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Gabriel Over The White House

1933, Movie, NR, 87 mins

Gabriel Over The White House: Review

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This bizarre but wholly fascinating film shows the American presidency as a position of incredible power wielded by either a lunatic or an inspired genius, take your pick. That marvelous character actor Huston carries the whole load here on broad, capable shoulders. He is a newly elected president, a completely venal partisan politician with too quick a smile for his constituents and a sneer for the Constitution. A pleasure-seeking man of easy ways, Huston calls everyone by a nickname and insists upon being addressed as "Mayor," a position he once held, in mock humility. He is irresponsible, driving his car at breakneck speeds so he can outdistance his motorcycle escort, and his first Cabinet appointments are whimsical at best, as Huston indifferently nods at the first names suggested by his corrupt secretary of state, Byron. Obviously, this party hack has no intention of honoring the highest office of the land. (At this stage of Huston's profile, his character and administration sharply mirror the corrupt Harding administration.) Then he is seriously injured in an auto accident. While recuperating, Huston sees a heavenly vision, or so it is later reported, shown by the fluttering of a curtain on his window. It is a visit from the Archangel Gabriel, as his devoted secretary Tone later states, who has brought him a message from on high. Huston is suddenly and frighteningly a changed man with a crusade to launch. He is now all law and order, decent, concerned, and conscientious. First, he fires his calculating and thoroughly crooked secretary of state. Then he goes after the bevy of boondogglers he has named to his cabinet, getting rid of the lot of them. Crisis rears its roaring head when a million unemployed men begin marching on Washington. Huston races to Baltimore to meet them but their leader, Landau, is shot and killed on orders from powerful gangster Gordon for arcane reasons. Huston invites Gordon to visit him in the White House and here puts the crime czar on warning that Huston will stop at nothing to place him and his minions behind bars or, if they resist the forces of law, have him and others shot to death. Gordon declares war and directs his goons to attack the White House with machineguns. Tone, following the President's orders, attacks first, leading a small army in armored cars to Gordon's headquarters. The gangsters let loose a murderous fusillade which is ineffective. The armored cars open fire and destroy the building, with the gangsters being backed up against a wall and executed en masse. With quick reforms, Huston beats back unemployment, but Byron and other enemies force congress to adopt impeachment proceedings, many stating that Huston is simply insane. But Huston storms into the House of Representatives and demands martial law, insisting he be made a virtual dictator, albeit benevolent. He is given absolute power. On board the presidential yacht, Huston gathers the world's great leaders and lambasts them, telling them that while the U.S. has been scrapping ancient war vessels, in accord with old treaties, foreign powers have scrapped only their blueprints, not their navies. Moreover, Huston goes on the radio regularly to communicate his ideas with an American public that endorses his methods and beliefs. While using a quill once employed by President Abraham Lincoln (to sign the Emancipation Proclamation), Huston signs a far-reaching disarmament proclamation, after predicting that a future war would see airplanes "bomb cities, kill populations." As the strains of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" are heard in the background, Huston slumps forward and dies a martyr's finish. This film, as oddball as it may seem today, was superbly directed by LaCava, whose forte was really comedy, as his W.C. Fields films testified, yet he excels here, perhaps because the ludicrousness of the story is carried through with a straight face by Huston. He is so believable that his powerhouse performance made GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE one of the six top hits in spring, 1933. Of course, much of the story first indicts the Republican administrations that had occupied the White House, chiefly Warren G. Harding's, then takes on the personality of Roosevelt's up-coming administration. This was not a fluke. Cosmopolitan, the producing company, was owned by newspaper czar William Randolph Hearst, and he had urged producer Wanger to put this story onto film. Wanger got the project approved by Irving Thalberg, MGM's boy wonder, but Wanger worried about the reaction of top studio boss Louis B. Mayer, a diehard Republican. "What do I do about Mayer?" Wanger asked Thalberg. The production chief replied: "Don't pay any attention to him." The film was shot in just 18 days for a cost of $180,000 and was premiered in a Glendale, California theater. Mayer and his cronies went to see it. The MGM mogul was amazed that the film even existed and was seeing it for the first time. After viewing the film, Mayer marched out of the theater in a rage, yelling to Eddie Mannix, his top executive: "Put that picture in its can. Take it back to the studio and lock it up!" Mayer saw the film as a promotion for Franklin D. Roosevelt, a man about to occupy the White House and one he hated (although he later became a supporter), and a slur on his one-time friends, Presidents Harding and Herbert Hoover. He little realized that Hearst had changed his allegiances and was all for FDR, at least in the mold of Huston's dictatorial president who would rule America with an iron hand but in the best interests of the people. The whole device of Huston speaking to the nation via radio was prophetic in that FDR would become a familiar voice over the airwaves with his "Fireside Chats." Huston's setting up a million jobs through public works programs foreshadowed FDR's CCC and WPA projects. But Mayer could not really shelve the film. He distributed Hearst's Cosmopolitan Pictures and he could not afford to make an enemy of the newspaper czar who might turn his influential columnists, particularly Louella Parsons, loose upon MGM productions. The studio had also invested heavily in the film. Mayer ordered several cuts and retakes (which cost an additional $30,000) and then released GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE. The liberal press attacked it relentlessly but it was a great hit in rural areas, especially in the South, where despotic leaders like Huey Long reigned. An oddity today, Huston's dynamic and compelling performance still packs a wallop. leave a comment
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