Guest Column
Hollywood and politicians have made strange bedfellows from back in the days of Charlie Chaplin whose independence sealed a lifetime beyond the cherished reels and busy work of the war lords consigning him to distant shores until the final redemptive days. You are either with us or against never upon us.
Lord Louis B. Mayer gave the Republican Party a say in the 1920s in building a solid propaganda machine. Edward G. Robinson fought Nazi’s–Ronald Reagan and George Murphy darlings of the high flying right served as presidents of the Screen Actors Guild. Depending on which side of the aisle you inhabited, politics of the day influenced the type of movies being made. We went from gun toting Vietnamese slayer John Wayne in The Green Berets to Jane Fonda’s Oscar win in the anti-war Coming Home.