Jerry Schatzberg (The Panic in Needle Park) was already a well-established director when he made The Seduction of Joe Tynan in 1979, but it's hard not to think of it as The Alan Alda Show. That's hardly a put-down. It's just that Alda, midway through an Emmy-winning run on M*A*S*H, wrote the script, plays the title character, and stars opposite Barbara Harris, his Tony-winning costar from The Apple Tree. He also plays a Democrat with politics similar to his own.
As the title indicates, New York Senator Joe Tynan, a rising star on the political scene, faces temptation from all sides. In a sign of a more bipartisan time, Tynan has a history of reaching across the aisle. He'll give the Republicans a hand when they ask for help, and then when he needs theirs, he'll call in the favor.
When Senator Birney (Being There's Melvyn Douglas) asks him to back his Supreme Court nominee, Tynan gives it serious consideration until he learns of the nominee's racist past. That’s a deal-breaker, but without proof, his leadership of the opposition won't make much of an impact. So, he sets out to track down the newsreel footage in which the nominee declared, "In my heart, I have never supported integration, and I never will."
His search leads him to Janet Traynor (Meryl Streep, recently Oscar-nominated for The Deer Hunter), a Louisiana lawyer. He's married, she's married, but the more they work together, the more sparks fly, until an affair ensues. "When I want something," she tells him, "I go get it—just like you."
While Tynan is out gallivanting around Washington DC with Janet and his Republican drinking buddy, Senator Kittner (a fine and feisty Rip Torn), his psychologist wife, Ellie (Nashville's Barbara Harris in affecting form), grows frustrated by her constricting role as Supportive Spouse, while his daughter, Janet (Blanche Baker, Sixteen Candles' woozy bride), channels her feelings of neglect into teen rebellion.
The more Tynan makes political waves, the more the media focuses on his personal life, but when Ellie gives a particularly candid interview to McCall's, acknowledging a miscarriage and a stint in therapy, his handlers, especially Francis (Murphy Brown's Charles Kimbrough), encourage him to rein her in.
Clearly, something has to give, because exposure of an affair could wreck both Tynan's marriage and his presidential prospects, and if he can't prove that a segregationist is unfit for the Supreme Court, it could hinder his ability to get things done in DC. That said, Schatzberg's film is hardly a potboiler, and villains are in short supply; just flawed characters on a collision course.
As Bryan Reesman notes in his comprehensive commentary track, The Seduction of Joe Tynan wasn't a box office bomb, but it wasn't a hit either, despite raves for Harris and Streep. In its perceptive look at the ways the political and personal can intersect, it's a valuable snapshot of a shifting nation in the years between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Recommended for classic film collections with a focus on political issues, as well as film programming for underseen Meryl Streep titles.
Discover more titles for your film collection in our list of political issues movies.