"Gabriel Over The White House" just finished on Turner. Disappointment.

Things were going well up to the halfway mark. The President woke from a coma and decided to put the jobless to work, supported the leader of an army of unemployed, fired his cabinet, etc. Congress was ready to impeach him and he stood up to them.

Then it all went downhill for me. First, the President declared martial law, Congress suspended itself, and it was effectively a dictatorship, not a democracy.

Then the President went after organized crime by ignoring constitutional and civil rights of a gangster. (I know, I know, but the gangster is still an American citizen.) The President first demanded that the gangster return to his country of origin. When the gangster refused, the President created a "federal police" with armored tanks that openly fired on the gangster's warehouse. Ultimately there was a kangaroo military court, not a civilian court that quickly convicted the gangster and his minions and they were quickly executed via firing squad. (I'm not making this up!)

Finally, the President gathered all heads of foreign countries and demanded that they cough up their money they owed on their war debts to the U.S. They said that they couldn't afford to pay. OK, said the President. Then I'll break our promise to you via an international treaty and build the world's largest navy in order to achieve peace in order to return to prosperity. Yep, blackmail.

This led to a "happy" ending wherein the leaders agreed to sign a world disarmament treaty and promised war no more.

Author! Author! Geez, I thought this movie had real potential. Like "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" without the sentimentality. But this is fascism in disguise of democracy. I should have expected so much if W.R. Hearst produced this film.

I didn't care what good he was trying to accomplish, it just reminded me a lil' too much of the current misadministration.

propaganda, made in reaction to the New Deal. I wonder what the New Deal revisionists who think FDR was essentially "conservative" would say about it.

That's what makes it more intriguing.

Like I said, it starts out like "Mr. Deeds Comes to Town" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (both Capra compositions), but it ends up like "It Can't Happen Here." You go, "Hey, wait a minute. What just happened?"

Article about the movie on Turner's website:

http://www.turnerclassicmovies.com/ThisMonth/Article/0,,64124%7C64125%7C64130,00.html

Mayer actually thought it was an attack on Hoover! (Which it probably was.)

his secretary said she didn't know much about religion and then goes on to explain gabriel. it seemed she knew quite a bit.