Gabriel Over the White House
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| Gabriel Over the White House | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Gregory La Cava |
| Produced by | William Randolph Hearst Walter Wanger |
| Written by | T.F. Tweed (novel) Carey Wilson Bertram Bloch Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
| Starring | Walter Huston Karen Morley |
| Music by | William Axt |
| Cinematography | Bert Glennon |
| Editing by | Basil Wrangell |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn Mayer |
| Release date(s) | March 31, 1933 |
| Running time | 86 minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Gabriel Over the White House is a 1933 motion picture depicting a fictional President of the United States who has a religious experience and attempts to solve his country's problems through authoritarian means.
The film stars Walter Huston, Karen Morley, Franchot Tone, C. Henry Gordon, and David Landau. It was directed by Gregory LaCava and written by Carey Wilson, who adapted it from a novel by Thomas Frederic Tweed, who did not receive screen credit.
[edit] Synopsis
The film opens during the depths of the Great Depression, during the administration of the newly-elected President Judson C. "Judd" Hammond (Walter Huston). Hammond, a corrupt and apathetic, though charismatic, party hack, cares little for the pressing problems of the day. He declares unemployment and rampant bootlegging are "local problems" that the federal government should stay out of. An isolationist, he ignores other nations, even those that might pose a threat to America. He is more interested in doling out government jobs to his cronies and having an affair with his "private secretary," Pendie Molloy (Karen Morley), than with doing any actual work.
One day, while recklessly racing his automobile, President Hammond suffers a near(?)-fatal crash, which leaves him in a coma. His doctors believe that the president will die soon, but keep his condition secret. Instead, however, Hammond suddenly awakes fully recovered, conjectured later in the movie to be the influence or spiritual possession of the Archangel Gabriel.
Under divine influence, Hammond becomes an advocate of an activist government. He orders that food be provided to an "Army of the Unemployed" who are marching to Washington, D.C. to demand work to alleviate unemployment and poverty. (The Army of the Unemployed have clear parallels to the Bonus March of 1932, which Herbert Hoover ordered removed from Washington by the Army.) Arriving at the marchers' camp, Hammond announces the formation of an "Army of Construction," a massive public works program that will give a paying job to every unemployed man in America.
Unsatisfied with his venal and corrupt Cabinet, Hammond demands that they all resign. This triggers impeachment proceedings against him by Congress, which is also corrupt and controlled by laissez faire politicians. When President Hammond comes before Congress to request money to pay for his Army of Construction, the Senate majority leader tries to return discussion back to impeachment. Hammond responds by declaring that rampant crime and the failing economy constitute a state of emergency and insists on the powers to fight them. The majority leader denounces his request as dictatorship, but Hammond's threat of declaring martial law compels Congress to adjourn and grant him the power to enact all necessary measures, unfettered by the normal system of checks and balances. Hammond outlaws foreclosures, subsidizes all agriculture, creates federal bank insurance to protect depositors, and allocates $4 billion for a variety of new programs to stimulate the economy.
Next, Hammond tackles the problem of organized crime by advocating the repeal of Prohibition (referred to in the movie only as "the 18th Amendment") and opening government liquor stores in the meantime. In retaliation, crime boss Nick Diamond (C. Henry Gordon) orders the bombing of the first government liquor store and, in one of the film's more surreal moments, a drive-by shooting of the White House in which Pendie Molloy is injured.
Hammond retaliates by creating a "mobile unit of the United States Army," called the Federal Police, to "eliminate gangsters." Hammond's top aide Beekman (Franchot Tone) heads up the Federal Police, first rounding up Nick Diamond and his men, and then, after a speedy military tribunal (also led by Beekman), executing them in view of the Statue of Liberty. The movie gives no indication that the tribunal weighs evidence or allows for an appeals process, which the movie refers to as "technicalities of the law." Beekman credits the successful prosecution to "a man in the White House who's enabled us to cut the red tape of legal procedures and get back to first principles."
Finally, Hammond moves to collect the large unpaid war debts due from other nations from of the Great War. He invites the world's ambassadors to a conference on board a yacht, where he has arranged two surprises. First, he has the conference broadcast on radio, citing Woodrow Wilson's insistence that treaties be made without secret agreements. Then, to show the futility of war, he orders a display of air power by "the United States Navy of the Air," sinking two obsolete battleships in a matter of seconds, and giving a prophetic speech on the total destruction of humanity to come in "the next war." By the next scene, the world's leaders are signing a treaty pledging both disarmament and repayment all of their debts to America.
Having restored a stable economy, eliminated crime, and created world peace, Hammond dies (presumedly because Gabriel stops sustaining him) and ascends into Heaven.
[edit] Context and analysis
Controversial since the time of its release, Gabriel Over the White House is widely acknowledged to be an example of propaganda, although contention exists as to which ideology it is propaganda for.
Filmed during the 1932 presidential election on the orders of media magnate William Randolph Hearst, the film was intended to be an instructional guide for Franklin D. Roosevelt during his presidency. Hammond as he exists prior to his accident is an amalgamation of caricatures of Presidents Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, Roosevelt's immediate predecessors. After his accident, he is Hearst's idealized image of the perfect president, the president he wanted Roosevelt to be.
These facts, coupled with the film's almost chilling accuracy at predicting Roosevelt's economic programs, lead many, particularly classical liberals and conservatives, to believe that film is a sympathetic portrayal of what might be social liberalism's worst excesses.
Social liberals often counter these claims by declaring that the film's politics trend more toward fascism than liberalism. They point out that both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini took steps similar to Roosevelt's in stabilizing their countries' economies and both men were much more like Hammond in their social and foreign policies (e.g., massive military buildup, martial law, secret police, show trials, etc.) than Roosevelt. They further point to Hearst's well-known dalliance with Nazism, including his attendance of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally, as evidence of their theories.
Recently, author and history professor Robert S. McElvaine wrote an editorial for the left-wing OpEdNews.com in which he compared current President George W. Bush to Judson Hammond.
On the other hand, Hearst, who had crucially backed Roosevelt at the Democratic convention in 1932 and believed that he had provided the margin of FDR's victory there, had actually submitted the script to FDR for suggestions and revisions during the post-general-election period while FDR was waiting to take office. FDR made changes in the script which were accepted by Hearst, and after the film was completed and exhibited FDR wrote to Hearst and praised it as a wonderful and inspiring work.
