Harrison Ford elected best movie president

By CARRIE RICKEY

The polling places are closed. Winner of the popular vote for America’s most beloved chief executive is — President Ford.

Not Gerald, silly — Harrison, leader of the free world in “Air Force One.”

According to an Oct. 23 survey conducted by Moviefone, the film-listing service and Web site, Ford ranked above Morgan Freeman (“Deep Impact”), Michael Douglas (“The American President”), Bill Pullman (“Independence Day”) and Kevin Kline (“Dave”). The monthlong Internet poll drew more than 1.1 million votes (now that’s voter turnout).

Candidates, take note. You can glean nearly as much about what Americans want — and don’t — from a politician at the multiplex as in the voting booth.

Movies about presidents, or any contender for public office, come in three types: wish-fulfillment fantasy; exaltation or defamation of a real-life figure; and the inside-politics fable.

The wish-fulfillment film (see above) boasts an omnipotent chief exec. He goes mano-a-mano with terrorists! He saves the planet from a killer comet! He woos a fetching lobbyist!

These fantasies are pleasant diversions from more serious examinations of real chiefs — think Abe Lincoln in Illinois or Nixon — that explore the making and/or unmaking of a president. The legacies of two troubled presidencies are the subject of two films this election cycle.

“W.,” Oliver Stone’s lame-duck saga of the current president, stars Josh Brolin in a pitch-perfect performance about a screwup who stops drinking and finds purpose. Now in theaters, it plays like a “Saturday Night Live” sketch — only not funny.

And coming in December is “Frost/Nixon,” based on the play by Peter Morgan (“The Queen”), an account of British chat-show host David Frost as he corners the disgraced former American chief exec into apologizing for the lies of his administration.

Cinematically speaking, Richard Nixon would win the vote as Hollywood’s most unpopular president. He’s the tortured and lonely subject of “Frost/Nixon” (with a stormy Frank Langella as “Tricky Dick”), Robert Altman’s 1984 “Secret Honor” (a venomous Philip Baker Hall), Stone’s 1995 “Nixon” (a morose Anthony Hopkins), and the 1999 satire “Dick” (a sly Dan Hedaya).

Bill Clinton could take the oath as most satirized (satyrized?) chief exec. His administration inspired an interest in all things West Wing. For don’t we presume that the presidents in “Dave” (1993), “Wag the Dog” (1997), and “Primary Colors” (1998) — fellows of position papers and compromising positions — are all the Man From Hope?

No surprise, Hollywood’s most beloved prez is Honest Abe, hymned in D.W. Griffith’s “Abraham Lincoln” (1930, with Walter Huston); “Young Mr. Lincoln” (1939, Henry Fonda); “Abe Lincoln in Illinois” (1940, Raymond Massey); and “Lincoln” (1974, Hal Holbrook in the TV miniseries). He is soon to be the subject of a Steven Spielberg biopic starring Liam Neeson, slated for 2010.

That year, it’s a good bet that both Abe and Teddy Roosevelt will be campaigning for Oscars, as Martin Scorsese’s “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” (with Leonardo DiCaprio as the Rough Rider) is also slated for release.