Themes: Living With Disability, Rise To Power, Heads of State
Main Cast: Ralph Bellamy, Greer Garson, Hume Cronyn, Jean Hagen, Ann Shoemaker
Release Year: 1960
Country: US
Run Time: 143 minutes
Plot
One of only two theatrical features by television director Vincent J. Donahue, Sunrise at Campobello is a biography of President Franklin D. Roosevelt that attempts to illustrate the statesman's courageous battle against infantile paralysis and his political foes. While in the prime of his life, Roosevelt (Ralph Bellamy) is stricken with a debilitating illness that threatens to end his career. Fortunately, his wife, Eleanor (Greer Garson), faithfully helps him regain his strength and become one of America's most influential and beloved Commanders in Chief. Hume Cronyn also stars as F.D.R.'s political strategist Louis Howe, who forms a successful triumvirate with the Roosevelts. For her performance, Greer Garson received a Best Actress nomination at the 1961 Academy Awards. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
Review
In 1960, Dwight Eisenhower was U.S. president, and the nation had not yet experienced the loss of faith in government that would follow the social upheavals of the 1960s and '70s. A biography of one of the nation's most accomplished and heroic presidents was timely. Dore Schary had written a Tony-winning Broadway play about the early struggles of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to overcome polio, after which he served four terms as president, from 1933 to 1945. Schary adapted his play for the screen, hiring the play's director, Vincent Donahue, to direct the film, and Ralph Bellamy to reprise his Broadway role as Roosevelt. The result was a critical and commercial success. Greer Garson gave a memorable, dignified performance as Eleanor Roosevelt, her first major role in years and her last of any note, for which she won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar, losing to Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8. The title refers to the Maine island that was the Roosevelt family's home. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Tim Considine - James Roosevelt; Alan Bunce - Al Smith; Zina Bethune - Anna Roosevelt; Frank Ferguson - Dr. Bennett; Pat Close - Elliot Roosevelt; Robin Warga - Franklin D. Roosevelt; Lyle Talbot - Mr. Brimmer; David White - Mr. Lassiter; Janine Grandel - Marie; Otis Greene - Edward; Ivan Browning - Charles; Herbert Anderson - Daley; Fern Barry; Mary Benoit; Tommy Carly - Johnny Roosevelt; Francis de Sales - Riley; Donald Dillaway - Sloan; Jack Perrin - Campaign Worker; Ed Prentiss - Barker; Walter Sande - Capt. Skinner; William F. Haddock - Mr. Owens; Craig Curtis - Newsboy; Jack Henderson - Joe
Credit
Edward Carrere - Art Director, Marjorie Best - Costume Designer, Vincent J. Donahue - Director, George Boemler - Editor, Franz Waxman - Composer (Music Score), Russell Harlan - Cinematographer, Dore Schary - Producer, Dore Schary - Screenwriter
Sunrise at Campobello (1958), a play by Dore Schary. [ Cort Theatre, 558 perf.; Tony Award.] Franklin D. Roosevelt (Ralph Bellamy) has taken a swim that has left him tired and achy. Within a few hours he can no longer move parts of his body. His wife, Eleanor (Mary Fickett), his mother, Anna (Roni Dengel), and his long time political associate Louis McHenry Howe (Henry Jones) all recognize that he has polio. They gather together to help Roosevelt, who is depressed and even terrified when he thinks of his helplessness should a fire break out. Although Anna wants him to retire, for three years she and the others persist in their encouragement and aid until Roosevelt has so recruited both his strength and his spirit that he is able to go to New York to nominate Al Smith (Alan Bunce) at the 1924 Democratic Convention. One of the many contemporary plays centering on the problems of the handicapped, the Theatre Guild mounting gained added interest from its portraits of historical figures. Dore SCHARY (1905–80), a native of Newark, New Jersey, had been a journalist and a Hollywood executive before embarking on a theatre career. He produced this play, as well as A Majority of One (1959), The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1960), and others.
Sunrise at Campobello, possibly Dore Schary's best-known work, was first produced by the author on Broadway at the Cort Theater, on January 30, 1958, and later released by Warner Brothers in movie form (1960). Although the play is currently out of print, it delivers a timeless message in its depiction of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's struggle with paralysis. Schary, in his foreword to the play, states that after reading everything he could find on the subject of FDR, he felt there was yet another "moving and dramatic tale to be told" concerning the years of FDR's illness. Schary was so moved that he devoted his entire play to the thirty-four months leading up to FDR's speech in Madison Square Garden, one Schary felt was perhaps the most dramatic in its impact on the American public. Structurally, the work is divided into three acts, all recorded historically by date, and all three acts are equally dramatic in their content. The triumph of Schary's work is the economy the playwright demonstrates in conveying the emotional breadth and depth of a character of unquestionable fame in a very intimate, frank manner. In his depiction, Schary offers yet another view of Roosevelt's personal and political development during a very difficult and moving time in his life, before he became president of the United States. The success of the play was unquestionable — it became a Broadway hit earning five Tony Awards.
Beginning at the Roosevelt family's vacation home on Campobello Island, New Brunswick (on the Maine–Canada border), in the summer of 1921, Franklin is depicted in early scenes as vigorously athletic, enjoying games with his children and sailing his boat.
Suddenly stricken with fever and then paralysis, subsequent scenes focus on the ensuing conflict in the following weeks between the bedridden FDR, his wife Eleanor, his mother Sara, and his close political adviser Louis Howe over FDR's political future. A later scene portrays FDR literally dragging himself down the stairs as, through grit and determination, he painfully strives to overcome his physical limitations and not remain an invalid. In the final triumphant scene, FDR is shown re-entering public life as he walks to the speaker's rostrum at a party convention, aided by heavy leg braces and on the arm of his eldest son James.
Before and during Franklin D. Roosevelt's Presidency, the extent of his disability was carefully concealed from the public. Sunrise at Campobello depicts the debilitating effects of FDR's illness to a greater extent than had been previously disclosed by the media.
FDR's attending physician, Dr. William Keen, believed it was polio and commended Eleanor's devotion to the stricken Franklin during that time of travail, as portrayed in Sunrise at Campobello. "You have been a rare wife and have borne your heavy burden most bravely," he said, proclaiming her "one of my heroines.".[3]
Cast
(l-r) Ralph Bellamy, Eleanor Roosevelt and Greer Garson at Hyde Park, NY, filming Sunrise at Campobello (1960)
