“The voice of the screenwriter is too seldom heard in public, and on this occasion, one has the chance to meet and hear one of the best among America's ‘new wave' artists of the past decade. Jeremy Larner's contributions to The Candidate have been either ignored or grossly misinterpreted, and his work on Drive, He Said, thoroughly controversial when shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1971, has not been reevaluated since then. In each film, Larner's work has been much overshadowed by the asteroid-glow of directors and actor-directors, and it is about time that those Hollywoodian vicissitudes still confronting screenwriters (witness the current strike against the ‘régime') no longer be accepted as perennial complaints: what one seeks to hear is truth and illumination about what creative impulses occur from pen-to-typewriter-to-screen. Mr. Larner is certainly qualified to provide just that.” --Albert Johnson.
In addition to his Academy Award-winning screenplay for The Candidate, Jeremy Larner authored the screenplay for Drive, He Said (1971), based on his 1964 novel. The film marked Jack Nicholson's directorial debut. Larner's other writings include “The Answer,” a novel published in 1968; “Nobody Knows: Reflections on the McCarthy Campaign of 1968” (Larner was a speechwriter for Eugene McCarthy); “The Addict in the Street” (with Ralph Tefferteller); and “Poverty: Views from the Left” (with Irving Howe).
The Candidate
Written by Jeremy Larner and directed by Michael Ritchie (both Bay Area residents), The Candidate was made for release in the election year of 1972, and must be considered, along with The Best Man, as one of the most serious Hollywood films on the subject of electoral politics and candidate-making in this country. Robert Redford stars as a young lawyer and civil rights worker who is catapulted on to a Senate campaign against the incumbent conservative “Crocker” Jarmon; his liberal naiveté is soon tempered by the requisites of manipulative political merchandising and modern-day campaign managing. Michael Ritchie was media advisor to California Senator John Tunney during his campaign against incumbent George Murphy; Associate Producer Nelson Rising was Tunney's campaign manager; Jeremy Larner was a speechwriter for Eugene McCarthy in 1968. Among the many political personalities who may be seen as themselves in The Candidate are Senator Hubert Humphrey, Senator George McGovern, Senator John Tunney, Jesse M. Unruh, Sam Yorty, and Senator Alan Cranston. The L.A. Times called The Candidate “impeccably credible, raucously funny and in the end frightening....”