TOM TURKEY TRILOGY: THE WASHINGTON AFFAIR (1977)

This wraps up my look at three of Tom Selleck’s early starring roles in turkeys.

Unlike The Chinese Typewriter and The Gypsy Warriors, both of which were tv pilot movies for shows that did not get picked up as a series, The Washington Affair was a theatrical film made in 1977 but was so bad it didn’t get released until the 1980s, after Selleck became a big star.

THE WASHINGTON AFFAIR (1977) – Also released as A Very Intimate Washington Affair, and for all I know as A Very Brady Washington Affair, this movie was a remake of director Victor Stoloff’s own 1966 film Intimacy. Neither version was very successful, but trivia buffs remember the original and the remake for Barry Sullivan playing the exact same character in both.

Sullivan portrayed dishonest businessman Walter Nicholson. In 1977 Tom Selleck costarred as Jim Hawley, a hunky engineer in charge of deciding what company gets a lucrative government contract – Nicholson’s or one of his competitors.

The 1966 flick at least had the advantage of shocking audiences of the time with its depiction of corrupt government figures, dirty businessmen and bribery – both monetary and sexual. Not so for 1977’s The Washington Affair.

By ’77 even the production’s attempt to cash in on Watergate and other government scandals was a bit too late and the sexual angle would barely disturb a contemporary grandma. Add the facts that the script sucks, there are literally only two sets for the entire film, and the central camera gimmick is absurd.   

Taking things from the top, Selleck’s character Jim Hawley is being wooed by competing businesses, all of whom want the government contract that Hawley has final say over. Sullivan’s Walter Nicholson is on the verge of ruin and feels this contract is his company’s last hope.

To try getting an edge, Walter hires a sleazy p.i. who doubles as a porno filmmaker. Walter has the sleazeball install a two-way mirror and a hidden movie camera in Jim’s hotel room hoping to get the engineer on film accepting a massive bribe. Nicholson then plans to use the footage to blackmail the man into awarding his firm the contract.   

Okay, so far that makes sense, but Walter’s massive bungling of such a simple setup is like something even Homer Simpson would know enough to steer clear of. If this was a comedy, the screwups would be intentionally funny, but since it’s intended as a drama it’s much, much funnier. 

Barry Sullivan personally appears in the supposedly incriminating footage WITH Tom Selleck, so he’s captured himself on film offering a bribe, meaning both he and the engineer would be in legal trouble if the clandestine film was released. I doubt the feds would believe that Walter Nicholson was running a proto-Abscam sting operation.

Increasing a viewer’s laughter, Nicholson also lets himself get caught on film drunk and popping pills, rendering the footage even LESS useful to him.

Funniest of all, Selleck’s Jim Hawley doesn’t even want the bribe money! He indignantly refuses the illicit offer and tells off the foolish Walter. So, all the businessman has accomplished is catching Hawley on tape being disgusted at getting offered a bribe, meaning the whole thing has backfired on him like he’s Wile E. Coyote!   

Nicholson is as persistent as the coyote and continues having the sleazy p.i./ porno maker maintain the hidden camera and frequently load more film into it. Walter’s next plan is to hire prostitute Lili Von Shtupp Carrie Lane, played by Kathleen Gaffney, to seduce Jim Hawley on film to provide blackmail material. 

Even though Hawley is having marital problems with his alcoholic wife Virginia (Arlene Banas), he’s able to obliviously foil that scheme by Nicholson by simply not falling for it. And Carrie tries VERY hard. A comedy remake of The Washington Affair NEEDS to be done, dammit!

Time to examine the most ludicrous and incompetent aspect of this flick. All but a few minutes of the movie are “watched” by Walter Nicholson as he sees the footage for the first time. Even though that means all we should have is film taken by a static camera, similar to security camera footage, the sleazy detective’s equipment provides multiple angles, periodic closeups, and pans to the left or right.

It’s the dumbest (but funniest) thing until Found Footage movies came along. The two cramped rooms in which nearly all the action takes place add to the unintentional laughs. It’s like if My Dinner with Andre was instead My Security Camera Footage of My Dinner with Andre.   

The claustrophobic setting and the seedy hotel employees add to the fun all the way to the most shocking footage that Walter watches – his own wife Barbara (Carol Lynley) having sex with Jim Hawley in his hotel room!

Nicholson has continued drinking and pill-popping throughout the movie (Looks like he picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue, like Lloyd Bridges in Airplane!). All that combined with his frenzy over his wife’s betrayal and the looming possibility of his business going under triggers a fatal heart attack! 

The late schlub’s wife Barbara finds his lifeless body and catches the conclusion of the film-within-a-film drama that Walter set in motion. Jim Hawley reconciles with his wife and decides to let Nicholson have the government contract to assuage his guilt over having an affair with the man’s wife. And so she can get the Ferrari she wanted.   

That was the story of and the glory of The Washington Affair. I have no idea what it was about this project that made Barry Sullivan and Victor Stoloff fond enough of it to film it twice. Luckily, Tom Selleck survived this period of his career to enjoy a huge amount of success a few years later.