José Ferrer

Dean Jagger

Keenan Wynn

Julie London

Joanne Gilbert

Ed Wynn

Jim Backus

Russ Morgan

Edward Platt

Robert Foulk

Lyle Talbot

Vinton Hayworth

Henny Backus

Vikki Dougan

Robert Schwartz

Janie Alexander

Al Morgan

Harold Lipstein

Richard H. Riedel

Eric Orbom

Russell A. Gausman

Ruby R. Levitt

Leslie I. Carey

Frank H. Wilkinson

Sherman Todd

Albrecht Joseph

Bill Thomas

Joan St. Oegger

Bud Westmore

Phil Bowles

Leon Charles

Herman Stein

Joseph Gershenson

Aaron Rosenberg

Drama

The Great Man

Universal International Pictures

United States of America

CinemaSerf

When national treasure "Fuller" dies, it falls to his erstwhile radio colleague "Joe"(José Ferrer) to put together the traditionally adulatory obituary programme, and so he routinely sets about gathering information and comments from the man's contemporaries. Quite quickly, though, he begins to discover that maybe this man wasn't as pure as the driven snow after all. Indeed, though people don't wish to speak ill of the dead to a microphone, there are soon no shortage of detractors assessing his character and posing quite a quandary for "Joe". Meantime, there's some internal politicking going at the station as his boss (Dean Jagger) sort of promises him the man's shoes if he delivers a positive, glowing, hour of tribute so "Joe" has to choose. Does he go with the flow or does he expose the man? Ferrer delivers competently enough here and the story is one that resonates quite potently across a society that never really feels comfortable being unkind to the dead - however fake their façade they'd presented. It all comes to an head using a conversation between "Joe" and "Beaseley" (Ed Wynn) who delivers us the best, most insightful, ten minutes of the film and poses some interesting questions about where we might draw our own lines. When it comes to the broadcast, what will "Joe" do?

English