Red Time For Bonzo: A Marxist-Reaganist Film Podcast (Ronald Reagan Filmography)

After a long winter’s recording layoff, the Red Time For Bonzo crew reassembles to discuss Hell’s Kitchen, a Warner Dead End Kids programmer powered by the studio’s characteristic Late New Deal fervor. The Gipper doesn’t have a whole lot to do in this remake of 1933’s The Mayor of Hell, but he once again finds himself playing a mediating role as the collegiate consiglieri to gangster-cum-reformer Stanley Fields. Scripted by correctional connoisseur Crane Wilbur, the film traces folk hero gangster throwback Buck Caesar’s efforts to bring the light of democracy and economic justice to the benighted boy-residents of a fascistic Father Flanagan-style charity workhouse.  Along the way, we get some bravura mugging from daemonic delinquents Leo Gorcey, Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan (et al); a little perfunctory romance between Reagan and Margaret Lindsay; some stirring speeches about the country’s destiny now that Republican nihilism has been thoroughly overcome; and some Simon Legree level villainy from stuffed shirted white collar criminal Grant Mitchell (whose agonizing pup poaching scene will leave lesions on your heart). Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale

Based on John Patrick’s popular 1945 play, The Hasty Heart became a smash screen hit four years later – taking an already-Cold-War-weary public back to the waning days of a marginally less cynical conflict. Our characters are convalescing British Empire conscripts at a MASH unit in Burma – along with one gruff, pragmatic “Yank” (Reagan, dusting off his Brother Rat roommate persona). All of the acting accolades went to Richard Todd, as a singularly standoffish Scot, who refuses to reveal what’s under his kilt, but shows his ass anytime anyone tries to speak to him. Only one member of our panel found the film (which takes a pretty unique approach to the “days are numbered” drama) particularly affecting, but everyone had something to say about it. The Gipper once again offers top-notch support to a star who is doing more of the obvious heavy lifting, effortlessly embodying the audience’s changing perspective on the damaged young man at the heart of the tale. The film displays the 1949 version of a “woke” attitude toward a Basuto soldier who is just part of the gang – but never gets a chance to speak (his lack of English becomes a key plot point toward the end). Nigerian actor Orlando Martins does what he can with the role, but the persistence of white supremacist attitudes in this undeniably “progressive” movie are agonizingly apparent.   On the other hand, the story absolutely leans into (and allows itself to depend upon) an insanely retrograde notion of Scottish national character as some unholy combination of the worst aspects of Scrooge McDuck, John Knox, and James Doohan’s Star Trek accent. It’s pretty close to miraculous that Todd was able to wring so much pathos out of such an inadequately conceived character. Of course, his jubilant post-conversion outburst against the world capitalist order went a long way with us.    Recorded in September 2018, on the eve of another grotesque municipal election in Toronto. Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale

The Gipper’s fourth and final supporting appearance in a Dick Powell buffoon-and-crooner finds Reagan headed in the wrong direction down the cast list. To be fair, it’s quite an assemblage, with Ann Sheridan, Helen Broderick, Allen Jenkins, ZaSu Pitts, Gale Page, Granville Bates, William B. Davidson, “Slapsie Maxie” Rosenbloom, and Quarter-Million-Dollar-Moustache-Man Jerry Colonna hoovering up most of the comedic oxygen. The film also benefits from a set of mildly diverting novelty tunes by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer (including the immortal “Hooray For Spinach”). Less of an asset is a Wald and Macaulay script afflicted by an excess of insistent tics. Every single character – with the possible exception of Reagan’s small-time music publisher – has some dementedly distinctive hitch in their palaver. Fans of Gareth’s theory of Reagan-as-mediating figure will find a great deal of support for the contention in this one, wherein the actor practically evaporates into the ether. And the big plagiarism plot provides a fine pretext for some spirited intellectual property law anathematizing. Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale

The Gipper’s slow segue out of the Warner fold began with this tone-setting suburban sitcom for Universal-International. Part of his new sometime-studio’s “Big Push” at the dawn of  the television decade, Louisa shows how easily Reagan might have stepped into a Father Knows Best/My Three Sons-style second career. If only he had done so, American (and Canadian) marginal tax rates might still be at 70%. As usual (and as per Gareth’s thesis), Reagan mainly holds down the stage for the benefit of his co-stars, occupying a crucially colorless space between the coming and the going generations. The latter group includes Spring Byington (in the title role), Edmund Gwenn and Charles Coburn - reworking their love-triangle dynamics from the immortal Devil and Miss Jones. At the other end of the scale, we find debuting Piper Laurie, tragic Scotty Beckett, and little Jimmy Hunt with his big radio. The film runs a brilliant reverse-play on the viewer, feinting toward some kind of a send-up of senior citizen sexuality and then delivering those second-chance-at-life intensities surprisingly straight. It all starts on a sidewalk outside Gwenn’s gourmet grocery shop, with a conversation about the loneliness of twilight. Along the way, we get some pretty decent dissection of masculinity at every age and stage of that particular disease (speaking of which – get ready for some rough revelations about Dutch's post-divorce relapse into “Leading Lady-itis”).            Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale           

It’s the return of Brass Bancroft! (In Reagan’s own least favorite of his films.) This episode was recorded on August 27th, 2018, with your humble panel suffering through the embarrassing Ballet McCainique that had a stranglehold on the American media that week. After venting our collective spleens on that particular topic, we turn our attention to the film at hand – also kind of an embarrassment to Warner’s vaunted Foy unit. They fell down on the job here. In The Films of Ronald Reagan, Tony Thomas contends that both Foy and his star asked the studio not to release it. They compromised by releasing it everywhere except in Los Angeles. A better compromise might’ve been to rework it a little – but, hey, whaddya want? They made these movies in 7 days! We nevertheless found much to discuss. Lacking anything like a compelling story to distract us, we zero in on the Reagan persona – a unique synthesis of sharpie and naïf. This American character type goes back to Mark Twain (at least), and several Hollywood stars (notably Gary Cooper) walked a tightrope between squint-eyed shrewdness and man-childishness; but can you think of any other actor so ideally fitted to playing a press agent or a scout leader? (He wound up playing both at the same time – for 8 miserable years during the 1980s).      Other pleasures (or, at least, puzzlers) on offer include: Moroni Olsen as a singularly psychopathic counterfeit-monk/counterfeiter; sidekick Gabby’s bizarre strip poker antics with the Mexican police (for all you Foy Jr. fetishists); the luminous Rosella Towne in her second straight Bancroft film (playing an entirely different character); and an unexpected cameo from Paul Muni. Sadly, John Litel had moved on to playing Nancy Drew’s dad at this point, and his replacement makes a damned second-rate Saxby (fortunately, Litel will return for 1940’s Murder in the Air).      Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale

It's Ginger Rogers, Doris Day, and the Gipper himself against the all-corrupting power of the Klan! If you listen to one episode of Red Time For Bonzo in 2019, this is the one! Also discussed: the then-impending death of John McCain (we recorded this in August 2018), the miserable life of actor Steve Cochran, the coal-fired crocodile tears of Michael Barbaro, and the ideological barrenness of anti-corruption politics.  Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale

Join a radically divided panel as they discuss and dissect the biggest film Ronald Reagan made during "Hollywood's Golden Year" of 1939 - Dark Victory. Is this a prime example of "Prestige""/"Too-Extra-By-Half""/"Middlebrow"/"White Elephant" filmmaking?  Or is it a gossamer haymaker born of the nearly miraculous fusion of Edmund Goulding's auteurist preoccupations and Bette Davis' acteurist ambitions? Are we to interpret Judith Traherne's autumnal days in "that pinched up little state on the wrong side of Boston" as evidence of a sad capitulation to heteronormativity? Or as an Emersonian triumph of open-air gladness to the brink of fear?  One thing we did agree on is the Gipper's "epicene" effectiveness in the role of "funny old Alec", despite the moral majority darling's latter-day disdain for his own performance. What's your prognosis? Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale

Received as an innocuous time-waster on first release, Bedtime For Bonzo later blossomed into the go-to "President Cheeto"-style resistance pseudo-witticism of the '80s. However, from your panel's point of view, this film furnishes nigh-inexhaustible avenues of inquiry into mid-20th Century American modalities and myths.   Join us as we delve into/debate the semantic availability of proto-animal rights discourse in 1950 (alongside the monstrous treatment of animal actors themselves), the reconstitution/invention of the nuclear family in post-World War II suburbia, the amorphous language of populist protest, the figure of the “Egghead”, the ever-present threat of eugenicide, the New Model Moguldom of MCA/Universal maestro Lew Wasserman, and the defensibility of human species exceptionalism itself.   Also: Romy urges the team to pin down the Gipper’s sexual persona; Gareth finds ample support for his Reagan-as-mediating-figure thesis; and Dave celebrates the career of Walter Slezak. Everyone loves Diana Lynn (some a little more passionately than others).   We didn’t even come close to completing our analysis of this Reaganite Rosetta Stone, so look for a sequel in 2019!         Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   "Driving Reagan theme' by Gareth Hedges

This week, we find the Gipper embarking upon his self-described "Errol Flynn of the Bs" period with the first of 4 "Brass Bancroft" not-so-extra-vaganzas. Loosely based on "material compiled" from the memoranda of ex-Secret Service honcho W.H. Moran (a close second in sexiness to Admiral Chester Nimitz), the films deliver a nice little wallop on behalf of the New Deal Deep State.   This unassuming programmer comes out swinging with a scene of callous criminality that's sure to shock even the most jaded connoisseur of contemporary borderland psychosis. The rest of the film doesn't quite live up to its demented overture, but it zips along at a nice clip (at least when Little Foy Lost Eddie Jr.'s limp clowning isn't center stage) and it certainly marked a step up in the studio standings for its aspiring star.   The film also features the brilliant James Stephenson in a sinister supporting role, Ila Rhodes as the fungible fiancee, Rosella Towne as a rather more interesting trysting partner, and the immortal John Litel as... Saxby!    Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   "Driving Reagan theme' by Gareth Hedges

The Last Outpost aka Cavalry Charge is the quintessential (although certainly not the best) "Civil War Western", a staple mid-century genre which performed yeoman ideological work on a pair of dubious fronts: 1. Doubling down (often literally, by offering up equally likable brothers on either side of the conflict) on the "revisionist" take on the "War Between The States" that dominated the historiography from the 1920s into the early 1960s; and 2. painting the "unsettled" western frontier as the staging ground for a post-bellum American "reunification" through genocidal race war against the region's rightful inhabitants.   The Gipper delivers a terrific performance as Capt. Vance Britten, a character whose psychological underpinnings are so vile that they cannot even be acknowledged by the film. He's a dashing Baltimorean who has crossed over to the Rebels as "a matter of principle". What principle? Well, it's not defending his state, obviously, since Maryland remained within the Union. Guess what that leaves? You have to guess, because this screenplay doesn't come anywhere near mentioning slavery. It does, however, wear its white supremacist heart on its blue and gray sleeves when it fabricates a ridiculous pretext (out of whole cloth) for a temporary North/South alliance against righteously enraged Apache warriors.   This is our earliest Pine-Thomas Reagan, and here we find the original template for the now-famous Fruit Company Gunboat Charge which furnished the climax of Tropic Zone. And it's our last chance to see friend of the show Rhonda Fleming.    Pretty much forgotten (and nigh impossible to find) today, this movie was a big hit for Paramount in 1951, and was so fondly remembered that it was mustered out of mothballs ten years later in an effort to capitalize upon the Civil War's centenary. Enjoy!      Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   "Driving Reagan theme' by Gareth Hedges

This time on the podcast, journey back to August 2018, when your faithful panelists projected their hopes and fears onto the post-Midterm landscape. After 38 minutes' worth of our deathless political prognostication, journey back even further to yet another lackluster late-1930s Dick Powell film. Ol' Dick must have considered the Gipper a jinx - most of his non-Reagan films are so much better (at least Dave thinks so - Gareth and Romy were far more favorably disposed toward Going Places). Everyone did agree on one thing: Louis Armstrong dominates the proceedings and naturally generated the lion's share of the discussion.   We also found a little time to delve into William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan Productions (which was roosting at Warner Brothers by 1938) and reflect back on that miserable magnate's malign militarism (inspired by a little Maine-based "fake news" gloat planted in this film). Also discussed: the star-crossed life of that "Dirty Little Rat Nunheim" (Harold Huber), Ladies Love Cool (Allen) Jenkins, Dorothy Dandridge's debut, and the deathless Johnny Mercer classic "Jeepers Creepers". Meanwhile, an ebullient (if perfunctory) Dutch gets another chance to dazzle us with his play-by-play patter.             Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   "Driving Reagan theme' by Gareth Hedges

This week on the podcast, a little-seen Pine-Thomas "Far-Easter" that has been identified (by one or two dreamers - i.e. 20% of the living people who've watched it) as an antecedent of the Indiana Jones films. Why? Well, there's the hat. You need more than that to hang a theory on? You might be out of luck. HONG KONG reunites the Gipper with friend of the podcast Rhonda Fleming during the last days of the Maoist revolution. The film takes its name from the British-occupied city, but a lot of the action takes place within civil war-ridden China itself. It's got a bit of a Cold War feel to it (Reagan says "Commies"), but, ultimately, the narrative pulls back from such grandly geopolitical concerns to tell a sub-Hitchcockian story of child-abduction and chicanery perpetrated by a grotesquely caricatured Chinese antique dealer/criminal played by Marvin Miller (later the voice of Robby the Robot and never, incidentally, a person who should be playing Asian characters).    We take a little time to consider the "Solid Citizen" Reagan persona (as it was understood by 1952 audiences) and ponder its long-ranging political impact. Gareth and Dave also take a little detour into the history of the Pine-Thomas production company, while Romy takes a phone call. We close out the 'cast with a review of the 20 films we've covered so far. Quite a clambake!   Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   "Driving Reagan theme' by Gareth Hedges

We've got a watershed moment in the Gipper's career for you this week. In fact, it's two watershed moments in one - Reagan's first substantial role in a commercial hit film and our protagonist's first pairing with the Greatest First Lady Manquée of them all, Jane Wyman! Your humble panel takes enthusiastic note of these facts (and of Jane's stellar performance as Claire Adams); however, that enthusiasm dries up pretty quickly when they consider the puerile military college hi-jinks documented by Brother Rat. A matchless Warner Brothers ensemble cast (including Priscilla Lane, Wayne Morris, Eddie Albert, Louise Beavers, Olin Howland, Jane Bryan, Henry O'Neill, William Tracy, and Johnny "Scat" Davis) can only do so much with these jackbooted animal house antics. It is striking, however, to observe the American officer class at play (and on penalty tours) during the final days of the country's irrelevance as a global military power. In line with the buffoonish expectations set by Sergeant Murphy (along with other Warner "service comedies" of the 1930s like Flirtation Walk and Shipmates Forever),  the film provides a glimpse of a time when no viewer would ever have believed (or hoped) that the United States was just a couple of years away from world domination.  We also consider the ways in which this film brings the Reagan persona into focus - was it just a fluke that Dutch was cast as the most grounded "rat"? Or can we already see intimations of his Avuncular/Grandfatherly Decider Telos just one year into his half-century as a public figure.       Novel suggestion: Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   "Driving Reagan theme' by Gareth Hedges

*** Fair Warning - the first 29 minutes of this episode are devoted to a rather lengthy discussion re: whether Toronto really is the worst city in the world, or just another typically terrible blight on the late capitalist landscape. Feel free to skip ahead - although, if you do, you'll miss out on the ballad of whining Beaches resident Viola Bracegirdle.*** Conventional wisdom may hold that Reagan's political career began with his sociopathic campaign encomium to Presidential-Not-Too-Hopeful Barry Goldwater in 1964, but true Gipperistas know that the Great Communicator's first speech of note came 12 years earlier, in the closing moments of She's Working Her Way Through College. On that august occasion, RR (playing deep-thinking Lit Professor John Palmer) raised his voice in favour of accessible higher education for all and against society's prurient micromanagement of women's bodies. If only Prof. Palmer had run for office in 1980. Directed by Bruce "Lucky" Humberstone and co-starring (well, actually, starring) Virginia Mayo, She's Working Her Way Through College is one of the strangest remakes in history - transplanting 1942's prescient College Red Scare comedy The Male Animal into the barren political ground of the McCarthy Era. Naturally, all mentions of anarchist martyrs Sacco and Vanzetti have been excised from the script - instead, we get the initially-promising tale of a burlesque dancer who dreams of trading in her gams for iambs under Reagan's tutelage (until the college's scuzzy dean, an erstwhile admirer of Mayo's stage act, tries to throw her off the campus before he gets mid-century me-too'd). Our panel members agree that Mayo's pretty great in the role, but her story gets lost somewhere along the way, among too many of the wrong scenes imported wholesale from the original (presumably in an effort to demonstrate, once and for all, that Ronald Reagan, much as we love him, is no Hank Fonda). In keeping with the lobotomized spirit of 1950s political thinking, any systemic problems raised in the original film (starting with Nuremberg style campus football rallies) are reduced to accidents of history that can be resolved by firing (or, in this case, merely humbling) one villainous Administrator. Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   "Driving Reagan theme' by Gareth Hedges

We've got a bona fide Foy Unit gem for you this week on the podcast - courtesy of screenwriter Crane Wilbur, director William C. McGann, and a personality-studded cast which includes studio up-and-comer Jane Bryan, show fave Sheila Bromley, Sig Ruman in The Wedding Night  demon patriarch-mode, lovable contract players Elisabeth Risdon, Dorothy Peterson, and Henry O'Neil - plus wildcards Susan Hayward & Esther Dale. Girls on Probation is an archetypal late-30s Warner Brothers programmer, a tale of sinners and saints in the hands of an angry class system - with nothing but the emerging New Deal agencies to keep our protagonist out of the flames.     It's not all progressivism and light, though - not by a long shot. For one thing, there's something awfully wrong with the film's condemnatory attitude towards Hilda Engstrom's matriarchal family - an observation which affords the panel an opportunity to heap opprobrium upon Philip Wylie and his mid-20th century Jordan Peterson-style stunts. Other topics include: Dickie Jones/Dickie Moore, what might have been for Jane Bryan, and our collective sense of the rapidly crystallizing Reagan persona: the brashly virtuous Midwesterner whose path to success-without-regrets is greased by Ideology.  Also: Gareth discusses Michael Rogin's Ronald Reagan,' the Movie, and Other Episodes in Political Demonology (1987)  Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale "Driving Reagan theme' by Gareth Hedges

This week, we find the Gipper playing presidentially-monikered baseball star Grover Cleveland Alexander in The Winning Team. Reagan's Warner Brothers swan song was produced and directed by his old comrades from the B-unit trenches (Bryan Foy and Lewis Seiler, respectively), and pairs him with new studio world-beater Doris Day (#7 box office star in the country that year - and rising). The resulting film treads a fascinating line between inspirational sports/disability narrative and post-war "New Domesticity" woman's picture (with songs!). The winning team, you see, isn't the St. Louis Cardinals - it's Grover and Aimee (as long as she agrees to dream in his direction). It's not all Randian achievement and adulation, however - Reagan channels some real Kings Row style pathos in his portrayal of the beleaguered big leaguer - even winding up on the cusp of Nightmare Alley ignominy at his nadir - and it's up to Doris to reclaim him from oblivion.    Things get a bit "inside baseball" as Dave gives in to his lifelong obsession with the erstwhile national pastime, but we also find occasion to discuss millenarian barnstorming baseball squads, 1950s nostalgia for the early 20th century, and grapple with the film's discouraging omission (at the behest of the hurler's widow Aimee) of any mention of Alexander's epilepsy. The filmmakers do, however, delve fairly deeply into the physical symptoms that plagued the pitcher - and ultimately drove him desperately to drink. Also: discover what separates Sylvester from Frank Stallone (at least according to Gareth), hear Romy's reactions to a recent re-screening of In a Lonely Place,  and enjoy the AFI subject tags for Boy Meets Girl (which we forgot to provide in episode 8A).      Cast also includes Frank Lovejoy, Russ Tamblyn (who has had a brush with one of our panelists), Dorothy Adams, and then-current ballplayers Bob Lemon, Peanuts Lowrey, Jerry Priddy, George Metkovich, and Gene Mauch.    Relevant Link: How to Act Drunk by Joel Blackledge (Bright Wall/Dark Room)   Outro Song: "Ol' Saint Nicholas" by Doris Day and friends (including Ronald Reagan)   Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale "Driving Reagan theme' by Gareth Hedges

We conclude our acclaimed "Ronald-Reagan-appears-for-two-minutes-as-a-radio-announcer" series with Boy Meets Girl (1938), a Hollywood satire/"crazy comedy" adapted from the smash Sam and Bella Spewack play. Directed by Warner comedy ace Lloyd Bacon, the film certainly has its charms, but James Cagney and Pat O'Brien are playing roles originally intended for Olsen and Johnson - 'nuff said. The star duo's destabilizing antics are cribbed from the career-limiting capers of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, opening up a fertile discussion of Hollywood labour practices during the second half of the Great Depression. We also get to spend a little more time with Dick Foran in a parody cowboy role (this time, a highly paid one) and meet the magnificent Marie Wilson (Judy Holliday avant la lettre). Don't forget Ralph Bellamy! He's in the mix too, as a line producer with delusions of intellectual sensibility.    Among the other topics of discussion on offer: Gene Autry's Cowboy Code, the PATSY Animal Actor Awards, the Childs' restaurant chain, vintage vegetarian satire, and a consideration of an alternate timeline in which Penny Singleton spelled the Gipper in the Governor's Mansion and, ultimately, the White House.   Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale

Tropic Zone may not be much of a film, but it proved to be a hell of a conversation piece for your Bonzo panelists! We delve into the afterlife of the WW2-era "Good Neighbor Policy", the sadly stunted career of co-star Estrelita Rodriguez, the relationship of this 1950s A-minus Pine-Thomas production to Warner Brothers' Cagney-Sheridan-O'Brien extravaganza Torrid Zone (1940), and, above all, the economic Imaginarium of American corporate and paramilitary meddling in the affairs of Central and South American countries during the 20th century. Tropic Zone presents its banana-based battles in strangely depoliticized and context-free terms - so depoliticized and context-free, in fact, that Romy, Gareth, and Dave could not agree at all on any of the stakes of the various conflicts depicted and referred to in the film. Was Ronald Reagan dislodged from his initial two-term Presidency of Bananas by leftist guerrillas or CIA backed death squads? And how about the film's central struggle against the evil Lukats? Is this a serious proletarian uprising? Or just a way to solidify Rhonda Fleming's "benevolent" despotism over the fictional nation of Puerto Barrancas? If this was a real country, the answer would be fairly obvious, but here on the island of populist fable, you're free to read the events in just about any way you want (at least until the climactic charge of the United Fruit Company gunboats).  Also: Gareth and Romy argue over the probable cause of humanity's imminent self-immolation.     Outro Music: "I'll Always Love You" by Estrelita Rodriguez Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale

If Wyoming Steve Gibson didn't exist, those darned culture industry stupidity profiteers would've had to invent him. What's that? He doesn't exist? Hot damn! The Gipper takes a back saddle to Dick Powell once again in 1938's COWBOY FROM BROOKLYN, a film that (as contemporaries were quick to observe) did absolutely nothing for any of the talented people involved in its creation.    An elaboration of the (white) cultural appropriation narrative popularized by earlier Powell vehicles like BROADWAY GONDOLIER, this lower-drawer Lloyd Bacon musical comedy does derive a bit of satiric energy from Warner Brothers' obvious contempt for all things rural and countrified, but the film's central conceit (that people will put up with - and possibly even laugh at - 90 minutes' worth of Dick Powell running screaming from squirrels and barnyard fowl) is so catastrophically misguided that most viewers will have fallen off this irritating bull long before its Gender Panic Rodeo finale.    Can a movie with Priscilla Lane, Ann Sheridan, James Stephenson, Pat O'Brien, Granville Bates, Hobart Cavanaugh, Elisabeth Risdon, Dick Foran, Dick Powell, and Ronald Reagan be all bad? 12-year old Dave would never have believed it, but...  Try watching this one under hypnosis and see if that helps.     Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO!   Outro Music: "Ride, Tenderfoot, Ride" performed by Dick Powell & Priscilla Lane, music by Richard A. Whiting & lyrics by Johnny Mercer Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges

In yet another cinematic variation on the Earp legend, some John McCain-Republican types enlist the Gipper to clamp down on the wrong kind of vice and chicanery in Cottonwood, Arizona. Reagan is aided in his quest by a pair of blond brothers (Alex Nicol and Gilligan's Island's Russell Johnson) - one of whom gets himself involved in a rather tiresome romance with destined-to-fail bombshell Ruth Hampton. The film boasts an extremely tense lynching scene, good chemistry between its protagonist and co-star Dorothy Malone, and a refreshingly nihilistic take on the hoary "civilizationist" tropes of the genre. If only Dutch's authoritarian musings had been this world-weary on the campaign trail!    Bonus: Romy and Gareth go through the entire list of American Presidents (to date) in search of "Big Dick Energy".       Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO! Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges

Accidents Will Happen (1938) represents kind of a milestone in the young Gipper's career - his first chance to play a non-radio announcer/reporter. In classic Warners "ripped-from-the-headlines" style, the film tackles an Insurance Fraudster Scare that generated more than 400 New York Times headlines during the late 1930s.  Our panel discerns the lineaments of the future politician's crowd pleasing persona in the figure of Eric Gregg, intrepid accident claims detective, who is both the ultimate naif and the ultimate sharpie. Nothing gets by him! Except the fact this his wife hates his good corporate soldier/"I'll get a raise next year" act so much that she is willing to get creative about punishing him for failing to hold up his end of the patriarchal bargain.  During the 1940s, Reagan's unique Shark Scout qualities will serve him well in Popular Front leftist narratives like Juke Girl, and they will be turned to more sinister account during the 1980s we all hate so much, but here you'd be hard-pressed to ascribe any coherent politics to his actions. On the other hand, the film does make a brief detour into hard-edged class politics in its sensitive depiction of Red Time Hero Clinton Rosemond's plight. We also get a healthy dose of proto-feminist ire, thanks to Sheila Bromley's strong portrayal of a woman who probably makes the right choice between a life of domestic listlessness and a responsible position within a thriving criminal enterprise.  All this and Joan Blondell's sister, too! All in 60 minutes.     Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO! Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges    

Join Ronald Reagan behind enemy lines in a North Korean prison camp so terrifyingly coercive, even the U.S. Military did not want the public to see it! Filmed with the full cooperation of the Pentagon, the Cold War brass revoked their imprimatur after viewing the final product. You might say this one was declared off-Nimitz, if you were a certain kind of HELLCATS OF THE NAVY-centric punster.  PRISONER OF WAR actually dares to put a viable socialist critique of the new U.S. World Order in the mouths of its cartoonish villains, demonstrating just how ideologically blinkered North American audiences were (and are). As Rita Hayworth states in the immortal STRAWBERRY BLONDE: "I refuse to listen to advanced ideas!"  If you're in the mood for pointless 6th dimensional intrigue, laconic Reaganite philosophizing about human frailty, harrowing psychological torture experiments, canines in trouble, a cavalcade of brilliant character actors (Oscar Homolka, Paul Stewart, Henry Morgan) slumming it in the Red Scare District, and a vision of midcentury geopolitics as one gigantic sting operation, this is the one for you!!      Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO! Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges

Bryan Foy's B-movie unit at Warner Brothers churned out some of the best bottom-of-the-bill features of the late 1930s, but B. Reeves Eason's "Horseratio Alger" tale Sergeant Murphy is kind of a nag. Nevertheless, this seldom seen army/racing/equine buddy film is a crucial item in the Gipper's filmography, as it demonstrates the studio's continuing commitment to the coltish actor as a leading player (it's his second starring vehicle, following closely on the hooves of Love is on the Air).   The film may not be any great shakes as a piece of entertainment, but it made a fine conversation piece for your hosts, who zero in on Reagan's unexpected espousal of post-structuralist/critical race theory in a key scene, marvel at the U.S. military's laughingstock/rump status in those pre-World War II/World Police days, and consider the evolution of Dutch's persona more broadly (this was his first chance to play a non-announcer/reporter character).  The supporting cast is mostly composed of nonentities, with the significant exceptions of Donald Crisp (a crucial Warner player of the era) and love interest (?) Mary Maguire (whose life took a bizarre turn the following year when she married British Union of Fascists scumball Lord Robert Gordon-Canning). Also! This episode was recorded in June 2018, not long after the dismal Conservative Party triumph in this year's Ontario Election, eliciting about 25 minutes' worth of spleen venting at the top of the show and prompting Dave to call for the unilateral abolition of suburbia.  Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO! Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges "Horseratio Alger" tale also copyright Gareth Hedges

Our second Reagan/Dwan collaboration is far inferior to Tennessee's Partner, despite some fine directorial touches and characteristically brilliant open air cinematography from John Alton, but it does furnish your hosts with a textbook example of colonialist hermeneutics in action. On the surface, Cattle Queen of Montana may come across as a "progressive" film, with its anti-bigotry rhetoric and championing of Colorados' "good" (i.e. assimilationist) faction of the Blackfoot tribe; however, as with all ideological narratives, the film is working overtime to head off any genuinely liberatory ideas at the conceptual pass, not unlike the current Trudeau government of Canada or the mainstream leaders of today's Democratic Party.  The gang is grateful that the Gipper's filmography provided this one opportunity to discuss the amazing Barbara Stanwyck, perhaps the finest actor of the studio age - and a person whose politics were almost certainly more despicable than Reagan's own. Of course, since she never became commander in chief of anything outside of the Big Valley, she hurt many fewer people during the latter part of the 20th century.  Toward the end of the podcast, we discuss some #MeToo developments in Canadian literary community that were breaking at the time of the recording (May 2018), delve into the harrowing life experiences of co-star Lance Fuller, and bring back Penny Singleton (from Swing Your Lady) in order to reassure ourselves that not all studio age Hollywood actors were fascists.       Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO! Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges

When proletarian Warner Brothers hightails it to the Ozarks, things can only go two ways: toward tragedy or rough mockery. Swing Your Lady offers a touch of the former (thanks primarily to genuine chemistry between unlikely screen lovers Louise Fazenda and Nat Pendleton), and a whole mess of the latter. There's not much Gipper in this one, but what there is, is choice - by now he's got his sharpie media character persona so well honed that he runs rings around wrestling promoters Humphrey Bogart, Frank McHugh, and Allen Jenkins (none of whom, it must be owned, is playing at the brighter edge of their respective character ranges). The film offers wonderful opportunities for your hosts to digress upon such weighty matters as "Ozark face" minstrelsy; the eruption of "hillbilly" music upon the popular scene during the 1930s; the strange careers and love lives of The Weaver Brothers & Elviry; a lengthy disquisition upon the unique properties of "The Old Apple Tree" (a tragi-comic lynching ballad); a potted history of American wrestling (on and off the big screen), with a special focus on hirsute suitor Daniel Boone Savage; and an ode to future Blondie star Penny Singleton's sick terpsichore.  Along the way, you'll hear all of the features you've come to know and love, including AFI Film Catalog Subject Tags, Would You Bang Reagan?, and a date with Norbert "I Love Actresses!" Lusk (whose critical wisdom puts the callow carping of the Medved Brothers and Bosley Crowther to shame.)  Outro Music: "The Old Apple Tree" - performed by Artie Shaw & His Rhythm Makers (1938) Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO! Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges 

The RED TIME FOR BONZO gang sifts an unexpected nugget out of the silt of Reagan's waning film career - although, in retrospect, no one should ever count an Allan Dwan film out before it's watched (particularly when Dwan is working with cinematographer John Alton and a crackerjack fifties cast that includes John Payne, Rhonda Fleming, Coleen Gray, and Chubby Johnson). The Gipper turns in tremendous work here, too, fusing his character's seemingly incongruous rigidity, resourcefulness and capacity for empathy into harmonious aspects of a genuinely unique being in the "oater" canon. Your hosts also make a spirited effort to situate this ballad of "Cowpoke" and "Tennessee" within the queer film tradition; discuss the archetypal function of The Prospector; and entertain a sad and decidedly uninspiring analogy between the dysfunctional "Whig" party of the 1830s and the rudderless #resistance crowd of today. Listen to Bret Harte's original tale here. Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO! Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges 

Ronald Reagan in a Busby Berkeley extravaganza!!?? Well, sort of... The Gipper graduates from Warners' B-squad to the big time, but only to the tune of a 30 second two-shot with the great Dick Powell (67% of our hosts disagree with that description of Dick). And it's not exactly Berkeley's finest effort, either. Nothing proto-psychedelic here. Unless Mabel Todd's dotty dialogue disorients you.  And - to quote Mabel - we had some interesting talks! Topics include some notes on Johnny Mercer; the sad demise of erstwhile Stooge Majordomo Ted Healy; the return of Clinton Rosemond and Allyn Joslyn; the mystery that is Hugh Herbert; a despicable blackface gag that tells you everything you need to know about the banality of white supremacist evil during the 1930s; counterfeit fashion plate Alan Mowbray; Louella Parsons; some excuses for Dave to talk about the Lane Sisters (Rosemary and Lola are actually in the film); Glenda Farrell, professional wiseacre; Frances Langford; Johnnie "Scat" Davis; the Second New Deal; Court Packing; some more quality time with Norbert "I LOVE ACTRESSES" Lusk; and even a bona fide cultural leap forward in the persons of the Benny Goodman Quartet (BG, Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, and Teddy Wilson, the "Marxist Mozart") - the first integrated group of musicians ever to appear upon an American screen.   Toward the end, Dave, Romy, and Gareth discuss their dismal expectations re: the then-imminent Ontario provincial election (the episode was recorded in May). Suffice it to say, those expectations have been lived down to by Doug Ford, who is even less "refreshing" than Ted Healy.  Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO! Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges 

Prepare to submerge with Gareth, Romy and Dave into the jingoistic backwash of the Gipper's career with our epic discussion of HELLCATS OF THE NAVY (1957). In this episode, we take full advantage of our one and only cinematic opportunity to celebrate the immortal chemistry of those Blacklist Sweethearts, Ronnie and Nancy; critique Admiral Chester Nimitz's Tarantino level acting ability; absorb the leadership lessons the film may have imparted to the future President; and ponder several topical news cycle items, including the general incompetence of just about everyone in our society and the meaning of "incel" terror attacks.   Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO! Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges 

Join the Red Time for Bonzo team as they contemplate the Gipper's very first starring role, in an unprepossessing little programmer known, for no particular reason that anyone can fathom, as LOVE IS ON THE AIR (more sensibly aka THE RADIO MURDER MYSTERY). Here we see Warners' crackerjack B-movie "Foy Unit" methods in full effect. Just hired a non-actor whose entertainment experience is limited to radio announcing? Cast him as a radio announcer, surround him with mayhem, and spice it up with a little proletarian animus against the moneyed pigs who run North American business AND crime (as if there's any difference between the two). Along the way, we discuss child fight clubs and juvenile murderers, the poverty of superhero films (and the optics of quitting them radioactive turkey at this particular moment in media history), and protagonist Andy McCain's matter-of-fact misogyny.  Listen right to the end in order to get in on the ground floor of our brand new segment: The Joy of AFI Catalog Subject Tags  You'll hear a couple of minutes' worth of scintillating HELL CATS OF THE NAVY TALK as well, but the meat of that deathless discussion will be headed your way next week, in episode 2B.  This is a time for choosing. Choose Red Time For Bonzo! Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges 

For episode 1B, we jump to the ass-end of The Gipper's career, examining Don Siegel's acclaimed 1964 adaptation of Hemingway's THE KILLERS. Reagan's final role finds him cast against type as a sociopathic Southern California entrepreneur who is most at home on the business end of a sniper scope (when he's got former associates to kill) or a pair of binoculars (when he's being cuckolded again). The film is a motion Dorian Gray-picture hiding in plain sight, belying the "Great Communicator's" good-guy grandpa image and laying bare the criminal/realpolitik roots of the Goldwaterite Conservative movement that would swallow the Republican party whole by 1980. Of course, in 1964, even the most sanguine libertarian hustlers in the GOP had no idea what the next decade and a half held in store for their movement. After the defeat of their sparsely-haired boy Barry in November, those ragged individualists found themselves between a Rockefeller and a hard place, not unlike Reagan's Jack Browning character near the end of THE KILLERS. We cover the film's place in post-studio and post-noir history, discuss the careers of director Siegel and players Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes, Clu Gulager, Norman Fell and Claude Akins; and play our first round of "Would you bang Reagan in this film?" This is a time for choosing. Choose Red Time For Bonzo! Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges 

We search in vain for the man himself during our inaugural film (IMDB insists that he is among the angry mob at the governor's mansion), but we find a wealth of material for our Marxist-Reaganist manifesto in Warner Brothers' They Won't Forget. Join us as we examine the progressive commitments of the Gipper's home studio and set the table for our ongoing exploration of mid-century American pop cultural politics. Along the way, Dave argues that Tump Redwine is in fact the hero of the film; Romy lays out a good faith murder case against Robert Hale; and Gareth launches his soon-to-be-famous Norbert "I Love Actresses!" Lusk reading series. You'll also meet immortals like Westbrook Pegler, Ward Greene, and Gloria Dickson.  It's morning in Red Time For Bonzoland. Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges 

At last, it's the Revanchist Left American Studies project you've been pining for since November 4, 1980! Join Romy, Gareth and David on a vitriolic voyage through Ronald Reagan's filmic oeuvre. Consider this an audio cease-and-desist missive to the hordes of "#Resistance" tweeters who've seen fit to critique the Trump regime with soothing prune-faced Gipper memes. Ronald Reagan was not a "moderate", and the fact that anyone in our cohort thinks he was only goes to demonstrate the magnitude of his grim hegemonic coup. The time has come to reclaim the discourse from the criminals who plopped The Great Communicator atop the electoral Christmas Tree in the Fall of 1980, and have been hogging 99% of the gifts ever since.  Our humble thesis? Want to deploy Reagan against Trump and late capitalism? Go to it! Just use his filmography instead.  Or, better yet, let us do it for you.