***SPOILERS***At his office at the giant Amalgamated Broadcast System, ABS, TV and radio network gossip broadcaster Joe Harris, Jose Ferrer,is contacted by his friend and manager Sid Moore,Keenan Wynn, with shocking and earth shaking news. Joe is told that his friend and mentor in the broadcast business Herb Fuller was smashed up a a car accident and may not survive. Rushing to the hospital were Fuller is being cared for Joe and Sid are told by his attending physician Dr. O'Connor, Edward Platt, that Fuller had passed away within the hour.
The world of broadcasting had lost one of it's greatest personalities as well as the champion of the Amrerican working man and women and besides giving Herb Fuller the send-off that he so rightfully deserves Joe is told that he's to give an hour long coast to coast broadcast on Fullers life that Friday. Joe goes about his business in finding out about the great Herb Fullers life and finds out a lot more then he expected. Fuller wasn't exactly the man of the people that he was made out to be over the last 23 years. In fact Fuller was a cheat liar drunk and wife beater; and those are just some of his good qualities.
Joe as hard as he tries can't find a good thing to say about Fuller from the many people that he interviews who knew the "Great Man". Fullers fellow broadcasters as well as his estranged wife singer Carol Larson, Julie London, paint a picture of him as a nasty and vindictive person who was only interested in himself and nobody else. It's even hinted in the movie that Fuller's accident wasn't exactly accidental; his car brakes were criminally tampered with to make sure that he slid off the road and killed himself.
The one thing in Fuller's favor was his timely broadcasts from the front lines in WWII pleading to the American people to give blood for the boys fighting the Nazis who were being ground down by them on the bloody Weatern Front in Europe. It turns out that even that was a fraud on Fullers part with him actually being in a Paris cat-house getting drunk and partying with the hookers instead of risking his life with the GI's on the front lines where he supposedly made his famous broadcasts.
Joe risking his job but not his integrity goes on the air to tell the American people the truth about their idol and champion Herb Fuller as the movie "The Great Man" ends. Joe himself was being manipulated by both Sid and the president of ABS Philip Carleton, Dean Jagger,to take Fuller's spot on the network broadcast as his both heir apparent and replacement. Joe coming clean on Fuller on the memorial broadcast that he was supposed to give destroyed Fullers legacy as the great man that he was supposed to be. It also destroyed Herb Fuller from being used to further the careers of those unscrupulous individuals, like Sid & Philp Carleton, who latched on to him and kept the secret of his sordid life and actions from the public who both loved and adored him.
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