script. The scene where McKay is berated in a men's room is based on an incident that happened to presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. Larner said that "the moment when somebody hands McKay a Coke and a hot dog, so his hands are occupied, and then slugs him in the face—that really happened to McCarthy!". The scriptwriter also recounted how he "wrote that character for Redford, obviously, and he told me at one point, “I can easily play a character stupider than myself. But I can’t be a bad guy—my public wouldn’t stand for it”". The character Howard Klein, played by Allen Garfield, was based on a New York political advertising consultant, David Garth, who Jeremy Larner met during the making of the movie, an encounter he described as "a big break". Redford was reunited with Natalie Wood who made a cameo appearance as herself, after she had semi-retired in 1970. The two had co-starred in the 1965 film Inside Daisy Clover, as well as the 1966 film This Property Is Condemned. Reception The New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby called the film "one of the few good, truly funny American political comedies ever made," and commented that "The Candidate is serious, but its tone is coldly comic, as if it had been put together by people who had given up hope." Variety called it "an excellent, topical drama" that was "directed and paced superbly," adding, "the entire film often seems like a documentary special in the best sense of the word." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4 and praised Redford for a "winning performance." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Redford and Ritchie have teamed again to deliver what I think is nothing less than the best movie yet done about politics in coaxial America ... It has a right-now urgency that is strong and compelling." Roger Ebert later said Ritchie "brought a sharply observant, almost documentary realism" to the film. Among negative reviews, Gary Arnold of The Washington Post panned the film as "a remarkably shallow, hypocritical attempt to satirize the American political process ... The problem with the filmmakers is that their disillusion is neither honestly felt nor dramatically demonstrated and earned. On the contrary, it seems merely a professional pose, a phony mask of invulnerability and moral superiority." Penelope Gilliatt of The New Yorker called it