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Long out of distribution, and scarcely seen since the 1930s, William A. Wellman's The President Vanishes was an extraordinary political thriller in its day, of a piece with -- if not as fanciful as -- Gregory La Cava's Gabriel Over The White House (1933) and George W. Hill's The Secret Six (1931). Yet it remains in many ways almost as topical in the twenty-first century as it was in 1934. Based on an early (originally anonymously authored) novel by Rex Stout, the film is steeped in the political anxieties of its day -- a Depression-weary America and the battle for the soul of the country between pro-war profiteers and the thugs who support them, against a mostly pacifist public (many with vivid memories of the First World War) in the streets, amid an approach constitutional crisis, as Congress threatens to usurp the power of an anti-interventionist president. The story unfolds briskly, introducing the major players -- President Craig Stanley (Arthur Byron), his wife (Janet Beecher), Secret Service agent Chick Moffat (Paul Kelly), his girlfriend (and Mrs. Stanley's secretary) Alma Cronin (Peggy Conklin), and crazed super-patriot rabble-rouser Lincoln Lee (Edward Ellis) -- one by one in the course of the action, and setting their conflict in motion with the inevitability of an express train on a downhill grade. Once the introduction, set at a graduation ceremony at Annapolis, the story picks up steam and the richness of the portrayals and all of the acting comes to the fore, never letting go of the audience. Only the denouement stretches credibility just about to the breaking point, but by that time events are moving so fast that one will hardly want to question what is being shown. Wellman could probably have used a little more time to pull off what he was aiming for, and that back end of the script could have been worked out differently, but what is here is exciting in the extreme, and gives several fine actors -- not just the leads, but also supporting players Edward Arnold, Andy Devine, Paul Harvey, Robert McWade, and Charles Grapewin, plus a young Rosalind Russell (who completely dominates her one big scene, with Sidney Blackmer) -- a chance to stand out. The movie deserves to be better known, and Rex Stout completists should also make it their business to see it, as an adaptation of one of the mystery writer's early successes.