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As America despaired during the early days of the Depression, Hollywood met the challenge with chorus girls, gangsters, romances, a few dramas of social realism, and this one-of-a-kind thoroughly astonishing fantasy: Gabriel Over the White House. Walter Huston gives a bravura performance, starring as a corrupt U.S. president who has a brush with an angel after a near-fatal car crash, and awakens determined to right all of America's wrongs-now or by any means possible. Towering like a Yankee Colossus, he sweeps constitutional safeguards aside to tackle poverty, crime and world peace as a populist dictator, winning the adulation of a grateful nation. Gregory La Cava, who would later score Oscar * nominations for his work on 1936's My Man Godfrey and 1937's Stage Door, directed this grandly made, must-see curio!

Description

Carole Lombard and William Powell dazzle in this definitive screwball comedy, directed by Gregory La Cava—a potent cocktail of romantic repartee and Depression-era social critique. Irene (Lombard), an eccentric Manhattan socialite, wins a society-ball scavenger hunt after finding one of the “items” on the list, a “lost man” (Powell), at a dump. She gives the man she believes to be a down-and-out drifter work as the family butler, and soon falls head over heels in love. Her attempts to both woo Godfrey and indoctrinate him in the dysfunctional ways of the household make for an unbeatable series of madcap hijinks. La Cava’s deft film was the first to garner Oscar nominations in all four acting categories, and it is one of Hollywood’s greatest commentaries on class and the social unrest of its time. SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • New piece about the film with jazz and film critic Gary Giddins • New discussion about director Gregory La Cava with critic Nick Pinkerton • Outtakes • Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1938, starring actors William Powell, Carole Lombard, Gail Patrick, and Mischa Auer • Newsreels from the thirties documenting the class divide during the Great Depression • Trailer • PLUS: An essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme