The Day Reagan Was Shot

Hollywood leans so far left it can't even comprehend what the center looks like. Yet it has the power to influence what future skulls full of mush, as Kingsfield would say, think about the past.

A recent tv movie about the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings was simply a paranoiac extremist's fictional nightmare. If such a flick had been made about a person of color on the left, the makers would've been tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail as "racists" ("racist" being what is used by the pc crowd rather than the McCarthyists' "communist", though to the same effect).

The cheapjack rush job "The Contender" was supposed to parallel the Clinton impeachment, but in trying to preach to us that a public person's private life is none of our business, Hollywood sets up an ingenious double standard: if you're Clarence Thomas, your private life must be public record (so far, no movie has been made about the Robert Bork nomination; perhaps Hollywood hasn't quite been able to skate around the liberal senators getting Bork's "Blockbuster" tape rental record in a vain attempt to try to smear him -- and don't forget bringing up Oliver North's purchase at a lingerie store (which was for ballet costumes for his daughters!). A public figure's private life is no one's business to Hollywood . . . if that person is left of center. Otherwise, the public has a right to know, and Hollywood and the media have a duty to blurt out every detail.

Movies about Richard Nixon invariably portray him as a psychopath, whereas movies about JFK invariably portray him as messianic. When we finally forget the disgrace that was Clinton, who committed worse crimes involving the FBI and IRS etc. than Nixon, no doubt Clinton movies of the future will portray him as truly messianic, whereas Clinton his a political Jimmy Swaggart (only more sanctimonious).

The Tom Clancy book "The Sum of all Fears" is about middle-eastern terrorists; despite the timeliness of that material, the movie "SoAF" is about right-wing terrorists. We mustn't offend the Taliban or the PLO. But right-wingers don't need to be understood but shot on sight.

Which segues us into "The Day Reagan Was Shot", Richard Crenna's Reagan isn't bad, considering the number of Reagan-haters who must exist in Hollywood, but he isn't that important, either. But Alexander Haig, the Secretary of State, and one of the most experienced and savvy men in Washington at that time, is portrayed as an out-and-out nut case, simply on the basis of one erroneous statement. The whole weight of the film, in fact, seems to be, not that the chief executive was gunned down by a movie fan, but the fact that the Republican secretary of state spoke out of turn. The Crisis of the movie is not that a Republican president was shot, but that a secretary of state, who was the highest ranking official in Washington on the spot, had a slip of the tongue. The antagonist if the drama wasn't a true nut case who tried to eliminate an overwhelmingly popular chief executive, but a made-up nut case in the administration.

The Hollywood double standard continues in real life and in the movies. When Jerry Falwell said American deserved 9/11, he was castigated; when Clinton said America deserved 9/11, his vapid outspokenness was praised as "courageous". If Hollywood ever makes a movie about the war on Terror the Taliban and Osama can rest easy: the antagonist will be Condi Rice or Colin Powell.

Cinemagraphically, this movie is absolutely dreadful. I've seen better sets and make-up in junior high productions. Particularly laughable is the national TV news anchor who appears to be reporting from a secretary's desk in the basement of the CBS building. The acting is marginal at best, with some good performances in places but overall simply average, and marred further by the fact that almost none of the actors bear any physical resemblance to the people they are playing.

Despite the fact that he lent his name to this (as "Executive Producer"), the film bears no Oliver Stone trademarks. Say what you will about Stone's political / social agenda, he knows how to make movies. I'm surprised he would allow himself to be associated with such an amateurish TV movie that bears none of his imprint (slick editing; flashbacks; tight plot).

Apart from accuracy (which I'll get to in a minute), the film is also marred by pointless dialogue and scenes. No self-respecting doctor would beg off emergency surgery simply because of political differences; anyone who even entertained that thought should lose his license. Likewise, there's no way they would have allowed such blatant contamination in the operating room (the secret service agent with the *machine gun* in the OR had me in stitches -- what's he going to DO with the gun, anyway? -- never mind the constant traffic in and out by government agents and officials).

I was 11 when Reagan was shot and I remember it vividly. I even have the TIME magazine from that week, not to mention a number of books on Reagan. So I'm fairly well qualified to speak to the film's accuracy. Funnily enough, allowing for some dramatic license, it's actually not that far-fetched. We don't know what went on behind the scenes at the White House or at the Hospital. It's doubtful that Haig was as aggressive as depicted, and the missile attack is entirely overwrought. The press was not as belligerent as depicted, and nobody insisted on taking a minicam up to the recovery room to verify that the president was still alive; nor did Nancy force him to sign anything or Deaver insist on taking pictures. What we do know is this:

• There was a great deal of chaos and confusion within the government, including retrieving the VP from his trip in Texas.

• Haig did appear on national TV and try to convince the world (not all that successfully) that he was "in control" at the White House pending the VP's return.

• There was confusing information coming out of the Hospital, including Brady's reported death and other items not even mentioned in the movie (Lyn Nofziger reported that Reagan was having "open-heart surgery" as opposed to "open-chest surgery" -- a big difference!)

• Jack Paar (the secret service chief who pushed Reagan into the car) did, in fact, save Reagan's life by taking him to the Hospital; and Reagan was a lot closer to death than people (outside the Hospital) realized at the time, due to many of the factors mentioned in the movie.

• The opening scenes that depict Reagan meeting with his staff are also fairly accurate (although the cartoonish depiction of William Casey is rather offensive; his debilitating strokes did not occur until later in the administration). Reagan, as he (Crenna) says, was not interested in the details. This is, IMHO, to his credit as a leader and as a president, although others would differ. It was, if nothing else, a sharp contrast to the Carter years, a reference Reagan makes in the movie.

To my knowledge, there's never been any assertion of "conspiracy" in the Reagan shooting as there is with JFK. It's pretty obvious what happened, and that Hinckley acted alone. Lacking such a premise, the filmakers can only compensate by ratcheting up the drama, in which they stretch the truth, but not to the breaking point. Thus, it's an interesting movie to watch if you accept all this, but hardly something for the historical record.

Finally, I wonder if Ronald Reagan and Richard Crenna knew each other when they were together in Hollywood in the 1960's. I'd be interested to know the answer to this. Sadly, I can't ask either of them, but maybe Nancy knows...

This made-for-TV movie, produced by the liberal's liberal, Oliver Stone is a compelling, exiting and watcheable portrayal of events which were pretty forgettable in real time. One wonders if the White House was this dysfunctional at the time....everbody behaves badly. One might expect tight-lipped shrillness (an oxymoron) from Nancy Reagan, but poor Sarah Brady, wife of wounded press secretary James Brady fares not much better as she wails "what have THEY (who?) done to you!?!?". After relentless mean spirited badgering of Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger by Secretary of State Alexander Haig, someone finally says "show some tact, Al." I think the deck gets stacked against this Republican Administration most especially in the wimpy portrayal of Bush'41, who is both clueless and deferential to a fault throuout the movie. The Gipper fares not much better. Still, its great storytelling.

I really enjoyed this movie. It was 10 times better than Costner's bomb 13 days. Richard Dreyfuss' portrayal of Alex Haig was marvelous. The thing I liked most was that even though you knew the outcome, the movie still kept you on the edge of your seat.

To history buffs, no matter what they say, Oliver Stone movies are a guilty pleasure. It's got to be fun knowing real history, and I mean the arcane stuff, then watch someone take it, distort certain aspects out of it, and package it up into pop culture. The Oliver Stone product is essentially the best allohistory out there. (Ok, Ian McKellan in "Richard III" (1995), placing the Shakespeare story in an fascist pre-war England is still the best, but there has to be something said for quantity. JFK (1991), Nixon (1995), Path To War (aka LBJ) (2002), and this gem add up to a lot of entertainment.)

Stone is only somewhat limited by the endpoint constraints of actual history (i.e., on the morning of March 30, 1981, Regan is shot, and by the evening, Vice President George H.W. Bush is back in Washington). But other than that, it's open season for counterfactuals. Yes, Haig was famous for his "Haig-isms", and was prone to make statements like the famous "I'm in charge here" gaff. He actually did take the lead in the control room. But I only wish he acted like the Dryefuss portrayal, which makes the attempted coup in the classic "Seven Days in May" (1964) look like an episode of "The West Wing". From the start, Dryefuss' Haig is clearly the villain, much more so than Hinkley, who appears relatively level-headed. Hinkley just wants to impress Jodie Foster. Haig wants to press the button.

Dryefuss barely uses any restraint in the character, and at times reminded me of his comic performance as Jay Trotter in "Let It Ride". Anyway, he goes screaming for the nuclear football, tries to invoke the 25th Amendment, in-fights with Cap Weinberger, negotiates with the Soviets over the hotline about an ICBM launch, while holding NORAD on the line. Meanwhile, I thought Richard Crenna did a great job of looking kind of like Reagan. (Actually, Dryefuss looks a lot like Haig himself.) And I thought Michael Murphy as Michael Deaver was brilliant casting. Also, I have no problem with their unflattering portrayal of Nancy Reagan. But, they went a little too far in the scene where they try to prop up Reagan in the hospital bed for a picture (note the blurred camera POV, and the where-am-I smile on Regan). That was comedy straight out of Woody Allen's Sleeper (1973) where Allen is just unfrozen after 200 years and they're trying to get him past the security agents.

It would have all been good fun, except then National Security Adviser Richard Allen made a tape of the whole affair, using a Sony recorder, and forgot about it for 20 years. It surfaced again just after the movie was filmed, but before it was released. The transcripts were published, and the cabinet secretaries had a reunion on the Larry King Show, to play back parts of the tape, and other media coverage of the day. Al Haig's behaviour that day was only a minor issue, and his old colleagues said nothing got out of control, and things went about as would be expected for that kind of crisis. Not exactly 13 days in October. Unless you're Oliver Stone.