Movies In History: American Graffiti, and other filmed portrayals of the Cultural 1950s (1954-1965).

American Graffiti

Like The Wonder Years, I've made frequent reference to this film recently.  I was surprised, when I started doing that, that I'd never reviewed it.

American Graffiti takes place on a single night in Modesto, California in 1962.  It's the late summer and the subject, all teenagers, are about to head back to school or already have, depending upon whether they're going to high school or college. Some are going to work or already working.  They're spending the summer night cruising the town.  That's used as a vehicle to get them into dramatic situations.

The story lines, and there are more than one, in the film are really simple.  One character, played by Richard Dreyfus, is about to leave for college and develops a mad crush, in a single night, for a young woman driving a T-bird played by a young Suzanne Summers.  Another plot involves a young couple, played by Ron Howard and Cindy Williams, who are struggling with his plan to leave for college while she has one more year of school.  Another involves an already graduated figure whose life is dedicated to cars, even though it's apparent that he knows that dedication can't last forever.  The cast, as some of these names would indicate, was excellent, with many actors and actresses making their first really notable appearances in the film.

What's of interest here is the films' portrayal of the automobile culture of American youth after World War Two. This has really passed now, but it's accurately portrayed in the film.  Gasoline was relatively cheap and access to automobiles was pretty wide, which created a culture in which adolescents spent a lot of time doing just what is depicted in this movie, driving around fairly aimlessly, with the opposite sex on their minds, on Friday and Saturday nights.  This really existed in the 1960s, when this film takes place, it dated back at least to the 1950s, and it continued on into the very early 1980s. At some point after that, gasoline prices, and car prices, basically forced it out of existence.

For those growing up in the era, this was a feature of Fridays and Saturdays, either to their amusement or irritation.  As a kid, coming into town on a Friday or Saturday evening from anything was bizarre and irritating, with racing automobiles packed with teenagers pretty much everywhere.  Grocery store parking lots were packed with parked cars belonging to them as well.  "Cruising" was a major feature of teenage life, and nearly every teenager participated in it at least a little big, even if they disavowed doing it.  While they did this, in later years they listened to FM radio somewhat, but more likely probably cassette tape players installed after market in their cars.  In the mid 1970s, it was 8 track tape players.  In the 50s and 60s, it was the radio.

So, as odd as it may seem to later generations, this movie is pretty accurate in terms of what it displays historically.  And, given that the film was released in 1973, a mere decade after the era it depicts, it should be.  The amazing thing here is that by 1973 American culture had changed so much that a 1973 film looking back on 1962 could actually invoke a sense of nostalgia and an era long past.

The music and clothing are certainly correct, as is the cruising culture.  I somewhat question the automobiles in the movie, as most of those driven by the protagonists are late 1950s cars that wouldn't have been terribly old at the time the movie portrays, but a person knowledgeable on that topic informed me once that vehicles wore out so fast at the time that people replaced them fairly rapidly, which meant that younger people were driving fairly recent models.  Indeed, looking back on myself, I was driving early 1970s vintage vehicles in the late 1970s.

The music, which is a big feature of the movie, is also correct, which ironically often causes people to view this as a movie about the 1950s, rather than the early 1960s.  The music of the early 60s was the same as that of the late 50s, and music from the 50s was still current in the early 1960s, so this too is correct.

This movie was a huge hit, and it remained very popular for a very long time.  It's justifiably regarded as a classic.  More than that, however, it's one of the few movies that influences its own times.

Already by the 1970s, there was some nostalgia regarding the 1950s.  Sha Na Na, the 50s reprisal do wop band, actually preformed at Woodstock, as amazing as that seems now.  By the late 1960s, seems felt like such a mess that people were looking back towards an earlier era which they regarded as safer, ignoring its problems.  American Graffiti tapped into that feeling intentionally, although it has some subtle dark elements suggesting that not all is right with the world it portrays (the film clearly hints that a returned college graduate student is involved with his teenage female students).  George Lucas, when he made the film, couldn't have guess however that it would fuel a nostalgia boom for the 1950s like none other.

Happy Days

The first filmed progeny of American Graffiti was televisions Happy Days, which even featured Ron Howard, who had featured in American Graffiti.  Happy Days took the nostalgia boosted by American Graffiti and really ran with it in a super sanitized fashion.  Set in the mid 1950s through the mid 1960s, that ran from 1974 until 1983.  It was hugely popular.

Many of the same themes portrayed in American Graffiti were again portrayed in Happy Days, but in a lighter manner.  The show picked up the nostalgia for cars and music and ran with it.  No really serious themes were portrayed, which isn't to say that American Graffiti did much with serious themes. They are different, however, in that American Graffiti is a warm, but somewhat sad, look back at a lost era with some longing, whereas Happy Days is an outright televised sock hop.  In American Graffiti, some characters really are edgy.  In Happy Days, none of them are, not even the leather clad motorcycle riding Arthur Fonzerelli, "the Fonz".

Happy Days was a beloved series, so I hate to criticize it too much, but it fails in terms of a realistic portrayal of its era.  If American Graffiti succeeds, it's because it portrays such a narrow slice of it. Even American Graffiti, however, brings home the era in its concluding shot, which summarizes the fates of the characters.  In contrast, we'd never know that Happy Days takes place during an era when concerns about a war with the Soviet Union were constant and that many of the male figures would have been drafted and served a hitch in the Army.  Where the series succeeds is probably in its minor material detail elements, such as in clothing and music.

Laverne and Shirley

Laverne and Shirley was a spinoff of Happy Days, which also featured one of the actors from American Graffiti, Penny Marshall.  Running from 1976 to 1983, thereby concluding in the same year that Happy Days did, it portrayed two single women working as blue-collar bottle cappers in Milwaukee.  

The interesting thing about Laverne and Shirley is that probably more accurately portrayed the lives of figures of the 50s than Happy Days did.  The two young women share an apartment, they hope to get married and leave their blue-collar lives, and they're working a blue-collar job.  The series, while set in the 50s, feels like it's set in the 1950s of Marty, not Happy Days, and not American Graffiti.  That's actually the world a lot of young people lived in.

Other Efforts

It's probably worth noting that the success of American Graffiti followed by Happy Days spawned a large number of filmed efforts, most of which were pretty bad.  Indeed, I can't think of any others that are actually worth mentioning, except for one, which was made much later and which clearly wasn't inspired by American Graffiti, that being That Thing You Do.  Among the worst is one that bills itself as a "Rock and Roll Fable", Streets Of Fire, which had some notable cast members who must wish that the film would be forever forgotten.

Movies In History: The Wonder Years

I've made a bunch of references to this series, which ran from 1988 to 1993 recently, and so I'm really overdue to review it as a small screen depiction of an historical era in history.  

This series looked back on a period twenty years after the time in which it ran, the late 1960s to the early 1970s, through the eyes of the protagonist, a boy who is 12 years old when the series started, and 17 when it ended. It's exactly 20 years between the airing and the show, as the show started in 1968 and concluded in 1973.

Frankly, it's a rare example of television excellence. The era was accurately depicted, from a child's prospective, which is on the day-to-day nature of daily living, and the concerns of youth, rather than on the big events of the era. The big events do work their way into the series, but it's not about them.  The feel of growing up in the era is exactly correct, although my frame of reference is really from a few years later, more or less, later.  Not that much had changed.

That feel, we'll note, is the subject of two prior blog posts, long ones, here, Growing Up in the 1960s and Growing Up in the 1970s.  They're linked in below, and you'll see reference to this show there.  You'll also get a better feel for the era in those long posts than here, but this series got that feel right.

More than anything else, the focus of kids growing up, in a period in which there had been subtle changes, and there were subtle changes going on, is precisely correct.  This series probably is the most realistic depiction of Middle America in the 1970s that there is.  The gap in culture between younger members of the Baby Boom Generation, Generation Jones, and the older members, the real Boomers, and the gap between the Boomers and their parents is very well and accurately portrayed.  The last big example of the automobile culture and what that meant is also accurately portrayed.  It's not Ozzie and Harriet, and it's not Full Metal Jacket.

A person wanting to understand this era of American culture, and on into the 1970s, really has to watch it.

Related Threads:

Growing up in the 1970s

Growing up in the 1960s

Movies In History: The Maltese Falcon

The other day, I ran this really long item on the 80 years ago theme:

Lex Anteinternet: Friday October 3, 1941. The Maltese Falcon: 

Friday October 3, 1941. The Maltese Falcon

Humphrey Bogart appeared as Sam Spade in the classic, The Maltese Falcon, which was released on this day in 1941.

Today in World War II History—October 3, 1941

In spite of the movie poster, I don't recall a lot of "blazing automatics" in the film, but it is a great film.

Not generally recognized today, the film is a remake of a film by the same name, from a decade prior.  The two films are actually reportedly very close in plot, with both very closely following the Dashiell Hammett book, but the 31 variant was a pre Production Code film and contained elements that were omitted from the 41 film, including some fairly open references to homosexuality and hints at nudity. This is interesting for a variety of reasons, including that while the movies track each other in all other respects, the 1941 version which omits this material is the one that is remembered, suggesting that the degree to which material is really necessary in movies is overstated.

The film was directed by John Huston, a great director and legendary Hollywood figures, and Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, both of whom had appeared in the recently released Casablanca, which some also regard as a film noir, appeared again with Bogart in this film.  Indeed, it's a surprise to me that The Maltese Falcon was released after Casablanca, as it has the feel of an older film. 

The 31 film came just a year after the novel was released.  The 41 film overshadows the novel and the 31 film, which is a credit to it.  Both film variants reported follow the dialog of the book very closely which is of note as the dialog in this film is so distinct that it's come to define film noir in many people's minds, even though many film noir feature nothing of the sort.  Having said that, they all have a certain gritty feel to them.  At any rate, the film's dialog is so well known that both serious noir efforts such as Pat Novak for Hire, the radio drama, and parodies, such as Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Calvin & Hobbes detective base their dialog on it.

The Maltese Falcon famously concludes with the revelation that the falcon figurine is a fraud , with Spade then indentifying that "that's the stuff dreams are made of", one of the most famous movie lines of all time.

After that, I thought, should I add this to the "Movies In History" page?

Well, there's good reasons not to.  This is a movie made in 1941, it's not a movie looking back on 1941. When this film was made people were going to the movies, so they could have a couple of hours not to think about whether the US was going to enter the global catechism, whether Moscow was going to fall to the Germans, and whether they were going to be drafted.  

Still, we wrote quite a bit about it, and this is a really influential movie, so perhaps we ought to spend a little time looking at it.

The central plot here, and I'm going to really unfairly reduce it, is that everyone is looking for the jewel encrusted Maltese Falcon, a remnant of the Knights of Malta, which has been lost to the world but which now is nearly found, and which criminal elements are closing in on.  People are getting murdered. Femme fatales are really being fatal, and creepy criminals are lurking everywhere.  Standing against them and for the forces of justice are Sam Spade, super private eye, whose partner has just been gunned down in a murder made to look like a suicide.

Yikes, what a plot.

It's a very good movie.  Does it reflect its time.

Well, no, but it does act as sort of an interesting mirror in a way.

Now, what we can't take from that is that this is somehow a realistic image of what private detectives did in the 1930s and 40s. . . or ever.   Probably the portrayal of the Volkswagen driving PI in The Big Lebowski is more representative of that.  And while I have no doubt that the hard-boiled image portrayed by Bogart has been affected by PI's from time to time, it probably doesn't accurately reflect the profession either, other than that it probably can be a dicey way to make a living.  So we can toss that out for the most part.

But in terms of male clothing, it probably is reflective to a degree of the style of the time.  The suits are cheap and plain, which is a not inaccurate portrayal of day to day life in the 30s and 40s for men.  Bogart wears a fedora, but he preferred Borsolino's, which were a very expensive Italian fedora.  He usually wore his own hat in films as he preferred that brand.  He wears a trench coat in the movie, which became a movie prop, but at the time this was made that was an intentional reference to service in World War One, which gave us that coat in its original and best form. The firearms are mostly conventional and correct for the period, although his partner is murdered with a Webley Fosbery Automatic Revolver, which would be weird for any era. This is pointed out by Spade in the film, which shows I suppose about how acutely aware he is of every detail of a crime.

As for the women, Mary Astor is ridiculously well-dressed for the era, something that was common for movies of this era.  Films tended to dress leading ladies glamorously, not matter what.

So, not a documentary by any means, but some interesting reflections of the era in which it was made.  Part of that reflection, as we've noted, comes filtered through the Hayes Production Code, which was now in effect.  In spite of that, the 1941 version of the film is remembered and the 1931 version, which was more salacious, is not.  Anyway you look at it, Sam Spade is a guys' guy, with no doubts about his masculinity, and while the central female figure is an evil self acting woman, she's pretty clearly a woman, or maybe a gal, or a dame.

Monday Morning Repeats for the week of May 8, 2011: Social and Cultural History and Film

Once again, and easy choice, as it was the only thing that was posted that week:

Social and Cultural History and Film

The Outpost

Helicopter landing at Camp Keating, the location of the Battle of Kamdesh

There are actually a lot of movies about the United States in Afghanistan.  I don't know if the fact that I haven't seen but a few of them means that, like in regard to World War Two, there's a lot of bad ones, or just that I don't see very many movies.  But there are a lot.

The other day I saw The Outpost on Netflix.  This movie is centered on the real life battle of Kamdesh and portrays the actual soldiers who fought there.

The battle took place at a remote outpost which, as the movie depicts, was extraordinarily poorly located. The photos posted here of the actual location demonstrate that as well.  The base was located in a valley, a classic military blunder, and the subject of constant sniping.  On October 3, 2009, the Taliban attempted to overrun it which resulted in a pitched battle.  The resulting fighting was dramatic, and two Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded to American soldiers who fought there.

By all accounts this movie is a very good depiction of the actual battle, including the location. The film is well done and the portrayal of the soldiers extremely unvarnished.  The battle scenes are harrowing and gritty.  The modern U.S. Army including its equipment is very well portrayed.  Well worth watching.

SSG Clinton Romesha near the area where the battle was fought.  He would receive the Congressional Medal of Honor as a result of his heroism in the battle.

The Liberator

Division insignia of the 45th Infantry Division

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An email list group I'm a member of was discussing this movie recently and therefore I watched it.  It frankly exceeded my expectations quite a bit.

The Liberator is a feature length animated movie based on the memoirs of Texas born Felix L. Sparks who joined the Army in 1936 during the Great Depression and served for two years as an enlisted man. The film doesn't go into his prewar history, but just to complete that after Sparks was discharged he went to the University of Arizona and then reentered the Army at some point as an officer.

I'm not personally familiar with Sparks' story.  It appears that he was stationed for a time at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma (which is something I share in common with him) and that he may have been an artilleryman at one time who moved over to infantry.  On that I'm not sure, but he did end up a commissioned officer in the 45th Infantry Division, which was a National Guard Division heavily made up of Oklahomans, including a fair number of Native Americans, but also including other National Guard units in its make up that came from the Southwest.  Famous cartoonist Bill Mauldin was in early in World War Two, having joined a New Mexico National Guard unit that was folded into it just as it was being called up, something that was fairly common in World War One and World War Two.  Mauldin started off his cartoon career with the 45th Division News.

At any rate, the film portrays Sparks as being assigned a group of hard luck soldiers in a fashion that's heavily reminiscent of The Dirty Dozen.  It follows them through the war, starting off with combat in Italy (in reality Sparks was taken from Oran Algeria to Sicily in Operation Husky aboard the USS George Carroll, which was the ship that my coworker who had the office next to me for many years was on during the war).  The combat scenes thereafter strongly recall the film The Big Red One, including combat in Italy and later in Germany, featuring the liberation of a concertation camp.  Along the way Sparks is given a double barreled Lupara, a sort of short barreled Sicilian shotgun associated with the Mafia.  In real life, Sparks was apparently nicknamed "The Shotgun".

The film concludes, fwiw, in a fashion that's very reminiscent of Band of Brothers.

I'll be frank that I was prepared to dislike this film, but I liked it. The animation is very realistic, so after a person gets used to it, it's not distracting.  It's pretty clear that real actors were used for the characters movements, and it'd be interesting to know the background reason for that.  I suspect that either COVID 19 prevented filming with actual actors, or budgetary concerns simply made this a cheaper option for a film that didn't have a large budget.  Another factor may simply be that the plot, while based on real events, is somewhat "light" and it tracks pretty closely to plot elements found in other films, which might say a lot for them actually, as it would tend to show that those details were generally fairly accurate.

All in all, it works.

In terms of historical accuracy, while I've noted several other films that this film seems to lean on, it seems that it tracks pretty closely to Sparks actual history during the war, but with clear exaggerations, particularly as to the origin of his initial company.  While I haven't looked into it, the "hard luck" nature of the initial infantry company is a little too close to The Dirty Dozen to really be fully believable, but perhaps I should read the memoir and see if Sparks recalled in that fashion himself.  Sparks did command troops in the noted unit during the war, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel by the war's end.  Locations seem to be based on actual ones as well.

In terms of material detail, this film is remarkable for an animation.  By and large most of the material details are correct, showing that somebody had done a fair amount of research in order to get such details right even though the number of people who would pick up on them is slight.  There are a few errors, but they are not numerous.

FWIW, in real life Sparks left the Army after the Second World War and went on to law school, graduating from the University of Colorado's law school in 1947.  He stayed in Colorado thereafter and ended up being a Colorado Supreme Court Justice.  He retired from military service with the Colorado Army National Guard at the rank of Brigadier General.  

The film is well worth watching.

Greyhound

USS Fletcher in 1942, at which time she was camouflaged (Camouflage Measure 12).  Greyhound features a Fletcher Class destroyer and in fact much of it was filmed on the USS Kidd, which is now a museum ship in Baton Rouge.

This recent movie by Tom Hanks was intended for a theater release this past year but that was disrupted by the COVID 19 pandemic.  It was therefore instead released on Apple TV.  It can't be claimed that the movie hasn't suffered in some fashion for this, but all in all the film is sort of freakishly suited for the medium in which it has been released.

Greyhound is based upon a novel by C. S. Forester entitled The Good Shepherd.  I haven't read the novel, but according to those who have the movie is close to it. Forester was famous for his Admiral Hornblower series of novels set during the Napoleonic Wars, none of which I've read, but which have had a substantial following.  According to those who have read them, this foray into World War Two, written by Forester in 1955, was a considerable departure in numerous ways, all of which seem to have found reflection in the film.

The plot line follows the convoy command of a U.S. Navy officer, Captain Krause, early after the official start of World War Two in the Atlantic.  The officer, we learn early on, is older for his command, and this film, like Saving Private Ryan, cast Hanks, age 65, in a role for which he'd be very much too old in real life. However, like that film, and the recently reviewed The Big Red One, this film isn't hindered by that fact for the reason that generally individuals during the Second World War often appeared significantly older than their contemporaries of the same vintage would today.

The age is a significant factor in the story and apparently in the book as well, as it suggests that the ship's captain has had a stalled career.  Indeed, early on it is hinted at that he's had a stalled life as the scene, which is nearly only a cameo, that introduces the film is before his departure for his new assignment in which he meets a love interest, Evelyn, played by Elisabeth Shue (age 57).

Shue is a long standing actress who makes only a brief appearance in this film.  Associated most strongly with films from early in career, in which she played upper middle class girls next door, she's well cast in her role as well.  At age 57, Shue can easily pass for a woman in the 1940s in her 40s, just as Hanks can pass for a man in his 40s at age 64.

That really leads us to another topic, which is relative age in eras.  As we've earlier noted in other threads, the common suggestion that people "live longer" now than they previously did is erroneous, but an argument can be made that people aged more quickly in prior eras. People in their 50s common looked much older in the mid 20th Century than they do now, and women in particular, even though they have always lived longer than men, often looked quite old by the time they were in their late 50s.

All that's a topic for some other thread, but what we'd note here is that the relative appearance of the subjects isn't incorrect.

Before moving on with the film, on a final note with age, we should note that lots of military career officers were at much lower ranks, indeed, nearly all of them were, prior the start of World War Two.  Stalled careers is a common subject for movies set in World War Two, with The Caine Mutiny and The Thin Red Line providing examples of the same. Indeed, the inevitable temptation to compare the captain and crew of the ship in The Caine Mutiny with the same in this film is pretty strong, although it doesn't go too far given the much different portrayals.  Anyhow, there were in fact a lot of older officers in the service at fairly junior ranks when the war started.  Eisenhower, for example, was a Lieutenant Colonel at the start of the war.  The problem, however is that the military made a pretty pronounced effort to weed officers over 50 years of age out of the service, although it was an informal process and not universally applied. And also, I know much less about this in the Navy than I do in the Army.  Still, its interesting to note that Chester Nimitz was 55 years old when World War Two started (and by contemporary standards, he looked much older).

Anyhow, having dealt with that topic, that comes up in discussions on this film, we can take Hanks role here as a Naval officer receiving his first ship command in his 40s as not unrealistic.

That long introduction sets the stage.  The U.S. is early in the war and Hanks is a long serving Navy officer whom its hinted has had a disappointing career.  He receives, however, command of a Fletcher class destroyer and, moreover, command of a convoy that's set to cross the Atlantic in the thick of the U Boot war.  How does the film do historically, and otherwise.

Well, fairly good, but not without quite a bit of dramatic license.

Starting off, the film does an excellent job of portraying the absolute nightmare of crossing the Atlantic before the U Boot wolf packs were broken up and small aircraft carriers became part of convoys.  The movie accurately portrays the convoy becoming vulnerable as soon as the convoy passes out of air cover.  The film also accurately portrays the horrific attrition that convoys were subject to in that part of the war.  Indeed, for much of the war being a merchant seaman in the Atlantic was the most dangerous occupation in the war.  The film is also accurate in showing the convoy being multinational, with British and Canadian escorts as part of it.

Naval weaponry is accurate in the film as well, including the fact that defense weaponry such as depth charges were limited in number.  Technology that was a feature of ships of the period, including the period sonar, is also correct and shown being correctly used, including showing its limitations.

Historically, however the movie becomes less accurate when depicts U Boot vs surface ship combat.  Stealth was the only real advantage that U boots had and they rarely made daylight surface attacks for that reason.  U boot speed was enormously hampered when they operated submerged but attacking on the surface made them incredibly vulnerable to destruction.  Even small arms fire was sufficient to sink a submarine of the era. Therefore, while surface runs would make sense for a nighttime attack, and indeed were often done, or were done in bad weather when U boots could take advantage of that and their surface speed, they generally attacked submerged during daylight hours. The film takes, therefore, an enormous liberty in showing them in daylight surface attacks. 

It also shows them to be much more immune to damage than they really were. As noted, a surfaced U boot was quite easy to sink.

German submarines also didn't make use of their radios to taunt surface ships, as shown in this film.  In reality they observed strict radio silence as using their radios made them vulnerable to radio detection, which they feared. 

On another note, before moving on to material details, it should be noted that the film does a really good job of showing the relationships between officer and men on a period Navy vessel.  Hanks is obviously respected, even though he is green, but he's highly formal, but paternal, to his men.  The cooks on board the ship are shows as being all black sailors, which is completely correct.  The relationship between the older commander and the older, senior, member of the mess staff is one of the most interesting aspect of the film and very well done.  The very small nature of the ship, with the interior scenes being filmed on board the USS Kidd, an actual Fletcher class destroyer, is very well portrayed. The spartan nature of the conditions on board the ship are also well portrayed, which for some reason they only rarely are.  Most of the interior spaces of this ship look like a janitors closet compared to the same depictions in earlier films such as The Caine Mutiny or Mister Roberts.

Some of this of course fits into the topic of material details, but there's more to consider. As noted, ship details are excellently portrayed, including destroyer weaponry.  Uniforms are correct and the movie does a good job of showing how formal officers uniforms remained even in combat at the time.  U boots are less well done including the wolf portrayal on the conning tower of the U boot.  Paintings on conning towers were normal for German U boots but this one simply does not look right.  As earlier noted, a German wolf pack commander would not have taunted Allied ships at any point.

As a final note, one of the really interesting things about this film is the outward religiosity of it.  It's frankly striking.  Hank's ship commander prays throughout the film, both by himself at private moments and at meals, something he shares in common with the senior mess enlisted man.  The title of the book from which the movie was made has a distinct religious reference from the New Testament, taken from the parable in which the Good Shepherd does everything so as to not lose a single sheep.  

Indeed, even the Shue character and her relationship with Captain Krause is remarkable.  Krause wishes to marry her, as its made plain. We don't know why she's single in her 40s, or why he is, and its not going to be explained.  It is plain, however, that their relationship is one of deep affection, but its not portrayed as physical.

Hanks has delivered a series of great depictions of World War Two.  This is one of them.

The Big Red One

Men of the 1st Infantry Division at Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944.

I'm constantly surprised to find I haven't reviewed a movie that I thought I should have quite some time ago. This is one such instance, particularly as this movie is by Sam Fuller and I have done his much less well known Korean War film, The Steel Helmet.

Fuller was a pulp fiction writer early in his career and turned to movie scripts after the Second World War.  During World War Two Fuller served as an infantryman in the 1st Infantry Division and the screenplay is more than a little bit semi autobiographical, although the Fuller character in the film, Pvt. Zab, is not the central focus of the film.  Rather, the squad's Sergeant, who is never given a name in the film, and who is played by a weary Lee Marvin, basically is, to the extent that the overall infantry squad itself isn't.  Indeed, the squad basically is, which shows a real military focus on the party of Fuller whose experiences as a Second World War infantry enormously showed in that respect.  Fuller wrote his screenplay prior to 1950 and there was some thought of making the movie as early as that, but instead the film was made and released in 1980.  While it is undoubtedly the biggest budget film ever associated with Fuller, it was actually filmed on a low budget and mostly in Israel.  It was released in two versions, with the original version being shorter and a second version restoring cut scenes.

The film follows a single squad, or really a half squad, of the 1st Infantry Division in World War Two, from Operation Torch (November 1942) through the end of war in Germany (May, 1945).  It interestingly starts off, however, with Lee Marvin's character in a short scene that takes place in November, 1918.  This introduces us to a character who is to be the "old" sergeant, the senior figure of the squad.  In the 1918 scene he wears no rank insignia so, at that time, we presume him to be a private in the same division, and given is later service in World War Two, a career soldier.

In spite of being filmed on a low budget the movie is a remarkably good movie and it stands out as a World War Two movie in a way that really isn't rivaled until the much larger budget Saving Private Ryan.  

The basic premise of the film is the story of the men of a single U.S. Army squad in World War Two.  Fuller was a highly decorated veteran of the 1st Infantry Division so he naturally chose this unit and the script is closely based on his own experiences, featuring as noted one soldier who is basically Fuller.  The unnamed Sergeant is in the role of an experienced combat soldier trying to shepherd his squad through the war.  The film never depicts, except in two instances, a full infantry squad, which is probably partially due to a story telling choice in that it allows a more focused look at the men in the unit rather than expanding it out to two to three times that size, which would be required for a full squad.  That choice also emphasizes the attrition of the war as we come to understand in various ways, sometimes through the addition of added characters, that attrition is keeping the unit small and that experience is keeping these men alive.

So as a story its well done, but how does it hold up to actual history.

By and large, not too badly.

After the brief 1918 scene, the movie takes us to combat in North Africa, Italy, France and on into Germany, reflecting actual use of the division during World War Two. The restored version fills in a bit of the winter gap in 44 and 45 and also some of the late war experience of the unit, although its questionable whether the restored scenes add anything to the film (the scenes added for Germany do not).  The original version tracks very closely to the divisions experiences during the Second World War. The restored version does not depart greatly, but does add a couple of story lines that were inputted for dramatic effect which likely don't, such as a mounted French Foreign Legion charge against German armor and a female German noble woman who conspires to admit American troops into a gathering of high ranking German officers.

As readers here know, we also always discuss material accuracy, and there's a fair amount to discuss concerning that in this film.  Here too, it does a good job.  It does a really good job if we consider that it was made in 1980 and is therefore from the pre Saving Private Ryan era.

Indeed, as this film takes place over three years, it's remarkable in regard to this as some material items changed a lot in the U.S. Army in this time frame and this film manages to depict that accurately.  In 1942, when the film starts, the U.S. Army in North Africa was uniformed, for instance, with a different uniform from that which it wore in Europe in 1945. This film gets that right.  The film also equips every solider in it with the M1 Garand, resisting the temptation that movies so often fell into to depict infantrymen carrying submachineguns or carbines, which they usually did not.  This is so much the case that the film never depicts anyone in the squad carrying a Browning Automatic Rifle, which at least one soldier should be, if the entire squad is considered.  Of course, as noted, the film is typically showing a depleted squad.

One depiction that may be questioned is the depiction of the Marvin sergeant character in terms of age.  During World War Two sergeants were E4s, not E5s, and therefore we're looking at a depiction of a "buck" sergeant who has had over twenty years of service and has not advanced about that rank. That wouldn't occur in the modern Army, but it did then.  Indeed, at that time there were men who retired as privates.

"Old" sergeants did occur in World War Two including in infantry formations.  Still, most NCOs who had World War One service were higher ranking than that during the Second World War even if they entered the war at that rank.  Indeed, quite a few NCOs were commissioned as officers during the war if they had long pre war service, although certainly not all did.  So the depiction is possible, just not extremely likely.  Additionally, while Marvin was 35 years removed from his own military service at the time this film was made, he always had an older appearance and that somewhat fits the appearance of men of that career and that period in time.  If we can take him to be about twenty years old or so when the film opens, and there was an effort to make him look younger for those scenes, the character would only have been in his early 40s at the start of the film. That is old, in that real world role, but it did occur and overall World War Two American soldiers were on average older than generally imagined.

Overall, this film is one of the "must see" World War Two films. Very well done, and almost completely unique in following a group of infantrymen throughout the entire European campaign.

Perry Mason, Season 1.

I have no first hand recollection of the Perry Mason television show which ran from 1957 to 1966.  of course, when it went off the air in 1966, I was three years old.  Still, I know that it ran in syndicated reruns but I never watched it for more than a few minutes, and it always appeared rather boring.  To a kid, it probably would have been.  I didn't know until recently that the Mason character was based on a series of books that first came out in 1933.

I know that now as HBO has put out a new Perry Mason series that just premiered this year.  This entry is a review of that series, not the television series.

Still, because the television series is so famous, it's not really possible to deal with the new HBO series without dealing with the tv series, and indeed, the HBO series basically acknowledges that.  Taking off before the legendary Los Angeles trial lawyer's career is supposed to have started, Mason is uniquely suited for this treatment as apparently lawyer, turned author, Earl Stanley Gardner, never bothered to fill in the background details of his character.  In very early novels, apparently, some slight clues to Mason's past were inserted, but that's about it.  In later ones, people just took it for granted that Mason was a solo practitioner super trial lawyer with a strong investigative streak and didn't look for more.

If that seems odd, modern television shows often don't offer more than that either.  Some do, but many do not.

Anyhow, there were a huge number of Perry Mason novels written by Gardner, followed by movies, and then ultimately the television series, all set in the time in which they were written or filmed.

HBO's series takes the opposite approach, putting the character back into the early 1930s in the depth of the Great Depression, just as prohibition is about to end, and introduces us to a disaffected, not yet lawyer, Mason played by Matthew Rhys.  It's done brilliantly.

Rhy's Mason isn't yet the super lawyer.  Rather, he's a Depression era dairy farmer turned private detective.  He's also way down on his luck. An air strip is crowding his farm, which is down to two cows.  His family has left him.  He's a heavy drinker who has a "blue discharge" (a discharge that simply discharged from the service, usually given due to morals charges that weren't developed) from the Army in World War One.  He's suffering from PTSD, as we'd now term it, and early on we learn why.

He's working for an elderly Los Angeles lawyer who has practiced a bit beyond his mental acuity who is assisted by an extremely able Della Street (Juliet Rylance).  The series takes us to a complicated story involving the kidnapping and murder of an infant in which the mother is accused.  I'll not get into the plot beyond that except to note that the plot informs us on how Mason becomes a lawyer.  

The entire season one (there will not be at least a season two) is excellently done. The plot is extraordinarily complicated but not so much that it's impossible to follow.  Fans of Foyle's War will find a similar approach in that regard except that the pacing is blisteringly fast (I actually had to watch a couple of the episodes twice in order to figure out what was going on with all of them).  Like Foyle's War the series has a sense of reality about it which is achieved in part by either making reference to actual events of the time.  The Ludlow Massacre is a frequent and surprising reference. The Sister Alice (Tatiana Maslany) subplot draws loosely on an actual California female evangelist of the period.  A fan of history will catch these references but the non student of history doesn't need to know of them to view the series. Still, such details is unusual and captivating for a history fan.

One thing that I should note is that, like Babylon Berlin, set in a similar time period (1920s Germany) the HBO series isn't shy about nudity at all, and likewise it's really gritty in its portrayal.  Prostitution is a feature of both series but in Perry Mason its given a really dark unattractive edge it deserves.  Indeed, while nudity and sexual portrayals occur throughout the film, much of the nudity in Perry Mason is far from erotic.  Parents, however, should be cautious and likely not let younger people watch the series.

On material details, the show is excellent.  The early 1930s, which is a lot of ways harkened back to the late 1920s, is well depicted and no errors were detected.  The racism of the period is well dealt with.  

An oddity of the show, although not an enormous distraction in it, is the unusual focus on homosexuality.  Della Street, who appeared in the television series as Mason's assistant, shows up in this series as well, in her early days as the assistant of E. B. Jonathan, the older lawyer that Mason is working for.  In the television series viewers were always left wondering if there was a romantic relationship between Street and Mason that was just under the surface, and viewers here might somewhat wonder if that's a possibility in future episodes as well, but here Street's character is really developed and we learn that she's a well educated woman in a homosexual relationship with another woman.  The story line isn't necessary for the plot, but it isn't a huge distraction either.  We also learn, however, that Mason has a "blue discharge" from the Army, in which he was a World War One era captain, and it's hinted at that it was for a homosexual act, although we know that he's been married and has a son.  We also learn in the series that Ivy League educated future District Attorney (he's an Assistant DA here) is also a homosexual.

The list of characters above does indicate, we should note, that fans of the 1950s/60s television who will recognize some characters, but they may not be identically portrayed.  Street, in this HBO series, may be on her way to becoming a lawyer.  Burger is on his way to becoming the DA.  Paul Drake was apparently an investigator for Mason in the series, and we are introduced to him here, but he's an African American in the HBO series, which is critical to the plot.

Probably the only thing that the series could be criticized for is a loose treatment of courtroom procedure from time to time (but not consistently), but all in all, it actually does better with that than most legal dramas.

Movies In History: Jojo Rabbit

When Jojo Rabbit won a bunch of awards last year I looked it up and frankly it didn't look like anything I wanted to see.  The Nazis aren't funny and neither was World War Two.  It just looked weird.

Well, last week I watched it, and its great.

It's also nearly indescribable.

Set in the very last days of the Third Reich, the film takes a look at those times in a German town or small city through the eyes ten year old Johannes Betzler.  Betzler is an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth whose father is absent in a somewhat mysterious fashion (we know that he was a German soldier, but we don't know what became of him. . . he's missing in Italy but we don't know exactly what that means).  He lives with his mother in a nice apartment/house on an archetypical German street.  He has an imaginary friend, with that figure being Adolph Hitler through the eyes of a ten year old who really doesn't know the true Hitler.  Hitler is vivid to him.

Things soon begin to take an odd direction.  Betlzer acquires the name "Rabbit" when he can't kill a tame rabbit at a Hitler Youth training session ran by sadistic fantastic teenage boys.  Soon thereafter his Hitler Youth organization is taken over by an unhinged alcoholic German army Captain played perfectly by Sam Rockwell who has been assigned that role as he's lost an eye in combat.  Captain Klenzendorf is assisted by a League of German Girls leader who has completely lost her moral compass, played perfectly by Rebel Wilson.  Jojo is wounded in training in an accident with a hand grenade, but his mother, played by Scarlett Johansson, puts him back into the organizations service seemingly to give him something to do, or perhaps to divert his attention from her own activities.   In the meantime his best friend, Yorki, goes from being a member of the Hitler Youth to being a boy soldier.

And, on top of it all, it turns out that his mother has been hiding fifteen year old Elsa, a Jewish girl who was the friend of Jojo's sister, who has died, in the walls of his sister's old room.

None of this sounds like it would be funny, but it is strangely funny and tragic at the same time.  Jojo discovers Elsa and doesn't know what to do.  Largely on his own for large hours of the day, and around adults who are either opposed to the Nazis, such as his mother, or completely unhinged, such as his youth organization leaders (Captain Klenzendorf is not only drunk most of the time, and clearly mentally unbalanced, he's extraordinarily cynical), he struggles with what to do with his discovery, which he learns could result in his mother's execution.  Moreover, in interacting with Elsa, he falls in love with her.

To go beyond this would be to reveal plot details, so I won't, but the entire thing is masterfully done.  In retrospect its really easy to forget that the average German didn't really realize that the war would e completely lost until January, 1945 and for young people it must have been extraordinarily confusing.  For somebody in hiding, such as Elsa, the lack of knowledge must have been often complete.  For junior  military officers who had seen combat, the last days must have been surreal.

Some things done with the film would seem to be unlikely to work, but in fact work really well.  The opening soundtrack recalls that of Valkyrie, but with the German language cut of I Want To Hold Your Hand by the Beatles, for instance, which actually really works well.  Lots of humor in the film is incredibly dark, but genuinely extremely funny.

Usually in these films we depart from conventional film reviews and look at the material and historical detail.  We would have expected to cut this film a lot of slack in that regard but it turns out, we don't have to.  Material details pertaining to the Germany army, SS, Volksturm, American Army and Red Army are incredibly accurate.  Probably the only departure in this context is the all black business suits and overcoats of the Gestapo, but at this point in time that's such a stock portrayal that a departure from that would have been unwise.  The Hitler Youth has been depicted before in various films but details such as the significance of Hitler Youth knife have not.  They are here.  The League of German Girls has almost never been depicted in film, but it's very weird associations with procreation have not been. They are here.

This film is really good and, even for a fan of serious historical movies, it's a must.  It depicts something unique that is worth watching.

Depicting Jesse James

There is very little to admire about Jesse James, and yet Americans for generations have.

Jesse James, 1876.

James, as everyone knows, was the Missouri born leader of what was essentially a family, and indeed an ethnic, gang based in Missouri that successfully operated for a time in the Post Civil War Missouri region.  James and his siblings had been exposed to extreme violence as Confederate guerillas during the war and were endowed with the "Little Dixie" region of Missouri's views on the world, none of which would draw sympathy from many people today, but which allowed them to operate relatively safely in the region in spite of their criminal activities due to the feeling that they were, in some ways, continuing the Southern cause.  Those views didn't hold up everywhere in Missouri and they certainly didn't outside of the state, which brought the end of the gang following an extremely failed attempt to raid a bank in Northfield Minnesota.

In spite of the fact that James-Younger gang is not admirable in any sense, they've been the topic of fascination of Americans since their very own time and therefore have been the subject of numerous movies.  Indeed, there are at least twenty screen depiction of James and his gang including one television series from 1965-66.  Numerous Americans claim to be related or descendant from James no matter how dubious their claims may be and, just like for Butch Cassidy, plenty of people claim that James didn't die from a bullet to the back of the head fired by Bob Ford in 1882.  He did.

I haven't seen most of the films that portray James, but there are three that really stand out that a lot of people have seen and which are worth mentioning.  I'll deal with them here, in chronological order.

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid is a 1972 film limited to the raid on Northfield Minnesota and the events leading up to it.  It has a notable cast, including a young Robert Duvall as James and Cliff Robertson as Cole Younger.  It's a fictionalized version of the raid containing fanciful and strained elements but it's really notable for Duvall's portray of James as a homicidal maniac.  It's worth watching for that reason as Duvall, in a portrayal that perhaps could be regarded as an example of an early anti Western, portrays a really disturbing James which served to strip him from the heroic portrayal that was more common up until then.  Robertson, however, steals the show with a really eclectic portrayal of an intellectually curious Younger.

The film isn't bad in terms of material details.

Returning, however, to a more sympathetic portrayal is the sweeping 1980 The Long Riders which is really unique for casting actors who were in fact brothers to play characters in the true story who were actually brothers.  While this film is only eight years later than The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid it placed really close attention to material details and has the look and feel of mid 19th Century Missouri right.  

As noted, the film made use of actual siblings, with the Keach bothers playing the James brothers, the Caradine brothers playing the Younger brothers, the Quaids playing the Miller brothers, and the Guests playing Bob and Charley Ford.  In some odd way that makes the film feel that much more accurate.

This film starts before the Northfield Minnesota Raid and also features James Whitmore, Jr. as a Pinkerton agent.  It concludes with Ford's killing of James.

As does the 2007 film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.  The awkwardly long title of the film in some ways sets this film up nicely for what it is, a beautifully filmed and very accurate movie which starts after the Northfield Minnesota Raid and deals with the gang and its central post raid figures.  Extremely moody and presented almost like a narrated book, Brad Pitt's portrayal of James as a highly intelligent, charismatic, and mentally deranged figure is brilliant.  Casely Affleck's Robert Ford is really the main focus of the film and his portrayal of James "assassin" is likewise brilliantly done.  The portrayals are so effective that they risk actually defining the real individuals, which may not be fair in context.

This film is superb on material details and it has the look and feel of mid 19th Century Missouri, and then briefly late 19th Century Colorado, just right.  The film concludes with the death of Bob Ford, showing how its focus is really on the Ford character, not on James.  In some ways its a subtle morality tale which none of the other James movies are.  If a person was going to watch just one of these films, this one would be the one to watch.

The War Movies of 1970

1970, we've already noted, was the year the United States participated in an invasion of Cambodia with the Republic of Vietnam, while war protests raged across the United States.  In popular recollection, it was also the year that the nation was increasingly anti war and anti military.

Well. . . maybe, but it was one heck of a year for war movies.

Patton, a movie I've never reviewed here (until now), was released that year.  It goes down in cinematic history as a great movie and one of the greatest World War Two pictures ever made.  George C. Scott's portrayal of George S. Patton, for which he was awarded but did not accept an Academy Award, so defined the controversial American cavalry commander turned armored branch general that Scott's movie Patton is better remembered than the real Patton.  

It's interesting to note that Nixon watched the film in a private showing just before ordering the invasion of Cambodia.

The film is justifiably famous for a fairly accurate portrayal of Patton's personality, although it's portrayal of Omar Bradley is more charitable than Bradley deserved, perhaps because Bradley's memoirs of World War Two were used in part for the film, along with  Ladislas Farago's Patton:  Ordeal and Triumph.  Bradley worked as an advisor on the film which also no doubt influenced his portrayal.  Irrespective of that, it's a great film.  Taking the viewer from Patton's elevation after the Battle of Kasserine Pass to just after the war, it is limited, and wisely, to just his biography as an important American commander during the war.

It's not a very materially accurate film, however.  Armor for the film, as well as the numerous soldiers portrayed in it, were provided by the Spanish Army and the film was largely filmed in Spain.  M4 Shermans were Spanish M47s and Spanish M48s filled in for all German armor, giving the impression of more modern armored combat than World War Two actually featured, although the large scale combat scenes in the movie are very will done.  There's a reason that its recalled as a great film to this day.

In contrast to the material inaccuracy of Patton is the accuracy of the peculiar and appealing World War Two sort of drama/comedy, Kelly's Heroes, was released on June 23, 1970.  Filmed in Yugoslavia, the producers were able to make use of American M4 Shermans and other World War Two vintage hardware that remained there.  Not stopping at that, however, three Soviet tanks were carefully converted to be nearly dead ringers for German Tiger Is.  In terms of ground equipment (but not air) the film is the first materially accurate World War Two film made.  The depiction of the fluid nature of France in 1944 is fairly accurate, and the combat scenes are well done.

It isn't accurate, of course, in terms of the portrayal of soldiers and it wasn't met to be.  Donald Sutherland's portrayal of "Oddball", a hippie tank commander, steals the show but he portrays a figure simply impossible for the time.  The film's main star is supposed to be Kelly, portrayed by Clint Eastwood, but its really Sutherland who shines.  The film portrays an armored reconnaissance unit that goes rogue on a mission to loot a bank behind German lines under the leadership of former, and now demoted, officer Kelly.  The cast in the film is really impressive.

Released in 1970, the film anticipates the changing mood of the time, but it remains today a cult classic and its popular with careful students of World War Two for the reasons noted.  It's odd to realize that Sutherland's portrait of Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H was actually from earlier the same year, as his portrayal here was a risky choice.  It's also odd to realize that Carroll O'Connor's portrayal of an Army general in this film was not intended to be a parody of Patton, even though it seems to be.

M*A*S*H was as noted, released earlier this same year, and its an awful film.  Ironically, it's one I've already gone over, so I'm not going really get into it again here.  I would note, as I did originally:

This movie is probably  the most famous movie set during the Korean War, but don't fool yourself, it's really about Vietnam.

Which doesn't make it a good film.

If M*A*S*H was heavily influenced by the country's developing mood, and Sutherland's Oddball at least had a cheerful character more out of 1970 than 1944, the other great war picture of the year was much more like Patton in nature, that being the great film Tora! Tora! Tora!, which portrayed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Tora! Tora! Tora! is one of the greatest World War Two movies ever made and is far and away the best film about the events of December 7, 1941.  The later effort Pearl Harbor is pathetic in comparison.  Getting the history and the material details correct, and filmed on location, it's a masterpiece which may be free of errors.  It stands as the greatest true depiction, quasi documentary, movie of its era and inspired more than one attempt to follow up in its portrayals of later events that were real failures.  Using a large number of actors and depicting sweeping events, it fits into a series of movies of that time, including The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far, that took real big picture and small picture looks at singular events in the war.  It's a great film.

So what does it tell us, if anything, that they were made when they were?  It probably tells us at least in part that our recollection of the country's mood in 1970 isn't very accurate.  M*A*S*H was an anti war film using the vehicle of the Korean War to discuss the Vietnam War.  But none of the three movies about World War Two, which had concluded just 25 years earlier, could be regarded as an anti war film.  Even Kelly's Heroes, which has an element of cynicism, had it only lightly.  So even as the country grew increasingly disenchanted with Vietnam, it didn't feel that way about World War Two. For that matter, of course, the youngest of the country's World War Two veterans were only in their early 40s at the time.

Signs of the times.

Gone With The Wind has been removed by HBO from its demand offerings.  The film (I've never read the book) definitely has racist elements, but should they have done that?

In some recent posts here I've noted how the services have banned the display of the Confederate battle flag on their installations.

That was long overdue and I was quite surprised, really, that it was allowed in any form at all now.  Having said that, I didn't take into account coffee cups and bumper stickers and things like that, which would make up most of the impacted displays.  A search for official, or even unofficial, U.S. military use of the Confederate flag failed to reveal any, although a long serving soldier (now long retired) indicated that you would see it in Vietnam from time to time.  A search for that did reveal an obviously posed instance of that, but I don't know the context.

If anyone has any more on this story, please post it as a comment.

Anyhow, as a Westerner who always found the Confederate flag offensive and who grasps why it's offensive to blacks, this is a good move by the services even its probably mostly symbolic.  If it isn't mostly symbolic, it's long overdue.

I'll note, fwiw, that we've posted on the Confederate flag here as long ago as 2016, so we're not taking a new position to be in the current midstream of popularity.  That thread was one of the few here that got a lot of posts, mostly by upset and made people, and for some time after it was posted it'd suddenly become one of the most popular ones of a day or week, as probably mostly made people stopped in to view it for some reason.

There's also a move to rename the ten U.S. Army installations named after Confederate generals in the 1917 to 1942 time frame.  That's more complex and I'll post on it here soon.

On the Confederate flag, NASCAR has now banned it.

NASCAR has is origins as a Southern sport in a very distinct way, and it grew out of rum running.  Many of its early racers were rum runners. I've never warmed up to it and never know anything about it. Indeed, I've cited NASCAR as a reason that you shouldn't have people who don't participate in an activity regulate it, as if I was put in charge of NASCAR there'd be no NASCAR.  It's not that I don't like it, I don't get it, and accordingly its one of those activities that I don't care anything about and if left to run it, I wouldn't.

Anyhow, NASCAR is a Southern thing in its origin and as late as the 1980s its easy to imagine the "Good Ole Boys" of "Hazard County" driving to a NASCAR event in the General Lee, with the Confederate battle flag painted on the roof.  Now it isn't.

Of course, NASCAR isn't a Southern thing anymore either.  It's gone national. Still, seeing NASCAR ban the flag is actually pretty surprising and significant.  I'll be really curious to see where this all leads as I suspect, but may be in error, it'll provoke a bit of a counter reaction from some fans.  Having said that, it really isn't a Southern thing at all like it once was, so I may very well be way off the mark and this will pass without a note.

For that matter, we may actually be in an era, which started a few years ago, in which symbols of the Southern cause in the Civil War are losing their appeal to Southerners in general.  Confederate symbols have been removed from state flags to a large degree.  I don't know if any remain. Those symbols were incorporated in the 20th Century during the Lost Cause era, but have pretty much come back off in the last few decades.  That was controversial itself, but it doesn't seem to be now.  Maybe modern Southerners have lost their attachment to the "Blood Stained Banner" that was their third national flag.

The "Blood Stained Banner" is the nickname given to that flag, and it wasn't actually adopted, oddly enough, as the Confederate standard until March 4, 1865, about a month away from their ultimate defeat.  It was closely based on the square standard adopted on May 1, 1863, however.  That the Confederacy would run around worrying about flags in the Spring of 1865 gives insight to the human mind and how it self distracts.  In March 1865 Confederate troops were departing the service of the Confederacy en masse and the war was all but over.  Nobody was making flags at that time and adopting a new one was really silly, but then even after Hitler killed himself in May 1945 the successor German administration appointed a national postmaster, as if they were delivering the mail.

That last flag was incorporated on a lot of Southern official and unofficial things thereafter, from state flags to the cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd albums, but that was a 20th Century thing starting in the early 20th Century.* One hundred years later, the opposite is going on pretty quickly.

One thing that's also going on is the mass defacement of monuments, here and abroad.  Included in these are two Christopher Columbus statutes which are claimed to have been seen by the vandals as symbols of "white supremacy".

Defacing monuments, even controversial ones, is really problematic if they've been up for awhile and tend to be a symbol of virtue signaling.  An oppressed population tearing down a statute of a current oppressor, such as Iraqi's treating down statutes of Saddam Hussein, are one thing, but a population tearing down an old symbol, like Russians toppling statues of Lenin, or Americans toppling down statutes of Columbus, are hypocritical to a large degree.  The same populations that do that are often the same ones who were all keen on putting them up in the first place, and would be again today if it fit the zeitgeist.  A population expressing their current view about a current figure is one thing, mobs defacing things of the past are quite another and don't tend to pass the test of time well.

One reason for that is that every single living human being is a descendant, every single one, of thieves, murderers, rapists and colonizers without any exceptions whatsoever.  This doesn't excuse past injustices of any kind, but much of this sort of activity is based on the concept that some group is uniquely to blame and that doesn't pass the smell test.

Colonizers may have been doing something we don't approve of now, but in the past it was a universal human activity.  The Spanish in Mexico, for example, defeated an imperial power in the form of the Aztecs, and that's just one example.  And while moderns might like to wring their hands on the Spanish in 1492, both in the New World and in Spain itself (the year that the Spanish Reconquista was completed, which was regarded as much more significant at the time), if we want to go back and correct all colonial injustices we have to recall that the Spanish were the victims of Berber and Arab Islamic colonization, and that the Berbers and the Arabs were the victims of Islamic Arabian Peninsula colonization, which came some years after the fall of Roman colonization, which of course was simply following in the wake of Greek colonization. . . etc. etc.  

Indeed, the anti colonial concept didn't exist in the world in any concrete form until the American Revolution created it in 1776, and it took us a long time to really hone that.  It didn't spread as a concept notably until Simon Bolivar picked it up some decades later, and as a global concept, well that really took Wilson's Fourteen Points for it to become rooted.

So the basic gist of it is, that before you lop of Columbus marble head, you better first look closely at your own culture and find the colonizers in it.  There will be some. That doesn't mean that taking in that fashion is justified, but it does mean that it is to some degree a human norm.  The concept that it should not be is a Christian one, and if we're going to adopt that view, and we should, we need to adopt all of what goes with it, which people generally aren't too keen on doing.  

Indeed, those inclined to assault a statute can't be presumed in total to have adopted the only set of values that would hold that the deeds of man, much of which are negative, should be regarded as folly.  It's unlikely that very many attending to a statues defacing are then going on to express vows of poverty and chastity so as to make their act pure.  Probably hardly any, as in none.

Finally, a person has to wonder where the societal statute of limitations applies to such acts.  If current populations are allowed to deface a current symbol, as noted, that would be one thing. But if defacing a statute of a 15th  Century figure is a good thing to do, would it accordingly be a good idea to take down statues of Caesar and Alexander, where they might be found, given that those guys were perfectly okay with a lot of things we might find offensive today?  Should the Pyramids and Egyptian monuments be destroyed, their antiquity notwithstanding, on the basis that the Egyptians were pretty bad, pretty often?  There are thousands of such examples that could easily be made. The point is that if you can justify defacing fairly old statutes on the concept that they represent oppression suffered by you and your ancestors, pretty soon you end up acting like the Taliban and are blowing down ancient monuments in the desert in the name of your own personal sense of the definition of purity.

In terms of symbols, HBO is removing Gone With The Wind from its stable of on demand offerings.

Gone With The Wind is largely viewed as a great film, but it has racist elements without a doubt.  At least one of the female black actresses, Butterfly McQueen, simply hated her role as she was portraying her character which, under the old studio system, I don't blame her for a bit.  I.e, she was forced to play a demeaning and insulting role.  The portrayals of blacks in the film are insulting and the romantic portrayal of Southern planters absurd.

Still, it's a great film, and that's the problem.  The story is, for all its flaws, and there are some whopping ones, engaging to watch and the technicolor filming is awesome.  Clark Gable's wry smiles and glances in the film make it worthwhile to watch all in themselves.  At the same time, it's Lost Cause sentiments are rampaging insulting to anyone with a sense of what the Civil War was about.

HBO, by doing that, is engaging in a little bit of cinematic book burning, sort of.  Gone With The Wind isn't Birth Of A Nation by any means.  If some of it, indeed a lot of it, is shockingly racist to watch, well that might serve to remind us of what the Lost Cause era was like and why we are where we are now, in terms of African Americans still suffering what they suffer.  Gone With the Wind came out in the late 1930s and tells us a lot about the views of that time, coming as it did right before World War Two and a good decade before the Federal Government started its push towards civil rights.

If HBO, and for that matter, all of the entertainment industry, wants to act in virtue and not just virtue signal, it might take a look at more contemporary offerings.  Hollywood is all about looking good but at the same time it's all about violence in films.  If you watch nearly any television channel you'll stray across a police show at some point, and it won't be long, in which burnt out police are using questionable tactics along with burn out DA's using questionable tactics to bring in the bad guys.  Indeed, entertainment centered on police went somehow from Car 54, in the 50s, to the "law and order" presentations of the 70s, something that was reflective of a public reaction to the protests of the 1970s, and it's never really come back.  It's funny how an industry that is the flagship of "Me Too", rediscovering old values and branding them as new, so as to not have to really adhere to them in depth, hasn't really grasped this one yet.  If life imitates what passes for art, we shouldn't have much doubt on why we fall so short.

In other news, Starbucks, which like to do virtue signalling itself, is closing 400 stores in a shift to a takeout marketing strategy.  This is no doubt as a result of the Coronavirus Pandemic.

I'm not personally keen on Starbucks even though I really like coffee.  Part of this is simply because I don't like their coffee very much.  Quite a bit of it is, in my limited experience, blisteringly acidic.  I like good coffee but I don't like feeling that I just drank something that was brewed to strip paint from a merchant tanker making an overall call to a dry dock in Seattle.  But in addition to that I really hate chain merchants virtue signalling.

If a local store, whatever it is, takes a stand on something, well the more power to them.  They put themselves at risk by doing that, and I'll give them the thumbs up simply for doing it, and I trust they give me the thumbs up if I choose to eschew them thereafter as I don't agree.  That's the exchange in doing that, and that's to their credit.  But with chain merchants its just a bunch of hooey, in my opinion. Usually by the time they've done that they're grown so large that their local competitors are either nonexistent or so marginalized that the virtue signalling is risk free in the extreme.  That accordingly smacks of simply riding the zeitgeist.  I'd fully expect such chain outfits to support McCarthyism in one moment and oppose it in the next.  In most cases the risk is about the same as it would have been to support the war effort during World War Two or the National Recovery Act during the Depression.  M'eh.

I do feel differently, I should note, about entities that support something to do with their target market.  Grocery stores doing something on hunger, sporting goods stores doing something on conservation, and things of that type, mean something. Coffee shops doing anything other than worrying about hungry people or the conditions of the growers are another.

Anyhow, Starbucks is one of those outfits that I don't admire for the reasons stated above, but I also frankly don't admire how the American economy has come to so closely resemble the manufacturing of a Model A Ford.  It's an assembly line.  Coffee can be brewed by about anyone pretty easily.  Starbucks doesn't need to be on every corner.

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*Not to pick on Southern Rock, a mostly defunct musical genre, but the Confederate flag seemed to be really popular in that community at the time and its really difficult not to view that as a white Southern reaction to the Civil Rights era and its focus on the region.  The Lynyrd Skynyrd hallmark Sweet Home Alabama is itself a reaction to Neil Young's Southern Man, although Young himself thought he'd gone overboard with that song.

Southern Rock, which was based in the blues and therefore had a genuine Southern origin, was part and parcel of the other sorts of Southern electric music that traveled with and was part of rock music at the time.  All it was heavily blues based and its sometimes difficult to tell where the blues left off and rock genres began.  Swamp Rock, out of Louisiana, was another example, but even British rock like that of Ten Years After shared a lot of similarities.  As rock music moved increasingly into glitch and glam with the big hair bands of the late 1970s a lot of the more genuine rock music of the 50s, 60s and 70s started to fade away and today they very much have.  This was part of the reason for the rise of Country Music from the 80s to the present day.

Country Music has a heavy base in the South and its really a form of Southern music.  Association with the rural South or an imagined rural South is strong in it and while I can't think of any use of the Confederate flag within it, my guess is that it'll take steps to distance itself from the South of the Confederacy as well.  Indeed, as one odd example, I've often wondered what the name of the band Lady Antebellum was supposed to mean, and the association with the glorified Antebellum South is nearly impossible not to make.