A sympathetic look at a senator’s life

The program shows Kennedy in the best possible light. This is history through the lens of Camelot, the packaged image created for the presidency of John F. Kennedy, Ted’s older brother. There is no challenge to Ted Kennedy’s version of Chappaquiddick, which to this day most people don’t buy. His womanizing and drinking come and go ever so briefly.

But the 90-minute film also shows us the growth of a boy into a man, from third string behind Jack and Bobby to one of the towering figures in the history of the Senate, whose contributions to this country dwarf those of his two brothers. Following their deaths, he assumed the mantle of paterfamilias for countless nieces and nephews and has met that obligation with great devotion.

Ted Kennedy possesses neither the dry rapier wit nor the intellectual power of Jack. He was constantly underestimated as a lightweight and a playboy blessed with a good last name. In the course of time, though, he proved to be much smarter than anyone thought and a legislative genius to boot.

There’s nothing new in “Teddy: In His Own Words’’ that most of us don’t know. But then given the title, one would hardly expect to hear this famously reticent man divulge secrets. Yet we really don’t get that much of Kennedy on Kennedy either. His voice is there, but what we see are the life and times of Ted Kennedy in film clips and old stills.

We are introduced early to the safe harbor of his life: the family compound at Hyannis Port, where he would return to grieve and celebrate, and the sea. Always the sea. We watch him sail from the time his older brother Joe taught him as a kid to his time spent as an adult racing his beloved Concordia schooner, Mya.

The program begins and ends with Kennedy’s speech at last year’s Democratic National Convention. It was there, hobbled by illness, that he thundered to legions of admirers, “The dream lives on.’’ These words are linked to the definitive liberal manifesto he delivered at the 1980 convention, ending with “The dream shall never die.’’

In the end, Kunhardt and Nevins chose to show us the best of Ted Kennedy, and at this point, who can blame them?

Sam Allis can be reached at allis@globe.com.