From my favorite movies..

Better Late Then Never

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

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.

William McKinley was an extremely popular President. (The man who assassinated him was a crackpot nihilist, who shot McKinley merely because he was the President ... not for any motive relevant to McKinley's policies.) Among McKinley's other achievements was his very dignified method of campaigning. McKinley refused to 'run' for office: instead, he made public appearances on the porch of his home near Canton, Ohio, politely answering the questions of reporters who came to interview him.This brief film purports to show William McKinley at the moment when he receives the Republican nomination in the summer of 1896, but it's actually a re-enactment staged several weeks later. At this early point in the history of movies, most 'newsreels' were doubly phony because the kings and generals depicted onscreen were actually anonymous actors in disguise, re-staging recent events. *This* film is also a re-enactment, but at least it features the actual people it claims to depict. William McKinley's brother Abner and his mentor Benjamin Harrison (the former President) were stockholders in the Biograph Film Company, and they persuaded McKinley to appear onscreen. A two-man camera crew arrived at McKinley's home in September 1896, setting up their equipment outside McKinley's L-shaped house. McKinley comes out of the house with his secretary, George Cortelyou, who formally hands McKinley the nomination documents (actually, a prop). McKinley glances at the papers, takes off his hat to reveal his receding hairline, and mops his large forehead with an even larger handkerchief.That's it. If you look closely at the porch in the background, you can see McKinley's wife: the former Ida Saxton sits on a rocking chair on the porch and fans herself during this gripping action. Mrs McKinley was a frail invalid: in private, she was pushed about in a wheelchair; in public, McKinley and his advisors went to great lengths to conceal her condition. When McKinley was fatally shot (in 1901, with George Cortelyou nearby), it's noteworthy that he ignored his own condition and spent his last conscious moments imploring Cortelyou to look after Mrs McKinley. By all accounts, the McKinleys were deeply in love. If he had lived, he might have been one of America's greatest Chief Executives ... he was certainly one of the most beloved.This movie is a vitally important historic document, but because it's a staged re-enactment I'll rate it only 9 out of 10 instead of a full 10 points.