Behind the scenes with roosevelt

Series

Series Name

The March of Time 2nd Year

Issue

Issue No.

5

Date Released

Apr 1936

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1Ireland’s "New Deal"
2. 2Behind the scenes with roosevelt
3. 3The Lunatic Fringe

Story

Story No. within this Issue

2 / 3

Summary

The March of Time synopsis: Here, for the first time, are pictured the historic halls of the White House, the official residence of United States’ presidents since 1800. To-day, as Franklin D. Roosevelt renews his lease for four more years as a result of the greatest majority ever amassed in a single election. The March of Time camera goes behind the scenes of officialdom into the intimacy of the family life of the man who, to-day, has received the most dramatic mandate ever given an elected executive by a democratic country.
Here are shown the upstairs living room, rich in memories and historic assocations, where the President may entertain at after-dinner coffee, preview new motion pictures. Here his guests may have the thrill of writing letters on White House stationery. Beyond the living room is the President’s study - the intimate surroundings of his own books and private papers, his personal trophies, family portraits, ship models that make the room more livable. From his windows he may look out on the south to the Washington Monument, and on the west to the Executive Wing, where the President does his job.

Going behind the scenes of the election, as it goes behind the scenes at the White House, The March of Time explains the issues that were involved in the most exciting election America has known since the Civil War of 1860, the evolution of the New Deal programme, the banking crisis, the various projects described by Roosevelt’s adversaries as "Alphabet Soup" (C.C.C., P.W.A., A.A.A., N.R.A. etc.). Then the first dark clouds of his administration appear - drought and dust ravaging the West; the Supreme Court destroying the New Deal keystones, N.R.A. and A.A.A.; business men nervous at frequent investigations; conservative Demoncrats abandoning Washington; staunch friends taken in death; the rise of the radical opposition, clamouring to share in the national wealth. As the nation sweeps aside the candidate of the Republican Party, Governor Alfred M. Landon, of Kansas, Roosevelt’s New Deal receives an overwhelming endorsement, and back to the White House, back to the familiar desk which, in the next four years of troubled world politics, may prove to be a focal point in world affairs, goes Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Researcher Comments

This story was included in Vol.3 No.3 of the US edition.

Keywords

Politics and government; Social conditions

Written sources

The March of Time Promotional Material   Lobby Card, Used for synopsis

Credits:

Production Co.

Time Inc.