Reeling Backward: The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)

Alan Alda and Meryl Streep shine in this political drama, now out in a smart Blu-ray edition, that is still relevant with its parable about the temptations of power.

“The Seduction of Joe Tynan” is more interesting than good. Made more than 40 years ago, it chronicles the journey of a liberal New York U.S. Senator (Alan Alda) from cheery do-gooder to ambitious pol bent on power. He has an affair with an aide (Meryl Streep) and makes his bones by derailing a Supreme Court nominee, ostensibly for past racism but mostly for his own political gain.

He goes from Senate back-bencher to legitimate presidential prospect, securing his political career but estranging his wife and children in the process. Written by Alda and directed by Jerry Schatzberg (“The Panic in Needle Park”), it’s a straight-ahead parable on the temptations of power that is still relevant to today’s politics and codes of morality.

It’s not hard to see the parallels with recent Supreme Court nominations process, or with charismatic politicians like John Edwards or Bill Clinton — smooth-talking figures who seem too good to be true, because they are.

There’s actually very little of the “frontline” stuff you see in most political movies: committee hearings, speeches, media interviews, etc. The film instead focuses on the backroom machinations and tainted motivations that lead to the other things. The actual SuCo hearing scene only lasts about five minutes.

Tynan, who’s been in the Senate for seven years, has an upstanding reputation though not a lot of influence. As the story opens, he’s reveling in finally getting a modest bill passed that will create jobs and ease poverty. He has a joyful marriage with his wife, Ellie (Barbara Harris), including a frisky sex life. She’s not crazy about politics but grins and bears it, helped by Joe’s insistence on continuing to live in upstate New York.

The movie explicitly identifies him as a Democrat, which I appreciated. I find it ridiculous when films focused on politics act as if the parties are these vague, generic entities. The Democrats currently control the White House and Senate, and the president (never named or seen) has nominated Edward Anderson (Maurice Copeland), a Louisiana judge and former politician, to the Supreme Court.

Joe is expected to vote against him, but his friend and mentor Senator Birney (the great Melvyn Douglas in one of his last roles), the most powerful man in the Senate, warns him not to lead any organized opposition against Anderson. Partly this is due to a desire for other Southern state senators like him and Senator Kittner (Rip Torn) to install one of their own on the highest bench.

But Birney is also scheming in his own self-interest. He’s gotten old and there’s a whisper campaign to drum up a challenger for his next election — possibly Anderson himself. Sticking him on the Supreme Court removes a threat. Moreover, Birney wants to prove to himself and everyone that he’s still the top dog in the yard. If you want a pissing match, he says, don’t expect to stay dry.

Birney is a charmer who can be ruthless when he has to, threatening to remove funding from the subcommittee Joe chairs. He also has the curious habit of breaking into French in the middle of a conversation, a quirk that will take on an ominous tenor later on.

Joe is approached by the NAACP and Karen Traynor (Streep), a lawyer with deep roots in Louisiana politics, who say they have dirt on Anderson, including film of a speech long ago where he says he’ll never accept the racial integration of schools. Joe doesn’t truly think the man is a racist, just another Southerner who resisted busing until it became inevitable.

But he’s tempted by the assertion that whoever leads the opposition against Anderson, even if it fails to prevent his installation on the court, will instantly gain a lot of stature within the party. After working with Karen to secure the smoking gun evidence he’ll need, Joe begins a slow windup dance to let Birney and Kittner know he will go back on his word to them.

Around this time he and Karen realize they have a strong attraction to each other. Joe makes a big show of acknowledging it while saying they don’t have to act upon it. But he’s clearly the aggressor, and in their next “work” meeting — which conveniently happens in a hotel — he quickly puts the moves on her, and she happily complies.

Kittner is a real piece of work, played with salivary glee by Torn. He’s an unabashed groper and drinker, the sort of politician who sees kickbacks and getting blowjobs under your office desk as just part of the perks. During a raucous Georgetown party, Kittner dances with a hot young thing and he and some other men push a piano out some French doors to make room for her sexual gyrations.

There’s a goofy scene where Joe and Kittner challenge each other to an eating contest of some super-spicy gumbo. I suspect Joe does it just to ingratiate himself with a bunch of colleagues whose support he’ll later need.

Michael Higgins has a small role as a fellow senator who tells Joe he’s quitting after his latest attempt to pass a poverty bill fails. He gets a nice speech about how once you gain a little power, everything becomes about keeping it and gaining more, until the reason you first got into politics fades away.

Charles Kimbrough plays Francis, Joe’s right-hand man and protector. Fussy and coded as gay, he sets up the liaisons with Karen, works to “handle” Ellie when she’s in town and also acts as go-between with counterparts in other senators’ offices. There’s one such encounter with Kittner’s man, and a fairly subtle indication that they are or have been lovers.

As Joe’s prospects take off, he spends less and less time at home, leading to friction with Ellie and his teen daughter, a rebellious type who commits the very 1979 offenses of hitchhiking and getting a tattoo on her fanny. Joe is depicted as a modern sort of father who talks to his kids and constantly tells them how much he loves them rather than falling back on stern edicts.

(Though he’s really not happy about the tattoo.)

Things wind up about where you’d expect. Ellie intuitively figures out the affair with Karen, who for her part realizes Joe is never going to leave his wife. After listening to him talk to Ellie on the phone, she comments that she can tell he’s not faking with Ellie, so she doesn’t want to wait around for him to fake it with her.

The film ends on something of an ambiguous note. After successfully blocking Anderson, Joe becomes a media sensation (including appearances on the Merv Griffin show!) and is tabbed to give the nominating speech at the upcoming presidential convention — a plum spot that, like Barack Obama in 2004, usually leads to their own eventual candidacy.

Moments before taking the stage, Ellie lets him know she’s done and Joe begs her to stay. She’s noncommittal, but when he gets up to the podium and thousands of people are shouting “We want Joe!” over and over again, she looks at him from the audience and gives him something like a very deliberate nod, which brings him to smile.

I’d guess that Joe continues on this meteoric path, and Ellie goes along with him. I doubt their problems will ever be solved, and theirs will become just another of many political marriages of convenience.

Streep is terrific as usual (in just her fourth film role), playing a ferociously smart woman who’s learned how to strive in a men’s game. Alda plays Joe as something of a passive figure, a guy who rarely makes the first move but watches what others do and reacts adroitly.

Is Joe Tynan a bad man? I don’t think we come away with that message. Rather, he’s a good man who sacrifices some of the things that made him good in order to become a powerful man. Seen as a cautionary tale 43 years ago, today it’s a devil’s bargain most people in D.C. seem all too happy to make.