
Nancy Davis Reagan
1921 - 2016Nancy Davis Reagan (born Anne Frances Robbins; July 6, 1921 – March 6, 2016) was an American film actress and the wife of Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States. She served as the First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Davis' film career began with small supporting roles in two films that were released in 1949, The Doctor and the Girl with Glenn Ford and East Side, West Side starring Barbara Stanwyck. She played a child psychiatrist in the film noir Shadow on the Wall (1950) with Ann Sothern and Zachary Scott; her performance was called "beautiful and convincing" by New York Times critic A. H. Weiler. She co-starred in 1950's The Next Voice You Hear..., playing a pregnant housewife who hears the voice of God from her radio. Influential reviewer Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that "Nancy Davis [is] delightful as [a] gentle, plain, and understanding wife." In 1951, Davis appeared in Night into Morning, her favorite screen role, a study of bereavement starring Ray Milland. Crowther said that Davis "does nicely as the fiancée who is widowed herself and knows the loneliness of grief," while another noted critic, The Washington Post's Richard L. Coe, said Davis "is splendid as the understanding widow." MGM released Davis from her contract in 1952; she sought a broader range of parts, but also married Reagan, keeping her professional name as Davis, and had her first child that year. She soon starred in the science fiction film Donovan's Brain (1953); Crowther said that Davis, playing the role of a possessed scientist's "sadly baffled wife," "walked through it all in stark confusion" in an "utterly silly" film. In her next-to-last movie, Hellcats of the Navy (1957), she played nurse Lieutenant Helen Blair, and appeared in a film for the only time with her husband, playing what one critic called "a housewife who came along for the ride." Another reviewer, however, stated that Davis plays her part satisfactorily, and "does well with what she has to work with."
Author Garry Wills has said that Davis was generally underrated as an actress because her constrained part in Hellcats was her most widely seen performance. In addition, Davis downplayed her Hollywood goals: promotional material from MGM in 1949 said that her "greatest ambition" was to have a "successful happy marriage"; decades later, in 1975, she would say, "I was never really a career woman but [became one] only because I hadn't found the man I wanted to marry. I couldn't sit around and do nothing, so I became an actress." Ronald Reagan biographer Lou Cannon nevertheless characterized her as a "reliable" and "solid" performer who held her own in performances with better-known actors. After her final film, Crash Landing (1958), Davis appeared for a brief time as a guest star in television dramas, such as the Zane Grey Theatre episode "The Long Shadow" (1961), where she played opposite Ronald Reagan, as well as Wagon Train and The Tall Man, until she retired as an actress in 1962.
The Dark Wave
Jean Negulesco
Nancy Reagan, Charles Bickford
A young girl, played by Pamela Beaird, normal in every way is affected with severe epilepsy. What happens, in regard to her parents and school friends and their reactions, is shown. In addition, an explanation of the affliction and a demonstration of the treatment involved, both physically and psychologically, are detailed.
The Dark Wave
The House I Live In
Eugene Jarecki
Eugene Jarecki, Joe Biden
In the past 40 years, the War on Drugs has accounted for 45 million arrests, made America the world's largest jailer, and destroyed impoverished communities at home and abroad. Yet drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available today than ever. Where did we go wrong?
The House I Live In
Reagan
Adriana Bosch
David Ogden Stiers, James Baker III
In 1988, after two terms in office, Ronald Reagan left the White House one of the most popular presidents of the twentieth century -- and one of the most controversial. A failed actor, Reagan became a passionate ideologue who preached a simple gospel of lower taxes, less government, and anti-communism.
Reagan
Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To
Richard Schickel
Kathleen Turner, G. Larry Butler
This tribute to Myrna Loy is organized chronologically with a few photographs, many film clips, a handful of personal appearances, and a detailed commentary delivered on camera by Kathleen Turner. Turner walks us through Loy's career as a dancer and an actress miscast as an exotic. She comes into her own as a grown-up women: shrewd, funny, decorous, and sexy - in "Manhattan Melodrama" and "The Thin Man." Her volunteer work during World War II, later stage work, and progressive politics come in for admiration as well. It's her style - seen best in her roles as a wife of charm and independence - that's captured and celebrated here.
Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To
The Presidents' Gatekeepers
Gédéon Naudet, Jules Naudet
Kevin Bacon, George H. W. Bush
An analysis of what the role of the Chief of Staff is in his position at the service of the President of the United States of America and how it has been in the past: a in-depth look, through the corridors of White House, at the internal affairs of nine presidential administrations.
The Presidents' Gatekeepers
Get Me Roger Stone
Daniel DiMauro, Dylan Bank
Roger Stone, Donald Trump
From his days of testifying at the Watergate hearings to advising recent presidential candidate Donald Trump, Roger Stone has long offended people on both sides of the political fence as a force in conservative America. Outspoken author, pundit, ahead of his time election strategist, this is his story.
Get Me Roger Stone
Silk Road: Drugs, Death and the Dark Web
Emily James, Mark Lewis
Ross Ulbricht, Julia Vie
Documentary looking at the black market website known as the Silk Road, which emerged on the darknet in 2011. This 'Amazon of illegal drugs' was the brainchild of a mysterious, libertarian intellectual operating under the avatar The Dread Pirate Roberts. Promising its users complete anonymity and total freedom from government regulation or scrutiny, Silk Road became a million-dollar digital drugs cartel.
Silk Road: Drugs, Death and the Dark Web