Teddy the Rough Rider (1940)

Sidney Blackmer certainly couldn’t be accused of being half-hearted with his downright ebullient portrayal of American politician Teddy Roosevelt. Beginning with his determination to rid the police department of it’s corruption through to his visionary anticipation of the Spanish-American War before his election as Governor of New York. In all of those positions he managed to irritate just about every vested interest, so they decided to put him up for McKinley’s Vice-President where they assumed he could do no great harm. Unfortunately, a gunman managed to see he was unexpectedly elevated to the top job and there he remained until succeeded by Taft. All of that is crammed into a twenty minutes that really doesn’t do much justice to his achievements and relies far too much of the exuberance of his performance and of a series of soundbite-style clips of his famous and vibrantly flag-waving speechifying. It might encourage more exploration of the career of this formidable man, but as a stand alone drama it’s far too rushed and superficial.