Hard times in the 1930s produced a golden age in Hollywood as Americans, helpless in real life, sought escape at neighborhood movie houses. Today, those Depression classics are being remade and brought into our living rooms to be sold as reality.

The GOP is doing the horror films. Frankenstein has morphed into mad scientists working feverishly in the lab to animate a new Rick Perry from old political body parts but, even as the Creature starts to look plausible, it unexpectedly starts to babble about Birtherism .

Herman Cain is the new Dracula, bouncing out of his coffin after dark trying to suck the blood out of government, all the while smiling fiendishly in weird commercials.

Mitt Romney, of course, is the Invisible Man, mostly unseen but striking nameless fear in the hearts of the natives.

As time goes on, however, the Republican debates are getting less scary and beginning to look more like the zany efforts of the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields.

Over at Poverty Row, there are the Frank Capra films, with Occupy Wall Street recreating “Meet John Doe” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” good-heartedness looking for populist heroes to pull out a last-minute happy ending without jumping off a tall building or collapsing from exhaustion.

The Tea Party is reliving all those “white telephone” movies…

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