White House Madness (1975) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Mark L. Lester has been around for a helluva long time, and while he has directed no great movies, or even any very good ones, you will recognize some of his film titles. His highest rating at IMDb belongs to Firestarter. Some of his others include Bobby Jo and the Outlaw, Showdown in Little Tokyo, and Night of the Running Man. In his 50's now, he's still at it, having churned out six more full-length films in the past three years, none of them particularly memorable.

Thirty years as a director, and his highlight reel is Firestarter. To paraphrase a famous sports figure, Lester is in the twilight of a mediocre career.

This particular film is not mediocre, but poor, even by his somewhat relaxed standards. It is supposed to be a zany spoof of the goings-on in the Nixon White House during the Watergate Scandals, but its concept of humor is basically at the third grade playground level. Remember that guy in your school who loved to make noises with his armpits? He wrote this.

But I don't necessarily want to listen to them unless they have some entertainment value.

I doubt if this one was funny even back in the time when everyone would have recognized the names of the characters. I doubt if it was ever engaging entertainment of any kind, not even for those people who despised Nixon and his thugs back in 1975. If it did have some value back then, that edge has been dulled over thirty years in which the names and events are only dimly remembered by those around then, and not at all by the rest of a world in which half of its inhabitants have been born after the events portrayed here.

World leaders play Monopoly for the world. Nixon declares martial law and arbitrarily changes the year from 1975 to 1984, making people practice to say "Heil, Nixon". Billy Graham tries to exorcise him, during which exorcism Nixon says "Harry Truman sucks cocks in hell". Nixon is finally killed when Martha Mitchell pours water on him. As he melts away he says "I'm melting, what a world, what a world", and some midgets dance around him and sing "the witch is dead". I know it sounds like it might constitute some disrespectful fun. That's misleading. It is much worse than it sounds, entirely because of the lowbrow and ham-fisted execution. To give you a feel for the level of humor, Judge Sirica is played by Grandpa from The Munsters.

The only time I laughed was at Billy Graham's church, when they passed the collection plate. Wordlessly, Nixon gave a shifty look at the people to his right and left, saw that they were listening to the sermon, and decided it was nobler to receive than to give.

Of course, there is a good reason why Nixon was funnier when he didn't speak. The part of Nixon is played by Steve Friedman, whose bio declares him to be a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and who apparently had no other movie career.