosen by the U.S. government to act as the president's top-secret personal psychoanalyst, from a referral by Don Masters, a Central Enquiries Agency (CEA) assassin who vetted Schaefer while undergoing his own psychoanalysis. The decision to choose Schaefer is against the advice of Henry Lux, the diminutive director of the all-male Federal Bureau of Regulation (FBR). ("Lux" resembles "Electrolux," which, like J. Edgar Hoover, was once a famous make of vacuum cleaner.) Schaefer is given a home in affluent Georgetown and assigned a comfortable office connected to the White House by a secret tunnel. From this location he is to be on call at all hours, to fit the president's hectic schedule. However, the president's analyst has a unique problem: there is no one with whom he can talk about the president's top-secret and personal problems. As he steadily becomes overwhelmed by stress, Schaefer begins to feel that he is being watched everywhere until he becomes clinically paranoid; he even suspects his sweet girlfriend Nan of spying on him as an agent of the CEA. All of Schaefer's paranoid suspicions eventually turn out to be true. Still worse, Schaefer has a habit of talking in his sleep. Schaefer goes on the run with the help of a "typical" American family in New Jersey who defend him against foreign agents attempting to kidnap him off the street. He escapes with the help of a hippie tribe led by the "Old Wrangler", as spies from many nations attempt to kidnap him for the secret information that the president has disclosed to him. Meanwhile, agents from the FBR seek him on orders to '"liquidate" him as a national security risk. Eventually, Schaefer is found and kidnapped by Canadian Secret Service agents masquerading as a British pop group. Schaefer is rescued from the Canadians and an FBR assassin by Kropotkin (Severn Darden), a Russian KGB agent who intends to spirit him away to the Soviet Union. Kropotkin has second thoughts about his plan following a psychoanalysis session with the doctor during which Kropotkin begins to come to terms with his unrealized hatred of his KGB-chief father for having his mother shot during Joseph Stalin's Purge of 1937. Now feeling that he needs the doctor's help to continue his self-analysis, he instead returns him to U.S. soil. Kropotkin arranges a pickup with his trusted CEA colleague Don Masters, but Schaefer is kidnapped again, this time by TPC (The Phone Company), a far more insidious organization than the CSS, the FBR, or the KGB, which had been secretly observing him. Taken to TPC headquarters in New Jersey, he is introduced to its leader, Arlington Hewes played by Pat Harrington Jr., who wants Schaefer's help in carrying out their plan for world domination. As the TPC leader makes his presentation, a camera closeup reveals electronic cables connected to one of his feet, revealing that he is actually an animatronic robot. TPC has developed a "modern electronic miracle", the Cerebrum Communicator (CC), a microelectronic device that can communicate wirelessly with any other CC in the world. With the CC implanted in the brain, a user need only think of the phone number to be called, and is instantly connected, thus eliminating the need for The Phone Company's massive and expensive wired infrastructure. For this to work, every human being will be assigned a number instead of a name, and will have the CC implanted prenatally. Schaefer is to be forced to assist the TPC scheme by blackmailing the president to pushing through the required legislation. TPC uses a short animated sequence (a parody of the animation in Our Mr. Sun) to explain their plan to Schaefer. In response, he tells TPC they are suffering from several mental issues and they try to brainwash him in to complying. Masters and Kropotkin use their superspy abilities to infiltrate the impregnable TPC facility and rescue Schaefer. They hand Schaefer a M16 rifle and he gleefully uses it on The Phone Company's security staff. He then has Kroptkin sabotage the TPC’s whole network so throughly that everyone will forever loathe TPC and never approve their CC plan. The trio emerge victorious from the ensuing bloodbath, but months later, as Schaefer and his spy friends are enjoying a Christmas reunion, a larger group of animatronic executives from a resurrected TPC are seen staring approvingly at a secret monitor, while "Joy to the World" plays in the background.
Cast
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