Truman: The Television Movie

TRUMAN

Perhaps few people were as poorly prepared to be President as Harry S. Truman. A former haberdasher who gained political office through the patronage of an infamous political boss (though Truman himself was honest), he was not welcomed into the echelons of his boss, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. When FDR died suddenly in his fourth term, then-Vice President Truman was not seen as up to the job. Truman, the television biopic based on historian David McCullough's biography of the 33rd President, is respectable but oh so dry.

Hopping about from his 1948 reelection campaign to his life in Independence, Missouri and after his reelection, Truman attempts to give much scope to how Harry Truman (Gary Sinise) rose to the Presidency. He had but one love, Bess (Diana Scarwid), but her mother and brother were not wild about Harry. As far as they are concerned, Harry is a loser.

To be fair, even Harry sometimes sees himself as a loser. That is until his reputation for honesty and his military record in World War I gains him the attention of Missouri political boss Tom Pendergast (Pat Hingle). Pendergast thinks that Harry will be the perfect stooge, but except for one very reluctant compromise involving road work that Truman knows will benefit both farmers and Pendergast's patrons, Truman steers clear of any shady business.

That reputation for honesty despite his Pendergast ties elevates him to the Senate. Here, Truman goes after war profiteers and finds himself, most reluctantly, as the compromise candidate for Vice President under Franklin D. Roosevelt. No one, least of all Harry, seems aware of how ill FDR is. Worse, Truman is essentially cut off from Roosevelt's inner circle. As such, when FDR dies and Truman ends up succeeding him as President of the United States, he is thrown into a series of maelstroms. Will he drop the bomb on Japan? Will he fire the popular General Douglas MacArthur (Daniel von Bargen) when he goes off against his Commander-in-Chief over Korea? 

Truman is well-acted and respectable. That being said, I was surprised and disappointed as to how boring Truman was. I think a major reason why Truman did not work for me is in how we simply did not get the man behind the image. This is not a reflection on Gary Sinise's performance as Harry Truman. While I do not think that Sinise got Truman's voice (sounding too nasal to my ears), I think Sinise communicated Truman's honesty and frustrations at being excluded. In a lot of ways, Harry Truman was excluded both at home from his snobbish in-laws and at work from his snobbish officials. 

Here, I think, would be a good point to look at where Truman slid off a bit. Late in the film, we are introduced to Clark Clifford (Tony Goldwyn). Who he is, why he is there, and why anyone should listen to this young man is not mentioned. He is just there and for reasons that Thomas Rickman's adaptation of McCullough's biography never makes clear, the viewer is supposed to care. Another character, Charlie Ross (Colm Feore) has a very curious death, keeling over in front of the press and staff before giving a statement for the President. People around him thought that Ross was clowning around, unaware that he had literally dropped dead in front of them.

To be fair, director Frank Pierson did not play this moment for laughs. He treated it with taste. However, I barely remember the character of Ross in Truman, so his death does not have the impact one would think that it would have to the Truman family. Moreover, the way Truman is structured, Harry famously (or infamously) threatening to punch a critic who gave his daughter Margaret a negative review of her recital comes across as more a bad outlet for grief than genuine anger at Truman's daughter getting bashed in print.

As a side note, I am surprised that Truman did not show some of the Truman Administration's more colorful and amusing moments. We don't see Harry Truman rising when the butler first enters the Oval Office. We don't see how Truman realized that the White House was a death trap when he sees a White House servant swaying as he walks across the floor, the foundation slowly crumbling due to decades of neglect. 

We don't see poor Bess Truman in her first major appearance as the new First Lady struggling to smash a champagne bottle to christen a plane (the bottle had not been properly prepared). Bess, a shy woman thrust into the spotlight, was both publicly humiliated and deeply enraged when Harry was amused. If memory serves correct, she told him that she wished she had thrown the bottle at him. 

We don't see Harry playing piano with the sultry actress Lauren Bacall sitting on top of it. Neither Bess nor Margaret, to put it mildly, were amused at the photos. I cannot recall if either Bess or Harry commented that it made him look like the piano player at a whorehouse. These little bits would have enlivened Truman. Instead, we got angry Cabinet meetings with Clark Clifford. That ought to excite viewers. Yet, I digress.

Truman was, as I stated, well-acted. Sinise showed Truman as a man of principle and decency. Diana Scarwid, who like Sinise was Emmy-nominated for her performance, was good as the supportive spouse. I cannot fault the performances of the cast. I can fault Truman for being so dry.

Truman was fine. It was well-liked enough to win the Outstanding Made for Television Movie Emmy (one of two wins out of eight overall nominations). Having seen three of its nominees, I think it was more the prestige subject than the overall quality that got Truman the Emmy. Truman is as I have said respectable but dry. I imagine that the real Harry S. Truman was the former but not the latter.

1884-1972

6/10