‘I wish Edmund Morris had lived to see this,” was the thought that entered my mind as I left a showing of Dennis Quaid’s “Reagan” biopic on Labor Day weekend in 2024.  But neither Morris nor his wife and fellow biographer, Sylvia, was alive to receive the apology owed to him.  In a just world, Morris would have received story credit, for the movie contained the very narrative device he so controversially employed in his 1999 book “Dutch:  A Memoir of Ronald Reagan.” 

That book was excoriated by reviewers and Reagan administration alumni for telling the story of Reagan’s life from the perspective of a semi-fictional character — Morris himself. Unlike the real Morris, the fictional Morris was an Illinois-born contemporary of Reagan’s who crossed paths with the future president in Dixon, Ill., at Eureka College, and in Hollywood before the fictional Morris merges with the real Morris in all ways except age as the narrative approaches the 1980 election.  “Ronald Reagan and His Imaginary Friend,” the title of Robert Novak’s review of “Dutch” for The Weekly Standard, was indicative of what critics thought of Morris’ unorthodox method.

“Dutch” was not what anyone, including Morris, was expecting when Morris was chosen as Reagan’s authorized biographer in 1985 and given nearly unlimited access to the president and his staff. Everyone was expecting something akin to Morris’ first book, a well-regarded biography of Theodore Roosevelt that won both a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, a feat, given that Morris was an amateur biographer without a college degree, that was the literary equivalent of Haing S. Ngor winning an Academy Award for “The Killing Fields” without ever having acted before. 

It should be noted that it was Morris’ life that was fictionalized in “Dutch,” not Reagan’s (other than brief pre-presidential encounters between Reagan and the fictional Morris). The book’s fictional elements may make it more of a novel than a biography, but it succeeds remarkably in the aim of every biography, namely, telling a life story. For whatever reason, observing Reagan’s life through the eyes of a fictional character is apparently the best way to present Reagan’s life story to the public.

The “Reagan” film proves this. The story is told from the perspective of a fictional KGB agent (Jon Voight) assigned to observe Reagan over a multi-decade period. And it works. “Reagan” is an effective movie. 

Ironically, many critics who faulted the use of a fictional narrator in “Dutch” had no problem with the fictional narrator in “Reagan.” Perhaps this is because critics are predisposed to tolerate fictional elements in a movie, even a movie purportedly based on real people and real events.  For instance, in “Reagan,” the first face-to-face encounter between Reagan and Nancy Davis occurs in Reagan’s office at the Screen Actors Guild. That is not factual, yet no one seems to mind.

While good, “Reagan” could have been better. It is too bad that Quaid’s brother Randy was not cast as Reagan’s brother Neil. “Reagan” also failed to meet the requisite diversity requirements to qualify for the Academy Awards, as if the filmmakers should have taken inspiration from the “Hamilton” musical and cast a non-white actor to play the Gipper. A less drastic way to add diversity to the production would have been to use the African-American (of the Elon Musk variety) Morris’ book as source material instead of Paul Kengor’s “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism.” 

The former opus is much more cinematic than the latter. The blending of fiction and non-fiction makes “Dutch” the Reaganography best suited for cinematic adaptation. Large swaths of the book are written like a screenplay, complete with stage directions. It is also the only book I know of with an intermission. And whether describing Reagan saving the motion picture industry from the twin threats of communism and television as SAG president, winning the Cold War as U.S. president, or facing Alzheimer’s disease with courage and grace, the prose on the page is beautifully written.

“Dutch” is like “The Great Gatsby,” only longer and better with Reagan as Gatsby and the fictional Morris as Nick Carraway. Adapted for the screen, “Dutch” would be the “Citizen Kane” of presidential biopics, complete with a “rosebud”-like twist at the end. And the next inevitable remake of “A Star is Born” should tell the story of Reagan and Jane Wyman.

Moreover, if the makers of “Reagan” were going to use a fictional character to tell the story, they should have looked to Morris. Or at least have given him credit for the idea.

Paul F. Petrick is an attorney in Cleveland, Ohio.