recommended

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Nice programmer with a fascinating backstory. Based on a plot idea (really just a theoretical question) from then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It's about a rich man with an unhappy life who, after reading the Roosevelt magazine article that lead to this very film being made (how meta!), decides to liquidize all his assets and skip out on his terrible wife to go become a socialist reformer in a small town. Naturally a pretty young woman is behind this gentleman's sudden ideological transformation. After he sets his plan into motion, something happens that threatens to unravel it all.The Roosevelt connection is interesting, especially if one has read about the President's struggles and personal life around this time. It makes one wonder if anybody in 1936 thought it was strange that a sitting President would be mulling over ideas about middle-aged rich men disappearing and setting up new lives to get away from their problems. Beyond that, I think it's a good B movie with an intriguing premise. The performances are all solid and the direction is creative here and there. It creaks and groans at times, no doubt a mix of its Poverty Row pedigree and the quality of available prints today. It's worth a look but probably more so for the historical elements than because it's particularly entertaining as a mystery film.

THE PRESIDENT'S MYSTERY is a 1936 potboiler solely of interest for having a story written by none other than Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only time a film in history can boast being written by a president as such. Whether it's a good story or not is another question, one that only the viewer can decide.The film's protagonist is a millionaire who has made some bad decisions in life, leading him to decide to just disappear and reappear elsewhere with a new, assumed identity. Intrigue proceeds to follow him. There's some mystery and comedy but the film never really succeeds in either genre, instead coming across as bland and instantly forgettable.

This is an interesting C film made on a tiny budget and directed by the run of the mill Phil Rosen, who made 142 films including such things as Charlie Chan and Shadow pictures. The film is a shameless attempt to exploit President Franklin Roosevelt's name at the box office. Roosevelt suggested an idea for a mystery story, six authors then wrote stories on that theme, which were published successfully, and this film takes inspiration from them (presumably without authority or without paying) and opens with a lot of ballyhoo about being 'the President's mystery'. And just in case anybody had any doubts, that is the title of the film too. It's called rubbing it in and also 'going for it'. Maybe they made a few bucks. However, having made all of those cynical observations, I can add that the film (which is not even a mystery story, by the way) has a serious message, which is treated with just enough restraint not to be a fantasy. Henry Wilcoxon plays a high-powered cartel lawyer who leaves his old life behind and sees the light. She takes the form of Betty Furness, who jumps from being 'Miss Brown' to 'darling' in about one second's screen time, so that an entire wooing and romance must have been left on the cutting room floor. But then, they don't really worry about such things in C pictures. On with the action. He decides to fight the cartel. The cartel send their bully boys round to wreck a factory, Wilcoxon is square-jawed and heroic and saves it, despite being in a framed rap for murder, indeed in jail for it, and the little guys struggle against the big guys in a very thirties way. There is lots of workers' action going on, speeches, incitement, dirty tricks, fistfights. The whole Great Depression looms large, Roosevelt is the hero, and the grit is gritty. It may be low-budget, it may be corny, but it is thoughtful, and avoids being propaganda, believe it or not. In the thirties, cartels may have been in people's imaginations a lot, but these days cartels are in people's faces, and we know they are no fantasy. Today's rogue traders and scheming moghuls make struggles to close down some canning factories in the interests of a monopoly, as in this film, look tame indeed. Sociologically and economically minded people would find this particular film relevant to their concerns, and it keeps you watching, so you can have some fun while you are worrying about society.

Mild spoilers. How Republicans must have hated this! It might seem innocuous today, but this is very much a story about the little guys being screwed by big business. Blake lobbies successfully to defeat a bill that would help small businesses stay afloat during the depression. Already disenchanted with his life, he decides to start over when he sees the effect his work has on a small agricultural community. The version I saw ran 94 minutes, much of it exposition. The latter half of the movie seemed rather rushed. The relationship between Blake and Charlotte doesn't develop, it is just presented without explanation. All in all, a pretty good 30's film.