While it may be difficult to pinpoint a precise moment when Cold War tensions began to ease, it is evident that Gorbachev’s interest in Hollywood helped foster a human connection that advanced negotiations and solidified relations.

By all accounts, Reagan was proud of his Hollywood career, which began on April 20, 1937 the day he signed a contract with Warner Brothers. While political opponents and hostile media personalities have made a sport out of demeaning Reagan’s acting ability, he was actually quite accomplished in his own right and cultivated a strong following.

A good source here is Marc Eliot who authored “Reagan: The Hollywood Years,” a well-researched, highly readable yarn that highlights some of the former president’s best performances on screen and on television. Reagan co-starred alongside some of most talented stars of his era including Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Ginger Rogers, Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn.

While Reagan may not have achieved lasting fame as a leading man, he did carve out a strong niche as a supporting actor in films that attracted critical attention, as Eliot explained in an interview with Reason TV. He was widely viewed as the reliable “best friend” standing behind
the big names of that time, Eliot notes.

Reagan was very mindful of how supporting roles could enhance and amplify the storyline behind each film. This was most certainly the case in “Knute Rockne, All American” where Reagan played the part of Notre Dame Football great George Gipp.

“Now the Gipper only occupied one reel of the picture, but from an actor’s point of view it was a near perfect part,” Reagan once observed. “A great entrance, action in the middle and a deathbed scene in the grand tradition of Hollywood.”

The phrase “Go out and win one for the Gipper” later figured into Reagan’s political campaigns and is at least partly responsible for the film’s lasting appeal. But there are other noteworthy supporting roles that continue to get overlooked by historians and biographers.

This would include “Dark Victory” (1939) co-starring Davis, Geraldine Fitzgerald, George Brent and Bogart. Here, Reagan was cast as an aloof, but likeable playboy named Alec Hamm who adds levity and cheer to a film that is heavy on drama. The Davis character is a terminally ill woman who decides to live out her few remaining months to the fullest. Reagan does not get the girl; she instead gravitates over to the Bogart character.

Davis was nominated for Best Actress and the film for Best Picture. Even as the top prizes ultimately went to “Gone with the Wind,” “Dark Victory” was widely recognized as a critical success. Reagan’s ability to connect with audiences and co-stars did not go unrecognized as he proceeded to land high-profile roles.

Off screen, Bogart and Reagan developed a lasting friendship. They were ardent patriots who became interested in the political scene.

This is where Hollywood and Cold War politics come full circle. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Reagan and Bogart were both “committed liberals” susceptible to communist operatives, Paul Kengor, a political scientist and author, said in an interview.

Reagan was recruited for the speaking circuit by the “benignly named” American Veterans Committee (AVC), but came to see in his own words that he was “being steered more than a little bit” by a group with its own agenda. The AVC events included “hand-picked audiences and highly skewed speaking material,” Kengor said.

In retrospect, Gorbachev’s interest in Reagan’s films is more than a little ironic; it was the Hollywood experience that first opened Reagan’s eyes to the dangers of communism. Reagan eventually came to see that AVC was a front group for the communist cause as was another “innocent-sounding” organization called the Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions (HICCASP).

By 1946, Reagan was a popular after-dinner speaker in Hollywood circles who intermixed politics with entertainment. Reagan also openly confronted communist sympathizers at HICCASP meetings.

Kengor’s book entitled: “Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century” describes some of the heated exchanges between Reagan and other leading Hollywood figures who identified with Soviet Union. By this time, Bogart also saw fit to distance himself from any unsavory ties, although he did not move to the right as decisively as Reagan did, Kengor notes.

Before he landed the lead part in “King’s Row,” it appears Reagan was briefly considered for the role of “Rick” in “Casablanca,” which eventually went to Bogart. How serious of a contender Reagan was for Casablanca is not entirely clear, Kengor said. In the end, the final casting worked out for both actors. Reagan considered “Kings Row” to be his best film, as did many critics, and Casablanca helped make Bogart a household name.

“Reagan and Bogart liked each other and respected each other and got along very well,” Kengor said. “Reagan went to Bogart’s funeral and Bogart was also a member of Reagan’s fan club.”

It was common practice for the studios to organize fan clubs and Bogart was one of 15 honorary members of the Ronald Reagan fan club. Bette Davis was also a member of the club.

On Reagan’s Birthday, Let’s Remember the Gipper’s Film Career – Part 2: More meaty roles overlooked by Reagan biographers.

Here's a perfect illustration of the iconography of freedom. Marilyn Monroe displays a picture of Abraham Lincoln, The Great Emancipator, in a sleek convertible with the open road beckoning.

Automobiles represent freedom.

Try and remember when you were a teenager yearning for your driver’s license so you could hop into daddy’s car and go, go, go. It didn’t matter where, you just wanted to burn rubber and escape into the far horizon.

The brilliant, exhilirating and touching American Grafitti, 1973, is the ultimate expression of American car culture. Almost every single scene takes place in a car.

Los Angeles was the first America city built to accomodate the automobile. And the movie stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, most born dirt-poor, expressed delight in their sudden prosperity and fame by purchasing and posing with their dream machines.

Contrast cars with trains.

Trains and subways are an expression of the collective. Individual identity is erased. You are at the mercy of a state run system that turns  the citizen into a small cog manipulated by unmotivated, inefficient government bureaucrats.

That’s why Progressives-Liberals-Leftists are obsessed with high-speeed rail. The freedom of the road is repellent to statists who want to regulate/control diet, education, light bulbs, health care, your very geography.

Need I mention that Nazis just adored trains AKA cattle cars. And hey, the Italians boasted that Mussolini made the trains run on time.

At a certain point, one must acknowledge the convergence of philosophy between post-modern liberalism and iron-fist facism. Both ideologies assert the power of the state as the final arbiter of human affairs. Hence, the government replaces G-d and family as the center of man’s universe. It’s no surprise that the Nazi party’s formal title was The National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

Anyhoo.

Hollywood produced great stars who proudly posed with their autos, symbols of glamour, affluence, and freedom.

Silent film comedienne Mabel Normand shows off her custom built Mercer Runabout 22-72, equipped with fold-a-way makeup kit and vanity table. The car was a gift from Mabel's boyfriend, producer Mack Sennett, 1920. The night before their wedding Mabel discovered Mack in bed with actress Mae Busch. The wedding was cancelled. Mabel boozed, became addicted to cocaine and was involved in several high-profile Hollywood scandals. Her brilliant career tanked and she died at the age of 37.

Rudolph Valentino loved cars and spent hours tinkering with engines. He owned several very expensive custom built vehicles. Rudy proudly displays his Isotta-Franschini limousine, built to his exacting specifications, 1923. I'm reading Evelyn Zumaya's new, groundbreaking biography, “Affairs Valentino.” Along with details of Rudy's love of the automobile—and his horrendous driving—I'm gaining a whole new perspective on this remarkable figure of motion picture history.

Rita Hayworth, b. Margarita Carmen Cansino, presents a distinctly unglamorous but fetching vision of the girl next door as she poses with her 1941 Lincoln Continental. When Hayworth first came to Hollywood she was painfully shy, could not look strangers in the eye and barely spoke above a whisper. Gossip columnist Louella Parsons confidently predicted that Hayworth would never make it in the movies.

Tasmanian-born Errol Flynn was expelled from school for fighting and seducing a school laundress. Flynn loved America, became a citizen and attempted to enlist at the start of World War II. An enlarged heart, malaria, reliance on morphine for chronic back pain, and venereal disease firmly classified him as 4-F. Known for his swashbuckler image and party-hard lifestyle, Flynn looks ready to cruise Sunset Strip in his seriously cool Auburn Speedster.

Robert Montgomery was born to privilege, but his father committed suicide by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge leaving the family penniless. Montgomery was, no doubt, relieved to be able to afford this Cadillac Sport-Phaeton. An active Republican Montgomery was outspoken against Communist influence in Hollywood.

Jimmy Stewart was best when playing the everyman American. His 1938 Plymouth reflects this unpretentious personae. Stewart flew as a command pilot in a B-24 on numerous missions deep into Nazi-occupied Europe. Back in civilian life, he refused to publicize his heroic war record in order to garner publicity.

Director Josef von Sternberg, b. Jonas Sternberg, gave Marlene Dietrich this 1931 forest green Rolls Royce as a gift. Her chauffer, Briggs—perfect name—carried a set of revolvers to protect his famous employer. When Dietrich traveled to Europe, she sent her Rolls and Briggs in advance. David Niven notes in his excellent autobiography, “The Moon's a Balloon” that Dietrich supplied Briggs with a mink trimmed uniform, which, I suppose, qualifies Briggs as Hollywood's first metrosexual chauffer-bodyguard.

People love that idea. And because they do, Robin has had a massive influence on popular culture because the implicit anti-establishment message in his story can be used as a device to criticize society or sell almost any social movement, legislation or outright criminal activity in modern societies that have no relation to the brutal feudal times in which his legend originated. The result, the Sherwood Forest outlaw can be anything one wants him to be.

A Robin who “robs the rich to give to the poor” can be that mythical Marxist revolutionary or populist hero righting the wrongs of capitalism for the oppressed proletariat — even if he happens to be nothing more than a mass murderer like Che Guevara:

or a common one like Jesse James

or the 1930s bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd

Woody Guthrie lionized in song:

Many a starving farmer
The same old story told
How the outlaw paid their mortgage
And saved their little homes

Looked at another way, a Robin who’s robbin’ the rich of onerous taxes they have forced on productive workers to support their bloated government might be one of Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform conservatives.

Toss in Robin’s opposition to the oppressive King John, who has usurped the crown of his brother Richard I and sicced ye Sheriff of Nottingham on those who question his authority to enact ruinous taxes, and you have the makings of America’s revolutionaries who went to war over the legitimacy of British taxation sans representation.

Emphasize the ruling Norman oppression of conquered Saxons that is themed in Ivanhoe, the 1800s Sir Walter Scott book that popularized the Robin Hood character in the first place, and you’ve got a story about racism and intolerance even if Al Sharpton wouldn’t agree ’cause they’re all white folks.

That’s why different versions of the story among the scads that have been filmed through the years have been used by their makers to touch different cultural nerves.

I grew up watching  “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” starring Richard Greene during the 50s without ever realizing its stories about the exploitation of serfs and ill gotten capitalist wealth were written by blacklisted communist Hollywood writers who were spreading Soviet agitprop.

Archie Duncan, Bernadette O'Farrell, Richard Greene, and Richard Coleman

Neither did I know that Robin’s paranoia about betrayal to the authorities was what the pseudonymed writers of those stories worried about lest their propaganda jig be up. “The Adventures of Robin Hood gave us plenty of opportunities to comment on issues and institutions in Eisenhower-era America,” admitted writer Ring Lardner, Jr.

“The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men” was also done during the 50s but its maker, the anti-communist Walt Disney, emphasized the ruinous taxation imposed by a totalitarian King John at a time when America’s top bracket was 90%.

1938’s “The Adventures of Robin Hood” starring Errol Flynn is the only version I’ve seen that really focuses on the oppression of the Saxons by the French speaking (yes, you read that right) Norman rulers who won the Battle of Hastings.

The Normans were really French speaking Vikings. And the England William of Normandy and his cousin Gauthier Giffard fashioned was one in which the Saxons and other subjugated peoples like the Welsh sucked hind teat in ways we today cannot begin to imagine. Against that blackness, robbing those who had taxed the common man to the edge of existence in many cases was both moral and necessary.

Translation of plaque at Castle Giffard, Normandy: Gauthier Giffard, Lord of Longueville carried the Banner of the Duke William. Departed from this land to the Battle of Hastings accompanied by his two sons, one of whom became the Duke of Buckingham.

Over time, Norman nobles started getting the short end of the stick.  That boiled over under the harsh and inept rule of King John (known as “Soft Sword” for his military incompetence) to the point that the barons forced John to sign a bill of rights against absolute royal power known as the Magna Carta.

What I’ve never seen depicted is that those rights only applied to the nobility, that John refused to honor them, that he had the leaders of the Magna Carta barons killed, and that England plunged into years of bloody war between the barons and the king.

Did Robin Hood really exist? Certainly not as he’s been portrayed — if at all. But that doesn’t really matter, because the real importance of Robin Hood is that he’s an inspiration for taking a stand against injustice however one defines it.

See the one point that liberals miss when they read the story of Robin Hood was that the man never stole from “the rich.” Leftists like to vilify the wealthy, but the tale of Robin Hood vilifies a corrupt government. Robin Hood was stealing from an oppressive monarchy/administration and giving the wealth back to its rightful owners. He was essentially re-distributing wealth by removing it from the initial re-distributors. Confused? Let’s break down the story of Robin Hood for a second:

• Members of the monarchy are born into positions of power without having been elected.
• Peasants are born into a life of poverty; all of their acquisitions are taken from them by aforementioned monarchy.
• Robin Hood sees the injustice in hard-workers living in squalor while corrupt government officials “be livin’ likes pimps” (this is a quote from the original text, of course).
• Robin Hood says “enough” and takes on the government.
• Government loses control in an elaborate sword-fight (Errol Flynn wears tights).
• The people take back what they’d rightfully earned in the first place.

Hmmm… I’m still not seeing this as any sort of socialist crusade. Where in the story does Mr. Hood steal from small business owners or entrepreneurs? If there’s a sub-plot where Robin Hood professes the necessity of “equal outcomes,” I haven’t read it. Perhaps it’s my mere fourth-grade reading equivalency getting the best of me, but nowhere in the book do I see the Prince of Thieves even SUGGEST any sort of higher or additional taxes.

So again, I’d have to ask: Why do liberals so often use Robin Hood as a Marxist parable? Have they not read the story, or have they only watched the Disney version?

Come to think of it, I thought it was weird when Sean Penn started quoting “Robin Hood the Fox.”

1. Command Decision (1948) – Made just after WWII, this Air Force drama set in 1943 when the outcome of the war was still in doubt, is one of the most intelligent examinations of the burden of command ever put on film. Clark Gable is absolutely outstanding as Casey, a Brigadier General forced to give orders that on their face appear cold and even monstrous, but in truth are just the opposite. Caught between the Washington brass who have a war to sell and the men under him who see only a General ordering their comrades to certain death, Casey is a leader willing to be hated and even lose his command in order to do the greater good. What Casey cares about before anything is saving American lives. That means winning the war as quickly as possible, something which can only be accomplished if unspeakable sacrifices are made in the here and now.  

The film’s real strength lies in a refusal to demonize the different points of view represented. Walter Pidgeon plays Major General Kane, Casey’s superior and the man who has to worry about the political considerations of how Casey’s heavy losses will affect public opinion, which is just upstream from the financial decisions made in Congress. In a less intelligent, lazier film (translation: a modern one) Kane would be portrayed as a bureaucratic boob only worried about his own upward mobility, but not here. Ultimately, we may not like the way Kane’s forced to think but we’re made to understand the idea of competing goods.

Representing the men is Van Johnson who steals every scene oozing a contempt, and at times, an outright hatred for Casey. The moment when he comes to finally understand the bigger picture is both touching and understated – one of Johnson’s finest.

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2. Desperate Journey (1942) – Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Raymond Massey and Alan Hale had such memorable chemistry together in Michael Curtiz’s “Santa Fe Trail” (1940) that the four of them were rounded up two years later for Raoul Walsh’s rousing WWII action/adventure set behind German lines. Shot down on a bombing run, Flynn, Reagan, Hale and Arthur Kennedy are captured by Massey’s Nazi Major who makes a career-mistake in thinking he can convince Reagan to give up secrets [great Reagan video]. What follows is a rollicking actioner very much in the spirit of “Gunga Din” with one of my all-time favorite closing lines delivered by Flynn with the gusto and panache that made him an immortal: “Now for Australia and a crack at those Japs!”

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3. Tomorrow is Forever (1946) – At first it’s easy to confuse this complicated look at a mother’s sacrifice as a soapy melodrama, even a gimmicky one, but that’s because the film doesn’t tell you what it’s really about until a very satisfying climax when the theme plays out fully and comes together. Claudette Colbert and Orson Welles are Elizabeth and John, just married and with their whole lives ahead of them. But it’s 1918, WWI rages and John goes off to do his duty. Alone with a young son, Elizabeth receives a telegram informing her John’s been killed in action. It takes years, but after some time she remarries and watches her boy grow into a man just as WWII begins. After losing her beloved first husband to one war, Elizabeth can’t bear the thought of losing her son to another. This changes when a visitor from war-torn Europe, who may or may not be a much older and nearly crippled John, helps her to understand that what’s at stake in this war is bigger than any mother’s love.

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4. Happy Land (1943) – A horrible title can’t diminish the emotional power of this 20th Century-Fox oddity – a mixture of “A Christmas Carol” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” — about Lew Marsh (Don Ameche-in his finest performance), a pharmacist living in picture-perfect small town America whose life is shattered after he loses his only son to WWII. The ghost of Gramps (the wonderful Harry Carey) snaps Lew out of a clinical depression by taking him on a tour of the past where Lew is allowed to discover things about his beloved son he never knew. This was a generous, selfless boy — a young man to be proud of and mature beyond his years who died for a higher cause he believed in.

“Happy Land” doesn’t simplify a father’s grief or pretend to have all the answers.  When the credits roll, Lew’s still devastated and even a bit bitter. We’ve only been allowed to see the beginning of  a healing process … and that this process will never end is made touchingly clear.

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5. The Fighting Seabees (1944) – One of John Wayne’s lesser known WWII-era films, and one that deserves better recognition. The seabees are C.B.’s as in “Construction Brigade Battalion.” These are the men who build the bridges and airstrips in battle zones. But once upon a time, according to the movie, they were unarmed civilians, not allowed to fight back and frequently picked off by enemy snipers. Enter Wedge Donovan (Wayne), the head of Donovan Construction, who has watched too many of his men die helplessly and so he sets out to allow them to become armed enlisted men – The Fighting Seebees.

What sets this apart from other Wayne films, besides the opportunity to witness Duke dance a jitterbug, is that Wayne plays the role he’s usually up against. Donovan is a not a wise, seasoned pro. He’s an immature hot head whose arrogance and stupidity ends up getting a lot of men killed. Seeing Wayne in this kind of role takes some getting used to, but it adds a memorable emotional stake to what could have been a rote programmer. Of course, Wayne’s character redeems himself – and it’s a spectacular redemption – but that’s all you’re getting from me.

The clip would be perfect had it ended at the 2:30 mark, but the scene still plays.

The film is Raoul Walsh’s “Desperate Journey” (1942), a patriotic actioner, a sort of “Gunga Din” behind German lines with a terrific cast and Reagan nearly stealing the show as the wiseacre up for any kind of adventure.

For a little context, the scene comes early in the film after Flynn and his flight crew are forced to crash land in Germany during the return flight from a bombing run. Captured immediately, they’re about to be trotted off to a prison camp when Massey’s Nazi Major makes the mistake of assuming he can cut a deal with the “American.” What follows is plenty of adventure as the boys make their way back to England using all means of transportation available, including Hermann Goering’s private rail car.

Max Steiner supplies the rousing score and the film’s final line, served up by Errol Flynn just as the coastline of England and safety comes into view, reminds that they just don’t make ‘em like this anymore: “Now for Australia and a crack at those Japs.”

The American Film Institute went a little list-crazy a few years back. Most of their surveys were fun and about the pure pleasure of movie watching (top 100 chills, quotes, songs, laughs… ), but 1999’s “100 Years…100 Stars” definitely caught my eye because it was less about fun, more about creating something defining and just that bad.

For starters, the list was a bit of a cheat. There weren’t 100 stars, there were 50; 25 men and 25 women. But in order to get to the number 100, the AFI counted the 50 stars and celebrities who acted as on-camera hosts and presenters. In other words, the television show produced around the list was more important than creating a serious, comprehensive list.

Then there’s the actual lists, both awful, most especially the men:

1. Humphrey Bogart
2. Cary Grant
3. James Stewart
4. Marlon Brando
5. Fred Astaire
6. Henry Fonda
7. Clark Gable
8. James Cagney
9. Spencer Tracy
10. Charlie Chaplin
11. Gary Cooper
12. Gregory Peck
13. John Wayne
14. Laurence Olivier
15. Gene Kelly
16. Orson Welles
17. Kirk Douglas
18. James Dean
19. Burt Lancaster
20. The Marx Brothers
21. Buster Keaton
22. Sidney Poitier
23. Robert Mitchum
24. Edward G. Robinson
25. William Holden

First reaction: John Wayne doesn’t make the top ten? And where the hell are Errol Flynn, Charlton Heston and Bob Hope? All three were nominated, didn’t make the final cut, and spotting who they could replace isn’t terribly difficult:

Sidney Poitier, a passable actor without much depth whose films, with a few notable exceptions, haven’t aged well. (Someone has to say it.)

James Dean, who starred in only three films!

Orson Welles, a giant of a director, a splendid actor, but a bigger on screen legend than Heston, Hope and Flynn? Please.

You get the idea… The list not only requires a more comprehensive approach but some everyday, down to earth, living in the real world, apolitical common sense, which the AFI wasn’t going to find in this herding of the usual suspects:

The list was selected by leaders from the American film community, including artists, historians, critics and other cultural leaders, all of whom have never set foot in a Wal-Mart and who chose from a list of 250 nominees in each gender category, as compiled by AFI historians.

Okay, I added the Wal-Mart part, but definitely a bunch of eggheads and leftist elitists, most of whom probably voted for John Wayne while holding their nose and then prayed to the red string around their wrist that no one would notice the absence of the “gun nut.”

So here’s the plan…

Every other day or so, counting backwards and starting with the fellas, Big Hollywood will post one of the Top 100 Screen Legends (50 men and 50 women) using the following AFI criteria:

AFI defines an “American screen legend” as an actor or a team of actors with a significant screen presence in American feature-length films whose screen debut occurred in or before 1950, or whose screen debut occurred after 1950 but whose death has marked a completed body of work.

The rules will be nudged just a bit to include those over the age of 75, because any list with the words “greatest” and “movie star” is automatically ridiculous without Gene Hackman.

Along with the name of the star will be a list of their five best films because after two years of Top 5 posts the idea-well’s gone dry and this buys me a few months.

And after we’re done with the boys, we’ll move in on the ladies … so to speak.

The list is still in the development stage. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

To try and explain away the fact that the true movie star is fast becoming extinct, a few apologists over the years have tossed out the excuse that there’s no way today’s celebrities, er, uhm, actors can compete with their historical counterparts because color, unlike black and white, makes them too human and thus brings them down to earth. It would be foolish to completely dismiss that idea, but not as foolish as raising it before, oh, say, a lack of presence, talent, and most of all, class. Of course, if you’re determined to hold that position you must also believe that putting Ashton and the Jessica-of-the-day in a good noir film would change everything.

Well, here they are, ten of the most beautiful movie stars ever bestowed on us “brought down to earth” by color. You be the judge.

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For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) – Color, no color, if Ingrid Bergman asked me “where the noses go” I’d pass out from the vapors. It might have been producer David O. Selznick going for publicity, but he said Bergman’s skin was so perfect she didn’t need make-up for the camera. If you know anything different, keep it to yourself, I prefer the legend.

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Dodge City (1939) – Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn on screen together, especially in color, is about as beautiful a sight as you’ll ever see. Director Michael Curtiz (who helmed Flynn’s best films) stages this scene perfectly. He makes us wait for the close-ups, making those ten seconds after 1:27 really hit home. Now we’re all in love right along with our lead characters.

Believe it or not, there’s an even better close-up of de Havilland earlier in the film. One of the greatest ever, but it’s not on YouTube.

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The Quiet Man (1952) – Tell me again how John Wayne can’t act. No, really do, because I don’t believe for a second that he’s now so deeply in love with Maureen O’Hara she has the power to ruin him like Ava did Frank. And Maureen O’Hara in color? Completely ordinary.

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Rear Window (1954) – What was it about the Classic Hollywood in-and-out-of-focus close up that worked so well? Maybe it was Grace Kelly.

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Blood and Sand (1941) – The angel at 1:18 making you want to get to work on that time machine is Linda Darnell. Rita Hayworth is in the film, as well. The movie’s not very good, but the stars keep me coming back.

Even when “brought down to earth” in color.