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The Seduction of Joe Tynan
At the height of his superstardom as Hawkeye Pierce, Alan Alda had the juice to bring his political conscience to the big screen as the star and screenwriter of 1979's The Seduction of Joe Tynan, a glossy political drama with a flawed but likable character center stage, but is hampered by a somewhat cliched screenplay that's a little too predictable to be special.
Alda's Joe Tynan is an idealistic liberal US senator from New York who lives in Westchester with his wife, Ellie (Barbara Harris) and his two children. His work begins to consume his life when he is asked to form a committee to block a nomination to the Supreme Court, leading to his working with and drifting into an affair with an attractive married lawyer named Karen Traynor (Meryl Streep).
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Alda's screenplay is sincere in its intentions, but the structure of the story smacks of cliche. The establishment of Tynan's allegedly happy home life, the pressure applied to him regarding this supreme court appointment, and the almost instantaneous affair with this Karen Traynor is just so predictable. We even get a five minute scene with Karen and her husband that clearly shows us unhappy she is in her marriage in order to legitimize her attraction to Tynan. As predictable as the story might be, one thing I did like about Alda's screenplay here, as opposed to some of his later screenplays like The Four Seasons and Sweet Liberty, the rest of the characters in the story have their own voices. They don't all sound like Alan Alda.
One surprising aspect of this Joe Tynan character was a very sexist underlayer to the character, a surprise from Alda, one of Hollywood's most famous feminists. Watch the scene where Ellie is giving Joe a haircut and he wants to discuss their moving to DC or the telephone call Joe makes to Karen suggesting that they meet the following week to work. Tynan is feigning a two-way discussion in both of these scenes, but under the surface, it's obvious he is not taking no for an answer in either of these scenes. The scene where Ellie and Karen finally meet was an eye opener because it's clear Ellie is aware of the affair, but we're never sure how she found out. I did like the ambiguous quality to the ending that doesn't really guarantee anything, the most realistic part of the story.
Jerry Schatzberg, who directed two excellent Al Pacino movies The Panic in Needle Park and Scarecrow, provides in your face direction that looks into the souls of the three central characters. Alda lights up the screen, as always and creates chemistry with both of his leading ladies.. Especially loved his work with Harris, who he appeared on Broadway with in a musical called The Apple Tree nine years prior to this film. Melvyn Douglas, who won his second supporting actor scar the same year for Being There, Rip Torn, and Charles Kimbrough also score in supporting roles. This film also marked the feature length film debut of Blanche Baker, playing Alda's teenage daughter. Baker made her television debut the year before in Holocaust with Streep! It's a little pat and convenient, but the stars keep it watchable.
At the height of his superstardom as Hawkeye Pierce, Alan Alda had the juice to bring his political conscience to the big screen as the star and screenwriter of 1979's The Seduction of Joe Tynan, a glossy political drama with a flawed but likable character center stage, but is hampered by a somewhat cliched screenplay that's a little too predictable to be special.
Alda's Joe Tynan is an idealistic liberal US senator from New York who lives in Westchester with his wife, Ellie (Barbara Harris) and his two children. His work begins to consume his life when he is asked to form a committee to block a nomination to the Supreme Court, leading to his working with and drifting into an affair with an attractive married lawyer named Karen Traynor (Meryl Streep).
[
Alda's screenplay is sincere in its intentions, but the structure of the story smacks of cliche. The establishment of Tynan's allegedly happy home life, the pressure applied to him regarding this supreme court appointment, and the almost instantaneous affair with this Karen Traynor is just so predictable. We even get a five minute scene with Karen and her husband that clearly shows us unhappy she is in her marriage in order to legitimize her attraction to Tynan. As predictable as the story might be, one thing I did like about Alda's screenplay here, as opposed to some of his later screenplays like The Four Seasons and Sweet Liberty, the rest of the characters in the story have their own voices. They don't all sound like Alan Alda.
One surprising aspect of this Joe Tynan character was a very sexist underlayer to the character, a surprise from Alda, one of Hollywood's most famous feminists. Watch the scene where Ellie is giving Joe a haircut and he wants to discuss their moving to DC or the telephone call Joe makes to Karen suggesting that they meet the following week to work. Tynan is feigning a two-way discussion in both of these scenes, but under the surface, it's obvious he is not taking no for an answer in either of these scenes. The scene where Ellie and Karen finally meet was an eye opener because it's clear Ellie is aware of the affair, but we're never sure how she found out. I did like the ambiguous quality to the ending that doesn't really guarantee anything, the most realistic part of the story.
Jerry Schatzberg, who directed two excellent Al Pacino movies The Panic in Needle Park and Scarecrow, provides in your face direction that looks into the souls of the three central characters. Alda lights up the screen, as always and creates chemistry with both of his leading ladies.. Especially loved his work with Harris, who he appeared on Broadway with in a musical called The Apple Tree nine years prior to this film. Melvyn Douglas, who won his second supporting actor scar the same year for Being There, Rip Torn, and Charles Kimbrough also score in supporting roles. This film also marked the feature length film debut of Blanche Baker, playing Alda's teenage daughter. Baker made her television debut the year before in Holocaust with Streep! It's a little pat and convenient, but the stars keep it watchable.