The Next Man

The Next Man (also known as The Arab Conspiracy and Double Hit) is a 1976 American political action thriller film starring Sean Connery, , Albert Paulsen, and Charles Cioffi. Music for the film features New York City guitarist Frederic Hand. It was the film score debut for composer Michael Kamen. Plot The film is set in November 1976, shortly after the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973–1974. A group of politicians within the Arab world support a radical agenda including a cap on international oil prices. Within 48 hours of this plan's becoming known to the Americans and Russians, the three top men in the group are assassinated — the Kuwaiti is defenestrated, the Saudi is shot, and the Tunisian (Adolfo Celi) is seduced, drugged, and asphyxiated. In the first two cases, the assassins themselves are killed shortly after leaving the scene — in one case by another assassin named Gregory Zolnikov (director Richard C. Sarafian in an uncredited role), and in the other by the victim's bodyguard Hamid (Albert Paulsen). In the third case, the seductress is Irish aristocrat and part-time assassin Nicole Scott (Cornelia Sharpe). Due to his predecessor's assassination, Khalil Abdul-Muhsen (Sean Connery) becomes the new Saudi Arabian minister of state — the "next man." He delivers a speech to the United Nations in which he calls for a "new global socio-political order," including not only the oil price cap but the exploration of new energy sources, the international recognition of Israel, the creation of a Palestinian state, and Saudi Arabian aid to needy Third World nations. He ends by quoting Yasser Arafat's 1974 UN General Assembly speech: "I hold neither a symbol nor a gun. My hands are empty. They reach out to you. Which of you will take them?" His police bodyguard informs him that this speech has raised his risk of assassination from a "C-minus" to an "A." Meanwhile, Nicole Scott has flown to New York and arranges to meet Abdul-Muhsen at a soiree. They flirt again at an auction, where Scott is outbid on a snuffbox but Abdul-Muhsen wins the bid and delivers it to her as a present. They meet for drinks and backgammon; then on the spur of the moment fly to the Bahamas to escape New York's winter weather. In the Bahamas, a team of commandos posing as Palestinian terrorists attempts to assassinate Abdul-Muhsen, but he survives with help from Hamid and from Scott, who has a chance to kill Abdul-Muhsen but chooses to shoot his attacker instead.