- TCM’s “Making Change: Political Films” schedule – Sept. 13 (primetime): Turner Classic Movies’ politics-focused series continues with six titles: Reds, The Parallax View, Germany Year Zero, Battleship Potemkin, Gabriel Over the White House, and The Fog of War.
- This “Making Change: Political Films” article includes a brief overview of four TCM titles: Battleship Potemkin, Gabriel Over the White, The Parallax View, and Reds.
TCM schedule today – Sept. 13 (primetime): The series “Making Change: Political Films” continues with 2 Warren Beatty star vehicles, Reds and The Parallax View
Part II of Turner Classic Movies’ nine-week series “Making Change: Political Films” continues on Friday evening, Sept. 13, with the presentation of six titles: The U.S. productions Reds, The Parallax View, Gabriel Over the White House, and The Fog of War; the Italian-French-German co-production Germany Year Zero / Germania anno zero; and the Soviet production Battleship Potemkin. (See TCM’s “Making Change: Political Films” schedule further below. Most titles will remain available for a while on the Watch TCM app.)
Below is a brief glimpse at four of TCM’s “Making Change: Political Films” titles (listed in chronological order) airing on Sept. 13: Battleship Potemkin, Gabriel Over the White, The Parallax View, and Reds.
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Alongside titles like Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, and Federico Fellini’s 8½, Sergei Einseinstein’s Battleship Potemkin is considered one of cinema’s greatest landmarks.
This example of sociopolitical Soviet propaganda revolves around the 1905 mutiny aboard the titular vessel. The brutal Odessa Steps sequence – shots, baby carriage, bloodied woman’s face – remains a film school staple.
Of note, the Soviet government’s more fanatical left-wing ideologues may not have thought so – they made cuts to the film – but Battleship Potemkin’s pro-proletariat message was deemed so effective that, at some time or other, Eisenstein’s masterwork was banned by right-wing censors in numerous countries, from Brazil to South Korea.
So, keep in mind that a whole decade before Clark Gable (Mutiny on the Bounty) and nearly a decade before Errol Flynn (In the Wake of the Bounty) there was rebellious/heroic sailor Aleksandr Antonov.
A reconstructed print of Battleship Potemkin was screened at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival.
Gabriel Over the White House (1933)
In Gregory La Cava’s Gabriel Over the White House, the Archangel Gabriel comes down heaven’s escalator not to wage a treasonous insurrection, steal top secret national security documents, peddle gold-plated bibles and sneakers, or surround himself with creatures from the sewers, but to save the world!
How does he achieve that feat?
By seizing the body of self-serving U.S. President Judson Hammond (Walter Huston at his most insufferable) – unconscious after a near-fatal car accident – and proceeding to turn the United States into an autocratic state. Like the devil in Miss MacNeil in The Exorcist, the angel in President Hammond is no less of a danger to the planet. But never worry; his intentions are good.
A paean to enlightened fascism (“freedom from…”) released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – Louis B. Mayer’s own magic fiefdom – Gabriel Over the White House is both one of the most repugnant and one of the most fascinating movies ever made.
But maybe we shouldn’t be too judgmental. After all, the U.S. and the world were mired in the Great Depression, crime was rampant, the threat of war was real, cities were on fire, boys named Jimmy were coming back from school as girls named Tammy, Haitian migrants were eating people’s dogs and cats in Ohio, and so forth.
The real-life irony: At least two – Franchot Tone and Karen Morley – of the three unpleasant leads and producer Walter Wanger were what some would call “liberals.” Morley, in fact, would be blacklisted during the postwar Red Scare.
The Gabriel Over the White House screenplay was credited to MGM stalwart Carey Wilson and Bertram Bloch, adapting the 1933 novel Rinehard: A Melodrama of the Nineteen-Thirties (in the U.K.) / Gabriel over the White House: A Novel of the Presidency (in the U.S.) by former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s political advisor Thomas F. Tweed.
The Parallax View (1974)
Starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men (1976) is rated one of the greatest – or at least one of the most well-respected – political movies ever made. No one in their right mind, however, would dream of attaching that label to Pakula’s previous effort, The Parallax View, a political thriller about a dogged journalist’s investigation into a company in the political assassination business.
As a black comedy, The Parallax View might have worked. In point of fact, the narrative is peppered with unintentionally humorous bits. But as a political thriller, Pakula’s movie is a tedious, meandering, utterly inane, and badly acted disaster. As the nosy reporter, Warren Beatty delivers one of his blandest performances.
Screenplay credited to David Giler and Lorenzo Semple Jr., from Loren Singer’s 1970 novel.
Reds (1981)
Warren Beatty reached the apex of his career with the romantic political drama Reds, which earned him 1981’s Best Director Academy Award.
The story of American journalist and author John Reed, whose 1919 book Ten Days That Shook the World chronicled the Russian Revolution, and his relationship with journalist and political activist Louise Bryant, Reds is that rare big-budget epic that succeeds as both political and personal drama.
Beatty is at his best as Reed and so is Diane Keaton as Bryant. The extensive cast also includes Jack Nicholson as Eugene O’Neill, Edward Herrmann as Max Eastman, and Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Maureen Stapleton as Emma Goldman.
Among the “witnesses,” are authors Rebecca West and Henry Miller, movie columnist Adela Rogers St. Johns, and vaudeville performer George Jessel. And make sure to look for silent era veteran Bessie Love (Best Actress Academy Award finalist† for The Broadway Melody, 1928–1929) as Mrs. Partlow, whose husband is played by another big-screen old-timer, Ian Wolfe (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers).
Screenplay by Warren Beatty and Trevor Griffiths.
* Reds should have also won Best Picture, but enough Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members chose instead Hugh Hudson’s feel-good period drama Chariots of Fire.
† No official nominations were announced that year.
Immediately below is TCM’s “Making Change: Political Films” schedule on Sept. 13.
‘Making Change: Political Films’: TCM schedule this evening (EDT) – Sept. 13
8:00 PM Reds (1981)
Director: Warren Beatty.
Cast: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Maureen Stapleton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosinski, Paul Sorvino, Nicolas Coster, M. Emmet Walsh, Ian Wolfe, Bessie Love, MacIntyre Dixon, Pat Starr, Eleanor Wilson, Max Wright, George Plimpton, R.G. Armstrong, Josef Sommer, Jan Tríska, Henry Miller, Adela Rogers St. Johns, George Jessel, Rebecca West, George Seldes.
200m11:30 PM The Parallax View (1974)
Director: Alan J. Pakula.
Cast: Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss, William Daniels, Hume Cronyn, Earl Hindman, Walter McGinn, Kelly Thordsen, Chuck Waters, Jim Davis, Kenneth Mars.
102m1:30 AM Germany Year Zero (1948)
Director: Roberto Rossellini.
Cast: Edmund Moeschke, Ernst Pittschau, Ingetraud Hinze, Franz-Otto Krüger, Erich Gühne
78m3:00 AM Gabriel Over the White House (1933)
Director: Gregory La Cava.
Cast: Walter Huston, Franchot Tone, Karen Morley, Arthur Byron, Dickie Moore, C. Henry Gordon, David Landau, Jean Parker, Mischa Auer, Akim Tamiroff.
86m4:30 AM Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Director: Sergei Eisenstein.
Cast: Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barskiy, Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Ivan Bobrov, Mikhail Gomorov, Aleksandr Levshin.
70m6:00 AM The Fog of War (2003)
Director: Errol Morris.
Cast: Robert S. McNamara.
Voice: Errol Morris.
116m
notes
“Making Change: Political Films” schedule via the TCM website.
Warren Beatty Reds image: Paramount Pictures.
“Political Films: 2 Warren Beatty Star Vehicles” last modified in June 2025.