MovieChat Forums > The Candidate (1972) Discussion > Does McKay have an affair?

Does McKay have an affair?


There seems to be a quiet woman that gets a lot of attention during the film, yet never says anything. His running for office clearly puts a strain on his relationship with his wife, but does he cheat on her?

reply

I just saw the movie today, I thought that he had an affair also.

Can anyone clarify?

reply

It's clearly implied. We first see her in the scene where he meets Natalie Wood, and they clearly know each other. She whispers in his ear, maybe hands him something, and he says, "I know, I know."

Then when he's late for the meeting with the labor leader, the campaign manager stands in the hotel hallway looking for him and she comes out of a room and walks towards him. A few seconds later McKay comes out of the same room. It's not spelled out, but it's pretty straightforward.

reply

Yeah, I saw it two days ago and it was somewhat implied though it really wouldn't add anything to the movie if that was the case. Makes his character less likable if you ask me. Her turning up at a number of places during his campaign seems a little to odd to be a coincidence, however.

reply

I just watched this movie again over the weekend and noticed this subplot for the first time.

Prior to the scene where she leaves his hotel room, walking severeal steps before him, the union boss is wondering why McKay is late for such an important meeting. McKay's father tells the union boss "somethings are more important than politics."

I think this scene symbolized the younger McKay becoming corrupted by politics like his father. The older McKay was no longer married to the younger McKay's mother, and it was implied that the older McKay's relentless pursuit of political office, led to womanizing and the end of his marriage, along with a strain in the father-son relationship. This implied affair is coupled with the younger McKay meeting (and selling out to) the union boss he had fought against as a lawyer for the United Farm Workers.

I see the point as being that he sold himself (or "whored") himself out to win the election and ended up becoming just like his father, which was exactly why he didn't want to go into politics in the first place.

reply

Who is the actress? I can't tell from the IMDb credits. I don't think the character's name is ever mentioned, nor does she speak a line...

reply

I think it was Bing Crosby's daughter who went on to Shoot JR in Dallas fame. It very much looks like her.

reply

I think she is the one listed as "woman" in the credits.

reply

spot on with your response, good observation about the the affair and politics

reply

Just like Monica Lewinsky... showing up all dressed cutesy when Bill Clinton would make appearances... It is called seduction, and for high-strung, stressed out politicians they can be irresistible....

reply

all these guys screw people. they're politicians.


๐Ÿšงโš ๐Ÿšง

reply

Thanks. I guess I wasn't paying too much attention. I thought the girl was his wife because they looked similar so I didn't think anything of it. Now that I know it wasn't his wife, then yes he was definitely having an affair.

Ritche's Smile is similar. I wasn't quite sure if Big Bob and Brenda DiCarlo were having an affair. I was certianly alluded to.

reply

they looked similar

I don't think she looked a bit like Karen Carlson. She was shorter, had dark hair, (Karen was blonde) and the girl wore glasses too.

I had the chance to work with Michael Jackson who was as brilliant as they come.
Tommy Mottola

reply

BFenster,Yes it is obvious that he had affair.

Towards the end, when his wife is in bed and he reaches down and looks at something, she said..what is that? He said..an early return. The wife then seems to "turn him off". Does anyone know what it was? A note from that woman, perhaps?

I had the chance to work with Michael Jackson who was as brilliant as they come.
Tommy Mottola

reply

It was a matchbook with the words, "You Lose" on it.

She does seems unhappy with him, but she puts on a brave face in public.

He seems not to understand why she's nonresponsive to him.

She'll play the game when he wins because she's going to reap some benefits from it, but the relationship is no longer the same.

reply

That wasn't the first time we see the "woman". McKay was on a receiving line & the woman came along. His eyes opened wide when he saw her, but he was a bit nonplussed when she caressed his hand. The second time (which was your 1st time) we see them together they are clearly now intimate. I guess she was what we now call a groupie.

reply

I was just reading up on wikipedia to get an over view because I have an exam over the movie tomorrow in Government. Wikipedia does indeed state that he had an affair so i'd have to go with -Yes-, he did have some extra uncalled for fun with that quiet girl that wore the shades.

reply

hey, what course are you doing which would have the movie as its subject? I am very interested.

reply

I think that one woman was obsessed with him, and she was so persistent, that McKay eventually gave in. In earlier scenes, he was shown trying to put her off and ignore her.

He apparently had a lot of groupies hanging around. One scene showed a young woman lifting up her skirt to show a Bill McKay button attached to her undergarments. And then, there was another part where a McKay campaign sign had written over it: "A roll in the hay With Bill McKay"

reply

It's definite he has an affair. Just to get things percolating--and don't get fussy because this is coming from a Republican--but I saw a definite similarity between the fictional McKay and Bill Clinton . . . and a clear difference.
Both were smart, eloquent, policy-driven, and philanderers.
But McKay backed into politics while Clinton craved it.
What's your thinking?
I71
PS: I would have voted for Crocker Jarmon (sp?), but I would have been appalled by his wheezy, over-the-hillness and would have figured he'd lose.

"You eat guts."--Nick Devlin

reply

"PS: I would have voted for Crocker Jarmon (sp?), but I would have been appalled by his wheezy, over-the-hillness and would have figured he'd lose."

Its a different era; today, a guy like Crocker Jarmon would be slaughtered. But he was exactly the kind of guy the Republicans used to win with right here in California, during the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and early 90s). He reminds me a little of George Deukmejian (and for the record, no Governor since Deukmejian has been as good). Guys like Crocker Jarmon were in charge when this state was on top of the world. Now that its in the toilet, they aren't. I'll leave it for others to determine the causative degree within such a correlative. Guys like the ones the Jarmon character was portraying certainly had their minuses, but they also had their pluses. The crowd we see today is pretty much all minuses. And I'm not just talking Democrats. I worry I may have made a terrible mistake when I voted for Jerry Brown last month, but I know damn well I'd have been pulling the lever for a rotten viper, had I voted for Meg Whitman. I'll probably wind up wishing I'd voted for Chelene Nightingale of the American Independent Party, alas.


Been making IMDB board posts since the 90s, yet can't bring up any from before December of 2004.

reply

jarmon gets my vote too.



Where there's smoke, there's barbecue!

reply

Wasn't he in fact zipping up his pants as he left the hotel room?

reply

[deleted]

The parallel was obviously between McKay and John F.Kennedy who was a notorious womanizer.

Interesting to note when this film was made in 1972 Redford would have been 35.

John F. Kennedy was 35 when he first ran for the senate in 1952.

reply


Interestingly, having just watched it today for the first time in years, I couldnt help thinking the comparison was not so much JFK or Bill Clinton, but Gary Hart.

(Yes I know this was made in advance of Hart's campaigns, so I'm not saying it was a deliberate comparison by the film-makers in 1972, but rather a viewers' retrospective one in 2012).

But think about it: the same anti-establishment message, the same devoted but increasingly estranged wife, the same struggle to get people to take his unorthodox approach seriously.... until they started doing so in a big way. And then the affair with an obsessed groupie. :)

_____________

"Maybe I should go alone"
- Quint, Jaws.

reply

Natalie Wood seemed interested too, didn't she? She certainly didn't want to stop talking to him.

reply

He wasn't zipping up his pants, but he was fiddling with the waistline, like he had just put them on and was getting them situated comfortably.

reply

[deleted]

Another thing I thought hinted at McKay having an affair is at the end, right before the day of the election, his wife wouldn't even look at him when he was ready to go to bed. It seemed like she knew something was up, in the beggining of the movie they seemed happy. But in that scene she looked as if she was filled with complete apathy. She didn't even say a word to him on the eve of the biggest day of his political life. And when McKay was trying to sooth her she showed nothing, no emotional responce. Even if she was just tired there should have been some reaction, but there was nothing, and McKay couldn't ask what was wrong because he knew what was wrong and he couldn't bring himself to say anything so he walked away. Maybe thats just the way I saw it, and she could have just been worn out. But I think that whole look and just the way she laid on the the bed and McKays reaction sealed the whole cheating subplot. For me at least, heck of a movie though.

reply

The subplot of what happens with their marriage is one of the more interesting things about this film. She's much more interested in Lucas's proposal at the start than McKay is, and she totally and unquestioningly blossoms into celebrity-- their lives start separating at that moment.

reply

I noticed that too but she really seemed to shut him off after he picked something up and looked at it and she said what is that? and he said an early return. I could not tell what it was and wondered if it was a note from that woman.


I had the chance to work with Michael Jackson who was as brilliant as they come.
Tommy Mottola

reply

It was the matchbook that Peter Boyle gave him in the beginning on which he had written "you lose". RR said it was an "early return ".

reply

if he didn't,he missed a good chance.

reply

[deleted]

At first I was certain that the woman in the shades was played by Marcia Strassman, Mrs. Kotter in "Welcome Back Kotter." However, since reading this thread, I've realized that it's not her, but an actress who to me looks a lot like her, Susan Demott. According to imdb, Susan Demott doesn't have any other roles besides that of "Groupie" in _The Candidate_.

I'm not sure if she's really wearing a wedding ring (band), but this person claims that the movie implies her character is also married: http://www.morethings.com/fan/robert_redford/the_candidate-photo_gallery21.htm

reply

I thought that was clearly implied. The scene at the hotel practically spells it out for the audience.

Infidelity -- The *beep* in his armor, like most men who are great in their careers. Great career men but total sh*theads in their personal life.

reply

Clearly he has an affair (though the duration isn't as clear). But I don't think it's put in there to show that he has a weakness, that he's not quite as likable as he appears, or that he's supposed to be some Kennedy parallel.

I took it more as another outgrowth of how the entire process seemed to undermine his marriage and other close personal relationships he had before entering the race. The long separations, the constant presence of handlers, the semi-adoption of a persona that friends from before could see through -- running into his former staff is an accompanying theme after all. He starts the movie as a "real" individual but by the end of it he's no more or less of a soundbite machine than Crocker (actually I think that's why campaign posters are, to my view, over-the-top ubiquitous in the movie, they show an individual in just two dimensions, a flat image). So, just my own personal opinion of course, but I think it was meant more along the lines of the process being one that creates an individual incapable of the close personal intimacy necessary to a marriage or to true friendship. And note the affair wasn't portrayed as having any passion or emotion, quite the reverse, it seemed as cliche as so many of the phrases any candidate utters. I don't think that was by accident.

reply

aha! just asked about this in another post. thought it very weird when she enters the coridoor in front of him when he's late but its never mentioned.

reply

Rather than a full-on affair, it seemed that this silent, pretty woman(in the classic 1972, parted-down-the-middle long straight hair look...quite sexy in its day), kept stalking McKay and propositioning him through out the movie, and he kept turning her down...

...until the end, and he went for it in a hotel room at the exact same time he was about to sell out to the labor leader brought to him by his father. Bill was selling himself out in both directions(against his principles, against his wife) in the same moment and yet trying to pit them against each other. He made the labor leader wait while he had his fling. And his famous father notices it: "There are more important things than campaigns," he tells the labor leader.

Of note, though clearly Mrs. McKay will be making the trip to DC to live with her now-Senator husband...we DO see the groupie in a POV shot of McKay's supporters at the end. Maybe she will follow him...

reply