Cinema: All The Presidents' Movies

Musclehead or sex fiend--the image of the Chief Executive is no longer a winning ticket

Henry Burton, the campaign aide with a troubled conscience, is lying on a hotel bed watching a movie on TV. It's the last moment of Shane, the Mount Everest of the heroic western, and a desolate little boy is crying to the hillsides, "Shane, Shane! Come back!" Henry cries out in return, "And run for President!"

Well, what can you do but cry when you've devoted yourself to a candidate like Primary Colors' Jack Stanton--charming, idealistic in some ways, but more than a little slippery? That's the kind of presidential timber we've been getting in the movies lately. Men apt to...

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