Sunrise at Campobello

This film about FDR and Eleanor, based on a play also starring Ralph Bellamy, was on TCM. For whatever reason, only three presidential films (the others involved Lincoln and Jackson*) air on and overnight in honor of Washington's Birthday. Perhaps, TCM was thrown by it being so early this year.

Greer Garson, quite good (including the voice), played Eleanor Roosevelt. The former First Lady was still alive when the play and film took place. It must have been somewhat strange for her to watch. 

Also, one has to think she was like "good voice, but she's too pretty to be me." Hume Cronyn played Louis Powe, FDR's friend and political advisor. Very good too. Jean Hagen also was good in a smaller role as Missy LeHand, FDR's private secretary.  

(The couple had six children, five who survived infancy. The daughter died in the 1970s. The sons lived into the 1980s and 1990s. LeHand died young in the 1940s. Powe died in the 1930s, seeing FDR win.)

The film starts with the family on vacation and FDR is active and energetic. Then, he says he is tired, and we know what is coming. He is stricken with polio and Eleanor takes the brunt of it. The film suggests the children mostly are kept away as he is sick.  

FDR eventually leaves his vacation home, Eleanor and Howe plotting to avoid the press seeing how ill he is. We then see a few years of him getting back into public life, including Eleanor getting used to giving speeches on her own. This part of the film seems a bit thin at times with a few good emotional scenes.

The film ends with his nominating speech (he is about to give it, having walked on crutches to the dias) for Al Smith in the 1924 election. We are not told that Smith never did get the nomination. He did in 1928.

The film, near the end of Eleanor's life, provided a more open revelation of his disability than was regularly shown. Eleanor was open about it in her writings. It wasn't some secret by that time. Still, it must have been striking to some of the public in the late 1950s/1960, many of whom lived through it. 

I enjoyed the film overall and saw the whole thing (over two hours). I did see it in two parts. One good low-key moment helped budding presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy -- FDR opposing prejudice against Catholicism (Al Smith was Catholic). 

(People might recognize the representative of an unnamed organization who came to warn FDR about how people were concerned. He played the boss on Bewitched. He had work into the 1980s.) 

The film is a good combo of idealism and star turn.

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* The Andrew Jackson film is a silly sounding affair, filled with historical fiction, with Lionel Barrymore as Andrew Jackson. Not who I would associate with him. 

Abe in Illinois is a classic with Raymond Massey having a certain bittersweet tragic air in the lead.