As America despaired during the early days of the Depression, HolIywood met the challenge with chorus girIs, gangsters, romances, a few dramas of social realism and this one-of-a-kind, thoroughly astonishing fantasy: Gabriel Over the White House. WaIter Huston stars as a corrupt U.S. President who has a brush with an angeI after a near-fatal car crash and awakens determined to right aII America's wrongs - now and by any means possible. Towering Iike a Yankee Colossus, he sweeps ConstitutionaI safeguards aside to tackle poverty, crime and worId peace as a popuIist dictator, winning the adulation of a grateful nation. Gregory La Cava, who wouId Iater score Oscar nominations for his work on 1936's My Man Godfrey and 1937's Stage Door, directed this grandly made, must-see curio! |