Waste of time

Brilliant and touching

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The idea for this film is a very good one...but the execution is lackluster to say the least. It's a shame.When the film begins, Leslie McCloud (Polly Bergen) is being sworn is as President of the US. However, soon after, it's obvious that no one even considered what Mr. Thad McCloud (Fred MacMurray) would do as First Lady or First Fella or whatever he would be. This isn't at all realistic as you'd think this would all be planned out. Then, through the course of the film, Thad just seems kind of lost and the President seems to have little time for him. And, the kids run amok as neither the President nor her husband seem to have considered what to do with the kids. And, as for Thad...he's like a fish out of water in all this.So here's the problem. Unless the President was chosen by lottery, Mr. McCloud and his wife would have already had to work out their roles and the impact of all this on her kids. After all, you would assume she would have already been a Congresswoman, Senator or Governor...and so the family moving to the White House should NOT have been this difficult. In essence, the plot really didn't make a lot of sense the way they handled it...nor the way the President just gave it all up at the end!! If you can look past all this (and you won't), the film has some cute moments. But it could have been so much better had the script made more sense.

First gentleman Fred MacMurray (as Thaddeus "Thad" McCloud) is frazzled after beautiful wife Polly Bergen (as Leslie Harrison McCloud) is sworn in as first female President of the United States. While Bergen plays politics with South American dictator Eli Wallach (as Raphael Valdez), MacMurray entertains him with fast American vehicles. The men are involved in an embarrassing fight in a strip bar. Bergen as President finds her family in crisis. MacMurray's old girlfriend Arlene Dahl (as Doris Reid Weaver) begins to seduce him and the children get in trouble. Teenage daughter Anna Capri (as Gloria) goes out on a hot rod date, little Ronnie Dapo (as Peter) becomes the school bully, and MacMurray begins mixing drugs with alcohol...All is solved by the sighting of the stork over the White House. Too bad they didn't shoot the bird.** Kisses for My President (8/21/64) Curtis Bernhardt ~ Fred MacMurray, Polly Bergen, Eli Wallach, Arlene Dahl

Polly Bergen is elected president of the United States (in 1964!) and ex-businessman husband Fred MacMurray must assume the role of "first lady." It sounds stupid and, okay, you may call it a one-premise movie, but not a one-joke movie because there are plenty of relatively unsophisticated laughs.And the laughs build, so to speak, from slight discomfort to slapstick. An example of early self consciousness: MacMurray is assigned to the first lady's bedroom, all fluffy and flouncy, with a dressing table and chintz.Along the way, while his wife is busy with state affairs, MacMurry receives a job offer from a former girl friend who now owns a toilet-accessory business. MacMurray eagerly accepts, wanting to begin a men's line of after-shave colognes with names like "Green Cedar" and "Testosteral" and "Bloodthirsty" and "Ballsy." Well, not those last. I just made them up. The lady in charge, however, Arlene Dahl is interested in the man, not his manly deodorants.There is an embarrassing contretemps too with a visiting Latin American dictator, Eli Wallach, who wants an influx of American dollars. MacMurray manages to offend Wallach, who threatens to sue the United States or go to another foreign country for financial aid.A legislative committee is later formed to investigate the stupidity and incompetence of MacMurray, led by that always reliable pompous blowhard, Edward Andrews. MacMurry exposes Andrews as corrupt, because it develops that Andrews was formerly a partner in the law firm Wallach intends to use in his suit.This sounds shockingly corrupt, doesn't it? Yet, as of this year, a state governor who was previously involved in an extremely expensive health-care scandal signed into law a bill mandating sonograms for women seeking to terminate their pregnancies and one of the chief providers of sonograms in that state is largely owned by the governor's wife. Not a peep. We're not in 1964 anymore, Toto.The least demanding -- and the funniest -- episode comes near the end of the movie. MacMurray is to conduct a guided tour of the White House, a la Jackie Kennedy, but he's a nervous wreck. Two friends have already given him tranquilizers but he's still a neural shambles. The White House physician gives him pep pills that will wake him up and turn him into a shark. Somebody else slips him a double whiskey to calm him down. At this point MacMurray freezes in place behind his desk, assuming an alarming port de bras, holds the pose for a full minute, then leaps to his feet, shouting, "Let's get going!", and throws his jacket on backwards. The results are expectable. He winds up stumbling around before the cameras with one foot in a spitoon. Right out of Laurel and Hardy.Oh, one more gag I feel compelled to throw in. MacMurray, as first lady, has two secretaries but he has trouble with their names. The first one corrects him when he addresses her incorrectly. Then he remarks to the other, "Well, I don't think I'll forget your name, Miss Ives." She replies: "Miss Currier." I laughed out loud and decided to try it in the next meeting of my sociology class. I addressed one of the young students as "Miss Martin." She shook her head slowly, and said "Miss Aston." Nobody laughed. I had to explain the joke -- "Aston-Martin" -- before I roused a couple of polite smiles. No wonder the student evaluations were so low.I know it's silly but I enjoy it on those rare occasions when it's on cable. It's undemanding stuff and everyone needs a laugh now and then. And MacMurray, as he'd already demonstrated numerous times, is an accomplished light comedian.

Easily made my list of most insultingly bad movies -- and I have tried to not be a negative guy. But, to put it all in one line, this film doesn't even seem to be an honest treatment of what actually is a good idea, and is a slap in the face of feminism and a slap in the face of the office of the presidency.Even considering that it predates the feminine revolution, it represents the worst of the pre-1968 culture that thought women were silly things that had to stay in the kitchen keeping pots and pans bright and shiny.If you wonder about a female president, read up instead about the presidential campaigns of folks like Patricia Schroeder, Hillary Clinton, or Elizabeth Dole. See "Commander-in-Chief" starring Geena Davis.If, instead, you wonder what it would be like to be First Husband, take a look at the life of Prince Philip, who has already lived this role in real life. Read about a powerful man who marries a princess, and finds himself given a free hand in raising the kids while his wife runs an empire.But you are still thinking of watching this movie? Here are my opinions. I will warn you when the spoilers start.* * * * *"A woman, Polly Bergen, as president?" I asked. "And a macho star like Fred MacMurray as First Lady?" This had all the signs of being a first class 'what-if'.And it could have been. Its first minutes seemed a really good take on "What Would Be Different?" She'd have to clutch her mink coat while taking the oath, she'd have trouble with a couple of bigots at least, and the husband would have some adjusting to do. There is a very nice scene in which the Vice-President commiserates with the First Husband about being on the sidelines.And there is then some really good stuff about "What Would Be The Same?" The Soviets give the new president some grief, and Polly Bergen (a successful businesswoman in real life) proceeds to kick Russian Communist butt -- the Soviets settle down, exactly as if she were Margaret Thatcher, or Golda Meir, or Indira Ghandi. The film seems to think a woman president could be great.But, then ... the writers seem to poop out. They run out of good ideas, and fall back upon really insultingly bad old-style stereotypes. And yes they change their stance, they seem to think a woman president would self-destruct immediately.Spoilers, Warning. As if they said "Oh the girls would really love this" the film dwells more and more on how neat it is to live in the White House with a full staff. Yes, butlers and maids running around with fancy suits and white gloves. A permanent vacation from housework, how could the female audience resist! (But you thought this was a film about democracy and government? So did I. Apparently Hollywood thought the average female would get bored with things like global crises.) The final shot, when the president has to leave the White House after resigning, is of the White House butlers and maids bowing deeply to the camera ... The End.What the ...? "Resigning"? Oh, yeah ... the first female president, according to 1964 Hollywood, would have to resign because she fainted. Yes, the woman fainted. And why did she faint? Because she got pregnant, of course she would faint, wouldn't she? And of course, you can't have a fainting, pregnant president, so she resigns and the butlers and maids bow to her as she leaves.Utterly unbelievable. Nobody becomes president who would willingly resign for such stupid reasons. We had almost two hundred years of government here before a president resigned. And women don't faint and give up when they get pregnant -- some women have had babies in the wild. Governor Jane Swift of Massachusetts went right through labor and had her kid without even turning over the office of governor temporarily.It's insulting even to modern day MEN like myself to think that a female president would pull a Victorian swoon and resign, after spending years of campaigning to cap a life's political career as president to just resign.Look ... I watched this movie because it might have been an interesting speculation about an American 'Queen Victoria'-type, but it turned into a horrible piece of sterotyping that defied belief. Really. It took me a while afterwards to pick my jaw off the floor. Monumental bad taste.