Can watching a movie help influence or even inspire an important decision by the President of the United States? After coming up with today’s cartoon I looked for any evidence of that actually having happened and could only find one substantiated example.
It occurred in 1970 during Richard Nixon’s presidency and the Vietnam War. Despite opposition from his advisors, cabinet members and the American public, Nixon was determined to expand the war into Cambodia.
A few months before ordering that mission to begin, a film had been released starring George C. Scott as the uncompromising and eccentric General George S. Patton. Ronald Reagan among others had turned down the role. John Wayne was not offered it.
Nixon apparently watched the film Patton repeatedly and although he later denied any connection between it and his decision to bomb Cambodia, his national security advisor Henry Kissinger said he felt that the President viewed himself as a military commander in Patton’s cinematic image.
Although there are numerous books about actual and fictional presidents portrayed on film, I have found only articles about presidents watching movies themselves during their time in the White House.
Movie screenings there did not get off to an auspicious start. The first was in 1915 during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. The one chosen was Birth of a Nation which to this day is considered among the most controversial and racist films ever made in United States history.
At the time D.W. Griffith’s movie was an outrage to many, portraying its black characters as despicable and the Ku Klux Klan as heroic. Afterward Wilson had his personal secretary deny that he had known in advance of the film’s true nature.
Since Franklin Roosevelt created a permanent White House movie theater in 1942— His own tastes ranged from Mae West’s I’m No Angel to Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — it appears some presidential office holders have been downright movie fanatics or perhaps in the course of their duties, the job and a need for distraction from it may have driven them in that direction.
Dwight Eisenhower watched over 200 movies during his two terms. His favorite— High Noon. But the runaway record holder for film zealot may surprise you. Coming in at 480 viewed in four years is Jimmy Carter who was also the first president to screen in the White House what had initially been an X-rated movie— Midnight Cowboy. By the time Carter saw it, the rating had been revised to an R.
A presidential consensus about favorite films? High Noon again. It tops the list. Bill Clinton claims he watched it 20 times. John Ford’s The Searchers and My Darling Clementine and David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai are also up there.
And then there’s Joe Biden and an answer he gave in an interview to a question about what was his favorite movie during the 2008 campaign when he was running for a second term as vice president with Barack Obama…
Katie Couric: “What's your favorite move and why?”
Joe Biden: "Chariots of Fire" is, I think, probably my favorite movie. But the truth of the matter is the thing about it, there is a place where someone put personal fame and glory behind principles. That to me, is the mark of real heroism, when someone would do that.”
Couric: “Do you remember your favorite scene from that movie?”
Biden: “I think the favorite scene is when he is making the decision and talking to his ... about do I do this? What do I do? He so desperately wanted to run, but concluded he couldn’t. It was that, you know, that moment of decision, I think that was my favorite scene.”
Yes, Joe Biden actually said this 16 years ago! If only he could hear this and act on it now.
If I could I would forward this to the Oval Office.