Word: gipper
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...find a toehold on the personality of this slipperiest of politicians. The film becomes nothing more than a disconnected sequence of Nixon statements, and some of Antonio's forays--like cutting from a determined Nixon campaign speech directly to Pat O'Brien's famous "win one for the Gipper" speech in the Notre Dame locker room, simply fall flat. Antonio has all the material to finish off Nixon, but he is unable to put it together. See the film if you're prepared to edit it in your head, or if you have a sudden urge to see the Checkers...
...actual events. He contrasts Nixon's 1968 acceptance speech with Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, which it mimics. Then, there are flashbacks in the middle of Nixon's "Let's win this one for Ike" exhortation to Pat O'Brien's "Win one for the Gipper" scene in Knute Rockne. The first is sad, the second, hilarious...
...ostensible democracy!) And there is that unforgettable moment at the '68 Republican Convention in which Dick exhorts the following to "win this one for (the dying) Ike," which De Antonio intercuts with Pat O'Brian appealing to the Notre Dame football team to "win this one for the Gipper," the Gipper being played by young man Ronald Reagan. Nowhere a hint of Nixon's own private rosebud, although I think the statement by an old friend of the Nixon family to the effect that, as a boy. Nixon worked eighteen hours a day and thus could never come to feel...
...Antonio's sense of juxtaposition can be lethal. News film of Nixon's 1968 nomination acceptance speech ("Let's win this one for Ike") is intercut with footage of Pat O'Brien in Knute Rockne advising his lachrymose squad to "win one for the Gipper"-their hospitalized teammate, who, with anachronistic irony, was portrayed by Ronald Reagan. De Antonio is also shrewd enough to know when Nixon is his own worst enemy, and he devotes a long section of Millhouse to the Checkers speech alone. Reciting his list of assets, attempting to sound humble and folksy...
...works in shirtsleeves, tie at half mast. He played baseball at the Babson Institute of Business Administration, still looks like an athlete and talks in the competitive manner of a coach. Sometimes he sounds perilously similar to Pat O'Brien asking the team to win one for the Gipper. "I like competition," he says. "Free enterprise is competition in goddam near its purest form. I hate to lose-but I'm a gracious winner...