RONALD REAGAN

They called him the Teflon president, and the Great Communicator. He was both, and our elected leader for eight years. He came to fame as an actor. Was Ronald Reagan any good? Actually, this yellow-dog Democrat has to admit, he was pretty  good.
Reagan was a contract player at Warner Brothers, meaning he had to appear in any film the studio mandated. For over 25 years, he carried Warner’s water in over 50 mostly forgettable movies. 
Reagan was George Gipp to Pat O’Brien’s Knute Rockne in Knute Rockne, All-American (1940). It’s a mediocre football movie, even if you’re a Notre Dame fan, but Reagan is just fine. Reagan’s death-bed admonition to “win one for the Gipper” is the best thing in the film, and provided him with one of his nick-names.
Probably Reagan’s best part is in Kings Row (1941), the story of people in a small Midwestern town, with Ann Sheridan and Robert Cummings. Reagan is excellent as a good-hearted rogue who loses his legs. Reagan used his memorable line, “Where’s the rest of me?”, as the title of an autobiography. His coping with paraplegia is a high point in his career.
Throughout his political career, Reagan took a lot of bad-natured kidding for Bedtime for Bonzo (1951).  He is a college professor who raises a chimp as a child for
an experiment. Neither he nor the chimp is very good, but the script is worse.
In The Winning Team (1952) Reagan effectively plays the great Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander. While Alexander’s acute alcoholism is glossed over in the best Hollywood fashion (it’s somehow not his fault), his appearance in the 1926 World Series is very well done. I like the way Reagan plays this crucial part of the movie- not too schmaltzy, and with an air of mental toughness that is probably close to the truth.
Reagan is certainly cast against type in the so-so remake of the Hemingway story The Killers (1964), in which he is absolutely chilling as a vicious Mafia boss. This was Reagan’s last film, and in it  he showed he could be convincing as a villain. By the way, the 1946 version of this film, with Burt Lancaster, is far superior. The only reason to catch the remake is to see the Gipper as a really bad guy.
All of the films in this article are available on DVD and for streaming. All except The Killers are fine for kids 10 and up.