Too much of everything

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

While the content of this film is nothing really exciting, the history behind it makes it a must-see. First of all, it's the first film of the 25th President: William McKinley himself. It's actually a staged reenactment of when McKinley received the news of his nomination, so it's not true history we're witnessing, but the figures used to portray the history are the real President and the real Secretary.The film is a simple set-up. McKinley's on the lawn with his secretary, who hands him a letter. McKinley puts on his top hat and opens it, reads it, then he and his secretary slowly walk off. While the print is rather blurry we can tell Mr. McKinley is looking at the camera, while the secretary does a better job looking away. This film continued to be shown after the election of McKinley and probably was one of the most popular films of this president. Today it remains a big historical landmark of film and history.Oh, and another thing. McKinley was the first assassinated President to appear on film as well. That makes this the first film of an assassinated President!

There's really nothing too interesting to this 30-minute short film. We see two very well-dressed men with canes in the distance strolling and moving a bit closer to the cameraman who made this film. The history behind it has some significance though. One of the two is William McKinley, he next President of the United States of America. He was portrayed on very many short films during his presidency, but this one here is actually one of two shorts that show him not only before he entered office, but even before the election. Sort of the first political movie star, long before Reagan. And there would have been certainly many more films if it hadn't been for McKinley's assassination shortly after his re-election in 1900. One to watch, not for the action, but for its historical context.

McKinley at Home (1896) Biograph short shows President McKinley walking across his lawn and towards the camera.Grandpa's Reading Glasses (1902) *** (out of 4) Biograph short has two little girl's looking through their grandfather's glasses and seeing everything magnified. Outside the early POV shots, this here isn't anything overly special.Both films are available through Grapevine in their Biograph Without Griffith disc.

This is an approximately 35-second long Lumière Brothers actuality that shows the 25th President of the United States, William McKinley, at home in Ohio. As you might expect in a Lumière Brothers short, McKinley walks at an oblique angle from the front of his house to a planter in the front yard, then out of frame. An unidentified man walks with McKinley on his right hand side. At about mid-frame, just to the side of the planter, they stop, the man hands McKinley a paper, he puts on a top hat, he writes something on the paper, hands the paper back to the man, removes his hat, and they walk out of the frame.Depending on how you look at it, McKinley was either the first or second President to appear on film. The ambiguity rests on a couple technicalities. President McKinley at Home was actually filmed in 1896, when McKinley was campaigning for his first term--the actuality was probably taken during one of McKinley's famed "Front Porch" publicity events. Afterwards, another actuality was shot at McKinley's first inauguration in March 4, 1897, but Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th U.S. President (he served two non-consecutive terms) was filmed first--he attended McKinley's inauguration. So Cleveland was captured on film as President moments before McKinley was captured on film as President.This short is not the most fascinating Lumière Brothers work from an artistic standpoint, but of course it is of historical value. It's interesting to note how conscious of the camera McKinley and his companion are--they hardly take their eyes off of it while they're walking. Like many other Lumière "documentaries", it's intriguing just how clearly this scene was staged. McKinley and his companion stop just to the side of the planter as if they're hitting a mark. Their gait is very deliberate, as if timed to last the length of the film before they exit the frame. McKinley carefully places his hat on his head and takes it back off, as if to offer different "looks" for photographs.Although McKinley may not have been the first President captured on film, he's certainly the first President for whom film captured many important moments, including scenes from the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, where McKinley was assassinated in 1901 at the beginning of his second term (although film of the assassination itself does not exist). Most of the McKinley films were produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company.