The First and Last Ones Were Particularly Poignant
September 19, 2015 5:16 PM   Subscribe

Jimmy Carter watched a lot of movies when he was President -- more than 400, in fact, ranging from Midnight Cowboy (the first known X-rated movie screened at the White House) to The Bad News Bears.

Ronald Reagan's and Richard Nixon's lists are available as well.
posted by Etrigan (28 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Damn, that's a great list of films. I love that The In-Laws was screened twice in two weeks.
posted by octothorpe at 5:33 PM on September 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


Funny that Reagan chose one of his own films, Cattle Queen of Montana, to end on.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:39 PM on September 19, 2015


We had that 3 channel 1979 cable.
I watched the Bad News Bears 400 times.
posted by clavdivs at 5:42 PM on September 19, 2015 [5 favorites]


Which ones did they walk out on, or fall asleep during, I wonder.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:44 PM on September 19, 2015


It's amazing how many classic films are in that list and how many of those were just the mainstream movie of the week during the late seventies.
posted by octothorpe at 5:46 PM on September 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


True Fact: Jimmy Carter has never needed any sleep at all.
posted by allthinky at 5:53 PM on September 19, 2015 [3 favorites]


Is it me or did Reagan seem to spend a lot of time at Camp David?
posted by Beti at 5:57 PM on September 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


I can't believe The Royal Tenenbaums isn't on this list.
posted by shakespeherian at 5:58 PM on September 19, 2015


Neat . It was glad to see him and Rosalynn (on TV) at the baseball game the other night.
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:08 PM on September 19, 2015 [3 favorites]


I thought so too, but couldn't help remembering all the flack he'd received for the "chop" a long time ago.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 6:16 PM on September 19, 2015


[Film unknown] — November 19, 1980

Naughty, naughty!
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:42 PM on September 19, 2015 [6 favorites]


Off topic but I remember combing through an old OSS supply drop list and some items destined for Denmark were: "Three Films for King Christian"

I always thought that would make a cool title.
posted by clavdivs at 7:08 PM on September 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


Presidential Movie Club on fanfare?
posted by el io at 7:16 PM on September 19, 2015 [5 favorites]


That is an impressive list.

I'd be embarrassed to share the last 400 movies I've watched. I code all day and often have movies running on a third screen beside me - even though I rarely glance at the screen. But, they have to be movies where I have no emotional investment, and no great interest in the outcome. So, they are often crappy 80's comedies or even crappier action movies.
posted by greenhornet at 7:39 PM on September 19, 2015


Two a week? I'm trying to think if *I* have enough free time to watch that many movies.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 7:42 PM on September 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


You know, the thing that's really interesting about this list, THE MOTHERFUCKING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES HAS MORE FREE TIME THAN I DO.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:01 PM on September 19, 2015 [9 favorites]


Ronald Reagan's and Richard Nixon's lists are available as well.

I see Ronald Reagan's list includes Back to the Future.

Wait ... Ronald Reagan? The actor?! What movies did Vice President Jerry Lewis or Secretary of the Treasury Jack Benny watch??
posted by John Cohen at 8:14 PM on September 19, 2015 [9 favorites]


THE MOTHERFUCKING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES HAS MORE FREE TIME THAN I DO.

For the first two, it was the seventies; everybody had more free time.

Reagan's list was actually made during G.H.W. Bush's first two terms.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:45 PM on September 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


everybody had more free time

For all that happened on April 24 and April 25 1980 he still managed to fit in a Jane Fonda movie. Now that's looking after your free time.
posted by KirkpatrickMac at 11:31 PM on September 19, 2015


Which ones did they walk out on, or fall asleep during, I wonder.

I have a feeling Nixon never made it to the last act of Richard III.
posted by thetortoise at 11:49 PM on September 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


That's a good list, but there are a few I wondered about, like Airport '77. As for free time, remember this was pre-internet. I know I could watch a few movies a week in the time I spend on MetaFilter alone. And TV was very different. The best thing about cable was the then new HBO, and there was no need for that if you had your own theater. No CNN for all but the last few months of his term; when Carter took office Ted Turner's media empire consisted of WTCG. Although I like to think Carter took in some GCW on Saturday afternoons just to remind him of home.
posted by TedW at 4:25 AM on September 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


Umpty-thousand years ago, I used to have a job where I sent films weekly on my so-called 'VIP circuit': the President and Vice-Pres, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chiefs of Staff of the Army and of the Air Force, plus a few others --- this was so far back in the dark ages, kiddies, that I was sending them 16mm films, because it was not only the pre-DVD era, it was pre-VCR. They used those 16mm films at the White House, at Camp David and onboard Air Force One, because 16mm is far more portable than 35mm (it's about 15-16 pounds for a 16mm print that would weigh around 50-55 pounds in 35mm.) There's no guarantee the president himself would watch any particular movie: could also be WH staffers, Secret Service guys, or anyone else like visiting presidential family members.

The Presidents in office while I had that job were, yep: Carter and Reagan.

The White House would send over a courier every Wednesday to pick up their three weekly films; they were scheduled to hold movies for two weeks, then return them so I could use them on my military base movie theater circuit. There was absolutely no selection of which movies to send over: basically, I sent them anything and everything I got in. I remember thinking it hilarious that the born-again Christian Carters (and I was told especially Mrs. Carter) wanted to hang onto the risqué-for that-era Bo Derek movie "10" for an extra week; it's probably no surprise at all that horse-loving Ronald Reagan wanted extra viewings of "The Man From Snowy River".
posted by easily confused at 5:59 AM on September 20, 2015 [23 favorites]


I suppose it's impossible to know how many of these were chosen by friends and family.

Umpty-thousand years ago, I used to have a job where I sent films weekly on my so-called 'VIP circuit'

Maybe you can answer my question then. I'm struck by how Hollywood-centric the lists are. Did they not have access to foreign films? How exactly were the films provided to the distribution point?
posted by BWA at 6:07 AM on September 20, 2015


I basically got in only new American movies, no art house or foreign films: everything I got was eventually going to be running at theaters on Army and Air Force bases when I got them back from my VIP circuit --- they'd be run for the families on base (so, Disney movies), the young soldiers/airmen (lots of Chuck Norris etc.!), romcoms and such. The base theaters didn't really have a call for art or foreign movies, so I never got them in my film exchange or had them on hand to send to my VIPs.

Anything else they wanted to see the White House could have asked for directly from the head of the MPAA, Jack Valenti, who was always happy to lean on the studios to provide prints.
posted by easily confused at 6:20 AM on September 20, 2015 [8 favorites]


"You're the President. You have nothing but free time."
posted by Devonian at 6:21 AM on September 20, 2015


It seems awfully fitting that 'Being There' played in the first 100 days of the Reagan administration.
posted by pipian at 9:24 AM on September 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


I would imagine the President spends a lot of time "nailed down" at home, since it requires a veritable security armada for him to go anywhere, anytime. I would think he has less freedom than any other American except prisoners.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 12:31 PM on September 20, 2015


A bit of time has passed, but I put together a look at which movies Nixon was watching during significant historical events focusing especially on those during October 1973.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:33 AM on September 30, 2015


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