My book researching Hollywood's movies about the U.S. Presidency, FOUR SCORES AND SEVEN REELS AGO, was released a few weeks back and is available to order in bookstore everywhere!
To celebrate, I'm taking a look at some of the movies covered therein, such as JOHN PAUL JONES, which was released as Hollywood was beginning to move slightly away from the relevance given to the presidency as seen in films of the 1940s and 1950s.
JOHN PAUL JONES was released by Warner Brothers in 1959. Starring Robert Stack as the man credited as help create the U.S. Navy and famous for the phrase "I have not yet begun to fight" during the American Revolutionary War, the movie was directed by John Farrow and features his daughter Mia Farrow, then 14, in a bit role.
Also featured is that of Peter Cushing in a small role, as well as a cameo by Bette Davis. The film tries its best to be epic and exciting, but while Stack has presence, he never was the most emotive of actors, which makes this a bit of a chore to get through.
Two interesting aspects of the film deal with the presentation of two future presidents. The first being that of John Adams, played by Robert Ayres (who popped up in many transatlantic television of the 1950s and 1960s). Adams is portrayed in a manner typical of history and the times - that of being boorish and short-sighted; dismissive to Jones and his requests. It wasn't until we got into the 1970s with things like THE ADAMS CHRONICLES and 1776 that Adams began to be represented as something closer to flesh and blood instead of "that mouthbreather between Washington and Jefferson."
More intriguing to me when researching these films was the way John Crawford (another television actor) appears as George Washington. His Washington is only briefly seen, a cameo in order to throw support for Jones and help build him up to the audience as the hero, but what is interesting is how Washington is filmed - never showing his face on-camera, but from behind and with reverence (Stack looks as if he's staring into the face of God rather than Washington in the scene).
That's quite a difference from the way Washington and other presidents had been presented in films up to his point. And Washington was a favorite to appear on camera in some fashion when it came to the movies, even during the early silent days (if you were going to see a president in a film, it was sure to be either Washington or Lincoln). Yet in earlier appearances, if he did appear, you got to see the actor's face. FDR changed that practice when he became proactive in the 1930s in controlling his image in the media. A strongly worded caution by the government towards radio impersonations of the president led to a blanket omission of Roosevelt on the air for a brief time, as least by the impersonators (which included future HONEYMOONER Art Carney at one point).
While radio soon went back to doing the occasional imitation (especially in the MARCH OF TIMES radio series), the movie studios were more cautious. Mention of Roosevelt was fine, but depicting him was another matter and it wasn't until we got to the Three Stooges short, CASH AND CARRY (1938), that we got FDR as a character in a live-action film (albeit a short). There began the traditional manner Roosevelt was to be seen in films - sitting at a desk with his back to the camera. FDR okayed that depiction and it became a tradition (such as how he is seen in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY) for current presidents to be seen in films after that. Such a status would carry over to Truman and Eisenhower, with JFK breaking the mode by agreeing to Cliff Robertson playing him in PT 109 in 1963.
Thus, while we had been used to seeing Washington on-screen in close-up, the filmmakers of JOHN PAUL JONES film Washington in the manner of FDR - faced away from the camera. Due to this, it ends up giving the aura of someone being in the room that should not be seen face-to-face; a sense of worship and awe; that we would eventually move away from, but began to connect to the role of the presidency. JOHN PAUL JONES may not have been the first, but it was a solid indicator of our changing admiration for the role of the Founding Fathers and how we began to see the presidency as something "above us." We still haven't shaken that notion completely from our thinking even today. No matter what we may think of whomever is in office. (And more on that topic in the pages of FOUR SCORES AND SEVEN REELS AGO).
