Newly elected President Judson Hammond (Walter Huston) is a typical weak and corrupt politician of the early 1930s. He has no plans to do anything, just like his predecessor, so the depression will continue and crime will run rampant. Working for him is his non-corrupt secretary, Beekman (Franchot Tone) and his mistress, Pendola (Karen Morley). Everything changes when Hammond has an automobile accident. Instead of dying as his doctorâs predict, he recovers after seeing a glow that Pendola later identifies as the angel Gabriel. He awakes a changed man, possessed by the angel. Now upright and good, he sets out to solve the problems of the country by declaring martial law, killing and threatening those in his way, and generally becoming a benevolent dictator.
Gabriel Over the White House is an artifact of a specific time, of the Great Depression when people were willing to trade away freedom for food. When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. Despair gave rise to fascism in Europe, and this film suggested the same for the United States, and people listened. Luckily things didnât turn out that way, and within a few years the events in Europe gave fascism a bad taste and this movie was buried for years.
The political weirdness comes from competing horrendous views. Mainly it was from the hand of newspaper oligarch and the filmâs financier, William Randolph Hearst, but he had an assist from studio mogul Louis B. Mayer. Hearst, a pestilence upon the nation, was a fan of authoritarianism. He also opposed the Republican administration. Mayer supported the Hoover administration, which took the view that the evils of the country could be repaired by doing little except helping their wealthy friends and letting âlesserâ peopleâthe poor, Blacks, malcontents, etc.âdie off so that the âworthwhile peopleâthat is, the richâcould continue unburdened. Hearst countered that foul view with the notion of a benevolent dictatorship that could do whatever was needed. FDR wasnât his candidate of choice, but he hoped that Roosevelt could become what he wanted, and this film was meant to support him. Hearst was later disappointed and became a fierce opponent of FDR. Mayer, who was friends with Herbert Hoover, fought to delay the film, and succeeded to keep it off screens until the election was lost.
What we have here is a propaganda film in support of dictatorship. The film paints the evils of the Republican right not coming from any ideology, but from corruption and weakness. Well, it isnât as if they didnât have examples to work with. President Hammond is modeled after Warren G. Harding at the beginning of the filmâsurrounding himself with his cronies, making appointments purely for gain, and keeping a mistress. The plan to use the military to stop a protest march in the film is a reflection of Hooverâs use of the military to murder protesting veterans. Yes, Hoover did that.
The filmâs answer is for the president to shut down congress, create his own personal police force, and replace courts with military tribunals. And all of this is celebrated. Forget the Constitution. Hammond does as he ignores not only the division of powers, but the 18th Amendments as he opens government liquor stores to compete with the mobâs bootleggers. Hammond blames much of the USâs economic problems on Europeans not paying their war debts (a concern in 1930). The answer is to threaten these effete foreigners with war. After all, if you are right and act tough, then other countries will fall in line, right? âŚright?
The imagery is shocking when you think that this wasn’t a joke. After the gangster are convicted in a kangaroo court, complete with statements from the âjudgeâ about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, they are taken out and shot by firing squad with the statue of liberty in the background. Liberty is all about eliminating troublemakers…
Gabriel Over the White House is directed well. It looks good and we get some interesting camera work (such as in the scene where there is a drive-by shooting of the White Houseâyes, thereâs a drive-by shooting of the White House). Huston is as good as anyone could be in the role of fascist savior. Both Tone and Morley are amiable, which is handy as it is hard to like the guy running a star chamber and dressed as a secret policeman.
This is an interesting look at the past. I hope weâve learned enough to see that the answers suggested in Gabriel Over the White House are dangerous.