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| Gabriel Over the White House | |
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| Directed by | Gregory La Cava |
| Produced by | William Randolph Hearst Walter Wanger |
| Written by | T.F. Tweed (novel) Carey Wilson Bertram Bloch |
| 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 | |
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.
Synopsis
The film opens during the depths of the Great Depression, with the inauguration of newly-elected President Judson C. "Judd" Hammond (Walter Huston). Hammond, a genial but corrupt and apathetic party hack, cares little for the pressing concerns of the day. Dismissing unemployment and bootlegging to be "local problems", he demonstrates more interest in playing with his nephew Jim and sleeping with his "private secretary", Pendie Molloy (Karen Morley), than with doing any actual work.
One day, while recklessly racing his automobile, Hammond suffers a near-fatal crash, which leaves him in a coma. Though his doctors conclude that the president's death is imminent, a mysterious presence (conjectured later in the movie to be the Archangel Gabriel) revives Hammond. Uncertain of how to respond to the turn of events, Hammond's physician keeps his condition secret for weeks. When Molloy is finally permitted to see him, she finds Hammond distant and cold to her.
Summoning his Cabinet, Hammond becomes an advocate of an activist government. When the Cabinet calls for the military to be deployed against an "Army of the Unemployed" that is marching to Washington, D.C. to demand work, he refuses, firing the Secretary of State when he threatens to resign in response. After the leader of the marchers is killed by racketeers, Hammond travels to the marchers' camp and 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 until the economy recovers.
Alarmed at Hammond's new course, his vice president and Cabinet begin plotting against him, only to receive requests for their resignation. This triggers impeachment proceedings against him in Congress, which is also corrupt and controlled by laissez-faire politicians. While in the midst of impeachment debates, Hammond appears before Congress and requests money to stimulate the economy. Facing Congressional opposition, he demands that Congress vote him extraordinary powers and to adjourn until the crisis was over. When the members of Congress denounce his request as dictatorship, Hammond threatens to declare martial law, leaving Congress little choice but to capitulate to his demands and grant him the power to enact all necessary measures, unfettered by the normal system of checks and balances. Enjoying the support of the public for his actions, Hammond outlaws foreclosures, creates federal bank insurance to protect depositors, and offers subsidies to farmers.
Next, Hammond turns his attention to the problem of organized crime. Securing Congressional repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, he tells crime boss Nick Diamond (C. Henry Gordon) of his plan to open government liquor stores and encourages the immigrant mobster to return to his own country voluntarily. In response, Diamond orders the bombing of the first government liquor store and attempts to assassinate Hammond in a drive-by shooting of the White House that leaves Molloy injured. Hammond retaliates by creating a special military unit called the Federal Police, to go after Diamond. Led by Hammond's top aide, Hartley Beekman (Franchot Tone), the unit corners Diamond in a warehouse and blasts him and his men out using armored cars. "Technicalities of the law" are circumvented with a brief military tribunal, also led by Beekman, that ends in the execution by firing squad of Diamond and his associates.
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, before a worldwide radio audience, he demands repayment of the debts. When the representatives protest their inability to pay, Hammond announces his country's repudiation of the naval limitations agreement, threatening a renewed arms race as a result. Staging a display of air power for the conferees by ordering naval bombers to sink two obsolete battleships, he delivers an impassioned speech on the total destruction of humanity to come in "the next war" unless they choose the alternative of using military expenditures to balance their budgets and repay their debts instead. The world's leaders agree to a peace covenant, but upon adding his signature to the covenant Hammond collapses. As he lies dying, Molloy sees his face change and the old Judd Hammond returns, seeking her approval for all that he has accomplished before finally expiring.
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 espousing.
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, or even socialism.
Social liberals often counter these claims by declaring that the film's politics trend more toward fascism than socialism. 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 liberal website OpEdNews 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.
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