Warner contract player Ronald Reagan was never more than a light leading man and utility costar, but at his best he was a charismatic screen presence, and this eight-disc set collects a cross-section of his work, including his most memorable performance, as Drake McHugh, a cheerful ne'er-do-well broken by tragedy, in Kings Row (1942), a glossy studio melodrama directed by Sam Wood that was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Dark Victory (1939), the classy Bette Davis tearjerker helmed by Edmund Goulding, about a socialite with an inoperable brain tumor, is perhaps the best film on Reagan's résumé, but he's merely a secondary character, portraying Alec, an idle young man with whom Davis' character spends an evening. As doomed halfback George Gipp to Pat O'Brien's Notre Dame coach in director Lloyd Bacon's Knute Rockne All American (1940), Reagan delivers the signature line “Win just one for the Gipper.” And he's at his most animated as All-American flier Johnny Hammond, stuck behind enemy lines with Errol Flynn, in Raoul Walsh's lively World War II adventure, Desperate Journey (1942). Reagan is also part of an all-star cast as Johnny Jones in the morale booster This Is the Army (1943), directed by Michael Curtiz and based on an Irving Berlin musical revue. Reagan takes the lead in only the final three movies in the collection: in Vincent Sherman's The Hasty Heart (1949), set in a jungle hospital in Burma, he plays Yank, a recuperating soldier; in Stuart Heisler's Storm Warning (1951), he's Burt Rainey, a crusading district attorney who takes on the Ku Klux Klan; and in Lewis Seiler's The Winning Team (1952), he plays pro-baseball pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander. All of these films have been available on DVD before (some in various boxed sets, including the 2006 five-disc Ronald Reagan: The Signature Collection), and many of them are frankly inessential, making this a set for completists only. DVD extras include audio commentaries, the documentary “Warner at War,” and production featurettes, as well as a selection of shorts, newsreels, cartoons, and a radio show. Optional. (S. Axmaker)
Ronald Reagan Centennial Collection
Warner, 8 discs, 850 min., not rated, DVD: $59.99 Volume 26, Issue 2
Ronald Reagan Centennial Collection
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