An evening pause: The reaction of the ship captain in the opening section of this clip from the movie A Night to Remember (1958) exemplifies better than anything I have ever seen the clarity and courage of an open mind, willing to face new facts instantly and to react correctly, even if by doing so you risk failure and disgrace.
If only our leaders today had as much courage.
An evening pause: What do you do when you know that you only have a few more weeks to live? From On the Beach (1959), one of the greatest end-of-the-world films ever made.
An evening pause: This newsreel, made shortly after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, gives an honest sense of the rage felt by Americans following the attack. Or to quote the words placed in the mouth of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto from the movie Tora! Tora! Tora!:
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant, and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Though it is not clear that Yamamoto ever actually said this line, it encapsulates the consequences of Pearl Harbor quite concisely.
An evening pause:
An evening pause: As it is Wednesday and I am at the gun range, competing in bullseye pistol competitions, let’s look at some Hollywood shooting action.
An evening pause: The first Max Fleischer Superman cartoon, The Mad Scientist (1941), from a time when Americans believed that all things were possible, and that our nation stood for the best of those possibilities. When evil men try to destroy skyscrapers and kill innocent people, you don’t stand idly by, you fight them, and stop them.
Leslie Nielsen Dead at 84. R.I.P.
An evening pause: One of Al Pacino’s best performance.
An evening pause: “Many a New Day” from Oklahoma (1955). It is the dance choreography here that is surprising and original.
An evening pause: What was happening while Thomas Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence, according to Broadway and Hollywood.
An evening pause: Charlie Chaplin, making glorious fun of Hitler and all egomanical dictators, in The Great Dictator (1940).
The Baikonur space port: a movie set.
An evening pause: From the film, The Haunting (1963), based on the story by Shirley Jackson. Stay for the closing scene in this clip.
An evening pause: As it is the Halloween weekend, how about an appropriate clip from Hayao Miyazaki’s surreal masterpiece, Spirited Away (2001).
An evening pause: This scene, from Stage Door (1937), is considered by many to be Katherine Hepburn’s greatest film moment: “The calla lillies are in bloom again.” Though powerful on its own, in the full context of the movie the scene is even more heart-breaking, and a true tour de force for Hepburn.
An evening pause:
An evening pause: Fred Astaire and Judy Garland from Easter Parade (1948).
Talk about stupid: New Zealand might lose $700 million in movie production business due to a boycott by an Australian-based actors union. Fun quote:
Fifteen hundred workers, including directors, technicians and crew who [oppose the actors union], met at . . . Miramar Studios at 5pm for an emergency meeting this evening. By 7pm, they were storming the Actors Equity meeting in the city.
An evening pause: Fred Astaire, dancing on the ceiling, from Royal Wedding (1951).
An evening pause: Henry Fonda and John Wayne in Fort Apache (1948).
“Sergeant, pour me some scripture.”
