Memorial Day 2023

Today in the United States of America we celebrated Memorial Day, a day devoted to honor and remember America’s veterans, especially those who gave their lives in the call of duty. It is a kind of paradox that while we consider ourselves a peace-loving people, we have been at war practically throughout our history.

From 1775 we fought the Revolutionary war to secure independence from Great Britain. After that, Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the new Republic, thought that America would never go to war again because the Atlantic ocean would be a barrier to aggressors. For this reason he dismantled the American armed forces while the Napoleonic wars were ravaging Europe. He also believed that the value of the trade and commerce of the United States would be a more potent weapon than ships and guns.

Since then, however, practically every generation of Americans has seen war. From 1812-1815 we fought the War of 1812. From 1846 to 1848 we fought the Mexican war after the annexation of Texas.  From 1861 to 1865 we were engaged in our Civil War, the bloodiest in history until that time.  Memorial Day traces its origins to that conflict. In 1898 we fought the Spanish-American war against the tottering Spanish empire. 

In 1917 the United States became involved at the tail end of the European conflict that will always be remembered as the First World War. WWI  was supposed to be the War that ended all wars but only a generation later America became involved in the Second World War after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. That terrible conflict ended in 1945 with the unconditional surrender of both Germany and Japan.

Since then American forces have fought in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Today, our military commitments are stretched all over the globe. 

I have never served in the military. I was born in 1939 only two years before American entered World War II. I was too young to be drafted into service in 1950 when the Korean War broke out. During the Vietnam era I was deferred from service because of my student, teacher, and marital status. Luck kept me out of war but I must confess that I never had any desire to serve in the military. 

Nevertheless, I always have had a great admiration for those who entered harm’s way. I admit that I was and am an avid armchair soldier. Even as a child my interest in history spilled over into military history. I remember reading daily accounts of the events in Korea as American troops were steadily pushed back by overwhelming numbers, and then rejoicing when General Macarthur’s daring land and sea flanking maneuver turned the tide.

Since that time I have enjoyed reading military history and historical novels. The best historical writing will try to avoid the excesses of propaganda and present the good, the bad, and the ugly on both sides of any conflict. Good war films should also have this quality. I must confess that in my 80s I find it difficult to watch most war films especially when they glamorize, or romanticize. Here is a list of personal favorites that portray ordinary soldiers in extraordinary times.

Audie Murphy in Red Badge of Courage

The Red Badge of Courage. John Huston’s adaptation of Stephen Crane’s classic Civil War novel of the same name stars the baby-faced Audie Murphy who was incidentally the most decorated American soldier of WW II. The real stars, however, are the many other actors who so realistically portray ordinary soldiers.

Clark Gable with flight crew

Command Decision. Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon starred in this gripping WW II drama of high-level decision-making in the light of terrible losses of B17 flight crews on missions over Germany. The film was made after the War and was based on a Broadway play.  As a result, the dialogue is superb.

Gregory Peck

Twelve O‘ Clock High. This film starred Gregory Peck as an Air Force general faced with the difficult task of reviving a demoralized bomber command that was reeling from unacceptable losses. Dean Jagger won an Oscar for best supporting actor. I recall that this film was used later by corporate sales organizations for its lessons on how to get the most out of your people.

Harold Russell, Dana Andrews, Frederic March

The Best Years of Our Lives. Dana Andrews and Frederic March starred in this 1946 film about veterans returning from WW II. Their performances were matched by Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, and Kathy O'Donnell as the women who stayed behind and held the fort. The film also featured Harold Russell, a young sailor who lost both his hands in action.

A Foreign Field. This little known British film about veterans returning to Normandy on the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day begins as a somewhat light comedy but then becomes serious, very serious, and then deeply moving. It features a handful of movie greats at the end of their careers. Alec Guinness, Leo Mc Kern, Lauren Bacall, Jeanne Moreau, and Geraldine Chaplin all give magnificent performances. 

Gettysburg. This 1993 254 minute epic film brilliantly recreates the famous battle that was the turning point of the Civil War. It was based on Michael Shaara's book, The Killer Angels. and stars Jeff Daniels as Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and Martin Sheen as Gen. Robert E. Lee. The film is sympathetic and fair to those who fought and died on both sides. We call it the Civil War but every war is a civil war.

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Political Collusion

 

By now even inveterate Trump haters (ITH) must know that there was no evidence that Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia in the run up to the 2016 Presidential election. Almost four years have passed since the exhaustive and expensive Mueller investigation could find no evidence of collusion. 

Now, with the publication of the final report of Special Counsel John Durham, the Trump haters will have to face the fact that the whole story was a hoax concocted by members of the Clinton campaign to smear their hated opponent. Moreover, the hoax was aided and abetted by high-ranking officials in the FBI who overrode the objections of ordinary agents who found no grounds to initiate an investigation. Here is the conclusion of noted Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel on reading the Durham Report.

"Some are responding to the Durham report with calls to dismantle the FBI. But the report shows the rank and file doing exactly what the FBI is supposed to do—question, verify. The fault rests with an arrogant leadership that discarded the usual layers of oversight—a seventh floor that took charge with no regard for rules, little care for the truth, and no accountability from above."

The “seventh floor” refers to the leadership of the FBI, most of whom were appointed during the Obama administration, whose political aims and objectives overrode normal FBI rules and procedures.  

We have to fast forward to the 2020 election to find real political collusion on the part of high-ranking operatives of the Democratic party. Early in 2020 the NY Post released a story about a lap top computer that Hunter Biden, the already notorious son of candidate Joe Biden, had left unclaimed at a computer repair shop. Apparently, the computer’s hard drive contained potentially criminal information. The revelations in the Post story were a potential bombshell, and we now know that Democratic operatives immediately sprang into action to prevent any damage to the Biden campaign. 

They drafted a letter claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop story was a classic example of “Russian disinformation” designed to influence our election. They then contacted a number of former high-ranking officials in the intelligence agencies and convinced 51 of them to sign on to the letter which then was circulated by a compliant media. Even though FBI had possession of the infamous laptop, this letter effectively “spiked” the potentially damaging story.  The NY Post’s revelations were dismissed as right-wing propaganda. The signers of this letter have not recanted or apologized even though we now know that the laptop was real and not a Russian collusion scam. 

Interestingly, at about the same time that the Durham report was issued, government agents investigating the laptop were taken off the case. This stinks to high heaven. 

 

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Who Was Shakespeare?

The recent coronation of Charles III as King of Great Britain brought to mind one of my favorite subjects:  the authorship of the plays and poems of William Shakespeare, the greatest author in the English language.  I confess that I am a Shakespeare denier. I believe that the great plays and poems attributed to William Shakespeare, the man of that name from Stratford on Avon, were not written by him, but by an aristocratic contemporary, Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, one of the most prominent and notorious noblemen in Elizabethan England. Below is an essay on the subject that originally appeared on The Weekly Bystander on April 6, 2016.

 

Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, 1575

 I am an advocate of the theory that the true identity of the greatest writer in the English language has been hidden for more than 400 years. I am not alone. Great writers like Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, and Henry James, as well as great Shakespearean actors like Orson Welles and Derek Jacobi believed that the plays and poems were written by someone other than the simple commoner from Stratford. Even Sigmund Freud agreed. 

While many names have been put forward as the true author, I believe that the aristocratic background, unique education, and life experience of the Earl of Oxford makes him the prime candidate for the true author of the Shakesperean canon. When it comes to Shakespeare, I agree with those who are called by scholars, with a certain degree of contempt, “Oxfordians”. These would include the unfortunately named J. Thomas Looney, an English high school teacher whose groundbreaking 1919 book, Shakespeare Identified in Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, has never received the attention it deserves.

Oddly enough, it was on my first trip to Italy back in 1997 that I saw the light. My wife and I attended a little symposium on the Renaissance held that year in Gardone Riviera, a resort town on the coast of beautiful Lake Garda. We stayed in an old pensione up the hill from Gardone that had a spectacular view of the lake. 

Before the trip I had happened to read a book by Joseph Sobran* that also questioned the authorship of the man from Stratford, and promoted the cause of the Earl of Oxford, but I found it hard to believe given the overwhelming scholarly tradition. Italy changed my mind. Many of the plays are set in Italy, and the playwright seems to have a first hand knowledge of the customs, language, and geography of the country.

The man from Stratford never traveled outside of England. Scholars are reduced to saying that he got his extensive knowledge of things Italian by listening to Italian seamen in London pubs. On the other hand, shortly after he turned 21 and took his seat in the House of Lords, the young Earl of Oxford left England to spend a year and a half traveling on a kind of grand tour, most of which was spent in Italy. Is it a coincidence that practically every town he visited in Italy is featured or at least mentioned in the plays? Venice, Verona, and Padua come immediately to mind. Places he did not visit, like Turin and Bologna, receive no mention in the plays. 

Moreover, my own brief first visit to Italy convinced me that it would be impossible to describe the beautiful countryside, and the fabled cities without having actually seen them. Even today, after many subsequent visits, I find it almost impossible to describe the breathtaking scene of the Tuscan countryside, or a ride in a water taxi down Venice’s Grand Canal.

The young Edward de Vere spent a fortune on his Italian journey and had to borrow heavily to pay his enormous bills. He arrived back in England deeply in debt and even stark naked, having been stripped of his clothes by pirates in the English Channel, in the same manner as Prince Hamlet in the famous play. This incident is just one of many where the life of the Earl of Oxford is mirrored in the plays and poems of Shakespeare.**

Edward de Vere was born in 1550, fourteen years before the man from Avon.  The de Vere’s were one of England’s great aristocratic families, and could trace their lineage back over 400 years. After the death of his father, when Edward was only twelve, he was taken from his mother and made a ward of the Crown. His property and wealth were managed by Queen Elizabeth’s favorite, Sir Robert Dudley, and his education and upbringing were put into the hands of Sir Robert Cecil the Queen’s chief minister, who even non-Oxfordians believe to be the prototype of Polonius in Hamlet. Edward de Vere grew up in the highest circles of English society, and studied under some of the greatest scholars of his time.

On the other hand, it would appear that the man from Stratford on Avon received no more than the barest elementary education. His father was a butcher and his family was illiterate. Scholars are hard pressed to find any evidence that he received even an elementary education. He left no books or manuscripts behind but only a handful of copies of his signature on legal documents that indicate that he could hardly write his own name.

Throughout his life Edward de Vere was associated with the theater. He sponsored and promoted plays and companies of players. However, at the time it was considered disgraceful for someone of his status to associate with plays and players. For this reason Oxfordians believe that he used the name of the man from Avon to cover his tracks. There is evidence that the young man from Avon was amply compensated. After all, what’s in a name?

The greatest objection to the authorship of de Vere is the fact that he died in 1604. Although it is difficult to date the plays, the traditional belief has been that some, like the Tempest, were written between 1604 and 1616, the date of the death of the man from Stratford. However, in recent years scholars have reduced the number of post-1604 plays to one or two and even their dates are questionable. One recent author has even argued that the whole “Shakespeare project” seems to shut down after 1604. 

The other objection involves a kind of reverse snobbery. We live in the age of the underdog and people like to believe that the greatest author in the English language was a common man possessed with great natural genius. We do not like aristocrats and shows like Downton Abbey make us aware of their follies and weaknesses. Nevertheless, greatness in any field still requires education and life experience. Every author writes himself. The plays of Shakespeare are all about Kings, Queens, and other aristocrats. In those plays Edward de Vere wrote about a world of which he was intimately acquainted and in which he played a major role. 

Written around 1604, Hamlet was one of the last plays. The dying words of Hamlet could well apply to Edward de Vere.

O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity a while,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story.

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* Joseph Sobran, Alias Shakespeare, 1997.

**Mark Anderson, Shakespeare by Another Name, 2005, provides an exhaustive account of the similarities between the life of Edward de Vere and the characters in both the plays and poems of Shakespeare.  

Demise of the DVD

  

                         

It was sad to read the news that Netflix is planning to discontinue the DVD mailing service that originally launched the entertainment giant, and rely exclusively on its movie streaming service. I suppose that streaming is more profitable, but I will miss the DVDs that came in the mail in their distinctive red envelopes. It was a great service. You had listed the films you wanted to see on your online queue, and the one on the top came quickly in the mail. You could keep it as long as you wanted, and when you returned it in the convenient envelope, the next one was sent.

 

I did try streaming when first introduced by Netflix but did not like it for a number of reasons. Chief among them was the fact that streaming provided fewer film choices. In particular, very few foreign films were available. Also, many American film noir classics from the 40s and 50s were available on DVD, but could not be streamed. Perhaps Netflix has added to its streaming menu but there is another DVD feature that streaming does not provide.

 

Many DVDs come with special features in addition to the movie itself. There are often video biographies of the  people involved in the production of a particular film. Not just the stars, but directors, producers, musical composers, and even costume designers are often featured.  These can be of varying quality, but some are intelligent and informative. 

For example, the Criterion Collection’s two-disc set of Now Voyager, the 1944 Bette Davis classic provides a treasure trove of commentary. There is an interview with film critic Farran Smith Nehme on the making of the film; a scene-by-scene commentary by scholar Jeff Smith on Max Steiner’s Academy Award winning musical score; and even a discussion of the important role played by famed costume designer Orry-Kelly in dressing Bette Davis to fit changes in the character she portrayed.

Also many DVDs, especially of important films, come with an expert audio commentary that plays along with the film. You can actually, watch a film one night, and the next night view it again with a commentary. Like the biographies, these commentaries can vary in quality, but some are excellent. A few years ago all of the Fred Astaire--Ginger Rogers musicals were issued in two boxed DVD sets. The DVD for the 1936 Swing Time, the best of them all, includes a commentary by John Mueller that provides almost a step-by-step discussion of every dance number. In another example, film scholar Marian Keane’s commentary for the Preston Sturges 1941 film, The Lady Eve, is a masterpiece in itself. It certainly helps understand why many consider Barbara Stanwyck one of the greats of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Gene Tierney: Laura Portrait

My favorite commentator, however, is Jeanine Basinger, the founder of the Wesleyan University Film Archive that houses the Gene Tierney collection. Basinger’s audio commentaries for two Tierney films, the iconic Laura of 1944, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir of 1947 are superb. It is true that the films are wonderful  and certainly can be watched over and over again by themselves. But watching a great film with Basinger as your guide is an experience in itself.

Whatever Netflix decides to do, it is still possible to build your own DVD collection, and enjoy these films without commercial interruption or pop-up ads. Many people have thrown away their DVD players, but they can still be purchased inexpensively, as can the DVDs. But I will still miss the red envelopes.

 

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