The President's Analyst

Director: Theodore J. Flicker
Year Released: 1967
Rating: 3.0

Clever concept done with panache: psychoanalyst James Coburn is recruited to administer the "talking cure" to the President of the United States, but finds the job invades his privacy too much and tries to get away. Along the way, he is aided by a gun-toting middle-class American family, a group of hippies and Canadian sailors (?) among others - it all leads to the most pleasantly absurd of climaxes, as he changes hands from country to country, each eager to tap the doctor's vast reservoir of insider knowledge. Coburn (one of my favorite actors), in post Our Man Flint mode, is an interesting casting choice but it couldn't have worked out better (he doesn't take the role seriously, and seems game for anything); Severn Darden does a nice job as the Russian spy (and all-around good guy) Kropotkin.