Gabriel Over the White House

vices and virtues of populism... New Deal on the one and Hitler on the other hand...

Viewed January 12, 2021. This is intriguing as a reflection of American anxieties during the Depression, since it makes explicit the underlying and unspoken beliefs of some Americans parallel to the rise of European fascism. But as cinema, it's just far too dry—a lot of long political dialogues but no dramatic cohesion beyond the thrill (?) of seeing a dictator lead the country and then die a sanctimonious death. I'll admit I was checked out for most of this.

Would make an amazing double feature with Starship Troopers.

Hollywood flirts with fascism as a way out of the depression. They put Walter Huston in the White House declaring martial law changing America. And no, this was no parody of what was going on in Europe. This was a serious suggestive approach to that subject. And while we listen to Huston's speeches, saying pretty much the exact same things as Hitler was at that time, "Gabriel Over the White House" becomes too much of a snoozefest to be anything more then a political propaganda curiosity piece.