No matter at what level one ranks Ronald Reagan as a President of the United States, he certainly got a bum rap when it came to comments about his acting prowess. At the time the future 40th President was carving out a living (and becoming a household name) as Warner Bros. good-boy alternative to the studio's reigning male star, bad-boy Errol Flynn, everyone seemed to like Reagan's work very much. Audiences and critics alike consistently gave him a thumbs-up, especially when he was given a part of some consequence. Agreed, he never gave Spencer Tracy or Marlon Brando reason to worry, but Reagan was always a pro. He delivered the goods and, most importantly, the camera loved his easy grin, friendly face and Joe College persona. Except for the early years when, like most other Hollywood beginners at that time, he appeared in many less than noteworthy films, most often his later movies were definitely A-budget affairs.

Flash ahead to the Reagan years in the White House, when one of the popular sports - not only from political opponents, but from talk-show hosts, comedians, TV commentators and all their relatives - was to paint Reagan as a small-time, B-budget actor whose film career was barely worth mentioning. Here at TCM we beg to differ; I'd even suggest that most of those wisecracks were made by people who'd never seen him in a film. All  that leads us to this month on Turner Classic Movies, where we'll be offering over thirty examples of Reagan on film for all to see how thoroughly solid (and likeable) an actor he was.

The one downside to his Hollywood years may have been his signing with Warner Bros. in 1936, not the ideal  studio for someone with Reagan's clean-cut good looks and squeaky-clean persona. Warners was a studio famous for churning out rough-edged urban dramas with tough guys like Bogart, Cagney and Garfield, all of whom spent most of the working days in prison garb. When a part at Warner Bros. did call for a handsome, civilized kind of guy, the pecking order for those scripts, at least in the 40s, went first to Errol Flynn, then Dennis Morgan, then Ronald Reagan. Despite all that, he still made such an impression that he became a world famous movie star, starred in infinitely more A-budget projects than Bs  and remained a welcome presence on screen for 28 years, and we have a great mix of films for you this month that illustrate why  he did. They include two pictures he made with Flynn, one in which Reagan plays a supporting role (1940's Santa Fe Trail) and one in which he costars with Flynn (1942's Desperate Journey), both of them airing on March 25.

We'll also have others Reagan made with people as diverse as Bette Davis, Wallace Beery, a grown-up Shirley Temple, the Dead End Kids, Patricia Neal and both his first wife Jane Wyman (four films on March 11) and second wife Nancy Reagan (Hellcats of the Navy on March 25, the only film in which they appeared together). And, of course, we'll have those two films for which he's most celebrated as an actor, movies which also gave us two of the most quoted of all movie lines, "Where's the rest of me?" spoken by Reagan in 1942's Kings Row, and "Go out there and win one for the Gipper," delivered by Pat O'Brien about Reagan's character, ill-fated football great George Gipp in 1940's Knute Rockne, All-American, both airing on March 18.

Something you may not know about RR: During his days as an actor, his last name, by his choice, was pronounced "Ree-gun." It was not until  he ran for the office of Governor of California in 1966 that he changed the pronunciation to "Ray-gun." But "Ree-gun" or "Ray-gun.," "Toe-may-toe," "Toe-mott-toe," we promise you an entertaining time with a likeable, underrated actor every Wednesday, throughout the month of March. We hope you'll be able to join us often.

by Robert Osborne