July 19, 1972: The Man premieres, based on the 1964 novel by Irving Wallace, with a screenplay by Rod Serling, and directed by Joseph Sargent. Originally intended to run on ABC, it was released in theaters instead. James Earl Jones, who stars as the title character, later lamented the TV-inspired low budget, saying that if it had been intended for theatrical release from the beginning, it would have been better.
The book was published after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but before the ratification of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which helped clarify matters of Presidential succession and Vice Presidential succession.
It was also published after the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. The previous Act, in 1886, had the succession as follows: President, Vice President, and then the heads of the Cabinet departments, in order of their institution: State, Treasury, War/Defense, Justice, and so on. The 1947 Act placed the Speaker of the House of Representatives after the Vice President, then the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and then the Cabinet departments, as before.
In the book, the President had been Vice President, when the previous President died in office, leaving the Vice Presidency vacant until the Inauguration following the next election. But the new President and the Speaker of the House, for some reason traveling together, attend a trade conference in a 500-year-old building in Frankfurt, West Germany, and the building collapses, killing them, along with 150 others. With the Vice Presidency vacant, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate becomes President, to the dismay of everyone else in the room, including the Secretary of State, who seems to be the only one who remembered that he's now Number 2 in line, not Number 1.
But the movie was made after the 25th Amendment was ratified, so an explanation for why the Vice President couldn't become President had to be written in. Lew Ayers plays Vice President Noah Calvin, who is in a wheelchair, looks 80 years old, and admits that he's dying, and was only chosen for the office at the last Democratic Convention for regional ticket-balancing: "I represent 126 Electoral Votes." (Ayers was actually only 63, and outlived many of his castmates.) He says he doesn't think the country can handle 2 Presidential funerals in 6 weeks.
So the Secretary of State, Arthur Eaton (William Windom), reminds every man in the room that the President Pro Tempore is next. Senator Watson (Burgess Meredith), a major player in the party, but also a Southerner and a white supremacist, blurts out, "But that's Douglass Dilman!"
Ordinarily, the President Pro Tempore -- essentially, the "Vice Vice President" -- is the longest-serving member of the Senate's majority party. But in the world of this movie, that title was given to Dilman, a former college professor from New Hampshire, and a black man, as a gesture toward civil rights and reconciliation, with no idea that the million-to-one shot could come in and the 3 men ahead of him in the line of succession would be out of it. Thus does Dilman become the 1st black President of the United States -- 36 years before a black President was elected in real life.
He has several problems, beyond those dumped in his lap by the late President's death. He is a widower, so he has no First Lady to rely on for comfort and counsel. He has one child, a daughter named Wanda (Janet MacLachlan), who has been involved in protests against apartheid South Africa.
Secretary Eaton, his racist wife Kay (Barbara Rush), and Senator Watson all conspire against him. The Republicans are against him. The Democrats, from the right in the South on race, and from the left on other issues, all make demands on him. Even civil rights activists, who gather outside his apartment after he's sworn in, don't seem to get it: They sing, "We Shall Overcome," but Dilman, noting that he only holds the office now because two good men are dead, and a third soon will be, says, "We haven't overcome anything." His only ally appears to be the late President's Chief of Staff, Jim Talley (Martin Balsam).
The idea is that, once Dilman proves that he can't do the job, he'll be convinced to resign -- something that, in real life, no President had yet done -- or be impeached and removed, before he can get a new Vice President confirmed to replace the dead Calvin, and Eaton will be in. Failing that, the film implies that it is already an election year, and that the Party will simply nominate Eaton or someone else at the Convention, at which point Dilman will simply be a lame duck until next January 20, and become a footnote in history.
Although Dilman deftly handles a potential scandal involving a black American college student (Georg Stanford Brown) who had traveled to South Africa to assassinate that country's Minister of Defence, the film's ending leaves things open-ended: With Watson's endorsement, Eaton has challenged Dilman for the nomination, but the film ends with Dilman addressing the Convention -- and doesn't say that he has, in fact, yet won the nomination.
But that's still more hopeful than the book: In it, he's impeached for firing the Secretary of State for insubordination, and is impeached over it -- the same thing Andrew Johnson was impeached for in 1868, though he was acquitted, and the law in question was later overturned as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Dilman decides to not run for a term of his own. The TV version being "Hollywood," it has a more hopeful ending.
Rod Serling died in 1975, Irving Wallace in 1990, Martin Balsam and Lew Ayers in 1996, Burgess Meredith in 1997, Janet MacLachlan in 2010, William Windom in 2012, and Joseph Sargent in 2014. As of July 19, 2022, James Earl Jones, Barbara Rush and Georg Stanford Brown are still alive.
UPDATE: James Earl Jones and Barbara Rush both died in 2024.
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July 19, 1972 was a Wednesday. These Major League Baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees beat the Minnesota Twins, 13-3 at Yankee Stadium. Mike Kekich got the win, while Jim Perry didn't get out of the 3rd inning. Ron Blomberg went 2-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Roy White went 2-for-3 with a home run, a walk, and 4 RBIs. Harmon Killebrew went 1-for-4. Rod Carew went 0-for-1 with 2 walks before being replaced.
* The New York Mets lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Claude Osteen pitched a 7-hit shutout, outpitching Tom Seaver. Frank Robinson, in his only season with the Dodgers, went 1-for-2 with a walk and an RBI. Willie Mays, in the 1st of 2 seasons closing his career with the Mets, went 0-for-4.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the California Angels, 8-2 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carlton Fisk hit a home run. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-4.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Atlanta Braves, 8-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Nelson Briles outpitched Phil Niekro. Gene Alley went 2-for-3 with a home run, a walk, and 2 RBIs. Willie Stargell went 1-for-3 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Roberto Clemente did not play. For the Braves, Hank Aaron hit a home run, the 659th of his career.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 3-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Rick Reichardt hit 2 home runs, to drive in all of the South Siders' runs. Al Kaline drew a walk as a pinch-hitter.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Pete Rose went 1-for-3 with a stolen base and an RBI. Johnny Bench went 0-for-2 with 3 walks.
* The Oakland Athletics beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 9-6 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Reggie Jackson went 2-for-4 with a walk and 4 RBIs, but did not hit a home run.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Kansas City Royals, 6-1 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.
* The Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Brooks Robinson went 2-for-4.
* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Houston Astros, 6-0 at the Astrodome in Houston. Rick Wise allowed 8 hits, but kept the shutout, while Larry Dierker didn't get out of the 5th inning. Ted Simmons hit a 3-hit home run. Lou Brock went 0-for-4 with a walk.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the San Diego Padres, 3-2 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Bill Robinson doubled Denny Doyle home with the winning run in the top of the 11th inning. It was "Win Day" for the Phillies: Steve Carlton went the distance, and Clay Kirby did the same for the Padres.
* And the Montreal Expos beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-2 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Ken Singleton hit a home run off Randy Moffitt (tennis star Billie Jean King's brother) in the top of the 9th inning, ruining a nice start for Juan Marichal, who also got a hit in his own cause. Mike Marshall got the save for Mike Torrez. Willie McCovey did not play.
