Inside the White House.

• Author: Rothenberg, Robert S.

Columbia TriStar Home Video / 87 minutes / $19.95

"There's no such thing as a typical day" in the White House, narrator Morgan Freeman maintains. He then goes on to follow the staff of the "most famous house in America" as they prepare for a state visit by Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Interspersed with the backstairs arrangements for the arrival ceremony, receiving line, presidential entrance march, official toasts, and formal dinner are fascinating historical tidbits of White House lore and interviews with Lady Bird Johnson, Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, Gerald and Betty Ford, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, George and Barbara Bush, and Bill Clinton about their reminiscences of life while in residence there.

Once Washington, D.C., was established as the nation's capital in 1789, the decision was made to construct a home for the president and his family during his term of office. A competition for the best plan for such a building produced no consensus, and George Washington finally brought in Irish architect James Hoban, an acquaintance. With an approved design, the foundation was dug by slaves; the stonework was undertaken by Scottish masons; and hundreds of workers, more than half of them foreign-born, toiled on the project, sustained by a daily allowance of one pound of meat and all the cornbread they could eat. On Nov. 1, 1800, John Adams became the first president to sleep in the White House, which remained the largest home built in the U.S. until after the Civil War.

Keeping the White House in shape is a daunting task, one that was handicapped by insufficient funding for much of its history. Until the early 20th century, presidents had to pay the staff out...