A visit to the Harvard Film Archive afforded an opportunity to see Robert Altman’s HealtH. The film, shot in 1979, was screened in 1980 but shelved by a hostile studio-in-transition, and not properly released until 1982. One of Altman’s most obscure films, it remains largely unavailable and so despite its modest reputation the chance to catch it in the theater was irresistible.
HealtH is not bad – a strong cast, funny in places, and it moves along briskly – but it is not much. Indifference to plot is certainly fine, but the stakes here are very low, the characters invariably one-dimensional, and the insights superficial. The nominal action concerns a heath food convention and controversies attendant to the contested Presidential election of the industry’s professional organization, which has attracted national attention. As noted, the strength of the movie lies with its cast, especially Lauren Bacall as the older, crowd-pleasing, platitude-spouting incumbent and Glenda Jackson as her cerebral, purposeful, borderline-messianic opponent. Carol Burnett (a White House official with a public health portfolio) and James Garner (in boyishly-rakish mode as Bacall’s campaign manager) turn in solid performances; also along for the ride are Altman regular Henry Gibson, Alfre Woodard, and Paul Dooley (rather grating as a fringe third party candidate), who also wrote the screenplay with Altman and Frank Barhydt. Dick Cavett, quite affable, is welcome as a steadying presence, playing himself. (In a winning if uncharacteristically warm touch from the notoriously unsentimental Altman, one-time Carson joke-writer Cavett is twice shown watching The Tonight Show on television before going to bed.)
Given the particulars of the (American) election season then underway and the movie’s implicit critique of a late 70s America wallowing in purposeless materialism, it is possible to see in the Bacall-Jackson contest an allegory for the Carter-Reagan campaign. But the filmmaker was actually, and quite explicitly, channeling the Eisenhower-Stevenson elections, with Jackson standing in for the similarly trounced Governor from Illinois. “Glenda was Stevenson, and many of those speeches were right from his words,” in fact, “some of them were exact Stevenson speeches . . . she sounded very much like him,” Altman explained. Stevenson “was the first political figure that really impressed” him (a widespread Hollywood sentiment discussed recently in this space). “Betty Bacall, who knew Stevenson and was also a big supporter of his, played Eisenhower.”
Given the passions involved all around (the politically active Jackson would eventually abandon her acting career and serve as a Member of Parliament for almost twenty-five years), it is surprising that HealtH is such a soft film. Not so much a bad film, but, ultimately, one that is unexceptional, and lacking any sense of edginess, danger, or ambition. As such, it is similar to other movies in this relatively fallow interlude in Altman’s remarkable career, such as A Wedding (1978) and A Perfect Couple (1979). Films like these, superficially similar to the masterpieces that Altman would craft before and after, yet so clearly not in the class of those achievements, invite contemplation of the timeless mystery of the magical ingredients that make a good movie great.