# Can you ID this made for television film about an authoritarian state? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 1, 2017, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-id-this-made-for-television-film-about-an-authoritarian-state/778784 "2017-02-01T23:03:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-id-this-made-for-television-film-about-an-authoritarian-state/778784/1 "2017-02-01T23:03:27Z")
Posting for a friend who’s trying to remember. Per his description it was a TV film made ca. 1970 “about an America where an authoritarian government had come to power in the wake of economic failure and racial unrest. The film was about the hero and the resistance trying to thwart the Reichstag Fire equivalent the new administration was planning. ABC took a lot of flak (and only showed the film late at night) because it was, by the standards of the day, very violent— lots of FBI and white paramilitaries beating up journalists and dissidents, a really brutal firefight between the resistance and government provocateurs in the climactic sequence.Does anyone remember the name of the film”. Does it sound familiar to anybody? Thanks j ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-id-this-made-for-television-film-about-an-authoritarian-state/778784/2 "2017-02-01T23:07:25Z")
It sounds vaguely like [Amerika](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_(miniseries)), except that was a mini-series, and it was from 1987. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-id-this-made-for-television-film-about-an-authoritarian-state/778784/3 "2017-02-02T15:43:27Z")
I remember it. The leader’s downfall wasn’t from doing anything particularly Nazi-ish (like lynching blacks or gassing Jews), but from raping his fiancee. This struck me as odd, because Nazis aren’t any more prone to do that sort of thing than Democrats or Greens or Goldwater Republicans. Can’t think of the name, though. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-id-this-made-for-television-film-about-an-authoritarian-state/778784/4 "2017-02-02T16:11:43Z")
Not what you are searching for but in googling this fascinating film turned up [Gabriel Over the White House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Over_the_White_House) > [@](#): > > Gabriel Over the White House is a 1933 American Pre-Code film starring Walter Huston that has been variously described as a “bizarre political fantasy”[2] or a “comedy drama”[3] that “is surprisingly socialist in tone (albeit veering toward National Socialism)”[4] and which “posits a favorable view of fascism.”[5] > > The movie was directed by Gregory La Cava, produced by Walter Wanger[2] and written by Carey Wilson based upon the novel Rinehard by Thomas Frederic Tweed, who did not receive screen credit, and received the financial backing and creative input of William Randolph Hearst. The full wiki is amazing. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-id-this-made-for-television-film-about-an-authoritarian-state/778784/5 "2017-02-02T16:15:51Z")
Was it SHADOW ON THE LAND, with Gene Hackman and Jackie Cooper? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-id-this-made-for-television-film-about-an-authoritarian-state/778784/6 "2017-02-02T19:17:05Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Was it SHADOW ON THE LAND, with Gene Hackman and Jackie Cooper? He says that this is it and sends his greatest thanks! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-id-this-made-for-television-film-about-an-authoritarian-state/778784/7 "2017-02-02T21:12:15Z")
Hey, thank him right back; it sounds interesting, I look forward to giving it a watch. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-id-this-made-for-television-film-about-an-authoritarian-state/778784/8 "2017-02-04T01:36:19Z")
And it’s on Youtube. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCxX0y1aqGA) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-id-this-made-for-television-film-about-an-authoritarian-state/778784/9 "2017-02-04T01:37:57Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Not what you are searching for but in googling this fascinating film turned up > > [Gabriel Over the White House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Over_the_White_House) > > The full wiki is amazing. A film club I belonged to in the 1990s showed it, and TCM airs it periodically. It’s quite a quirky film.