A Great American Tragedy
A Great American Tragedy is a 1972 American TV movie directed by J. Lee Thompson. Plot. A middle-aged aerospace engineer is fired. He is unable to find a new job, his wife forced to go back to work and his marriage starts to break up. Reception. The "New York Times" said "thought and care have gone into" the film but felt "home‐set viewers who have felt the budget pinch aren't likely to bleed for this case of unemployment... Both J. Lee Thompson's direction and Caryl Ledner's writing are best in the rather  coolly dispassionate vignettes peeling down the prideful hero, as in one scene at an unemployment office. But Kennedy's moment of truth, a simple decision to buckle down and roll up his sleeves, take a long, exasperating wait that provokes curiosity, hardly sympathy." The "Los Angeles Times" said it "ranked among the best workthat director J. Lee Thompson, in his TV movie debut, has ever done."