"Gabriel Over the White House" is one of the most unique films you're likely to see. By turns it is a wild-eyed cinematic op-ed piece and an apologia for fascism. It's even more stunning when you realize that it was released to theaters just a few weeks into FDR's famous 'First Hundred' days of office.
The film opens with the inauguration of President Judd Hammond, followed by a get-together where he explains the aims of his presidency. Hammond's a party hack who dismisses any questions about runaway unemployment and organized crime as 'local problems' that are not his responsibility. He stonewalls the press, demanding questions submitted in advance and refusing to answer them for the record. He keeps a mistress and is more concerned with the new issue of his detective magazine than matters of state.
Change comes in the form of a car accident. Hammond insists on driving himself to Annapolis for a ceremony at the Naval Academy when he speeds his way into a wreck. His condition appears grave and the public is kept in the dark. In truth, he has undergone an epiphany. More empathetic, he now wants to be a man of action. He's willing to be quoted for the press. He starts making grand promises about helping the army of the unemployed marching on the Capitol. He catches his cabinet meeting in secret, plotting to defy him, and demands their collective resignation.
With that, Congress begins proceedings for an impeachment. Amazingly, Hammond appears before Congress and convinces them to adjourn, elevating the president to a dictatorship and declaring martial law. Then he REALLY goes to work, proposing sweeping new laws, suspending old ones, and declaring war on the gangsters. After a few skirmishes, he sends the military to rout them out of hiding and a court-martial gives them what's coming to them.
With peace declared in urban America, he takes on foreign policy. In a three-minute speech from the bridge of a battleship, Hammond eliminates the global debt problem and the arms race. At his triumphant moment, the president is crowned with a halo of martyrdom, collapsing, presumably, from the injuries of his car wreck that were delayed by divine intervention while he pursued his greater mission.
To call "Gabriel Over the White House" fuzzy thinking doesn't do justice to its childishly simplistic view of the world. The beliefs informing it are naive and solutions presented are irresponsible. As such, it's a remarkable document of its time. There was certainly an audience for such a fantasy in the crime and poverty ridden days of the early Depression. Hence, "Gabriel Over the White House" is poor in drama but rich in historical perspective. I can't think of an appropriate rating except to split the difference between its artistic and documentary values: 5
The film opens with the inauguration of President Judd Hammond, followed by a get-together where he explains the aims of his presidency. Hammond's a party hack who dismisses any questions about runaway unemployment and organized crime as 'local problems' that are not his responsibility. He stonewalls the press, demanding questions submitted in advance and refusing to answer them for the record. He keeps a mistress and is more concerned with the new issue of his detective magazine than matters of state.
Change comes in the form of a car accident. Hammond insists on driving himself to Annapolis for a ceremony at the Naval Academy when he speeds his way into a wreck. His condition appears grave and the public is kept in the dark. In truth, he has undergone an epiphany. More empathetic, he now wants to be a man of action. He's willing to be quoted for the press. He starts making grand promises about helping the army of the unemployed marching on the Capitol. He catches his cabinet meeting in secret, plotting to defy him, and demands their collective resignation.
With that, Congress begins proceedings for an impeachment. Amazingly, Hammond appears before Congress and convinces them to adjourn, elevating the president to a dictatorship and declaring martial law. Then he REALLY goes to work, proposing sweeping new laws, suspending old ones, and declaring war on the gangsters. After a few skirmishes, he sends the military to rout them out of hiding and a court-martial gives them what's coming to them.
With peace declared in urban America, he takes on foreign policy. In a three-minute speech from the bridge of a battleship, Hammond eliminates the global debt problem and the arms race. At his triumphant moment, the president is crowned with a halo of martyrdom, collapsing, presumably, from the injuries of his car wreck that were delayed by divine intervention while he pursued his greater mission.
To call "Gabriel Over the White House" fuzzy thinking doesn't do justice to its childishly simplistic view of the world. The beliefs informing it are naive and solutions presented are irresponsible. As such, it's a remarkable document of its time. There was certainly an audience for such a fantasy in the crime and poverty ridden days of the early Depression. Hence, "Gabriel Over the White House" is poor in drama but rich in historical perspective. I can't think of an appropriate rating except to split the difference between its artistic and documentary values: 5