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The house divided looks up to the Heavens, Hazlitt's "garb of religion" informs the blistering Depression fantasy. A new President (Walter Huston), his first act is to bring his mistress (Karen Morley) into the Oval Office. "You had to make some promises. By the time they realize you're not going to keep them, your term will be over." The genial party hack plays with his nephew while the radio warns of dire unemployment, then slips into a coma after a car crash and awakens with a ruthless new purpose. Lights dim, curtains billow, a throb of Brahms indicates the guidance of a certain wrathful angel. "A gaunt, gray ghost with burning eyes," says the secretary (Franchot Tone), the lady is more succinct, "divine madness." The interim between Hoover and FDR, also the year Hitler became chancellor, just the time for a possessed ruler to clean house. He turns the downtrodden into the Army of Construction and, when threatened with impeachment, disbands Congress. "Mr. President, this is dictatorship!" The Constitution might as well be the Old Testament so the scourge of gangsterism is dealt with accordingly, tanks for the hideout and fusillades for the kingpin (C. Henry Gordon). Gregory La Cava adopts Capra's keen technique but the underlying wryness is his own, nothing funnier or scarier than the fragility of the experiment of democracy. "I have never seen an American eagle go into one of these conferences that it didn't come out plucked of its feathers." The spirit departs once Lincoln's quill pen is put to good use, to resurface in The Next Voice You Hear, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Seven Days in May. With David Landau, Samuel S. Hinds, Dickie Moore, William Pawley, Jean Parker, Claire Du Brey, and Mischa Auer. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |