Happy 4th of July with THE PRESIDENT VANISHES (1934)

Happy July 4th! Here's an ad for a movie with an early fictional president - The President Vanishes (1934), based on a novel by popular Nero Wolfe author Rex Stout (although originally released under the pseudonym of "Anonymous").  I cover this in greater details in my book released just a few months back, Four Scores and Seven Reels Ago, which is still available in bookstores and in eBook form.

The plot: Munition makers, other businessmen, and the press are pushing Congress to join a multi-national war raging in Europe, while an "American First" group called the Grey Shirts are staging riots in the streets against all those opposing the war.

President Stanley (Arthur Byron) is one of the few voices of reasons trying to calm nerves in the heighten panic of possible war, but just as Congress plans to vote on war efforts, he vanishes.

Who has knowledge of the president's whereabouts? The industrialists? The Grey Shirts? Possibly someone in Congress? Alma Cronin (Peggy Conklin), the First Lady's secretary and girlfriend to special agent Chick Moffat (Paul Kelly), may have stumbled upon the answer, but could her actions save the president or doom him?

The film had a huge publicity campaign behind it from Paramount, with review quotes in the advertising from Cecil B. DeMille, Ernst Lubitsch, and Ed Sullivan. Nevertheless, while the book was a popular release, the film did poorly, losing over $100,000 (about $2 million in today's terms). It's namely remembered today for being a very early role for Rosalind Russell, who appears briefly near the beginning of the film to do some exposition for various villains in the movie.

What makes this movie worth reviewing is that it is an early example of Hollywood presenting to us a fictional president of the country, rather than another biographical review of someone like Lincoln or Washington. Further, it gives us what turns out to be an early look of an "action president," a leader who takes actions into his own hands in order to resolve a crisis facing the nation (such as we'll eventually see with a president like the one Harrison Ford played in Air Force One many years later). Beyond that, we also see a window into a period in American history that we rarely touch on these days - the sentiment that we should not be involved in a European war, which would be a recurring statement from many before we found ourselves getting involved in World War II.

Relatively hard-to-find, this movie is very much worth checking out if you want to see how political drama was perceived in the 1930s. The movie does occasionally turn up on TCM, although just a few months back someone posted a so-so copy of the film up on YouTube, which you can check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcAhwcDfntk

And, as always, all this and more in the pages of Four Scores and Seven Reels Ago!  Please check it out if you can!