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time they led him badly astray. His “court-packing plan,” as it was quickly called, revived conservatives who had been dispirited by the 1936 election results,and it added to the ranks of Roosevelt critics many moderates who cherished the constitutional separation of powers. A president less intoxicated by his victory at the polls would have heeded the warnings, but Roosevelt stubbornly demanded that the Democratic leaders in Congress drive his court measure forward. They tried and failed, and Roosevelt suffered a stinging political defeat.
    The setback proved all the more painful when the economy shortly plunged. After four years of recovery, during which the unemployment rate had declined from 25 percent to 15, the economy unexpectedly lurched into reverse gear. Unemployment leaped while production collapsed; most of the gains of Roosevelt’s first term were undone. Economists then and later argued the causes of the recession, variously blaming premature tightening of fiscal policy by the administration and Congress, clumsy monetary policy by theFederal Reserve, and sabotage by capitalists willing to cut off their noses to spite Roosevelt’s face.
    Whatever the causes of the recession, the consequence was to weaken Roosevelt further. Conservative southern Democrats now challenged him openly, and Republicans scored big victories in the 1938 midterm elections. The once powerful president found himself sorely beset and staggering into what appeared certain to be his final two years in office.
    A MONG THE EARLY movies Reagan appeared in were several cops-and-robbers films. Hollywood wrestled with the issue of crime, notwithstandingHarry Warner’s appeal to the authority of the Bible. Movies were perceived as more powerful emotionally than the other mass media of the day—the press and radio—and the industry itself and certain outside agencies took pains to ensure that films not contribute to the delinquency of youth or other impressionable people. TheMotion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, headed byWill Hays, established a production code designed to protect the morals of America—and, not coincidentally, preserve the industry from profit-threatening negative publicity. The Roman Catholic Church created theLegion of Decency, which likewise policed movie morals, with less concern for the industry’s bottom line and more for the influence of the church.
    Few themes were taboo per se. Crime and violence could be treated, likewise sex. But they had to be placed in the context of broadly accepted community values. Crime passed muster so long as the criminals met their comeuppance in the final reel. Physical violence had to stop short ofthe gross or shocking, but fisticuffs were fine as representing a manly outlet for righteous anger and an occasional necessity for the defense of the vulnerable. Marriage was the appropriate setting for sex; if extramarital sex took place, it ought to produce unhappy results.
    Reagan negotiated the code easily. The sexy parts went to other actors, and in films involving crime, he battled for good, often with his clenched hands. “When do I fight?” he asked the director of
Code of the Secret Service
upon arrival on the set, according toWarner Brothers publicity. The studio account went on to explain that within the hour the actor had “five skinned knuckles, a bruised knee, and a lump the size of an egg on his head.” Reagan played Brass Bancroft, a Secret Service agent who foils counterfeiters and other miscreants with some cleverness but much brute force. The industry paper
Film Daily
called
Code of the Secret Service
a “rip-roaring thriller of bare-fisted walloping action,” while Warner Brothers boasted that a companion film,
Secret Service of the Air
, featured “a cafe brawl that is an all-time high for the rough and tumble.”
    The Brass Bancroft movies—Reagan starred in four—hewed to the mandate that crime not pay. This was a critical matter during the