Between today and tomorrow

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Movie
German title Between today and tomorrow
Original title Gabriel Over the White House
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1933
length 86 minutes
Rod
Director Gregory La Cava
script Bertram Bloch
Carey Wilson
production Walter Wanger ,
William Randolph Hearst
for MGM and
Cosmopolitan Productions
music William ax
camera Bert Glennon
cut Basil Wrangell
occupation

Between Today and Tomorrow is an American fantasy comedy from 1933. The film is historically remarkable because it reflects the mood of the US population at the time. Today it is seen as an advertisement for totalitarian leadership and is controversial.

In the film, a US president who had previously ignored problems and was partially corrupt, suddenly turns into an active president through a near-death experience, declares himself a dictator and uses often radical methods to solve the problems at hand, such as the Great Depression or world peace. The film was made by supporters of Franklin D. Roosevelt , who wanted to support his policies with the film. The novel Rinehard by the British author T. F. Tweed, who had published his novel anonymously only recently, served as a template .

action

The bachelor Judson Hammond is elected US President and moves into the White House with his little nephew Jimmy. Hammond's close confidante includes secretary and occasional lover Pendola Malloy, his Secretary to the President Hartley Beekman (in a position comparable to today's White House Chief of Staff ), and Secretary of State Jasper Brooks. While the United States is in economic and social crisis, Hammond - largely influenced by his Secretary of State Brooks - ignores the concerns of the small, troubled citizens of the Great Depression . Instead, corruption and crime are growing in the state. When Hammond's secretary Pendola tells him that as president he should actually create important things for the people, he doesn't listen to her objection. Meanwhile, the rapidly growing Army of the Unemployed movement is forming from the people , protesting against the existing situation. This "army" is marching on Washington .

Hammond is seriously injured in a car accident and falls into a coma. His doctors give the president little chance of survival, but unexpectedly he wakes up and recovers remarkably quickly from his injuries. During his two weeks of bed rest, he thought hard and when he finally took over his office again, thoughtfully but energetically, he changed his policy: He wanted to sign a contract with John Bronson, the leader of the protesters - whom he wanted to have destroyed earlier . Speaking to his doubting cabinet, Hammond says that he can understand the positions of Bronson and his supporters and that they have a right to demonstrate. When Secretary of State Brooks rises against Hammond's new positions, he is fired. Hammond has also changed in his private life after his near-death experience, he now faces critical questions from reporters that he had previously always harshly rejected; and he is also more sociable with his co-workers and his nephew Jimmy.

Meanwhile, New York mobster Nick Diamond tries to lead the march of Bronson's Army of the Unemployed into his city because the police would then be distracted from Diamond's illegal business because of the many protests. When John Bronson bravely refuses, he is shot by Diamond's henchmen. Hammond's war minister plans to use troops against the army's march, but the president refuses: He visits the demonstrators and announces a state Army of Construction that will put thousands of people into work and build new roads and buildings. Meanwhile, Judson Hammond's associates Pendie and Beekman develop a love affair. Pendie believes that the president's new reforms were inspired and changed by the Archangel Gabriel when he was near death - Hammond also begins to believe this and dismisses his entire cabinet. In a kind of emergency constitution , he wants to take full power and therefore asks Congress to voluntarily surrender power to him.

Despite a brilliant speech, the Congress refused, citing that it wanted to establish a dictatorship . Hammond replies with a quote from Thomas Jefferson that a democracy is “a government for the greatest good of the greatest number,” on which his dictatorship is based. Ultimately, Hammond enacted a law originally intended for war that would allow him to ignore Congress and thus make it insignificant. In his first official act as dictator, he lifts the prohibition and threatens the gangsters who had profited from the alcohol smuggling in times of the alcohol ban. Nick Diamond is therefore planning acts of revenge: His people carry out an attack on a state-owned liquor store and try to murder the president. He survives, but his secretary Pendie is seriously injured. Shocked, the president orders his secretary Beekman - who is in love with Pendie - to get rid of the subversive gangsters in a secret operation. The gangsters are attacked with tanks and many of them are killed. The rest - Diamond among them - are found guilty and executed after a brief trial in a military tribunal.

Judson Hammond, who is now celebrated domestically as one of the greatest presidents of all time, then takes care of the global problems: On his yacht he calls all country leaders together and threatens them with an attack by America's new superweapon if they don't stop, you Arm the military. To show that he is serious, he has two warships posted next to the yacht. Finally, all country leaders sign a peace agreement in which they undertake not to attack other countries and to repay their debts to other countries. Hammond is the last person to sign the peace agreement himself, then collapses, exhausted, and dies. His mission is over.

background

William Randolph Hearst (1906)

The film has been the subject of controversy since its release: It advocates a totalitarian form of rule, shows a positive view of fascism and also has socialist features. There are clearly recognizable links to real events, e.g. B. the March of the Army of the Unemployed to Washington - Mussolini's March on Rome ; the elimination of Congress - Hitler's Enabling Act . The main initiators of the film, however - somewhat surprising from today's perspective - were mainly liberals and democrats . The film's producer and most important donor was media tycoon William Randolph Hearst , a major supporter of the Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt , who was just taking office when the film was released in March 1933. Hearst's declared goal with Gabriel Over the White House was to create a positive tribute to Roosevelt and his new politics, but also to attack the Republican opponents with the film.

In the early 1930s America was deep in the Great Depression and not a few currents believed a totalitarian system was necessary to get out of this depression. Not Roosevelt himself, but many of his supporters wanted a “totalitarian New Deal ” and even Roosevelt's wife and journalist Eleanor Roosevelt wrote that the nation lacked a “kindhearted dictator” to guide the nation through reform. After viewing the film, the First Lady wrote that if a million unemployed marched on Washington like the Army of the Unemployed , she would have done the same thing as President Hammond. The Army of the Unemployed was inspired by the Bonus Army , which in 1932 was a 43,000-strong demonstration group in the federal capital Washington.

William Randolph Hearst produced the film with the help of his Cosmopolitan Productions , which otherwise mostly filmed productions with Hearst's lover Marion Davies . Hearst is also said to have written parts of the script, especially President Hammond's speeches. Character actor Walter Huston , who three years earlier had successfully played President Abraham Lincoln in a biography by David Wark Griffith , was engaged in the main role of the film . The novel Rinehard by the author Theodore Frederic Tweed (1890–1940), who had published his novel anonymously only shortly before, served as a template for the film . The Englishman Tweed was an important advisor to the British politician David Lloyd George and had never lived in America.

Franklin D. Roosevelt himself is said to have read the script in advance and suggested changes. Finally he wrote, “I wanted to write you this line to tell you how delighted I am with the changes you have made in Gabriel Over the White House . I think it's an extremely interesting film and it will help a lot. ”Roosevelt is said to have seen the film several times and was enthusiastic.

Roosevelt before his inauguration on March 4, 1933 (right), next to him the outgoing President Herbert Hoover (left), who is parodied and criticized in the film by the behavior of Hammond before his miracle healing.

At Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , which produced the film, the script was described internally as "reactionary and radical up to the ninth grade". MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer only found out about the content of the film during a preview . Mayer - a strict Republican - got angry about the content and wanted to "lock up" the film, but it had already been shot and had cost over 260,000 US dollars (a relatively normal amount for a film at the time), which is why Gabriel Over the White House in the end it could appear in the cinemas. The film was released in the era of pre-code , a phase in Hollywood in the early 1930s, when there was no censorship like the Hays Code and where controversial and scandalous topics also found their way into Hollywood films. The controllers of the Motion Picture Association of America around its President Will H. Hays , former post office secretary in the Republican cabinet of Warren G. Harding , viewed the film critically, but could not stop it.

reception

The film developed into one of MGM's greatest commercial successes in 1933. The reviews of the film were already mixed when it was released: For example, the New Republic saw a “half-hearted plea for fascism” and The Nation wrote that the film wanted “innocent people American cinema viewers ”to approve of a fascist dictatorship in their country. In the New York Times of April 1, 1933, Mordaunt Hall , on the other hand, adopted a more friendly tone: "It's a curious, somewhat supernatural and often melodramatic story, but one that is currently very interesting."

According to Hall, director La Cava would also handle most of the scenes with the necessary “imagination and research”. While Franchot Tone and Karen Morley would deliver only mediocre performance as Hammond employees, Hall praised Arthur Byron, C. Henry Gordon and David Landau among the supporting actors. As controversial as the film itself was, Walter Huston's appearance as President Hammond was unanimously praised by all sides, among other things Hall wrote that he was "lively and haunting" in his portrait of the president and would convincingly portray his strengths and weaknesses.

Today, most reviewers tend to agree with Mordaunt Hall: Of the total of 14 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes , 12 are positive, giving it a very good rating of 86%. Most critics found the film to be quite strange and at times bizarre, but nonetheless extremely interesting and unique.

The German Film-Kurier wrote about the film in 1934: “The most beautiful ethical message that a film artwork from abroad could bring to the new Germany! (...) Germany now testifies that it has matured and lifted up to the national renewal that the film symbolically shows its people. ”MGM particularly advertised it in Germany because they were aware of the similarity of the social problems.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Coobs: American Political Movies: An Annotated Filmography of Feature Films . Routledge, 2013, ISBN 978-0-415-72645-0 , pp. 23 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ Michael Coyne: Hollywood Goes to Washington: American Politics on Screen . Reaction Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-86189-368-0 , pp. 23 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ↑ a b Roger Streitmatter: Empty Without You: The Intimate Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok . Simon and Schuster, 1999, ISBN 978-0-306-80998-9 .
  4. ^ A b "Gabriel over the White House" at Turner Classic Movies - "Notes" section . Retrieved November 7, 2014.
  5. ↑ Jonathan Alter: The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope . Simon and Schuster, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-7432-4601-9 , pp. 432 .
  6. ↑ Gregory D. Black: Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies . Cambridge University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-521-56592-8 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  7. ^ Leonard J. Leff, Jerold Simmons: The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code . University Press of Kentucky, 2001, ISBN 978-0-8131-9011-2 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  8. ^ Nancy Beck Young, William D. Pederson, Byron W. Daynes: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Shaping of American Political Culture . tape 1 . ME Shape, 2001, ISBN 0-7656-0621-6 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  9. ↑ Michael E. Birdwell: Celluloid Soldiers: Warner Bros. Campaign Against Nazism . NYU Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8147-9871-3 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  10. ^ A b Mordaunt Hall: Film review of "Gabriel over the White House" from April 1, 1933 from the archives of the New York Times. Retrieved November 7, 2014.
  11. ^ "Gabriel Over the White House" at Turner Classic Movies - "Articles" section . Retrieved November 7, 2014.
  12. ^ "Gabriel over the White House" at Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  13. ^ Film-Kurier, March 1, 1934