Surely one of the weirdest and most fascinating major-studio productions of the 1930s, this political fantasy suggests a newly elected president who, inspired/possessed by the archangel Gabriel (I think), has a post-coma change of heart and replaces meaningless platitudes about solving the country’s problems with real answers, which happen to include disbanding Congress, declaring martial law, and essentially turning the Presidency into a military dictatorship. The army of the unemployed are given jobs, bootlegging gangsters are publicly executed by the dozens, and all is well in the end, which goes to show just how frighteningly tempting fascism could be in the midst of the worst years of the Great Depression. (Turner Classic Movies)