Red Time For Bonzo: A Marxist-reaganist Film Podcast

Accidents Will Happen (1938) represents kind of a milestone in the young Gipper's career - his first chance to play a non-radio announcer/reporter. In classic Warners "ripped-from-the-headlines" style, the film tackles an Insurance Fraudster Scare that generated more than 400 New York Times headlines during the late 1930s.  Our panel discerns the lineaments of the future politician's crowd pleasing persona in the figure of Eric Gregg, intrepid accident claims detective, who is both the ultimate naif and the ultimate sharpie. Nothing gets by him! Except the fact this his wife hates his good corporate soldier/"I'll get a raise next year" act so much that she is willing to get creative about punishing him for failing to hold up his end of the patriarchal bargain.  During the 1940s, Reagan's unique Shark Scout qualities will serve him well in Popular Front leftist narratives like Juke Girl, and they will be turned to more sinister account during the 1980s we all hate so much, but here you'd be hard-pressed to asc

Join Ronald Reagan behind enemy lines in a North Korean prison camp so terrifyingly coercive, even the U.S. Military did not want the public to see it! Filmed with the full cooperation of the Pentagon, the Cold War brass revoked their imprimatur after viewing the final product. You might say this one was declared off-Nimitz, if you were a certain kind of HELLCATS OF THE NAVY-centric punster.  PRISONER OF WAR actually dares to put a viable socialist critique of the new U.S. World Order in the mouths of its cartoonish villains, demonstrating just how ideologically blinkered North American audiences were (and are). As Rita Hayworth states in the immortal STRAWBERRY BLONDE: "I refuse to listen to advanced ideas!"  If you're in the mood for pointless 6th dimensional intrigue, laconic Reaganite philosophizing about human frailty, harrowing psychological torture experiments, canines in trouble, a cavalcade of brilliant character actors (Oscar Homolka, Paul Stewart, Henry Morgan) slumming it in the Red Scare District

Bryan Foy's B-movie unit at Warner Brothers churned out some of the best bottom-of-the-bill features of the late 1930s, but B. Reeves Eason's "Horseratio Alger" tale Sergeant Murphy is kind of a nag. Nevertheless, this seldom seen army/racing/equine buddy film is a crucial item in the Gipper's filmography, as it demonstrates the studio's continuing commitment to the coltish actor as a leading player (it's his second starring vehicle, following closely on the hooves of Love is on the Air).   The film may not be any great shakes as a piece of entertainment, but it made a fine conversation piece for your hosts, who zero in on Reagan's unexpected espousal of post-structuralist/critical race theory in a key scene, marvel at the U.S. military's laughingstock/rump status in those pre-World War II/World Police days, and consider the evolution of Dutch's persona more broadly (this was his first chance to play a non-announcer/reporter character).  The supporting cast is mostly composed of nonentities, with the signific

Our second Reagan/Dwan collaboration is far inferior to Tennessee's Partner, despite some fine directorial touches and characteristically brilliant open air cinematography from John Alton, but it does furnish your hosts with a textbook example of colonialist hermeneutics in action. On the surface, Cattle Queen of Montana may come across as a "progressive" film, with its anti-bigotry rhetoric and championing of Colorados' "good" (i.e. assimilationist) faction of the Blackfoot tribe; however, as with all ideological narratives, the film is working overtime to head off any genuinely liberatory ideas at the conceptual pass, not unlike the current Trudeau government of Canada or the mainstream leaders of today's Democratic Party.  The gang is grateful that the Gipper's filmography provided this one opportunity to discuss the amazing Barbara Stanwyck, perhaps the finest actor of the studio age - and a person whose politics were almost certainly more despicable than Reagan's own. Of course, since she never became co

When proletarian Warner Brothers hightails it to the Ozarks, things can only go two ways: toward tragedy or rough mockery. Swing Your Lady offers a touch of the former (thanks primarily to genuine chemistry between unlikely screen lovers Louise Fazenda and Nat Pendleton), and a whole mess of the latter. There's not much Gipper in this one, but what there is, is choice - by now he's got his sharpie media character persona so well honed that he runs rings around wrestling promoters Humphrey Bogart, Frank McHugh, and Allen Jenkins (none of whom, it must be owned, is playing at the brighter edge of their respective character ranges). The film offers wonderful opportunities for your hosts to digress upon such weighty matters as "Ozark face" minstrelsy; the eruption of "hillbilly" music upon the popular scene during the 1930s; the strange careers and love lives of The Weaver Brothers & Elviry; a lengthy disquisition upon the unique properties of "The Old Apple Tree" (a tragi-comic lynching ballad); a potted his

The RED TIME FOR BONZO gang sifts an unexpected nugget out of the silt of Reagan's waning film career - although, in retrospect, no one should ever count an Allan Dwan film out before it's watched (particularly when Dwan is working with cinematographer John Alton and a crackerjack fifties cast that includes John Payne, Rhonda Fleming, Coleen Gray, and Chubby Johnson). The Gipper turns in tremendous work here, too, fusing his character's seemingly incongruous rigidity, resourcefulness and capacity for empathy into harmonious aspects of a genuinely unique being in the "oater" canon. Your hosts also make a spirited effort to situate this ballad of "Cowpoke" and "Tennessee" within the queer film tradition; discuss the archetypal function of The Prospector; and entertain a sad and decidedly uninspiring analogy between the dysfunctional "Whig" party of the 1830s and the rudderless #resistance crowd of today. Listen to Bret Harte's original tale here. Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO! Follow us

Ronald Reagan in a Busby Berkeley extravaganza!!?? Well, sort of... The Gipper graduates from Warners' B-squad to the big time, but only to the tune of a 30 second two-shot with the great Dick Powell (67% of our hosts disagree with that description of Dick). And it's not exactly Berkeley's finest effort, either. Nothing proto-psychedelic here. Unless Mabel Todd's dotty dialogue disorients you.  And - to quote Mabel - we had some interesting talks! Topics include some notes on Johnny Mercer; the sad demise of erstwhile Stooge Majordomo Ted Healy; the return of Clinton Rosemond and Allyn Joslyn; the mystery that is Hugh Herbert; a despicable blackface gag that tells you everything you need to know about the banality of white supremacist evil during the 1930s; counterfeit fashion plate Alan Mowbray; Louella Parsons; some excuses for Dave to talk about the Lane Sisters (Rosemary and Lola are actually in the film); Glenda Farrell, professional wiseacre; Frances Langford; Johnnie "Scat" Davis; the Second New Deal;

Prepare to submerge with Gareth, Romy and Dave into the jingoistic backwash of the Gipper's career with our epic discussion of HELLCATS OF THE NAVY (1957). In this episode, we take full advantage of our one and only cinematic opportunity to celebrate the immortal chemistry of those Blacklist Sweethearts, Ronnie and Nancy; critique Admiral Chester Nimitz's Tarantino level acting ability; absorb the leadership lessons the film may have imparted to the future President; and ponder several topical news cycle items, including the general incompetence of just about everyone in our society and the meaning of "incel" terror attacks.   Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO! Follow us at: Facebook Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale   Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges 

Join the Red Time for Bonzo team as they contemplate the Gipper's very first starring role, in an unprepossessing little programmer known, for no particular reason that anyone can fathom, as LOVE IS ON THE AIR (more sensibly aka THE RADIO MURDER MYSTERY). Here we see Warners' crackerjack B-movie "Foy Unit" methods in full effect. Just hired a non-actor whose entertainment experience is limited to radio announcing? Cast him as a radio announcer, surround him with mayhem, and spice it up with a little proletarian animus against the moneyed pigs who run North American business AND crime (as if there's any difference between the two). Along the way, we discuss child fight clubs and juvenile murderers, the poverty of superhero films (and the optics of quitting them radioactive turkey at this particular moment in media history), and protagonist Andy McCain's matter-of-fact misogyny.  Listen right to the end in order to get in on the ground floor of our brand new segment: The Joy of AFI Catalog Subject Tags  You'll

For episode 1B, we jump to the ass-end of The Gipper's career, examining Don Siegel's acclaimed 1964 adaptation of Hemingway's THE KILLERS. Reagan's final role finds him cast against type as a sociopathic Southern California entrepreneur who is most at home on the business end of a sniper scope (when he's got former associates to kill) or a pair of binoculars (when he's being cuckolded again). The film is a motion Dorian Gray-picture hiding in plain sight, belying the "Great Communicator's" good-guy grandpa image and laying bare the criminal/realpolitik roots of the Goldwaterite Conservative movement that would swallow the Republican party whole by 1980. Of course, in 1964, even the most sanguine libertarian hustlers in the GOP had no idea what the next decade and a half held in store for their movement. After the defeat of their sparsely-haired boy Barry in November, those ragged individualists found themselves between a Rockefeller and a hard place, not unlike Reagan's Jack Browning character near the end o

We search in vain for the man himself during our inaugural film (IMDB insists that he is among the angry mob at the governor's mansion), but we find a wealth of material for our Marxist-Reaganist manifesto in Warner Brothers' They Won't Forget. Join us as we examine the progressive commitments of the Gipper's home studio and set the table for our ongoing exploration of mid-century American pop cultural politics. Along the way, Dave argues that Tump Redwine is in fact the hero of the film; Romy lays out a good faith murder case against Robert Hale; and Gareth launches his soon-to-be-famous Norbert "I Love Actresses!" Lusk reading series. You'll also meet immortals like Westbrook Pegler, Ward Greene, and Gloria Dickson.  It's morning in Red Time For Bonzoland. Intro Theme: "Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges 

At last, it's the Revanchist Left American Studies project you've been pining for since November 4, 1980! Join Romy, Gareth and David on a vitriolic voyage through Ronald Reagan's filmic oeuvre. Consider this an audio cease-and-desist missive to the hordes of "#Resistance" tweeters who've seen fit to critique the Trump regime with soothing prune-faced Gipper memes. Ronald Reagan was not a "moderate", and the fact that anyone in our cohort thinks he was only goes to demonstrate the magnitude of his grim hegemonic coup. The time has come to reclaim the discourse from the criminals who plopped The Great Communicator atop the electoral Christmas Tree in the Fall of 1980, and have been hogging 99% of the gifts ever since.  Our humble thesis? Want to deploy Reagan against Trump and late capitalism? Go to it! Just use his filmography instead.  Or, better yet, let us do it for you.