Written by James Costigan and Joseph P. Lash
Directed by Daniel Petrie

This is a made-for-television mini-series from 1977 that was a sequel to Eleanor & Franklin: The Early Years which had been shown to audiences a year earlier.  It follows the same format of telling the story of this period in the lives of Eleanor & Franklin Roosevelt (portrayed by Jane Alexander and Edward Hermann) in flashback from Eleanor’s perspective following the death of her husband.

The film begins as it flashes back to Eleanor & Franklin’s first visit to the White House, prior to their marriage when Eleanor’s uncle, Theodore Roosevelt, was inaugurated for the second time.  As Theodore’s inauguration is being shown, the film segues into Franklin’s and then picks up pretty much where the first series left off.

As they enter the White House, at first Eleanor seems to be relegated to what up until then was typically considered a woman’s duties.  She planned menus and acted as a hostess in the White House.  It’s their old friend Louis (portrayed by Walter McGinn) who gets her out and about, visiting the unemployed in the camps and testing ideas on them as well as raising morale.  Eleanor seems to become Franklin’s legs when he doesn’t appear in public as much due to the potential damage to his career where the severity of his condition due to the effects of polio was to become widely known.

But all is not well in their relationship.  There has been a divide since Franklin’s affair and the wound has never quite healed.  The two are more separate than together, even when both are in the White House.

Based on the writings of Joseph P. Lash who was a real-life confidante of Eleanor Roosevelt’s, the film is fairly accurate.  More has become known of Franklin’s philandering in the years following their death and this really fails to capture the fact that for many years the two basically lived apart, with Eleanor even having her own separate home in upstate New York.  It does convey that the two weren’t together all that much during the White House years and rarely talked except when Eleanor seemed to want Franklin to do something specific.

Still, the film is well-made and well-acted.  Alexander and Hermann are excellent in the roles, really conveying the characters in a way that makes it easy to see them as the Roosevelts.  I can remember picturing them as Eleanor and Franklin and I learned about them through history in my high school years after seeing this.

In fact, the minis-series so impressed me that there was a scene I remembered seeing and for a while after viewing the first mini-series I thought I must have imagined it, because it was when they were younger and their second son died as an infant.  Eleanor must go off to cry by herself in the bathroom with the water running – there is no support or comfort from her husband or mother-in-law whose major statement of the morning after the child is gone is “life goes on.”

The make-up is really good, especially Edward Hermann’s.  It really gave a sense of aging without feeling very artificial.  Jane Alexander has the right sense of demureness and insecurity that Eleanor was known for, especially in her younger days, and grows to be more outspoken during these years in the White House.  Having portrayed her from her late teen years all the way through to 1945, she really knows the character by now and is perhaps the best actress I have ever seen portray her.  Edward Hermann didn’t seem to be quite as charismatic as Franklin was, trying to convey this by being loud and brash at times.

The sets and costumes are also period-authentic.  There could have been more extras in the camps Eleanor visits to convey the masses that were suffering during the Great Depression, as I think this part is less convincing. It’s more like a visit to a campground than a scene which should be as grandiose as the railway depot one in Gone With the Wind.  Still, for a made-for-television budget, the attention to developing the look of the time period is done very well.

While not as in-depth as it could have been. Eleanor & Franklin: The White House Years is a good depiction of the two people at the center of the story as well as their human failings.  It doesn’t cast Franklin in the best light but then it doesn’t demonize him, either.  Seen here he is distinctly human, something we should remember about all people who are in the spotlight from time to time.