Love Is on the Air

For a fellow who'd never acted before, Ronald Reagan carries this little programmer with panache. It bears little relation to the real world, but it's not a bad way to spend an hour. Reagan's skill as a radio announcer is exhibited, but he plays all the other required notes quite handily. The story gets a few unexpected twists, though most of it is hokum of the first degree. Ben Welden is always a welcome sight, here as a slightly more serious villain than he sometimes played. Most of the rest of the cast is pretty well B-level, competent but no great shakes. Reagan alone makes this worth viewing. He's likable, charming, energetic, and he handles dialogue better than just about anyone in the film. Quite an accomplishment for a newcomer.

Racketeers and gamblers are wreaking havoc in the city. Business leaders hold an emergency meeting to discuss. Civic-minded radio reporter Ronald Reagan is right there, hoping to gather "a bit of the inside story for my broadcast tonight." Reagan has a popular show but sponsor Addison Richards would like to shut him up--Richards is one of the crooks.

Keeping the sponsor happy, station manager Robert Barrat reassigns Reagan to the kiddie show where he can't make any trouble. Disappointed, Reagan nevertheless sets out to make the most of his new assignment, while always keeping his eyes open for a chance to break that big corruption story.

Ronald Reagan is fun as the irrepressible radio announcer who knows how to make the most of his opportunities. A good supporting cast includes Eddie Acuff as Reagan's loyal but sleepy assistant, and June Travis as another announcer who does the kids' show until Reagan takes it over. Travis and Reagan of course have an ongoing love-hate romance.

Reagan's best scenes are a couple of remote broadcasts where he sets up the radio equipment at a kids' bike race and boxing match. He interviews the participants and some fans, looking very much at home behind the microphone and mingling with the kids. When one of the kids turns out to have some info about the crooks in town, Reagan is back on that case, with exciting results.

Nothing brilliant but full of good humor and enthusiastic performances. Most enjoyable.

Love is on the Air (1937)

** (out of 4)

The title has nothing to do with this "B" picture from Warner, which features Ronald Reagan in his debut. Reagan plays a hot shot radio broadcaster who decides to use the airways to bring down racketeers but this gets him into trouble with his boss and puts his life on the line by the bad guys. This 61-minute film goes by pretty fast but in the end it's pretty light on story, action and acting. Reagan is decent in his first film, although at times it seems like he's trying to do an impersonation of James Cagney. The supporting cast is mostly forgettable and there's really nothing that stands out here among the various other "B" films of its type.

For the future 40th President of the United States, movie acting was just a pipe dream. Ronald 'Dutch' Reagan was spending his summers behind the microphone announcing baseball games for a Des Moines, Iowa, radio station. The young broadcaster was familiar with a few radio personalities who actually broke into Hollywood films. But his aspirations were hampered by a thin acting resume, appearing only in high school and college plays. Little did he know in a few short months Reagan would not only be in a Warner Brothers' movie, but he would play the lead in October 1937's "Love Is On the Air."

His gift for gab and a melodious voice secured him a radio job in Iowa in 1932 after graduating from Eureka College with a major in economics and sociology. His love for football and drama qualified him in securing his first job announcing four Big Ten football games at Davenport, Iowa, before he secured the radio job in Des Moines. Since the Chicago Cubs radio station airwaves didn't reach Des Moines at the time, Reagan's assignment was to recreate each Cubs game from the wired barebones details he received on each inning and embellish the game's progress pitch-by-pitch. He convinced his station to send him to Los Angeles to cover the Cubs' 1937 spring training for a few days for background stories on the team's players. Before he left, he hired an agent to shop him around Hollywood studios, while padding his acting resume. He received one screen test with Warner Brothers, which showed some interest. Reagan was eventually offered $200 a week starting salary for one year by the studio. He quit his radio station job and hopped on a train to sunny southern California, forever changing his life.

The studio made it comfortably easy for Reagan to transition into his movie debut in "Love Is On the Air." In a remake of the 1933 Paul Muni film "Hi, Nellie," Reagan plays a radio commentator whose schtick is to dig into local big city news to find potential dirt. The former Des Moines, Iowa, broadcaster used his microphone skills to adroitly rattle off his scoop where city gangsters are known to control a few city government officials. Andy McCaine (Reagan) soon finds himself in hot water with the radio's management because one of its main advertisers, involved in the city's corruption, threatens to withhold its lucrative ads from the station.

June Travis plays Jo Hopkins, Andy's friendly adversary whom secretly has the hots for him. One line she overhears as Andy's boss yells at him, "Don't bring politics into your program again!" which must have sent a smile on her face years later after seeing the former young actor elected as the President of the United States. Travis, who learned how to fly and parachute jumping from Amelia Earhart while preparing for her role in 1936's "Ceiling Zero," was known as the Queen of B Movies. Her three-year Hollywood career ended in 1938 (with the exception of a 1952 film with Bette Davis and a 1965 sci-fi) when she returned to her Chicago home.

Reagan later claimed he "was the Errol Flynn of B movies," although his 27 years in Hollywood belies some noteworthy film roles, including playing George 'The Gipper' Gip in 1940's "Knute Rockne, All American" and Drake McHugh in 1942's "King's Row." In his first two years in front of the camera, Reagan was in 19 films, mostly low budget B movies. It was still an amazing accomplishment from the person who thought his life would be calling baseball games behind a microphone for the rest of his life.

Dick Powell had introduced a song called Love Is On The Air in Varsity Show which is a nice number. Therefore one might have expected a film with this title to be a musical. Though the song is played over the opening title credits, this film is far from a musical.

Instead it is the film debut of former radio announcer Ronald Reagan playing a radio commentator who is getting the gangsters in his city all kinds of nervous with his hard hitting expose. But his sponsor Addison Richard is in league with those selfsame gangsters led by Ben Welden. He pressures station owner Robert Barrat to pull the plug on Reagan's show, but Ron's got a contract. Never mind the owner just assigns him to a kiddie show that June Travis formerly had.

Of course she's all kinds of put out, but Ron's charm wins her over in a number of ways and oddly enough the kid's show provides him with a lead that eventually busts the racketeer control wide open.

Casting Reagan as a radio commentator was no big acting stretch for him, but this did show the wisdom of Warner Brothers in developing new talent by giving them comfortable surroundings. Reagan's likability did the rest in this very easy to take B programmer based in part on Paul Muni's film Hi Nellie from a few years before.

The Gipper's fans ought to be pleased.