Nixon at the Movies: A Book about Belief FROM THE PUBLISHER
Nixon at the Movies takes a new and often revelatory approach to looking at Nixon's career - and Hollywood's. From the obvious (All the President's Men) to the less so (Elvis Presley movies and Nixon's relationship to '60s youth culture) to several onscreen "alternate" Nixons (Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity, Tony Curtis in The Sweet Smell of Success, Gene Hackman in The Conversation), Feeney sees aspects of Nixon's character, and the nation's, refracted and reimagined in film. Conversely, Feeney argues that Nixon can help us see the movies in a new light, making a strong case for Nixon as the movies' tutelary deity during the early '70s, playing a role in Hollywood's Silver Age comparable to FDR's during its Golden Age. Feeney's careful dissection of the characters and films with which Nixon deeply identified - including an appendix detailing what Nixon watched during the White House years - is as a psychological portrait of our most complicated president and his era as any of the memoirs written about him.
FROM THE CRITICS
Barry Gewen - The New York Times
Feeney, a writer and editor at The Boston Globe, offers up formidably intelligent analyses of some key episodes and themes from Richard Nixon's life. His choices are willfully idiosyncratic; he is on the lookout for topics with aura, with resonance, so Nixon's predawn visit to the Lincoln Memorial at the height of the Vietnam War receives more attention than the Alger Hiss case. Yet what's most idiosyncratic here is the way Feeney wraps everything in celluloid. Almost all the chapters take their titles from the names of movies -- ''Dark Victory,'' ''Sweet Smell of Success'' -- and these movies serve as symbols, springboards or simply excuses for Feeney's ruminations.
Library Journal
During his presidency, Richard Nixon watched more than 500 motion pictures and has been portrayed in numerous others, says Feeney, a longtime reporter and editor for the Boston Globe. This lengthy investigation shows how Nixon's complicated persona has been displayed in films and how movies impressed and molded him. The author has a good knowledge of Nixon the politician and a mastery of film history and criticism, but he tends to meander into overly detailed discussions of Frank Capra and other filmmakers. He also arrives at some speculative conclusions, e.g., the American public was more incensed by Nixon's illegal tax deductions taken to improve his homes than it was about Watergate. The most intriguing essays are on Nixon's relationship with Henry Kissinger ("a pair of suspicious and insecure losers") and his memorable December 21, 1970, meeting with Elvis Presley ("soul mates" trapped by their need for physical and emotional distance). Better at revealing Nixon as a cultural phenomenon than as a political icon, this book is suitable for larger public and academic collections of film criticism or popular culture.-Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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