A dear friend of mine (now deceased) was a big fan of Clark Gable, and I am sure she saw most of the movies he made — especially "Gone With the Wind," which was one of her favorite books as well. In fact, she spoke so highly of it that I purchased a paperback copy of the book when we were in high school. That book still has a spot on my bookshelf. I expect it to still be in my possession when I die.
I have no idea, though, whether my friend ever saw Mervyn LeRoy's "Homecoming," which premiered in May 1948.
If she didn't, she probably saw movies that were similar. There has never been a shortage of soap operaesque movies coming from Hollywood, and "Homecoming" really went the extra mile in that regard. Seldom did "Homecoming" fail to apply a cliché to its storyline.
The acting was good in spite of the material.
Gable played a surgeon returning to America from World War II. Ordinarily, he was a tough guy in his movies, but he was unusually sensitive in this one. Perhaps that was a result of Gable losing his own wife, Carole Lombard, in a plane crash six years earlier. Maybe that sensitized his performances in the years after Lombard's death, especially his performance in "Homecoming."
In "Homecoming," he played a surgeon who went to war not so much out of a sense of patriotism but a sense of duty. His real loyalty was to his wife (Anne Baxter) at home, but that loyalty was severely tested when he experienced a growing passion for his nurse (Lana Turner).
It was long rumored that Gable had been having an affair with Turner at the time of Lombard's death. I don't know if there was any truth to that rumor. I do know that, while Turner was regarded as a great beauty, she played a decidedly unglamorous role in "Homecoming."
Of course, that may just be my personal opinion in the context of the film. Turner was always beautiful, but she seemed ignorant of that fact in "Homecoming."
Turner's character was the tough one, the one who knew what was best for all concerned. Gable was obsessed with himself.
"Homecoming" was worth seeing because of Turner's performance. She didn't always play the tough one, but in this movie she did, and it benefited from that performance.
"Let me tell you something about my iron nerve, son. It's made of rubber, just like everybody else's, so it'll stretch when you need it. You know, people got a funny idea that being brave is not being scared. But I don't know. I always figured that if you weren't scared, there was nothing to be brave about. The trick is how much scaring you can take."
Humphrey Bogart
When one hears the word propaganda, the initial response tends to be negative, I suppose. But that really depends on which side of the fence you occupy.
In the case of "Action in the North Atlantic," which premiered on this day in 1943, it is a positive thing, telling the story of the Merchant Marines and their contribution to the Allied war effort during World War II.
In 1943, of course, the war was raging, and the outcome was far from inevitable.
First–time viewers may be startled by the realism of the movie, given the fact that it was made long before computer–generated graphics came along. The black–and–white photography is a giveaway, though.
The title was certainly no exaggeration with Humphrey Bogart's tanker being hit by a torpedo from an enemy sub in the first 15 minutes — and the action kept on coming.
Well, actually, it wasn't just Bogart's tanker. Bogie was the ship's first mate. Raymond Massey played its captain. Bogart, Massey and the other survivors bobbed around in the sea for 11 days before being rescued.
But the lure of the sea was too strong. The only home the seamen knew was their ship; when their ship was sunk, they felt compelled to find a new one, and before long they were on their way back to the North Atlantic.
Their ship was part of a convoy taking supplies to Russian allies. After it was attacked and essentially crushed by German submarines, Bogart played an important leadership role.
There were many movies made about World War II — and many were made while the war was still being fought.
As far as I am concerned, the best part of "Action in the North Atlantic" was that it premiered less than 1½ years after the U.S. entered the war — so its makers felt obliged to remind viewers why America was involved. It's a good history lesson — and a reminder of what America has fought for over the years.
At the Academy Awards, Guy Gilpatric, on whose novel the movie was based, was nominated for Best Original Motion Picture Story — but William Saroyan won the Oscar for "The Human Comedy."
Roger Waters was a co–founder of Pink Floyd, but his last album with the band, "The Final Cut," arrived in music stores on this day in 1983.
Pink Floyd went on to release three more studio albums and a double–disc live album, but Waters' days with Pink Floyd ended with "The Final Cut."
Seen from that perspective, perhaps it was appropriate that "The Final Cut" was the only Pink Floyd album in which Waters received all the songwriting credit.
"The Final Cut" was also the only Pink Floyd album that didn't include keyboardist Richard Wright.
The album was originally intended to be a soundtrack for "Pink Floyd — The Wall," but plans changed with the outbreak of war in the Falkland Islands in 1982 after Argentine forces occupied the British–held islands temporarily.
By any yardstick you may choose, "The Final Cut" was Waters' album. Not only did he write all the songs, he sang lead on all but one track — guitarist David Gilmour provided lead vocals on the other one.
And it was his statement on war, inspired primarily by the experience of losing his father in World War II but also by more contemporary factors. Waters thought British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's reaction in the Falklands had been unnecessary and aggressive. The album, originally named "Requiem for a Post–War Dream," included a track that bore a variation on that — "The Post–War Dream."
The post–war dream was what Waters believed was the reason for the sacrifices made by his father and others — sacrifices that had been betrayed.
The war theme was also reflected in the cover art. The front cover showed a Remembrance poppy and four World War II medal ribbons. Additional photographs could be found when the gatefold was opened. The album art was reproduced — on a significantly smaller scale — for the CD version of the album.
And, of course, anyone who downloads the album today is deprived of that experience altogether. It wasn't true in all cases, but album art definitely added to an album's experience — and perhaps never as much as it did on a Pink Floyd album.
Pink Floyd's cover art was always memorable, and the band enjoyed considerable success with its album sales, but it had comparatively few hit singles — mostly, I suppose, because the band's tracks didn't usually lend themselves to radio airplay.
The commercially released single from "The Final Cut" could probably be described that way. "Not Now John" managed to make it to the Top 30 in the U.K. — in a censored version. In the album track, the chorus was "Fuck all that," but in the single it was changed to the more ambiguous "Stuff all that."
I have always favored a third track from the album "The Fletcher Memorial Home." It always summarized Waters' thoughts about the world's leadership of that time better than the rest.
The song got its name from Waters' father.
It probably doesn't hold up well for modern listeners, though, many of whom would not recognize the names mentioned. I guess that hopelessly dates the song, which is too bad because it is probably my favorite track.
"This is more like a novel than a record," wrote Stephen Thomas Erlewine for AllMusic.com, "requiring total concentration since shifts in dynamics, orchestration and instrumentation are used as effect."
In many ways, it lacks a true Pink Floyd sound. The music might have benefited from more input from Gilmour.
Erlewine observed that "[t]his means that while this has the texture of classic Pink Floyd, somewhere between the brooding sections of The Wall and the monolithic menace of Animals, there are no songs or hooks to make these radio favorites. The even bent of the arrangements, where the music is used as texture, not music, means that The Final Cut purposely alienates all but the dedicated listener."
Even when I first saw "The Human Comedy" as a child, I remember being struck by the many mythological references. My parents were educators so I got more exposure to that kind of thing when I was growing up than most of my contemporaries — even before I saw "The Human Comedy."
I didn't know all the myths, but I knew the references. I also didn't know that, while comedy in the modern sense refers to humor, the ancient Greeks knew comedy to be more dramatic, ironic in its nature — and that was how this story was told. It had its funny moments, but it was almost entirely a drama despite the apparently contradictory nature of its name.
The main character in "The Human Comedy" — which premiered 75 years ago today — was named Homer, which was also the name of the author of two epic books from ancient Greek literature, "Iliad" and "Odyssey." The story was set in the fictional town of Ithaca, California, which was based on the hometown of the author of "The Human Comedy," but the town's name was inspired by the books. Ithaca was also the name of the home of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's writing.
(There are some real Ithacas — most notably in New York — but the one in California was entirely fictional.)
Also, Homer's love interest in "The Human Comedy" was named Helen. In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world — and the cause of the Trojan War. It was Helen's face that was said to have "launched a thousand ships."
Well, there is more, but I don't want to keep anyone from making those discoveries for themselves. Suffice to say there were many parallels between William Saroyan's novel and the stories from ancient Greece.
It would have been surprising if there weren't.
The book actually began as a screenplay that Saroyan wrote. Then Saroyan was fired from the film production and rushed to finish the book and get it published before the movie hit the theaters.
As I said, the story revolved around Homer (Mickey Rooney), a high school student who worked part time as a telegram delivery boy during World War II (his boss was played by Frank Morgan, who is remembered for playing Professor Marvel, the Wizard and the Gatekeeper in "The Wizard of Oz"). In that capacity, he often had to deliver news from the war to residents of the town. The narrator of the story was Homer's deceased father, played by Ray Collins.
The news was often sad — notices that people had been killed on the battlefields of Europe or in the Pacific — and it took its toll on Homer's sensitive soul.
"The Human Comedy" was a sentimental flick about the effects of war on the home front. In many ways, it was a precursor to The Waltons — if not in its setting, certainly in its affirmation of basic human values — worthy of Frank Capra.
Capra didn't direct it, though. Clarence Brown did — and he was nominated for the Best Director Oscar but didn't win.
The movie was nominated for Best Picture and Best Black–and–White Cinematography, and Rooney was nominated for Best Actor; all lost.
Saroyan won the Oscar for Best Original Motion Picture Story. How's that for irony?
I am no expert on war movies, but it has always seemed to me that "The Enemy Below," which premiered on Christmas Day 60 years ago, was the first war movie that really portrayed the opposing combatants equally.
Well, maybe someone told me that way back when, and I just think that I have always thought that.
And maybe it wasn't the first war movie to be sympathetic to both sides — just the first to be that way about World War II.
It didn't draw any conclusions — except that there really was no difference between Robert Mitchum, who played the commander of an American destroyer, and Curt Jurgens, who played the commander of a German U–boat. Their characters were men who were defending their homelands.
They didn't start the war. It wasn't personal. In civilian life, they may or may not have held strong political views. As civilians, they might have liked each other, might have been friends. In war, they had jobs to do, and they did them.
Mitchum's character was newer to the job than Jurgens' was. It was a new command for Mitchum, and he was about as new to the Navy as most of his crew. The destroyer was on patrol but did not anticipate any action.
Jurgens, on the other hand, was a career Navy man whose sacrifices for Germany — two sons — had been considerable over the years. The U–boat was on courier duty and was likewise not expecting any combat.
Nevertheless on the silver screen, the captains and their crews were engaged in a taut thriller in the South Atlantic in which a mistake could be fatal.
They didn't want to think about what they had in common. That would get in the way of what had to be done.
At one point Mitchum remarked, "I have no idea what he is, what he thinks. I don't want to know the man I'm ... trying to destroy."
That's about as blunt as it gets.
(Incidentally, the slogan seen in the submarine — "Führer befiehl, wir folgen" — means "The leader commands, we follow.")
It's become a cliche to label something a cat–and–mouse game, but that is what this was. The analogy is apt.
In "The Enemy Below," both sides kept maneuvering until the final showdown. When the duel had been decided and the two captains caught a glimpse of one another, they exchanged silent salutes. Gestures of mutual respect.
It was that respect, perhaps, that led Mitchum to save the U–boat commander. Later, with the battle behind them, Mitchum's character offered a cigarette to his former adversary, who took it and remarked, "I should have died many times, Captain. But I continue to survive somehow."
Maybe that is what the art of warfare really is — the art of survival.
"Do not speak to me of rules. This is war! This is not a game of cricket!"
Col. Saito (Sessue Hayakawa)
Not all battles in a war are fought on a battlefield.
Set in World War II, director David Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai," which made its American debut on this date in 1957, was about one of the smaller battles that was fought during that war. And while there are legitimate doubts about the historical accuracy of the story, the message was unmistakable.
Alec Guinness took home Best Actor for his performance as the senior British officer at a Japanese prison camp who kept insisting that the Geneva Conventions excused officers from manual labor. The commandant of the camp (Sessue Hayakawa) was under a great deal of pressure. He had to build a bridge across the Kwai River in Burma to expedite the movement of Japanese troops and matériel. What is more, this strategic structure had to be completed by a specific date.
Time was of the essence so the commandant pressed every able–bodied prisoner into service, even the officers. The British officer balked and was punished repeatedly but refused to yield.
Thus the two men were locked in another war — a war of wills.
For the commandant it was literally a matter of life and death; failure to complete the bridge on time would force him to take his own life in keeping with his moral code. But the British officer absolutely would not compromise.
Meanwhile a Navy officer (William Holden) and two others attempted an escape from the prison camp. The others were killed, but Holden, although injured, managed to get away. As he was recuperating, he learned that he had been assigned to return and destroy the bridge before it was fully functional.
What Holden's character did not know was that Guinness and his men were now working toward the completion of the bridge, not its destruction — and not because of the benefits the Japanese would derive from it but for their own pride and morale.
How it all played out is something no movie lover should miss.
I heard it said once that there are no "war" movies, only "anti–war" movies, and sometimes I think that is true (although other times I am not so sure). The essence of being anti–war is to expose war's brutality, and the intriguing thing about "The Bridge on the River Kwai" is that it does that — but not in the way you might think.
When one thinks of the brutality of war, one is inclined to think of physical brutality. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was more about psychological brutality.
When I was in junior high, I was assigned to do a book report on Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day."
Looking back, I would have to say that the book was probably a bit beyond my years. I mean, I love history — I have always loved history — and I love a good story, but the book was a bit technical for me, at least at that time in my life.
I didn't know who most of the people in the book were. I guess I hadn't studied World War II or D–Day too much at that point, had no idea, really, of their significance in American history.
And in my mind, too, I suppose, that was my parents' war — but they had been children when it was fought. It was probably more my grandparents' war. Either way, I probably saw it as their history, not mine.
Perhaps that is how it is for everyone. Major events that have gone before belong to someone else. The current ones belong to whoever is coming of age, and generations to come will have their own. It depends on whose time it is, and even though it is technically true that a time belongs to all who live through it, it truly belongs to those who are coming of age, whose impressions are still being formed. For the most part the rest of us share ownership of that time.
But not always.
Remember Sally Field in "Forrest Gump" and what she told her son as she was dying?
"It's my time," she said. "It's just my time."
People tend to be more in tune to what happens in their times — and less so about what happens in other people's times.
But I guess I am slipping away from the point — which is that "The Longest Day" was a good history lesson, whether in print or on the big screen.
"The Longest Day" had an all–star cast — so many stars I can't name 'em all.
In that sense it reminded me of "Tora! Tora! Tora!" the definitive dramatization of Pearl Harbor.
There were actors everyone should be able to recognize — Henry Fonda, Richard Burton, Sean Connery and John Wayne, for example — and others whose faces are familiar but you've really got to be past a certain age (or of a certain time, to return to my earlier theme) to know their names — I suppose Eddie Albert, Peter Lawford and Robert Mitchum fall in that category.
It also reminded me of "Tora! Tora! Tora!" in the sense that it was faithful to the facts of the story, which were dramatic enough.
It was filmed in black and white in a documentary style at a cost of $10 million. For nearly 30 years it was the most expensive black–and–white film ever made — until "Schindler's List."
The movie brought to life the story in a way the book couldn't do for me when I was 14.
I don't know how much of that story young people are taught in school today, but the parts I found the most compelling were the accounts of the tricks the Allies used in the battle with the Germans.
Like dropping mannequins with parachutes to deceive the Nazis into thinking an expected invasion was happening in an unanticipated area.
Or using an attractive young female bicyclist as a diversion to slip a wagonload of resistance operatives past Nazi soldiers.
The last time I watched it I couldn't help thinking that the invasion of Normandy as presented in "The Longest Day" was probably the most realistic depiction of modern warfare committed to film until "Saving Private Ryan."
"The Longest Day" received five Academy Award nominations and took home two Oscars — for Black–and–White Cinematography and Visual Effects.
Rick Leland (Humphrey Bogart):I never saw anybody like you; you never have any clothes on.
Alberta Marlow (Mary Astor):Well if anyone heard you complaining about it they would put you in a psychopathic ward.
Did you ever hear of a novel that was written about 14 years before the catastrophic sinking of the Titanic that, in hindsight, seemed to foretell the disaster with eerie detail?
"Across the Pacific," which made its debut on this day in 1942, was kind of like that. Let me explain.
Originally "Across the Pacific" was intended to be about an attempt to thwart a Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. It was a work of fiction.
Then when the Japanese actually did bomb Pearl Harbor, the script was rewritten to make the location Panama instead. Now that wasn't as implausible as it might seem on the surface. Several years before the U.S. entered World War II, military exercises were focused on defending the Panama Canal, and those activities received considerable attention in the press.
But the first two–thirds of the movie emphasized the hot–and–cold romance between Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor, fellow passengers aboard a Japanese ship.
And the script revision actually put all the action in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Never really got close to the Pacific.
I guess "Across the Pacific" was the original title — and, in spite of all the meticulous changes being made to the script, no one thought to change the title.
The script revision wasn't that meticulous, though. Director John Huston apparently had worked out an ending for the movie, but he was called up for military service, leaving it to his replacement, Vincent Sherman, to come up with an ending on his own.
Huston, by the way, thought Sherman's finish "lacked credibility," according to his 1980 autobiography "An Open Book." Maybe he should have shared his vision for the conclusion with Sherman before he shipped out.
At the very least he should have told Sherman how to resolve the predicament in which his filmmaking had left Bogart. If you watch the movie, I think you will agree that Bogart would have had to be Harry Houdini — or Indiana Jones — to get out of that one.
Yet somehow he did.
There were other problems with "Across the Pacific." For one, I have always had an issue with the casting of Astor as the female lead. Now, she was talented. I don't mean to imply that she wasn't. But I thought the role called for more of a beauty. Ingrid Bergman comes to mind. She combined great talent with great beauty.
Would that have invited comparison to Bogart and Bergman's classic "Casablanca"?
Perhaps in hindsight. But "Casablanca" wouldn't have been on the minds of audiences in September 1942 because it wasn't showing on U.S. movie screens until two months later.
The actual cast did invite comparisons to "The Maltese Falcon," especially with Sydney Greenstreet reunited with Bogart and Astor. Greenstreet played an even more villainous character than he played in "The Maltese Falcon."
He showed up in "Casablanca," too.
By the way, Bogart, Astor and Greenstreet reprised their roles in a radio version of the story that was aired a few months later.
"I reckon the folks'd be a sight happier if I died like a soldier. Can't say I would."
Samson Posey (Clint Walker)
I've been fortunate. I've never had to fight in a war.
When I was a kid, I guess I expected to be in a war. The war in Vietnam had been raging as far back as I could remember, and as I got older, I guess I assumed that my time to go would come in due course. I never really thought twice about it. But the war ended well before I turned 18.
If I had been in a war, though, I would probably assume that, if command wanted to attempt a truly extreme mission, they would want really extreme people to carry it out — you know, murderers, rapists and the like.
"The Dirty Dozen," which premiered 50 years ago today, was about such a mission — and such a unit.
In advance of the D–Day invasion, a select unit of the Army's worst was assembled for a special mission — to assault a chateau that was hosting a meeting of high–ranking German officers. By eliminating these officers, the Nazis' ability to react to the invasion of Normandy would be severely thwarted.
It was a hazardous mission, but these men were regarded as expendable. At best they had been convicted of crimes for which they had been given sentences of at least 20 years. Nearly half had been given death sentences.
If they succeeded in their objective, those who survived would be pardoned and returned to active duty, but few were expected to survive, successful or not. Their commander (Lee Marvin) repeatedly reminded them during their training that most of them would not be returning.
And that was OK, too.
After all, if they died in this mission, they would die a soldier's death. On the other hand, if their death sentences were carried out, they would die by hanging — definitely not a soldier's death. Hanging is typically regarded as a criminal's death.
And in the meantime they would have to be fed, clothed and sheltered for who knew how long.
Of course, one would be just as dead either way. It was the method of death that would pass the final judgment on the life. Everything else was incidental.
At the time of its release some people criticized the violence in "The Dirty Dozen," and a pretty good case could be made that it was excessively violent, needlessly so, particularly at the end. But isn't that the nature of war? Isn't war — all war whatever one may think of the rationale for it — excessively violent, needlessly so?
When you get right down to it, war is messy, and the people who fight in wars don't always play by the generally accepted rules.
"The Dirty Dozen" had an all–star cast, but some of the performers were more memorable than others — like Donald Sutherland and Jim Brown and Telly Savalas — and Ernest Borgnine, who played the officer who appointed Marvin and Bronson and provided them with the list of convicts they would train.
You know, the violence probably was a little over the line, but, as I say, war is messy, and the mission wasn't carried out by a Sunday school class.
A seemingly impossible mission calls for incorrigible people to carry it out.
"I know how comfortable it is to curl up with a nice, fat book full of big words and think you're going to solve all the problems in the universe. But you're not, you know. A bit of action is required every now and then."
Carol (Teresa Wright)
William Wyler's "Mrs. Miniver," which arrived in theaters on this day 75 years ago, occupies an elevated position in the history of World War II movies.
And it contains what was long the most intense battle scene I personally had ever seen in motion pictures (until "Saving Private Ryan" and its graphic depiction of D–Day). But its intensity was on a psychological more than visual level — which may still make it the most intense of its kind.
There may be no more powerful battle scene — and excruciating in its length and growing sense of claustrophobia — than the one in which the Minivers (Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson) and their children huddled in a crude bomb shelter waiting out a German air raid. In the grand British tradition of keeping a stiff upper lip, they tried to pass the time with conversation about mundane topics — like knitting — while the tension from the hellish cacophony of bombs and bullets from outside built to an unbearable level.
It was all the more powerful as an illustration of how war can touch anyone; it has no regard for age, race, gender or social status. The Minivers lived in the comfortable world of the upper class, a world where Mrs. Miniver could calmly go about her daily routine while her husband participated in the evacuation of Dunkirk, but they were brought to their knees by World War II the same as their cook and maid.
As the vicar observed in a pivotal sermon near the end of the movie, "There's scarcely a household that hasn't been struck to the heart.
"And why?" he went on to ask. "Surely you must have asked yourselves this question? Why in all conscience should these be the ones to suffer? Children, old people, a young girl at the height of her loveliness? Why these? Are these our soldiers? Are these our fighters? Why should they be sacrificed?"
Aren't these the questions many ask today when people are dying in airports, at concerts and in restaurants and nightclubs rather than battlefields?
The movie hasn't aged particularly well, but the message is still a good one: War truly is hell and is not made less so by the knowledge that it was started by someone else. If there were plans to remake "Mrs. Miniver" today, the characters probably could use some work — Garson's character particularly seemed a bit naive, especially when she confronted the downed German paratrooper in her kitchen, but perhaps that illustrated how off guard many people were caught by the Nazi threat and the reality of war.
Her daughter–in–law in the movie, played by Teresa Wright, seemed far more grounded in reality than Garson's character (who, for example, refused to permit Nazi bombing raids to ruin her roses — later in a climactic bombing raid that set up the vicar's sermon, a rose that had been nominated in a local flower show competition was named for Mrs. Miniver).
Garson did her part for the war effort propaganda that "Mrs. Miniver" really was. Her character was brave and noble — and in real life she did her part for the war effort at home, too, but Winston Churchill said "Mrs. Miniver" did more for the war effort than a flotilla of destroyers.
"Mrs. Miniver" received a dozen Oscar nominations and won half of them. The movie won Best Picture. Wyler won Best Director. Garson won Best Actress (and delivered a record–long acceptance speech). Wright won Best Supporting Actress (beating co–star Dame May Whitty). The movie also won for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Black–and–White Cinematography.
Pidgeon was nominated for Best Actor but lost to James Cagney in "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Richard Ney, who played Garson's son in the movie, became her husband the following year. The union lasted until 1947.
I have never read Charles Shaw's novel on which John Huston's "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison," which premiered on this day in 1957, was based.
But if the movie was true to the book, I think I would like to read it sometime.
I guess it would be called an "offbeat love story." But I've never really liked that phrase because it suggests that it is an atypical love story. But what, pray tell, is a typical love story? Aren't all love stories unique? A love story may share certain characteristics with other love stories, but it seems to me that every love story is unique because the people involved in them are unique, and their circumstances are unique to them.
When the movie began, the audience saw an inflatable life raft floating somewhere in the south Pacific in 1944. Stretched out in the raft was Robert Mitchum. The audience later learned that he was a Marine aboard a submarine who had managed to escape after being fired on by the Japanese.
Mitchum didn't speak for the first eight or nine minutes of the movie. In fact, there was no dialogue at all for the first eight or nine minutes. It was during that time that Mitchum's life raft floated near an apparently uninhabited island, and he made his way to it. As Mitchum explored the island, he saw structures in which others had lived at one time, but there was no one to be seen.
And the audience could more or less imagine the questions that were going through his mind. Who had lived there? Was anyone still around? Were they friendly or hostile?
Then he came upon a building that was clearly a church, but there was no human activity around it and no sound coming from it — until a nun (Deborah Kerr) emerged with a broom.
Kerr told Mitchum she had only been on the island a few days. She came with a priest to evacuate another priest, but they discovered that the Japanese beat them to it. The natives who brought them to the island were scared and left abruptly. The priest, who was elderly, died a short time after, and the nun had been left alone on the island. At least until Mitchum arrived.
For awhile the two were alone on the island — until some Japanese landed with the intention of setting up a meteorological camp — a place to monitor weather conditions and provide up–to–the–minute data for Japanese forces. Mr. Allison and the nun retreated to a cave and kept out of sight. For food Mr. Allison would go out spearfishing after dark when he figured the Japanese weren't watching, but they couldn't risk a fire so they had to eat whatever he caught raw. The nun found it hard to digest so Mr. Allison crept to the camp and stole some canned goods.
While he was doing that he could see flashes on the horizon and concluded there was some kind of naval battle between American and Japanese forces. The Japanese who were on the island soon left, which led to all sorts of speculation on Mr. Allison's part about who had won the battle, whether anyone would be coming to their island and what that would mean for them. Partly out of frustration and partly out of jubilation, I suppose, Allison got drunk on some sake that had been left behind.
That was when he confessed to the nun his true feelings for her. He told her he loved her and he thought it was pointless for her to remain dedicated to her vows — she had not yet taken her final vows — since they were stranded on the island with little hope of being saved.
The nun ran out into the night and a tropical rain, becoming ill in the process. After Mr. Allison sobered up he found her shivering and carried her back to the camp. Meanwhile the Japanese had returned, and Mr. Allison took the nun back to the cave.
Mr. Allison tried to care for her, but she needed blankets, and the only blankets to be found were in the Japanese camp. He went back there to get some and was discovered, forcing him to kill a Japanese soldier. Consequently the Japanese realized they were not alone and started setting fires in the jungle to force the pair out into the open.
They remained in the cave, though, and expected a grenade to be thrown in with them — until they heard an explosion that Mitchum realized was not a grenade. It was a bomb. The Americans were attacking the island ahead of their landing.
Mitchum also knew that, when they returned to the island, the Japanese brought four big artillery guns that were well concealed — and he knew where they were. When the Americans tried to land, Mitchum mused, the Japanese would come out of their bunkers and open fire with those guns. It would be a messy landing.
Then he had the inspiration to disable the weapons before the landing began, and that is what he did. He was injured in doing so, but he still managed to disable them, and the Americans easily overpowered the Japanese.
As the movie ended, the nun told Mitchum, in what the audience presumed would be the last time they would see each other, that they would always be close companions, and the Americans were puzzled by how the Japanese weapons had been disabled.
Mr. Allison never said a word. It was a time when movies and movie audiences still believed that virtue was its own reward.
"Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" received two Oscar nominations. Kerr was nominated for Best Actress but lost to Joanne Woodward in "The Three Faces of Eve." And Huston was nominated with John Lee Mahin for Best Adapted Screenplay but lost to Michael Wilson, Carl Foreman and Pierre Boulle for "The Bridge on the River Kwai."
Causarano (Albert Salmi):What's your pleasure, Lieutenant? How many men have to die before you're satisfied?
Katell (Dean Stockwell):Off hand, all of them. No matter who they are or where they are. If they're the enemy, they get it. First day of the war or last day of the war, they get it.
It seems to me that it is in the context of war that the great matters of human existence are addressed, and those stories are particularly soul searching in the artistic efforts in the first couple of decades after a major conflict.
The artists who take on that topic tend to fall into two camps. Both agree that the costs of war are horrific, but one camp tends to see those sacrifices as necessary for the achievement of the ultimate goal while the other tends to see the costs of war as being too high, regardless of the ultimate outcome.
In the case of World War II, that period ran from roughly 1945 to 1965, neatly including the entire run of the first incarnation of the Twilight Zone. Series creator Rod Serling fell into the latter camp, and the episodes of the series that dealt with war, be it World War II or another clash, reflected that conflicted state of mind.
World War II provided particularly fertile ground for such introspection because both camps agreed that not only are the costs of war horrific but also that defeating the Axis powers was vital. It was a conflict within a conflict. Even so there was genuine anguish, it seems to me, in the work by Serling and many of his contemporaries when it dealt with World War II.
The episode of the Twilight Zone that first aired on this night in 1961, "A Quality of Mercy," found the remnants of a World War II U.S. infantry unit watching a cave in the Philippines from their hillside perch. Some Japanese soldiers, most of them apparently wounded, were holed up in the cave, and American shelling had done little to dislodge them.
The date was Aug. 6, 1945, the day that a nuclear weapon was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, accelerating the end of World War II. That was unknown to anyone in the Twilight Zone episode until later, after the bomb had been dropped. In the meantime, the infantrymen on that hill found themselves under the command of a gung–ho lieutenant played by Dean Stockwell.
This lieutenant had it in mind for the unit to undertake a virtually suicidal assault on the Japanese soldiers who were holed up in that cave.
He was, as the company sergeant (Albert Salmi) said, a "Johnnie come lately" whose desire to demonstrate his efficiency as an officer repelled the war–weary members of the infantry unit.
Then one of those supernatural Twilight Zone moments occurred. The lieutenant dropped his binoculars on the ground, bent over to pick them up — and he was transformed into a Japanese officer on Corregidor in 1942. The situation was similar to the one the lieutenant had just left. Japanese soldiers were watching a cave from a hillside perch. Inside the cave were maybe two dozen American soldiers, most of them wounded.
And the lieutenant found himself having the same conversation he had been having with that sergeant — only the roles were reversed.
It was a typical Twilight Zone switcheroo — followed by a reverse switcheroo in which Stockwell was back with his infantry unit in the Philippines. As far as his comrades were concerned, no time had passed at all. They were unaware of the game–changing experience he had just had.
He was hesitant to give the order to move out — and during that hesitation word reached the unit of the atomic bomb that had been dropped on Hiroshima.
In a relatively small but pivotal role, future Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy was the one who broke the news to the rest of them. They were told that command expected the Japanese to surrender as a result. The unit was ordered to pull back, wait for a few days and see what happened as a result.
Stockwell was in kind of a daze, and Salmi told him not to worry, that there would be other wars, "other human beings you can knock off."
And Stockwell could only say, "I hope not."
As for Nimoy, Star Trek was still about five years in the future. He had been in movies (sometimes uncredited) and made guest appearances on other TV shows, but he didn't become a household word until Star Trek and Mr. Spock.
Corp. Miller (David Niven):There's no guarantee, but the theory's perfectly feasible.
No one would ever conclude that I am a fan of war movies. I grew up that way. My parents were decidedly antiwar when I was growing up, and I grew up believing as they did.
As an adult, I have amended my position, acknowledging that sometimes it is necessary to fight, but that doesn't mean that my attitude about war movies has changed much. I've never really been much for splashy special effects and explosions. I'm a writer. I like dialogue. Lots of it.
I do like some war movies, just as I do like some westerns and some love stories. Just not all of them. Not even most of them.
My overriding preference when it comes to movies of any genre is that the movie tell a good story. And that is what "The Guns of Navarone," which premiered on America's movie screens on this day in 1961, did.
If it had been one of those war movies where two sides just begin shooting randomly at each other for no apparent reason other than the fact that they represent two opposing sides in an armed conflict, it wouldn't have interested me. I'll grant you, that is how most wars seem to be fought. Still, I want a story, something that gives the movie context.
"The Guns of Navarone" was a fictional story about World War II, and it was a darn good story.
It was set with a real event as the backdrop — the Dodecanese Campaign, in which the Allied forces sought to capture the Italian–held Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea in 1943, a mission that failed — on a fictional island called Navarone. Specifically, it was based on events surrounding the Battle of Leros, the central event of that campaign. The Italians had installed two powerful guns on the island that controlled the seas, but they were captured by the Germans in the battle.
Using that as the inspiration, Scottish writer Alistair MacLean penned the novel "The Guns of Navarone," in which a group of commandos sets out to destroy the island fortress and liberate more than 1,000 British soldiers.
Well, that's how it was in real life. In the novel (and the movie it inspired), there were 2,000 British soldiers. The British Navy planned to send in ships to rescue them, but first, those guns had to be neutralized. That's where the commandos came in.
Don't get me wrong. "The Guns of Navarone" had plenty of shooting and explosions — in fact, it won an Oscar for its special effects — but it also had a lot of dialogue that really told the story. (Carl Foreman was nominated for an Oscar for his adapted screenplay, but he lost to "Judgment at Nuremberg.")
Then, along the way, the movie's stars — Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn — kept propelling the commandos forward. Each brought a special qualification to the enterprise. Peck played a spy from New Zealand, talented at what he did but inexperienced as a leader; Niven was an explosives expert, and Quinn was a Greek patriot.
There were breathtakingly dramatic moments as the commando unit made its way to the objective. If you are part of the millennial generation and you've never seen "The Guns of Navarone" before, you may well see similarities between it and "The Lord of the Rings" when you do. The characters and circumstances are different, but the similarities are undeniable. Peck and Niven, in their quest for the guns, are not unlike Frodo and Sam in their journey to Mordor.
And both stories were about the clash between good and evil.
"I came 4,000 miles to get a story. I get shot at like a duck in a shooting gallery, I get pushed off buildings, I get the story, and then I've got to shut up."
John (Joel McCrea)
Contrary to what you may have always believed, Alfred Hitchcock didn't spend his whole career directing movies about psychotic slasher killers. True, there was usually a dead body involved — but not always.
In "Foreign Correspondent," the Hitchcock movie that premiered 75 years ago today, there was a dead body or two, but they were elements of the tale, not the tale itself. The story started with a New York editor's concern about the growing crisis in Europe — and his desire to prevent a war and the resultant loss of life — prior to the outbreak of World War II. He was frustrated with the foreign correspondents who contributed little to the public's understanding of what was happening across the Atlantic. He wanted a reporter, preferably one who had covered the crime beat and had no real opinion of what was happening in the world — and could therefore be counted on to provide reasonably balanced reports. (Having covered the police beat as a reporter for a time in my career, I kind of resent that stereotype.) Thus, he chose Joel McCrea, whose character's only initial concern was whether his new appointment would come with an expense account.
After arriving in Europe, McCrea's first assignment was a peace conference in Amsterdam, where he was looking for an elusive Dutch diplomat. The diplomat was assassinated as McCrea stepped out of the crowd to greet him.
I guess that editor was right about McCrea and the need to have a reporter on the story. In his quest for the assassin, McCrea found himself in a windmill — where, it turned out, the real diplomat was being held. The man McCrea saw shot was a lookalike, a decoy.
That was followed by some spine–tingling Hitchcockesque suspense in which one couldn't help seeing glimpses of things to come. Still, it was a different kind of Hitchcock movie. If you've never seen it — and you think "Psycho" is all you need to know about Hitchcock — you're in for a real surprise — as well as a real treat — when you see it.
McCrea's character really gave his editor what he wanted — an open, inquisitive and creative mind who found all sorts of ways to get around obstacles. McCrea's love interest was 19–year–old Laraine Day, playing the daughter of a local politician. Don't let her age fool you. Her character was very articulate, as when she had to step in at the last minute as featured speaker when the diplomat failed to show up.
"I think the world has been run long enough by well–meaning professionals," she said. "We might give the amateurs a chance now."
And she could be tough, too, when the situation called for it.
As a Hitchcock fan, I am always inclined to think that any year in which one of his movies was showing in theaters — and that was most of the years in roughly a four–decade span — was Hitchcock's year, but 1940 really was Hitch's year. At the Academy Awards, "Foreign Correspondent" was one of two Hitchcock movies nominated for Best Picture. The other was "Rebecca," which went on to win the award. It beat some pretty good competition, too — "The Grapes of Wrath," "The Philadelphia Story," "The Great Dictator."
I think the Academy made the right choice. "Rebecca" was a better movie, but "Foreign Correspondent" was deserving of recognition as well. Both were fiction, but "Foreign Correspondent" was a vision based on what was known at the time of what might happen in a not–so–distant future. Sometimes, I suppose, the vision was inadequate, but trying to tell the future based on a limited amount of information was what made the project so challenging.
Deservedly, Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director, too — but for "Rebecca," not "Foreign Correspondent."
"Foreign Correspondent" received six Oscar nominations in all. In addition to Best Picture, it was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Black and White Art Direction, Best Black and White Cinematography and Best Special Effects (which isn't hard to understand, once you've seen McCrea crawling along the exteriors of windmills and hotels in scenes that must have served as preparation for the Mount Rushmore scene in "North by Northwest") — but lost all six.
"I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country."
Gen. George Patton (George C. Scott)
There are some movies I will watch whenever they are shown on TV.
"Patton," which premiered on this day in 1970, is such a movie.
The first six minutes are iconic — George Patton addressing an audience of American soldiers. They are not seen, but I have heard that the scene was based on a real–life speech that Patton gave to an audience of soldiers during World War II. The first time I saw the movie, I assumed he was addressing cadets at West Point. Either explanation is plausible, I suppose.
As I say, it is an iconic scene. It established the movie as a classic right from the start. It also established the fact that George Patton always did things his way — and sometimes his way was, well, bizarre.
He wouldn't tolerate "yellow bellies." They were cowards, in his eyes, looking for a "free ride" in the guise of battle fatigue, and he wouldn't permit them to share the same hospital space with soldiers who had been wounded in battle.
A Christian, he believed in reincarnation. Early in the movie, he took his staff to the scene of an ancient battle — and insisted, in a conversation with Omar Bradley (Karl Malden), that he had been there.
He wrote poetry and designed uniforms for tank crews.
When enemy planes attacked the place where he was engaged in a meeting with his staff, he ran outside and tried to shoot them down with his ivory–handled revolver. Folks in the press of the day wanted to call it a pearl–handled revolver, but he corrected them on that. "Only a pimp from a cheap New Orleans whorehouse would carry a pearl–handled revolver."
"'Patton' is not a war film so much as the story of a personality who has found the right role to play," wrote film critic Roger Ebert. "Scott's theatricality is electrifying."
I would agree with that. Scott was electrifying, and it was the story of a personality who "found the right role to play." But it is a role that is no longer available.
The last time I watched "Patton," I found myself musing about whether it would be possible for another Patton to come along — and I concluded that it probably would not be. He's like the old–style football coaches — Bear Bryant, Woody Hayes, Vince Lombardi — who were said to be molders of men. The times left them behind, and if a football coach rode any of his players today the way those coaches were known to ride theirs back in the day, that football coach would be out of a job and probably blacklisted.
There is something to be said for hard work and how it shapes character, and perhaps that is why drill sergeants did continue to get away with that kind of thing long after football coaches had to change their ways. But they can't get away with it to a great extent anymore without being accused of abusing their positions of power as well as the boys over whom they have that authority.
And generals, of course, probably can't get away with it at all. Certainly, Patton couldn't get away with slapping a victim of battle fatigue. He couldn't even get away with it then.
There is a point in the movie where the empathetic, human side of Patton could be clearly seen — when one of the American soldiers was killed in battle, and the audience saw Patton standing next to the caisson that would carry the body to a field for burial, and Patton's voice could be heard reading the letter he had written about the soldier's death. It reminded me of the grave marker that Tommy Lee Jones carved for Danny Glover in "Lonesome Dove."
"Splendid behavior," he wrote.
In "Patton," the general wrote in the letter that the soldier "was a fine man and a fine officer, and he had no vices."
"Scott's performance is not one level but portrays a many–layered man who desires to appear one level," Ebert wrote. "Instead of adding tiresome behavioral touches, he allows us small glimpses of what may be going on inside."
Or perhaps German Capt. Steiger summed it up better when, by way of explaining Patton's battlefield strategy, he told Gen. Jodl, "Patton is a 16th–century man. ... Patton is a romantic warrior lost in contemporary times."
Such thinking may have been why the Germans tended to underestimate Patton. Perhaps he was right for the time — and Scott was right for the role — but I wonder if either would be possible today.
General Frank Savage (Gregory Peck): [on stalling the transfer paperwork] There can be trouble in this.
Major Harvey Stovall (Dean Jagger):I don't think so, sir. I never heard of a jury convicting the lawyer.
People who only know Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch owe it to themselves to see his performance in "Twelve O'Clock High," which premiered on this day in 1949.
AFI also listed its top villains, and, for much of the movie, Peck's performance might well have made him a candidate for it as far as many viewers were concerned. Truly, his character, General Savage, seemed, at first, to be aptly named, but as the movie went on, the audience saw that General Savage was merely doing his job — leading a talented but tired and demoralized group of pilots during the early days of World War II.
History tells us the Allies won World War II, but the outcome was far from certain when "Twelve O'Clock High" was set.
Actually, the movie began in what was then the present day — 1949 — and Dean Jagger, playing an attorney from America, was on vacation in Britain. As he passed an antique shop, he noticed a rather unextraordinary Toby Jug in the window and went in to ask about it.
He was convinced that it was the same jug that had been used to silently announce bombing raids to the crews at the nearby British station where Peck's character and Jagger's character had served.
So he bought it and took it with him to the base, now abandoned, but the main structures were still there.
From there, the story was told mostly in flashbacks — to the early 1940s when Peck's character took command of the base and was forced to deal with disciplinary problems among the men. His methods did not make him popular at first, but, gradually, the men began to see the wisdom in his actions.
During the war, Jagger's character had been an accomplice to Peck's character — in many ways, providing the same kind of support to Peck that Ben Kingsley's character gave to Liam Neeson's character in "Schindler's List."
I suppose it is kind of ironic for me to say that because, like "Schindler's List,""Twelve O'Clock High" was based on a true story. Peck's character was, by and large, the big–screen version of Col. Frank Armstrong, but his character was really a composite of the experiences of several wartime commanders.
Peck earned his fourth Academy Award nomination for his performance in "Twelve O'Clock High," but it was Jagger who took home the statuette — for Best Supporting Actor — topping John Ireland, James Whitmore, Arthur Kennedy and Ralph Richardson.
I hadn't been born on this day 75 years ago, but, based on my studies of history, I think I can guess what the mood was like.
Uneasy.
Less than three months later, World War II began when the Nazis invaded Poland. In the months leading up to it, there were all sorts of global political maneuvers going on.
Five years later, almost to the day, the Allied invasion of Normandy marked the turning point in the conflict.
Most of that was looming in the future when Agatha Christie wrote "Murder Is Easy," the detective novel she published in Great Britain on this day in 1939. (When it was published in the United States in September, the title was changed to "Easy to Kill.")
With so much uncertainty in the world, I guess Christie felt compelled to return to a more traditional plot. Comfort food for mystery readers, you might say. It took place in a sleepy English village. It had a loquacious vicar and an equally loquacious old maid. It had an overbearing captain of industry and his beautiful fiancee — and others, all of whom made for a delicious list of suspects from which to choose.
It also boasted Christie's trademark brilliant plot and clue placement.
But "Murder Is Easy" often gets the short end of the stick, probably because so many other Christie books that were published in the late 1930s had more complicated stories or took place in more exotic locales.
One of Christie's prominent detectives at that time was a fellow named Superintendent Battles, and he does show up at the end of "Murder Is Easy," but nearly all the heavy lifting is done by a character named Luke Fitzwilliam, a retired policeman who, to my knowledge, never showed up in another Christie novel.
Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing depends on one's perspective, I suppose. I have heard several Christie readers say they wish she had chosen to use Fitzwilliam in other books, but Maurice Percy Ashley, writing in London's Times Literary Supplement, said Fitzwilliam, a protege of Christie's detective Hercule Poirot, was "singularly lacking in 'little grey matter.' "
In fairness to Fitzwilliam, the case was baffling. On a train to London, he struck up a conversation with an elderly lady, who told him she was on her way to Scotland Yard to report what she had concluded was a serial killer on the loose. This killer, she said, already had been responsible for three deaths, and she identified by name the person who would be the fourth.
Fitzwilliam dismissed the conversation as the ranting of an elderly woman — until he saw the name of the alleged fourth victim in the obituary column. But the problem was that the man was not the fourth victim. He was the fifth. The old woman had been the fourth.
Had I been reviewing the book 75 years ago, I would have proclaimed it a classic.
But it is an understated and underappreciated one.
"Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."
Talmud
In reality, there probably was no one who would have seemed less likely to be a hero before World War II than Oskar Schindler.
He was a German businessman and Nazi Party member, greedy, arrogant, a womanizer who lived an opulent life in Poland away from his wife in Germany. At first, he hired Jews to work in his factory because, with their wages set by the Nazis, they cost him less than Poles. That evolved, with the assistance of his accountant (Ben Kingsley), into Schindler's unrestricted use of his factory to protect an estimated 1,100 Jews from deportation and probable death.
It took nearly half a century for Schindler's story to be brought to the big screen. Appropriately, it was Steven Spielberg, perhaps the most popular filmmaker of his time, who told the story to a mostly ignorant world. Many people will tell you it is the greatest movie ever made. The American Film Institute didn't go quite that far. I'm not sure if I would go that far, but I would certainly rank it in the Top 10. It ranked "Schindler's List" eighth on its Top 100 list.
Schindler (played by Liam Neeson in the movie) was AFI's 13th–greatest movie hero — and Amon Goeth (played by Ralph Fiennes) was AFI's 14th–most villainous villain (the highest–ranking nonfiction villain on that list).
And, in the 20 years since its initial theatrical release on this day in 1993, "Schindler's List" has been used countless times as a classroom learning tool.
When you look back at Spielberg's career, you can see certain patterns in his work, as you can with just about any great director, I suppose.
In "Schindler's List," you can see a technique to which Spielberg would return a few years later when he made "Saving Private Ryan" — the vivid re–creation of a harrowing wartime event. In "Ryan," it was the re–creation of D–Day. In "Schindler," it was the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto.
Both scenes were lengthy — and painful to watch but necessary for the viewer to get a taste of what the participants must have experienced. Spielberg himself remarked that he felt more like a reporter than a filmmaker when he made "Schindler's List," as if he had been witnessing the actual events, not re–creating them for a movie.
By the time "Ryan" hit the theaters, you could see how much Spielberg's technique had matured. It was still in its infancy when he made "Schindler's List," but, even so, it packed a punch.
I don't think it is an exaggeration to say "Schindler's List" may well be the most important movie made in my lifetime. I guess it has almost become a cliche for someone to say that a movie project in which he or she was involved was important, but it really does fit "Schindler's List."
The interaction between Schindler and his accountant was one of the things I found especially remarkable.
Under far less extreme circumstances, it was the kind of partnership that usually succeeds in the business world. Schindler was the big–picture guy; Itzhak Stern was the nuts–and–bolts guy, the details guy. Both brought skills to the enterprise that were essential to its success.
But, in the intense atmosphere of the Holocaust, success and failure were entirely different.
I already admired Ben Kingsley's work. A decade earlier, he starred in a movie that really was an important movie, "Gandhi."
Until "Schindler's List," though, I didn't have the same kind of admiration for Liam Neeson. He had been in several movies by this time — I even saw him in one or two — and I was favorably impressed, but I didn't think of him as an important actor until I saw "Schindler's List."
After I saw his scene late in the movie where he spoke of how many more lives he could have saved if he had sold his watch or his car, he became an important actor in my eyes.
I remember the first time I watched "Schindler's List" on TV. It was shown with no commercial interruptions — on NBC, I think, and sponsored by the Ford Motor Company. As I recall, Spielberg spoke at the start of the movie and at the end. In one of those segments, he said that he had been asked if he would permit his children to watch "Schindler's List." He said he wanted all of his children to watch it when they were ready.
That was the kind of thing, Spielberg admitted, that each parent had to decide because children mature at different rates, but he said that, as a general rule of thumb, he wouldn't let young children watch it. But a child in junior high or high school probably could understand the material and ask thoughtful questions after the movie was over. Young children might be traumatized.
I thought that was a reasonable — as well as responsible — thing for him to say.
Consequently, I was astonished the next day when a lawmaker from Oklahoma complained about the nudity in "Schindler's List," and accused Spielberg, NBC and Ford of acting irresponsibly. I wondered if the lawmaker even bothered to watch the telecast. If he had, I thought, he might have realized that the Nazis used nudity as a weapon against the Jews, not as a means of their own arousal. It was an example of the Nazis' cruelty.
Truly, some people can't see the forest for the trees.
There was another element of "Schindler's List" that is worth discussing. I speak of the little girl in the red coat. In real life, she must have stood out in the crowd just as she did in the movie — made almost entirely in black and white — if the little girl ever really existed.
My understanding is that the girl in the red coat was fictional, that she was symbolic of how high–ranking officials in democratic countries like the United States did nothing to prevent the Holocaust even though they were aware of it like "a little girl wearing a red coat, walking down the street."
In fact, though, there was a little girl in a red coat in the Kraków ghetto, and for a time it was thought that the girl in "Schindler's List" either was inspired by her or was a minor dramatization of her story. Her name was Roma Ligocka, and she was remembered by many who were there for that red coat she wore.
In the movie, the girl in the red coat apparently died. I say "apparently" because the camera does not show her actual death, but it does show her limp body, identifiable only by that coat. It was a powerful moment in the movie, and it marked the beginning of Schindler's personal transformation.
But Ligocka did not die in the Holocaust. She survived and lives today in Munich. She is Roman Polanski's cousin.
I got my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and I got my master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Most of my adult life has been dedicated to writing and editing in one form or another. Most recently I have taught writing (news and developmental) as an adjunct journalism professor at Richland College, where I advise the student newspaper staff. Go, Thunderducks!
