USA History

Yeah hoo!

I spent the day so far watering the garden, doing a few chores around the place, watching the first half of 1959's The 39 Steps, and then out for a bike ride and hike.

I'm loving the movie so far. It's the one starring Kenneth More and I haven't seen this one. I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one production before. Probably the 1935 production with Robert Donat.

Kenneth More tends to play the likable, upright true Brit who does his duty – at least in the war films I've come to associate him with. He's memorable as Group Capt. Baker in The Battle of Britain, Capt. Colin Maud in The Longest Day, Captain Jonathan Shepard in Sink the Bismarck!, and Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller in A Night to Remember (about the sinking of the Titanic),

Funny how we don't hate the Brits and tend to look down our noses at the French. Revolutions can create strange bedfellows.

No doubt language has something to do with this, but I believe our low opinion of the French ballooned after their prostration to the Wehrmacht in 1940. 

I don't believe I have seen this version, but it certainly has an excellent cast.  I wouldn't be surprised if it were better than Donat's version, which was directed by Hitchcock. I didn't think it was that great. To my eye, it is very dated.  At least that's how I recall it. 
After further thought, the secret in the Donat's film might have been an airplane engine and the More film's secret something else. In the end, the actual secret is not nearly so interesting as the action taking place in the film.  

I started watching this 1978 version over lunch. I have made it through 1 hour of a 1 hr 40 minute production. I don't recall enough detail of the Donat version to give a thorough comparison, but this is a mediocre film. The costumes, scenery, actors and story are fine, but there are simply too many silly "coincidences," cliche' movie devices and unbelievable occurrences for this to be considered good. It is a shame, because I like the overall setting and theme.  

I finished the film, and while slightly better than the first hour, the last 40 minutes have their share of implausibilities and unbelievable action. 

Having been trained by his father, then American ambassador to several countries, then Secretary of State, who was most responsible for the Monroe Doctrine, John Quincy Adams understood something about the dangers of getting involved in the international disputes of other nations.

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy

Seventy-eight years ago today, the USA dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. We moved into a new age.

Hiroshima

There may be a little embellishment to the story, but that doesn't change gist of the tale. It is a fact that George Washington was friendly to Jews and encouraged them to settle in America.

George Washington's Hanukah

Nicely done video. The battle for Iwo almost destroyed three Marine divisions 3, 4, and 5th. My father's division 1st,  was regrouping in Australia preparing for the invasion of Okinawa. Iwo was important as the airfield there allowed fighters to accompany the B-29s as Curtis Lemay laid waste to the Japaneses empire. No one with any sense called for an end to the bombing because civilians were being killed. 

If today's leftists were in charge during WW II there is no way we would have won. Sometimes righteous anger is the only way to clear the air in war. Roosevelt and Truman understood that the dying would not stop until the enemy was so soundly defeated there could be no argument of who won. This is the position Israel is in today. The US and the rest of the world is crying for the big mean Jews to stop. But, there are few tears for our saughtered people. 

Those of a certain age will not need to be reminded that John F. Kennedy was assassinated on this day 60 years ago.

Like virtually everyone alive at the time, I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news sometime after 1:00 pm that day. I was in a classroom at Harry C. Withers Elementary School in Dallas, when our principal, Dr. Raines, spoke over the loudspeaker and asked everyone to stand. He then simply said something like "Today, at 1:?? pm president John F. Kennedy died at Parkland Hospital."

We have yet to learn the truth about this crime.