The reports and books that were timed with Reagan’s 100th birthday last February tended to mention the Hollywood years as a mere afterthought. Moreover, most Reagan biographers typically focus on the more well-known movies such as “Kings Row and “Knute Rockne.”

But there are several films worth revisiting that have gone largely unheralded. At a time when Reagan has earned high marks from historians and academics for his time in office, the caricature of him as just a B actor persists. But Reagan’s uncommon human touch and affable
personality are on full display in films that are worth revisiting.

Furthermore, his conversion from New Deal liberalism over to Goldwater conservatism is directly tied in with Reagan’s Hollywood years. And, as Gorbachev learned during their summit meetings, Reagan could be a tenacious, shrew negotiator; a skill that can be traced back to his time as head of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) union.

The steel behind the congenial smile was forged during some of the more intense altercations with Hollywood communists intent on taking over the union and organizing the film industry. “Thugs” attached to the “red-dominated” Conference of Studio Unions were significant players here, Kengor informs readers in his book. They went after Reagan personally and even threatened to throw acid on his face. Reagan began to carry a gun for his own personal safety and did not give any quarter.

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After a heated exchanged opened the 1985 Geneva Summit, Ronald Reagan suggested to Mikhail Gorbachev that the two leaders take a break and walk together along a nearby lake. Even in this informal setting, Reagan’s unyielding support for the SDI initiative remained a major sticking point. But the conversation assumed a more congenial tone when Gorbachev began to ask Reagan about the president’s movie career.

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.

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I highly recommend the documentary “His Way” as a testament to one man’s persistence, the value of being optimistic and looking for opportunities when others see problems. In covering a man, Jerry Weintraub, for whom the Bush family helped end anti-Semitic policies at many Kennebunkport, Maine establishments in the 1960s and who counted both Ronald Reagan and Armand Hammer as friends, Douglas McGrath directed one of this past year’s best biographical documentaries.

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In these trying times, this story of one man’s unrelenting efforts to succeed can serve as an inspiration to many. I know “His Way” inspired me. After learning how Jerry cold-called Elvis Presley’s Manager, Colonel Tom Parker, every day for an entire year for the right to take Elvis on tour (for the first time in nearly a decade), I decided to roll the dice and take my own film out on the road to build an audience. Concluding our interview with Douglas McGrath, director of the documentary “His Way,” we talked about more of the film, including the amazing segments on Weintraub’s experiences with Elvis Presley and Colonel Tom Parker and Frank Sinatra.

KW: How did you go about choosing which stories or chapters to cover or not cover from the book?

DM: Well, I didn’t do it that way. I didn’t think of them in terms of chapters. I just thought of them in terms of stories. But, I knew we’d have ninety minutes, an hour and forty-five maybe at most and I just thought, there’s no way to go through everything. I just thought “I’m going to ask about all the stuff I liked the best and the things that were really the big tent poles of his life.” So, I thought I’d better go with the things that really tell us, without repeating it, what his magic was. And the Elvis story is emblematic of his whole career, you know, that tells you how he started with nothing, he persisted. He won the contract, so to speak, the right to take him. He almost blew it. When you think of 20th Century entertainment, particularly musical entertainment and particularly male musical entertainment — you know, you have Elvis and you have Sinatra. Those guys are the big tent poles in that story. (more…)

“You can tell a lot about a fella’s character by whether he picks out all of one color or just grabs a handful.” ~ Ronald Reagan explaining why he liked to have a jar of jelly beans on hand for important meetings.

Our mission at BigDawg Music Mafia is to unite and encourage conservatives with creative abilities to get engaged in the culture revolution – to promote American exceptionalism through the arts.  While many of us are using our talents to draw attention to the destruction of liberty by the current administration and those on the far left, there are times when we can use our creativity to bridge that partisan divide, even if only in a light-hearted way. This was one of those times.

Taking a cue from Senators Harry Reid and Chris Dodd who recently visited the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s grave site to channel his bipartisan spirit by pouring whiskey on his grave and reciting a prayer in hopes the Super Committee would reach an agreement on the budget cuts, BigDawg Music Mafia decided to answer their call for bipartisanship in a mission we dubbed “Operation Jelly Bean.”

YouTube Operation Jelly Bean

Having heard radio’s Rush Limbaugh talk about the Super Committee’s failed attempt to reach an agreement and how the two Senators contributed to the process by their visit with Kennedy; and having heard the challenge Limbaugh posed to one of his callers to visit Kennedy’s grave site on his behalf, BigDawg Music Mafia Co-Founder, Andrew (a.k.a. BigDawg) convinced me we needed to take that challenge since the caller indicated she was not local.  My friend Reese and I, however, are.

Here’s what Rush asked of one of his callers:

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TV talker Regis Philbin isn’t as politically chatty as, say, Sean Penn or Tim Robbins. But Philbin opens up about one particular politician in his new book, “How I Got This Way.”

Seems a future politician named Ronald Reagan made quite an impression on Philbin. The former “Live! With Regis and Kelly” star devotes 12 pages in his new book to the conservative icon.

Philbin was hosting a live post-news talk show at the time – 1962 – and he was hungry for guests. So when he learned that the star of “Knute Rockne All American” was available, the affable Philbin jumped at the chance to book him.

The two talked a little about life in general and sports in particular given Reagan’s background as both an athlete and sports broadcaster. They avoided politics all together.

“It was unthinkable back then that he would go on to become the governor of California and, eventually, the president of the United States!” Philbin writes in his typically breathless style.

The talk show host recalls the reaction Reagan had on not just him but the studio audience.

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At FreedomFest this July, Reason’s Matt Welch spoke with Marc Eliot, author of Reagan: The Hollywood Years. The book chronicles Ronald Reagan’s journey from sportscaster to actor to union president to politician.

Unlike critics who make sport of Reagan’s Hollywood output (Bedtime for Bonzo, anyone?), Eliot documents how backlot politics helped transform the once-proud “New Deal Democrat” into the embodiment of Goldwater conservatism. His tenure as head of the Screen Actors Guild was punctuated by episodes such as the time when he received death threats by one of Al Capone’s henchmen over a union dispute and his starring role in the negotiations that led to actors receiving residuals. And while Reagan’s film career ultimately petered out, he was for a time among the highest-paid contract actors of his day.

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Click here for Part 1 on Ben Shapiro’s Primetime Propaganda, here for Part 2 on Roger L. Simon’s Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine, here for part 3 on David Mamet’s The Secret Knowledge, and here for part 4 on Breitbart’s righteous Gen-X indignation.

Generation Y’s great filmmakers have not yet arrived. And don’t expect too many of them.

William Strauss and Neil Howe argue in their fourth book of generational theory, Millennials Rising, that the babies born from 1982 through 2003 are part of a “Civic” generation. This is the same as the GI Generation (the accurately named “Greatest Generation”) born from 1901-1924 who went through World War II as young adults.

The Greatest provided us with many cinematic giants but none made a deeper footprint on the 20^th century than Walt Disney. The Disney Effect came not just in the artistry of his films but his technological innovations and capitalist ventures. He constructed a billion-dollar corporation which has changed our lives. That’s what leaders of Civic generations do: build transformative institutions.

The Millennial Generation has already seen our Walt Disney emerge and release his equivalent of “Steamboat Willie.” It’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Facebook is only the primitive beginning of what he’ll build in the coming decades. Today because of our saturation in cartoons we fail to appreciate how groundbreaking “Steamboat Willie” and “Snow White” were to a world that had never seen such creatures. And so it shall go with Facebook in a few decades’ time.

Narrative films and television programs were America’s unifying, transformative cultural experience of the 20^th century. Computers, the internet, and technology are their equivalent for the 21^st. (more…)

Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.

In many popular narratives of the period, it was the Baby Boomers (born 1943-1960) who “ruined” the movies. Here’s the pretentious film snob summary of the death of Hollywood’s alleged second Golden Age, as popularized by Peter Biskind. The seventies were filled with bold, dark art and transgressive intellectualism. Then the greedy Baby Boomers – like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas – made “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “E.T.” All of a sudden Hollywood did not want to make serious, grown-up pictures. Now it was the age of blockbusters so simple that 3-year-olds can summarize them.

It was the 1980s when Boomer Blockbuster filmmaking would arrive in the event pictures of Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson. We see this tendency further in the films of arch-Boomers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. For a definition of Boomer cinema just look at the output of their company Imagine Entertainment. These aren’t the New Wave-influenced pictures of Roger L. Simon’s generation.

It was the Boomers who also gave us our most strident and simpleminded cinematic leftists: Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, and Michael Moore. Think about these three careers. Over the past 30 years have any of them shifted an inch in their political thinking? Of course not and neither have most Boomers who are still arguing over sex, race, and the Vietnam War as though it were still 1975. (more…)

Anyone who thinks conservatives can’t rock it out has clearly not come across Jeremy Dodge – a conservative activist with attitude and an abundance of talent.  When Jeremy first joined BigDawg Music Mafia and shared his Tea Party hit I Am American and Stand Up, the fans couldn’t get enough.  The demand from fans for more has Jeremy back in the studio as we “speak” working on some new songs which will, no doubt, be every bit as kickin’ as his others.

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As with the majority of the conservative artists in the Tea Party movement, Jeremy has been traveling around the country performing on his own dime and as many fellow musicians know, studio time costs a pretty penny.  Jeremy has set up a project page where fans can participate in the production of his new songs by helping defray some of his costs, getting a few “thank you” goodies in return, and even a shout-out in his video.

Here’s what Jeremy has to say about how he got started in music and how he ended up using his talents to wake his fellow Americans up:

Sarah Palin is a thorn in the flesh of leftists. Although they hurl their best invectives at her, and go through her emails, and make fun of her son Trig, and mock the fact that she went to college in flyover country, she still emerges as “The Undefeated” and they come out looking  (and sounding) like a group of embittered sorority girls.

That’s why every failed attack on her is simply followed by another more direct and more ruthless one, all of which are aimed at accomplishing what none has yet been able to accomplish: eliminating Palin as a viable political force.

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The latest attack is an anti-Palin propaganda film by British filmmaker Nick Broomfield. It’s a film that “promises to deliver the goods by FINALLY revealing the ‘truth’ about Sarah Palin.” (Broomfield’s plan to deliver “the goods” resides at least partially in the fact that former Alaska politicians and aides, who worked with and/or for Gov. Palin, are interviewed in the film.)

For example, John Bitney, Gov. Palin’s Legislative Director, shows up on camera to talk about how he spent so much time making excuses for the way Palin would sit at the table but remain “very unengaged in the conversation” with lawmakers. Said Bitney, “I would have to go around [after the meeting] and, you know, [say,] ‘there, there, she was really listening.’”

Is that it? Is that Broomfield’s dirt? People said the exact same things about President Ronald Reagan and he went on to defeat the Soviet Union and win the Cold War.

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I’ve written several articles skewering HBO for producing political projects destined to air immediately prior to the 2012 election, where the vast majority of the cast and crew are passionate Barack Obama supporters, and where the content is aimed at the Democrat’s two favorite Republican villains: Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney. So, when I sat down to watch HBO’s Too Big to Fail, I prepared myself for the worst. What I didn’t expect was the big surprise awaiting me.

Too Big to Fail, which premieres on HBO on May 23, 2011, features a star studded cast recounting the events that led to the financial crisis and bailouts by the U.S. government in 2008. It is a mini-series packed into a 98-minute made-for-television movie where several essential characters are quickly introduced and where finance and economics are casually discussed. It may help if one has a baseline of knowledge about the crisis before watching the movie. If one doesn’t know who Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner are or what Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and AIG are, it may prove slightly difficult to follow.

Although the Director, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile), was limited to telling a very long and complicated story in a very short amount of time, he was able to skillfully pull it off. Perhaps this is because the screenwriter, Peter Gould (Breaking Bad), deftly adapted Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 prize winning New York Times Bestseller, Too Big to Fail. (more…)

One of the touchstone traits of manliness is that the true man is what he seems.  There is no deceit about him: no hidden agendas, no artificial props, no “image” or “cover” designed to suit the public’s imagined wants and hide the actual man’s real character.  It is undeniable that such an uncalculated manliness often offends: in its lack of political correctness and its plainspoken confidence.  “Why does he always think he is so right?  Hasn’t he read the latest opinion poll?”  We used to call this manly virtue integrity: literally, of being whole and undivided, of being the same throughout.  What you see is what you get.  Integrity enables another virtue: frankness or candor, that is, saying what you believe and is on your mind without dissimulation or contrivance.  For this reason one of the Founding Fathers’ most lauded virtues was candor.  After all, these great men proclaimed their Independence by submitting facts to a “candid world.”  This virtue of integrity, which now goes by the opaque moniker “transparency,” was better understood in the age of the Western hero.  The characters played by John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and, for that matter, Ronald Reagan, did not say much.  But what they said they meant, and they would back up what they said with their very lives.

But we do not live in the age of the Western.  Those of us in our thirties and forties grew up in the age of the action hero.  The action hero is the figure who does not do the merely human things well but performs superhuman deeds that defy the imagination.  He does not simply draw a gun faster than another man.  Instead, he races through explosions on a motorcycle and dives out of planes without a parachute and yet invariably emerges from the ruins unscathed.  Of course, the action hero has half a dozen stunt doubles and computer graphics and millions invested in the movie to pull it all off.  But it’s all worth it: for the illusion, for the moment of suspended disbelief.  When you meet the actual man who plays the part, though, you find him pretty underwhelming.  (more…)

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And on the way down here I drove and I heard about this guy in Wisconsin, his name was Walker and apparently he wanted to stop collective bargaining. That’s supposed to balance the budget. That’s the magic bullet. So you’ve got [Republican Governor] LePage in Maine, Walker in Wisconsin, you got [Republican Governor] Scott in Florida. It’s Larry, Curly and Moe. That’s what we got right here.

Now you might say, what are you doing up there? Aren’t you rich? The answer is: thank God, yes. Because I grew up poor. I lived in a family where my mother asked donated commodities from a Republican administration and got turned down. That’s where I came from. And you know what, as a rich person I pay 28% tax. What I want to ask you is why am I not paying fifty? Why isn’t anybody in my bracket paying fifty? …

Because [politicians opposed to raising taxes] come from the party of Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator, who one year put down on his taxes that he gave $10,000 to charity. Well, my wife and I … we try to make up the difference, the shortfall, that 22% we don’t pay, by giving it away. But you know what, I haven’t seen a lot of that going around.

Doesn’t Stephen King kind of answer his own question here? Yes, his elitist, holier-than-thou and arrogantly mistaken belief that a whole lot of people in the most charitable country in the world aren’t as charitable as he is, is off-putting in the extreme. But that he’s able to give that 22% of his income not swallowed up by the blackhole of the government directly to the causes he believes in is a beautiful thing. This is exactly why raising taxes is a terrible idea. Regardless of what people do with their money, whatever they do with it is better for this economy than what the government does with it. Obama’s failed stimulus settled that argument, especially when you compare the results of that to the roaring economy that resulted from Reagan’s huge tax cuts.

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This is the most recent installment of exclusive interviews with Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College, on his book revealing how communists, from Moscow to New York to Chicago, have long manipulated America’s liberals/progressives. Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century is based on an unprecedented volume of declassified materials from Soviet archives, FBI files, and more.

Big Peace: Professor Kengor, Hollywood is celebrating its Academy Awards, a look back at great actors and actresses and films.

Kengor: For me, it’s a moment to look back at Hollywood’s worst communists, communist sympathizers, Stalinists, and duped liberals and progressives—as well as the good guys (and gals) that fit none of those categories.

Big Peace: Fair enough. This should be fun. Let’s start with communists.

Charlie Chaplin comment, “Thank God for
communism!” will make you see (him) red.

Kengor: How about the Hollywood screenwriters who liberals still insist were innocent lambs? Dalton Trumbo, Communist Party code “Dalt T;” Albert Maltz, party no. 47196; Alvah Bessie, no. 46836; John Howard Lawson, no. 47275. Or, if you turn to page 191 of my book—if you don’t have a copy yet, shame on you—you can view Arthur Miller’s party application. Miller wrote The Crucible, about how Joe McCarthy pursued “liberals” unfairly suspected of being communists—“liberals” like Miller, Trumbo, Maltz, Bessie, Lawson.

Big Peace: As you say in Dupes, Hollywood produced “quite a cast.” Let’s narrow the focus to the Academy Awards. (more…)

President Ronald Reagan saw America as a special place, a shining city on a hill, and a beacon of freedom for the rest of the world. As 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of his birthday, celebrate the life that he led, the principles by which he lived, and the accomplishments that he achieved by purchasing Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich.

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Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny is a feature length documentary that focuses on the three pillars of the Reagan presidency: reviving the American economy, restoring America’s spirit, and challenging the oppression of the Soviet Union. Through interviews with historians, cabinet members, and world leaders, the film examines and celebrates the Great Communicator and his legacy.

Featuring exclusive interviews with former Presidents Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and Lech Walesa of Poland, along with Reagan Cabinet and staff members including James Baker, Edwin Meese, Marlin Fitzwater, Richard Perle, William Bennett, and the late Jack Kemp, Rendezvous With Destiny is President Reagan’s story as told by the people who were with him on the front lines of the Reagan Revolution.

Citizens United Productions traveled across the United States and to historic locations in Europe to capture the sights and sounds that defined Ronald Reagan’s presidency. You’ll see exclusive interviews and footage of President Reagan’s greatest speeches, from his unforgettable “Tear Down This Wall” in Berlin, to the moving “Boys of Pointe Du Hoc” in France, to his stirring farewell address from the Oval Office. Shooting on location in four countries, Rendezvous With Destiny goes to unprecedented lengths to tell the remarkable tale of Ronald Reagan’s life.

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Hollywood elites and members of the upper echelon of political life have long been fascinated by the comings and goings of the Kennedy family.  In what is nothing less than an obsession, America’s “Camelot” has been a chink in the armor of many who take part in human rights’ campaigns and demand that rich people spread their wealth around, all the while remaining completely consumed with a family that demonstrated little respect for the rights of women and modeled the benefits of accumulating wealth and power.

On the other hand, Hollywood elites and members of the upper echelon of political life have long been embarrassed by President Ronald Reagan. Far from giving America another “Camelot,” he was born into a relatively poor family, and while children like those in the Kennedy family were learning which utensil to use for the various courses of their meals, a young Reagan was learning to go out into the snow and literally drag his drunk father into the house to keep him from freezing to death on a winter night.

The contrast between the Kennedy’s and Reagan was as great as that between upper white collar and lower blue collar: between a Fortune 500 executive and a brick layer. And with choices like that, elites threw their allegiance to the family (and experience) they’d most like to duplicate.

This was recently brought to mind with a vengeance when the History Channel refused to air an eight-part miniseries on the Kennedy’s, because it cast them in a bad light, but didn’t hesitate to air a special on Reagan that undercut his economic achievements as president. (To be fair, no History Channel representative said the series cast the Kennedy’s in a bad light, but that they pulled it from their lineup because of “pressure from the Kennedy’s over its depiction of the political family.”)

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Yesterday, after watching a number of college basketball games, I decided to put on the classic Frank Capra film, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”  I had not seen it in about 15 years and had forgotten most of its content.  I did remember that I loved the movie and felt it was one of the most important ever made dealing with politics and patriotism.  Well, my memory served me correctly!

“Mr. Smith” is not only one of the greatest films ever made, but it also shows the love that Mr. Capra had for his adopted country.  For those of you that do not know, Frank Capra was an Italian immigrant.  He came to this country with his family as a young man and somehow ended up in Los Angeles during the early years of the motion picture industry.  He started in silent films as basically a gopher and eventually became one of the top five directors of the Golden Age of Motion Pictures.  Some would even argue today that he is one of the top five directors of all time.

In addition to “Mr. Smith,” Capra is also responsible for some of the great motion pictures of all time.  Among them are “It Happened One Night,” “Meet John Doe,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “You Can’t Take it With You,” and, of course, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  From 1933 to 1946, Capra was nominated for six Academy Awards for Best Director and won three.  “It Happened One Night” was the first movie to sweep the Oscars in all five major categories.  This did not happen again until “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest” in 1975.  It has only happened once since. (more…)

Image Entertainment and Enduring Freedom Productions have released a new documentary for the 100th anniversary of statesman Ronald Reagan’s birth. “Ronald Reagan: An American Journey” is an inspiring and heartfelt look at who President Reagan was, and at the instances that made his legacy eternal. The film is packed with archival footage of Reagan at his best, capturing those transcendent moments in his presidency that made him great and keep him relevant today.

In 103 minutes, this documentary gives Americans, especially young ones like me who know little of Reagan’s presidency, a complete summary of the historic highlights of Reagan’s eight years in office within its national and international context. The film doesn’t shy away from mistakes Reagan may have made. It isn’t overly worshiping. It simply presents Reagan in his own words, honoring a man who changed the world.

The film begins by putting Reagan’s presidency in its historical setting: a nation pulled apart by warring liberals and conservatives; where Vietnam savagely cut America in two, Nixon’s Watergate had tarnished the GOP, and Carter’s foreign policy had left Democrats looking weak. Reagan brought the nation together by giving Americans a mission: to defeat a true opponent – the U.S.S.R. (more…)

Ronald Reagan’s ideas and lasting accomplishments launched decades of unprecedented prosperity and advanced freedom worldwide. Young America’s Foundation understands that today, our country needs Ronald Reagan’s ideas and his vision more than ever. This is why we’re committed to utilizing the Reagan Ranch, which we stepped forward to save almost 13 years ago, to inspire future generations through this great man’s example.

Last year, with the 100^th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth approaching, we set out to create a film that captures of the essence of why the Reagan Ranch is important–not just as a historic site, but as a place that reflects the character and ideas of Ronald Reagan. We needed a film that connected Ronald Reagan’s timeless principles to the Ranch in a way that looked forward to the challenges we face today, not simply back on Ronald Reagan successes of the 1980s.

And so we went to the person who created one of the best feature-length Reagan documentaries to date – In the Face of Evil, based on Peter Schweizer’s fantastic book, Reagan’s War. That is a film that has the power, conviction and artistry that we knew was needed capture the majestic beauty of the Reagan Ranch and the powerful lessons it holds. The man for our film was Stephen K. Bannon. (more…)

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the late great President Ronald Reagan’s birthday, so it’s fitting that this year a biopic on his life, titled “Reagan,” will begin filming. Mark Joseph, founder of multi-media company MJM Entertainment Group and the film’s producer gave me an update on the film’s progress this week.

The first draft of the script is done, Joseph said. “I wanted the film to highlight both who Reagan was as a boy, as a man, as well as what his mission in life was, which was to roll back communism and the Soviet Union.” As those following this project know, he’s doing that with the help of two books optioned from professor and biographer Paul Kengor, God and Ronald Reagan and The Crusader.

“Ultimately people are going to the movies to see somebody’s story,” Joseph said. “The first book (God and Ronald Reagan) provides insight into who Reagan was. The second (The Crusader) is, frankly, it’s intrigue. It’s what’s going on behind the scenes – who is he working with to make his vision happen.” 

Having read The Crusader, I’ll verify that it’s Cold War intrigue through and through. In addition to the books and input from Kengor himself, Joseph said that he and screenwriter Jonas McCord have been consulting with Reagan contemporaries like Ed Meese and George Schultz.

Joseph followed his own unique path to becoming the film’s producer. “I think I kept waiting for somebody else to do it and when nobody did I guess I decided I should,” he said. It started when he got a speeding ticket while driving from Chicago to St. Louis. The ticket required a court appearance in Dixon, Illinois, Reagan’s hometown. Being in the town touched him. “About six months later is when I optioned the film rights to the books,” he said. (more…)