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On January 5, 1942, the Warner Brothers publicity office (in)famously planted an item with the press to the effect that young contract players Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan had been chosen to star in the studio's upcoming production of Casablanca, a wartime romance based on an unproduced stageplay by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The Hollywood Reporter picked up the story and newspapers nationwide passed it along.
And for decades thereafter, movie fans have shuddered at the thought of the classic film that almost wasn't.
Don't worry though. Producer Hal Wallis never actually considered Reagan for the lead (or George Raft either, for that matter, persistent myth to the contrary). Instead, the press release was a common publicity ploy of the time, floating the names of actors in connection with various projects, both to keep the actors' names in front of the public and to create buzz for a forthcoming movie. Warner Brothers could just as easily have said Jack Benny instead of Ronald Reagan—and indeed, another Casablanca publicity release had Benny stopping by the set and appearing in one of the crowd scenes. Probably never happened, but I keep looking for him.
Nevertheless, I can't help but wonder what sort of movie Casablanca might have been with Reagan, Sheridan and Morgan in the lead roles.
Certainly the film would have lost a lot of its international flavor. And no matter what you think of them as actors, Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan were no Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman or Paul Henreid. Reagan and Sheridan made five movies together—Kings Row, The Angels Wash Their Faces, Cowboy From Brooklyn, Juke Girl and Naughty But Nice—and Sheridan and Morgan made four—Thank Your Lucky Stars, Shine On Harvest Moon, Wings for the Eagle and One More Tomorrow. With the exception of Kings Row, there's hardly a decent movie in the bunch.
Anyway, it never happened, not even close. Still, we'll always have the '80s. Here's looking at you, Gipper!
Blog about movies long enough and eventually you discover Dennis Cozzalio's fabulous website, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, and his justly-famous film quizzes, which have become something of a semi-annual rite of passage.
As Beveridge D. Spencer so eloquently put it, "You know those dreams you have where you're in school with no pants on and there's a test that you didn't study for because you don't go to school any more, you're a grown up darn it? Well, that dream just came true! Unless you're wearing pants. Or still in school."
Seriously, these are wickedly hard tests.
It's been a while since Dennis posted one, but this month we get Professor Ed Avery's Cortizone-Fueled, Bigger-Than-Life, Super Big Gulp-Sized Summer Movie Quiz.
Here are my answers ...
1) Depending on your mood, your favorite or least-loved movie cliché
Least loved movie-making cliche would be the hand-held, barf-inducing shaky cam, coupled with frenetic editing and poorly-composed, poorly-thought-out action sequences. See, e.g., every summer action movie made in the last ten years.
Least loved story-telling cliche—admittedly more a problem with series television than movies—is where a central character does something that in the real world would land them in jail, the brig or at the very least, the unemployment line, but which the authority figure ultimately excuses because, dammit, the character is so good at their job. In the real world, nobody is that good at their job. See, e.g., MASH, House, Battlestar Galactica.
Favorite movie cliche is no doubt the traditional rom-com story arc ...
2) Regardless of whether or not you eventually caught up with it, which film classic have you lied about seeing in the past?
Maybe because I'm a lawyer, one of my pet peeves is people who insist on lying and then do a lousy job of it, spinning elaborate yarns filled with ridiculous exaggerations or easily-disputed alibis. If you must lie, remember: keep it simple, stick as closely to the facts as you can and then either omit the offending information or feign a misunderstanding of the situation.
In the long run, honesty is definitely the best policy, if only to establish your credibility down the road for the really big lie. As a matter of fact, the best lie of all is the truth. Master that paradox and you can rule the world.
3) Roland Young or Edward Everett Horton?
Love them both, but got to go with Edward Everett Horton, from pre-Code Lubitsch and Astaire-Rogers comedies, all the way to the narration of "Fractured Fairytales" on Rocky and Bullwinkle.
4) Second favorite Frank Tashlin movie
Son of Paleface? Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? One of his Porky Pig cartoons from the 1930s? Truth is, Susan Slept Here is the only Frank Tashlin movie I really like.
5) Clockwork Orange-- yes or no?
I have seen A Clockwork Orange many times ...
6) Best/favorite use of gender dysphoria in a horror film (Ariel Schudson)
Does Norman Bates count? It's a stretch, admittedly. As a general rule, using gender dysphoria as a horror device isn't really my cup o' tea.
7) Melanie Laurent or Blake Lively?
Mélanie Laurent, based on her work in Inglorious Basterds. I confess, I have no idea who Blake Lively is. Does that make me old?
8) Best movie of 2011 (so far…)
Couldn't tell you. The best feature film I saw for the first time in 2011 (so far) is Stella Maris, the 1918 Mary Pickford movie.
9) Favorite screen performer with a noticeable facial deformity (Peg Aloi)
Huh?
10) Lars von Trier: shithead or misunderstood comic savant? (Dean Treadway)
The first one.
11) Timothy Carey or Henry Silva?
Henry Silva for his work as the Korean interpreter in The Manchurian Candidate.
12) Low-profile writer who deserves more attention from critics and /or audiences
The Mythical Monkey
13) Movie most recently viewed theatrically, and on DVD, Blu-ray or streaming
Theatrically? Maybe North By Northwest at the AFI.
DVD/Blu-Ray or streaming? The Heart of Texas Ryan a.k.a. Single Shot Parker, a 1917 western starring Tom Mix.
14) Favorite film noir villain
Jane Greer's Kathy Moffitt from Out of the Past.
15) Best thing about streaming movies?
Cheap, plentiful and immediate. Which is three things ...
16) Fay Spain or France Nuyen? (Peter Nellhaus)
I'm a fan of both countries, but have never heard of either actress.
17) Favorite Kirk Douglas that isn’t called Spartacus (Peter Nellhaus)
Chuck Tatum in Ace in the Hole. But I could name ten Kirk Douglas movies off the top of my head I like better than Spartacus.
18) Favorite movie about cars
Used Cars
19) Audrey Totter or Marie Windsor?
Marie Windsor, one of the greatest noir B-actresses ever.
20) Existing Stephen King movie adaptation that could use an remake/reboot/overhaul
Re-boot this, pal.
21) Low-profile director who deserves more attention from critics and/or audiences
If he's alive and I've heard of him, he can't be all that low profile.
22) What actor that you previously enjoyed has become distracting or a self-parody? (Adam Ross)
Ronald Reagan. If the real Reagan were alive today, Republicans would drum him out of the party as a left-wing RINO. Which tells you everything you need to know about the current state of the Republican Party.
23) Best place in the world to see a movie
Lying on my couch with Katie-Bar-The-Door and our dog.
24) Charles McGraw or Sterling Hayden?
Is this a trick question? Sterling Hayden, of course, protector of our precious bodily fluids.
25) Second favorite Yasujiro Ozu film
I Was Born, But ..., behind only Tokyo Story.
26) Most memorable horror movie father figure
Do they have fathers in horror movies?
27) Name a non-action-oriented movie that would be fun to see in Sensurround (Sal Gomez)
I'm actually old enough to remember Sensurround first hand. The correct answer is: None.
28) Chris Evans or Ryan Reynolds?
Ryan Reynolds looked vaguely familiar when I googled him, so Ryan Reynolds.
29) Favorite relatively unknown supporting player, from either or both the classic and the modern era
Eugene Pallette, Edward Arnold, James Gleason, Jack Carson ... the list goes on and on.
30) Real-life movie location you most recently visited or saw
Well, I see Washington, D.C., practically every day.
31) Second favorite Budd Boetticher movie
So far as I can tell, when it came to motion pictures, Budd Boetticher directed pure crap, but he was the assistant director on The More the Merrier, starring Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur, so I'll say that. Oh, wait, that would be my favorite Boetticher movie. So, um, one of the episodes of Maverick he directed.
32) Mara Corday or Julie Adams?
Julie Adams, for all her television work.
33) Favorite Universal-International western
Amazing what you can find out with the advanced search function at Imdb.com. Probably Winchester '73.
34) Favorite actress of the silent era
Musidora. This week.
35) Best Eugene Pallette performance (Larry Aydlette)
My Man Godfrey
36) Best/worst remake of the 21st century so far? (Dan Aloi)
Haven't seen a lot of remakes. The Manchurian Candidate, which I saw on cable, wasn't good, though.
37) What could multiplex owners do right now to improve the theatrical viewing experience for moviegoers? What could moviegoers do?
Slash ticket prices and turn off their electronic devices, respectively.
Postscript: Some time between when I cut-and-pasted the questions from Sergio Leone and when I posted my answer, Dennis added a question, which was number 34 on his list: What's the biggest "gimmick" that's drawn you out to see a movie? (Sal Gomez)
Presumably that means ever, because no mere gimmick has drawn me out to the theater in years. But within my lifetime, I would have to say the "dinner-and-a-movie date" concept has drawn me out to more movies than any other gimmick.
While not as well known as some other actors of his generation, we here at the Monkey nevertheless pause to note the birthday of Ronald Reagan, who would be 100 today.
Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, on February 6, 1911. After earning a bachelor of arts degree at Eureka College, he got his start in radio covering Iowa Hawkeye football games, then later "recreating" Chicago Cubs baseball games for WHO radio in Des Moines. In 1937, while traveling in California with the Cubs, he took a screen test and signed a seven-year contract with Warner Brothers.
Born a month before Jean Harlow, Reagan made his film debut in Love Is On The Air four months after her death.
He gave what is generally regarded as his best performance in 1942's Kings Row in which his perfectly healthy legs are amputated by a sadistic surgeon. Reagan's line "Where's the rest of me?!" became the title of his 1965 autobiography.
Aside from Kings Row and the notorious Bedtime For Bonzo, in which Reagan played second fiddle to a chimpanzee (hey, wait a minute—we like chimps here at the Monkey!), his best remembered role was as George Gipp, the dying football star in Knute Rockne, All American. "Sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper."
The nickname stuck with him for the rest of his life.
Personally, my favorite Reagan film role was his last. In the 1964 film The Killers, Reagan played a particularly nasty heavy who orchestrates a robbery, double crosses John Cassavettes and slaps Angie Dickinson around. It was the only "bad guy" role of Reagan's career and he didn't much care for it, but it was the best acting he had done in years and it makes me wonder how his career might have played out if he had taken on more roles like it.
A staunch supporter of New Deal president Franklin Roosevelt, Reagan got involved in politics early and in 1947 he was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild, serving five years in that post during the tumultuous anti-communist McCarthy era. 
(He was again elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1959, serving a total of seven years in that position.) Ironically, Reagan's acting career sagged as his political career took off and he was mostly relegated to B-Westerns in the 1950s.
As the decade wore on, Reagan's politics became more conservative and in 1962 he formally joined the Republican Party. "I didn't leave the Democratic Party," he claimed at the time, "The party left me."
Reagan was never nominated for an Oscar and retired from acting in 1965. Oh, and then he went on to other things—governor of California, president of the United States, that sort of thing. An assessment of those years, I leave to you.
Reagan was married twice, to Jane Wyman from 1940 to 1948, then to Nancy Davis from 1952 until his death in 2004. In his latter years, Reagan suffered from Alzheimers and died at the age of 93.
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