FANTASIA OBSCURA: This 1933 Film Could Happen in the Future – Two Days From Now, to Be Exact
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, it’s not the fantastic elements that make it hard to accept the story, but the consequences of the all-too-possible actions that those bring about…
Gabriel Over the White House (1933)
(Dist.: MGM; Dir.: Gregory La Cava)
You can be forgiven for not thinking you’d seen this a lot on television. Even taking into account MGM’s haphazard television distribution of content during Dore Schary’s tenure at the studio, this film would stay out of circulation after it hit theaters the first time until 1993, when its release on home video was examined as though it were a rediscovery of a lost film.
When you watch it and sputter out, “Holy crap!” for the fifth time, you can see why this was lost.
Our film opens just as the US inaugurates a new president, Judson Hammond (Walter Huston). Hammond, right off the bat, is obviously a party hack, passing out patronage, like giving his mistress, Pendola Molloy (Karen Morley), a job under his secretary, Hartley Beekman (Franchot Tone), allowing her access to the president — ifyouknowwhatImean.
He has no trouble keeping the press at bay and ignoring the real pain out in the land, as epitomized by his ignoring organizer, John Bronson (David Landau), when he appeals directly to the nation on the air.
In fact, he’s so into himself that he thinks nothing of taking the presidential limo for a spin, revving it up to 98 MPH.
Which leads to all sorts of problems when he has a blowout and goes into a coma. A coma he rises from two weeks later, at which point the real problems begin.
President Hammond comes back a much-changed man, possibly possessed by an angel. He’s more empathetic, which is good; he cares about people now, which is also good.
When he gets resistance from the hacks he appointed to his cabinet while trying to meet the needs of Bronson’s unemployed followers, he demands their resignations. Harsh, but probably for the best.
And when his party, which controls Congress, threatens to impeach him for overstepping his power, Hammond shows up unannounced and uses threats of martial law to force Congress to dissolve itself and hand over full power for the duration of the crisis, whi — wait, what?!?
Having nationalized resource distribution to get the unemployed into a fantastic version of the WPA, Hammond goes after the scourge of the 18th Amendment and the gangsters it empowers, the worst being Nick Diamond (C. Henry Gordon), who’s so bold he responds to Hammond’s threats with trying to carry out a hit against the White House. At which point, Hammond’s federalized law enforcement comes after him and shows him that judicial process is truly and fully well.
It gets worse: in order to get debts incurred from other powers during the Great War repaid, Hammond shows the collected nations of the world the effectiveness of air power against navies in a demonstrated run against two decommissioned dreadnoughts, followed up with descriptions of apocalyptic war capabilities which he may or may not be threatening.
As the aircraft fly back to base, faster than you can say ‘Climb Mount Niitaka,’ the nations of the world get ready for a major peace conference that comes about thanks to the pleading-cum-threatening words of…
Yeah, you can probably guess why this didn’t get much of a distribution after it was first released.
The bigger surprise was how this got made, and maybe that it was made at all. Originally meant to be released in 1932, the film was an adaptation of the novel Reinhard by Thomas Frederick Tweed, which was optioned by a production unit that used MGM’s distribution, Cosmopolitan Productions.
As Cosmopolitan was owned by William Randolph Hearst, who had sympathies with some of the methods that Mussolini was using to turn Italy around, he was drawn to some of the direct action Tweed suggested in his novel, thinking that there were some interesting solutions suggested to the country’s then-current problems.
The fact that some of the ideas considered in the resulting screenplay were shared during pre-production with Hearst associate and then-friend and candidate for office Franklin D. Roosevelt gives the film a strange history; at one point, FDR was on record as being a fan of the movie. Some of what Hammond proposed follows closely with FDR’s programs, hence why the President might have embraced the film.
On the flipside, a good number of some of Hammond’s programs matching more closely with the policies of that other politician that came to power in 1933 may have contributed to the film’s abandonment.
Among the folks who always hated the film was MGM head Louis B. Mayer. Supposedly, Mayer had no idea what was being made under the MGM banner until he saw the film at a preview; he reportedly wanted to bury the film and keep it from seeing the light of day, but was only able to delay it until after the election, as he thought the portrayal of Hammond was an attack on the character of President Hoover (whom Mayer supported for re-election).
While he could not kill the pic, the film lost its champions as the years rolled on, with Cosmopolitan breaking with MGM by 1934 and Hearst no longer friendly with FDR soon after.
It would have remained forever buried had the DVD release in 1993 not happened, at which point the movie became a window into the American mindset at the height of the Depression, and a clue how close we came to emulating fascist regimes at that time.
The film still serves as both warning and litmus test for today. Watching the pic and gauging how on board you can be with Hammond’s programs can tell you a lot about where you find yourself on the current political spectrum.
Its plot may be an artifact of an anxious past, but it also serves as a mirror to an anxious present, especially as we’re about to have a new office holder soon after this goes to press.
Whether divine intervention will turn out better than it did in Gabriel Over the White House, God only knows…
NEXT TIME: After this fascist nightmare, we could use a couple of stiff ones; how about a model and her roommate…?
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Elizabeth Shorten
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James Ryan
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