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The director’s cut of the movie “Reagan” will answer the question of who said “make America great again”—because it wasn’t Donald Trump. The current president can thank Ronald Reagan for one of the most popular campaign slogans ever.
The scene showing President Reagan using that line was cut from the original movie, which was released in 2024. Now moviegoers can see Reagan use the line during his 1980 campaign against Jimmy Carter.
With 2024 a presidential election year, director Sean McNamara was determined to make the movie unbiased.
“We were trying to stay apolitical. We did not want to do anything that would get Democrats or Republicans upset. … Reagan was somebody who both sides of the aisle really liked. What part of the story are we trying to tell? Are we trying to hit hot points that will just tick people off, or are we trying to tell the story of Reagan’s life?”
Personal Connection
As far as why he wanted to make a movie about Ronald Reagan, well, he had a bit of a personal connection.
When he was 12, McNamara got hooked on getting a career in the industry when his father bought him a Super 8 movie camera. A friend’s father had directed the Academy Awards, so McNamara asked his buddy to set up a meeting.
“And he finally gave me that meeting. I met with his dad. He asked, ‘So, kid, what do you do?’ I said I plug in microphones because I’m in a rock and roll band. And the next thing I know, there’s a limo in my driveway. I get on an airplane that goes to Washington, and I’m plugging in microphones for Reagan’s inauguration.”
McNamara had turned 18 in 1980. The first time he voted, he cast his ballot for Reagan.
Unlike many biopics of presidents, which focus on the time in the White House, this film chronicles Reagan’s entire life. His movie career, which began in 1937, helped him rise to fame; but as is often the case in Hollywood, life can be a roller coaster. The future president had to take any gig to pay the bills, including doing commercials for cigarettes, dish soap, and pretzels.
Making a movie on such an amazing life proved challenging for McNamara, as his original cut was way too long at three and a half hours. The culprit: full speeches from the President’s life. “I had to go through the whole movie and cut it down to what was in the script.”
Cutting Room
This meant that some of the good stuff from those speeches, like the now-famous MAGA line, ended up on the cutting room floor. The additional scenes also offer a deeper insight into Regan’s relationship with wife Nancy and his own father, along with lighthearted ones.
“I am so excited to have people actually watch the deleted scenes,” he said. “They make me laugh. They make me cry. These are all true stories, by the way. Like when these birds would come and eat his fish, he’d walk around with his gun and shoot it, and it just drove the Secret Service guys crazy.”
They aren’t technically “Easter eggs,” but there are a few lesser-known facts about Reagan depicted in the movie. The secret service agent assigned to Reagan’s ranch got the gig because he was apparently the only one who could ride a horse. The President loved to go on rides.
Sinatra Fans
There was also something even the biggest Frank Sinatra fans might have missed. The soundtrack includes songs from the Chairman of the Board: “Nancy (With the Laughing Face)” and “This Town.”
While it sounds like a young Sinatra, the vocals are provided by actor Robert Davi, who then affected a Russian accent as he played General Secretary of the Communist Party Leonid Brezhnev in the film.
Davi, also a big admirer of Ronald Reagan, did a lot of research into the life of his character, and says Breznev and the president had a good relationship even during the Cold War. “I started to research and ask people about Brezhnev, and he was very well liked.”
The Russian point of view and the eventual thawing of the Cold War is an important part of the film. Growing up on Long Island, Davi remembers Cold War exercises in school.
“That whole Soviet threat was big. We had to hide under our desks. Reagan was someone who fought against communism,” he said. Reagan’s sense of humor is evident through the entire movie. “He had a disarming sense of humor that I liked.”
If you want to know what eventually led to the Berlin Wall coming down, the scene in which Reagan meets future speechwriter Dana Rohrabacher is very enlightening, as is the story behind the President deciding to read his most famous line, “Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
The director’s cut of “Reagan” includes about 10 minutes of new footage and the re-release is scheduled nationwide for Sept. 25.
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