Gabriel Over the White House. 1933. Directed by Gregory La Cava

Film

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Gabriel Over the White House. 1933. USA. Directed by Gregory La Cava. Screenplay by Carey Wilson, Bertram Bloch. With Walter Huston, Karen Morley, Franchot Tone. 35mm print courtesy Warner Bros. Classics/Park Circus. In English. 86 min.

During a 17-year run from 1978 to 1995, the range of Fabiano Canosa’s repertory programming at the Public Theater was extraordinary. A Marion Davies retrospective would be followed by a Dusan Makavejev series; a revival of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo would be followed by John Ford’s The Searchers. In 1982, early in the Reagan presidency, Canosa presented the film series Wings of the Right, about Hollywood’s response to the rise of conservative politics. The series opened with Gregory LaCava’s Gabriel Over the White House, with Walter Huston as a US president who nearly dies in a car accident, and is reborn as a messianic would-be dictator. This remarkable political allegory was made during the height of the Depression, and released shortly after the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This film accompanies A Theater Near You.

Past events

Fri, Jun 20, 2025, 6:30 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1
Thu, Jun 19, 2025, 4:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1

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