Independent Films, Film Profiles

Sunrise at Campobello

Sunrise at Campobello is a 1960 biographical film made by Dore Schary Productions and Warner Bros. It tells the story of the initial struggle by future President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and his family when he was stricken with paralysis at the age of 39 in August 1921.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.