The Last Man on Earth is one of the earliest films in history to feature a female president of the US. It set the tone for the films and shows that came next. One hundred years ago, a woman was elected as the president of the United States.
This didn't happen in reality, of course, but a fictional female president did appear in a film that was released exactly a century ago, in 1924 – and it's one of the earliest surviving on-screen examples of a woman in that role. The Last Man on Earth is a silent comedy starring Earle Foxe and directed by JG Blystone. Foxe plays Elmer, the one adult male in the future year of 1954 who hasn't been snuffed out by a disease called "masculitis".
Luckily for him, he was living alone in a forest when the virus struck, so when he is brought back to civilisation, he is a sought-after specimen. The government buys him for $10m and two "senatresses" have a boxing match for the right to marry him – but Elmer only has eyes for his childhood sweetheart. Adapted from a short story by John D Swain, The Last Man on Earth is really an excuse to have some risqué fun with the male fantasy of being pursued by countless women.
"Little, if any, attempt is made to conceal the fact that they are impelled by sex impulse," tutted the Virginia State Board of Censors in its review of this "smutty" and "indecent" work. But the film also mocks the very idea of a society with women in charge. The White House is overgrown and unkempt, while the president herself (M.