Filmed before Roosevelt took office as President of the United States, Gabriel Over the White House was a collaboration between producer Walter Wanger and publisher William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan Studios, whose films were distributed by MGM. Hearst's political views were well known through the editorials he published in his own papers and when he read Rinehard, a novel by British novelist Thomas F. Tweed, Hearst knew he had found the perfect vehicle to express his views on the state of the nation. ...Freely adapting Jefferson's concept of democracy, which was based on "the greatest good for the greatest number," President Hammond is able to smash through bureaucratic roadblocks, gun down gangsters without a trial, and bully the world into meeting his demands. ...It's easy to see the appeal President Hammond had for an all-powerful newspaper tycoon like Hearst.Louis B. Mayer, on the other hand, was a staunch Republican and was appalled by Gabriel Over the White House....Mayer considered it an attack on President Hoover and demanded extensive retakes on the film before he would release it; the theory being that Hoover would be out of the White House by the time Mayer allowed the film to open theatrically.
...Chaplin's impersonation of Hitler via the character of Hynkel was an extraordinary tour-de-force. Chaplin not only imitated Hitler's gestures, he concocted a kind of pseudo-Germanic gibberish, which Hynkel shouts during public speeches and his frequent tantrums. Jerry Epstein has reported that Hitler's favorite architect Albert Speer regarded it as the most accurate impersonation of Hitler's mannerisms. According to some sources, Hitler himself screened the film twice in private, though never shared his feelings about the film. At the same time, the film has several visual gags that remind one of Chaplin's genius for physical comedy. The most famous of these is Hynkel's graceful ballet with a balloon painted as a globe.
All you pearl-clutchers cavilling about the ugliness of the current campaign owe it to yourselves to check out The Best Man (1964, 4:00 am). Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson go mano-a-mano over endorsements, closeted skeletons, and their party's nomination.
It's easy to see William Russell as the Adelai Stevenson stand-in, Joe Cantwell as a combination of Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy, and the ex-President as a kindred spirit of Harry Truman. What no one could have foreseen, however, is how some of the melodramatic situations in The Best Man mirrored real-life incidents in later years, particularly the sequence where William Russell's past emotional problems are revealed in a dossier. In the 1972 Presidential campaign, senator Tom Eagleton, George McGovern's choice for Vice-President, redrew from the race after revealing he had suffered a mental breakdown earlier in his career.
Others in the lineup are: The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966, 8:00 pm), a zany Cold War comedy starring the brilliant Alan Arkin as a Russian sub commander whose vessel runs aground on a small island off the New England coast; Dr. Strangelove (1964, 10:15 pm), which I didn't write about since y'all already know what a masterpiece it is; and One, Two, Three (1961, 6:00 am): Billy Wilder! Jimmy Cagney! Coca-Cola! The Berlin Wall!
So pop some popcorn, fire up the VCR, and have some laughs: We all need 'em!
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