Series 2558: Constituent Correspondence, 2000-2003
38778
From: <precepts@claremont.org>
To: Governor Musgrove
Created: 6/8/2001 11:14 AM
Subject: Claremont Institute Precepts: The Rest of Reagan
Message:
The Claremont Institute--PRECEPTS | | June 8, 2001
Visit <http://www.claremont.org> | | No. 281
Claremont Institute Precepts: The Rest of Reagan
By John Meroney
Few politicians, especially presidents, have lived as much
of their lives in the public eye as Ronald Reagan has.
Almost three decades of Reagan's life before he became a
candidate for public office are recorded on film. As his
presidency recedes deeper into the past, and Reagan
himself becomes part of history, it is now finally
possible for his career as an actor to be seriously
examined.
Not only have historians and biographers missed the full
significance of Reagan's Hollywood life, they have largely
ignored the importance of the roles he played, and the
themes and storylines of his films. On closer examination,
many of the themes that resonate in the majority of
Reagan's movies -- patriotism, liberty, justice, sacrifice,
loyalty, and idealism -- are in keeping with the principles
by which he lived his life, and the ones he used to shape
the public policy of his presidency.
In all, Reagan made 54 films, portraying characters who
were mostly heroes. True, some pictures just don't fit
Reagan. In "Santa Fe Trail" and "The Last Outpost" he
played Confederate soldiers, even though as president he
was fond of quoting Lincoln. In "The Killers," a 1964 film
based on the Ernest Hemingway short story, Reagan played an
underworld boss. The film is notable mostly because it is
the only time he was ever a villain and because it was his
last picture. He regretted that he went out on such a note.
It's difficult to call a failure the first MCA actor to win
a contract (negotiated in 1941 by Lew Wasserman) worth more
than $1 million. But that is one of the hackneyed
accusations leveled against Reagan. He was then getting
roles that had been offered initially to the likes of
William Holden, John Wayne, and Robert Young. Jack Warner
personally ranked Reagan ahead of James Cagney and Humphrey
Bogart as a studio commodity. Even years later, when Reagan
turned to television as the host of "General Electric
Theatre" on CBS, he was generating higher ratings than
Arthur Godfrey, Red Skelton, Perry Como, Jack Benny, and
even the powerhouse "Gunsmoke" series. These were not the
accomplishments of a professional mediocrity.
Reagan's best-known films are "Knute Rockne All American"
(1940), and "Kings Row" (1942). In the former, he plays
Notre Dame football star George Gipp. The lines from his
deathbed scene -- "Someday when the team's up against it,
the breaks are beating against the boys, ask them to go in
there with all they've got, win just one for the Gipper. I
don't know where I'll be then, but I'll know about it. I'll
be happy" -- are almost as well-known as "Frankly, my dear,
I don't give a damn."
And in "Kings Row," Reagan is playboy Drake McHugh, the
only apparently normal character in a small town awash in
dark, macabre secrets such as suicide, illegitimacy, and
insanity. Even an operation that handicaps Drake for life
("Where's the rest of me?!?") doesn't kill his spirit.
"The greatest movie I was ever in was 'Kings Row,' and I
think it was the finest part I ever had," Ronald Reagan
said in a 1980 interview about his Hollywood years. "I get
a kind of naughty pleasure out of the fact that when it
first came out, the critics panned it unmercifully, and
today it is very often included as one of the ten best
pictures of all time."
Reagan loved movies, and his work in Hollywood was as
critical to shaping his presidency as practicing law was to
Lincoln, or commanding the PT-109 was to JFK. The roles
Reagan played are critical parts of his life's work.
But the films that seemed to most profoundly influence
Ronald Reagan were made about as far away from Hollywood as
one can get. Ironically, he wouldn't have been able to see
them were it not for his Hollywood background. During the
War, Reagan was an administrator of the Army Air Forces's
Signal Corps, and he helped supervise the making of
military training and promotional films. That put him in a
position to be one of the first to see color footage of
Nazi death camps filmed by government combat camera units
and processed in Culver City before they was sent to the
War Department in Washington.
The films gave Reagan a visual image of evil in the world,
and when the war ended, Reagan secretly took a duplicate of
one in the event that the day would come when the true
horrors of the Holocaust were questioned. "Jews who had
tried to make an escape just got mowed down," he said. "The
camera just panned along the fence, showing their hands
still clutching at the wire."
Ronald Reagan never won an Oscar. But even the most liberal
of historians now concede that he did win the Cold War --
or at least played the decisive role in ending it. By any
measure, that is a performance worthy of a Lifetime
Achievement Award.
John Meroney is an associate editor of The American
Enterprise magazine and a 2000 Abraham Lincoln Fellow of
the Claremont Institute. This article is excerpted from the
Spring 2001 issue of the Claremont Review of Books. To read
the full text, you will need to become a subscriber. To
subscribe to the Claremont Review of Books, visit the
Claremont Institute's website at www.claremont.org or send
an e-mail to subscriptions@claremont.org.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 2001 The Claremont Institute
To subscribe to Precepts, go to: http://www.claremont.org/1_precepts.cfm , or e-mail us at info@claremont.org .
To be removed from this list, go to : http://www.claremont.org/remove_public.cfm , or e-mail us at info@claremont.org .
For general correspondence or additional information about the Claremont Institute, e-mail : info@claremont.org , or visit our website at : http://www.claremont.org .
Changing your e-mail address? Please let us know at : info@claremont.org .
For press inquiries, contact Nazalee Topalian at topalian@msn.com or (202) 265-9010.
Author and Claremont Institute attribution are required if used for publication. Please contact Topalian@msn.com for Tear Sheet information.
The mission of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship
and Political Philosophy is to restore the principles of the American
Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life.
The Claremont Institute | 250 West First Street | Suite 330 | Claremont,
CA 91711 | Phone (909) 621-6825 | Fax (909) 626-8724
- Attachment Filename: C:\archives\governor\mail\Governor Musgrove\_attach\Claremont Institute Precepts_ The Rest of Reagan\Mime.822
Attachments
claremont_institute_precept(7)/mime.822