Kings Row

“Where’s the rest of me?” cries the newly amputated Drake McHugh, which was easily Ronald Reagan’s finest performance (that is if you don’t count those sixteen years he spent as a figurehead for California and the U.S.). Based on a scandalous potboiler, Kings Row is the story of “the town they talk about in whispers.” A group of childhood friends leave their stifling hamlet in search of great fortune. But returning years later, they find themselves embroiled in torrid love affairs, dementia, suicides, and the clutches of a sadistic doctor who’ll cut off the legs of any young man with designs on his daughter. We can only wonder why Kings Row never found new life during the Dutch Administration, and it would be a camp classic if it weren’t so somber.