Different Slants

Seeing the World from a New Angle

Katzman’s Cinema Komments # 4 -1/26/08

Filed under: Humor,Katzman's 13 Vintage Movie Reviews,Katzman's Cinema Komments — Bob at 1:37 pm on Saturday, January 26, 2008

   So, I was thinking about America’s nineteen century two-term President Andrew Jackson—whom I sure wish was president of the USA right now, because even dead, he’d be far better than our current disaster—and that led me to thinking about the actor Yul Brynner.  Brynner’s greatest fame came from playing The King and I (1956) and as Chris, in The Magnificent Seven (1960) one of the most revered Westerns of all time, even though based on the earlier Japanese Seven Samurai (1954)  

People who know me won’t be very surprised at this arc of connection, because I find that thinking about time is very fluid and a person’s conscious memories and subconscious memories can make lightening fast connections on the slightest thread-like basis. 

That must be the case in this instance, because the distance between Andrew Jackson (died 1862) and Yul Brynner (died 1985) is a lot more than six degrees of separation, because Jackson, the 8th U.S. President, was born in South Carolina 148 years before Brynner, born (some people speculate) on Sakhalin Island (east of Siberia and north of Japan)  in 1915.

So, here’s the thought process that connects those historic people to this movie, The Buccaneer (1958) I saw as a child, and really liked: 

Many years ago, I read this story about Andrew Jackson, born in March, 1767.  He was the son of Irish immigrants and orphaned at the age of fourteen.  At thirteen, he enlisted in the Revolutionary War as a mounted orderly, at a time in 1780 when the rebelling American Colonial forces under General George Washington were experiencing heavy losses against the British General Sir William Cornwallis.

 Young Jackson was captured, and subsequently ordered by a British officer to clean his boots.  Jackson refused and demanded to be treated in a manner befitting a prisoner-of-war.  The officer, angered by the young boy’s insolence and his unwillingness to be meek and subservient even though a prisoner, slashed Jackson across his face with his sword, scarring the boy for the rest of his life.  Subsequent events would prove this to have been an unwise act, and Jackson’s eventual revenge was multiplied over a thousand times.

Both of Jackson’s brothers died during the American Revolution, and also his mother while nursing wounded American soldiers.  Jackson’s antagonism toward the English is no great mystery.

He volunteered to fight for the US Army in the War of 1812, again against the British, who refused to take an independent continent’s “NO! “ for an answer, evidently, 29 years after the end of the Revolutionary War, in 1783. 

Rising to be a general, promotions coming much faster in wartime to anyone who managed to win a conflict and still retain most of their soldiers, Jackson’s army opposed the British Expeditionary Force of 7,500 men at the Battle of New Orleans.  Jackson, though outnumbered by more than two-to-one, faced a land and naval assault by veteran British attackers.

The actual battle took place on January 8, 1815.  However, because news traveled so slowly 193 years ago, by a ship in this case, from Belgium, neither side in the battle was aware that the Treaty of Ghent was signed on Christmas Eve, 1814.  So the very bloody and costly attack, for the British, came two weeks after the War of 1812 was already over.

The British lost 2,100 men, both army and sailors, either killed or wounded and another 500 were captured.  Their commanding general, Sir Edward Pakenham, and two of his senior officers were killed in the battle as well.  The American losses were 7 killed and 6 wounded.  History books called it an “unnecessary war” due to the fact that the larger war was over by then, but the fame Jackson derived from the victory eventually propelled him in the US Presidency, from 1829 to 1837. 

Perhaps Jackson would have been somewhat less resolute in the face of overwhelming enemy forces had some idiot British officer not slashed a much younger Jackson’s face with his sword 35 years earlier, but that’s just speculation on my part.  A more kindly prison supervisor might have changed future British military history, so, I guess the moral is: Never underestimate a damaged person’s capacity for revenge.

The movie connection ( finally! ) is:

That same famous battle was portrayed in the movies twice, first filmed in 1938 by Cecil b. DeMille.  In the actual battle, the infamous Jean Laffite, a New Orleans smuggler, pirate and privateer, born in Bayonne France in 1780, joined the weaker American side and heroically fought against the British Navy and thereby insuring its defeat and Laffite’s place in history.  Bayonne, his birthplace, was where the ‘bayonet’ a long blade that attaches to the front of a rifle for assault purposes, was first created and then was named for that city. 

In the first Buccaneer, Frederic March played Laffite.  But the more famous version of that same historic conflict, also filmed by DeMille twenty years later in 1958, with Yul Brynner as Lafitte and Charlton Heston (Moses) as General Andrew Jackson.  Anthony Quinn was an actor in the film and he also directed it, his only time directing a movie.  The 2nd Buccaneer was also Producer deMille’s (Anthony Quinn’s father-in-law) final film.

I last saw that great action movie when I was about 12 in 1962, but I remember it as terrific.  I also remember that the final scene in the movie, after the battle, eerily reminded me of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride in Disneyland, which opened in 1955, three years before the 2nd movie premiered.  I don’t know whether Walt Disney was inspired by the film, and I also don’t know when that particular ride was first opened in his famous Park, but both depict a very similar panorama of devastation and death. 

In any event, I didn’t make it to Disneyland until 1980, when I was 30, with my three kids in tow.  That’s when I first saw the “Pirates” ride and thought it was the coolest thing in the Park.  I still do, today.

 In the movie, Yul Brynner (as LaFitte)  survives the battle, only to see all of his fellow pirates die and his ships destroyed by the tremendous firepower of the numerically superior British Navy.  He helped save America, in effect, but at a terrible personal cost to himself.  It moved me enormously as a preteen in the early Sixties to see his stricken face at the end of the movie, where he first comprehends his utter loneliness as he surveys his hundreds of dead compatriots, and it moves me now, 45 years later.  If you can find it on a DVD or VHS, don’t pass up the chance to see it. 

The rest of the 1958 Buccaneer‘s principal actors, with notes about their future fame and fates, were:

Claire Bloom (who managed to marry both Rod Steiger and Philip Roth, and is still living today at age 77), Inger Stevens (a beautiful woman, born in Sweden, who had an affair with Anthony Quinn and later committed suicide in 1970, at age 36), Charles Boyer ( famous French screen lover who, strangely, also committed suicide in 1978, but at age 81), E. G. Marshall (who later found fame as the senior lawyer in the great TV show, The Defenders, and died in 1998 at 84), Lorne Greene (the Yiddishe father–and also a Canadian– on the very long-running TV cowboy hit, Bonanza, died in 1987, at 72) and finally Woody Strode, who had been a professional football player in the Canadian Football League and later was a professional wrestler (died in 1994 at 80) . 

Strode was a Black star in Hollywood when there were very few of them.  He broke through from obscurity in the John Ford’s classic Western, Sergeant Rutledge (1960) then as a doomed African gladiator who befriended, sort of, fellow Roman slave Kirk Douglas  in  Spartacus  (also 1960 and a mostly historically correct story)  and as John Wayne’s loyal companion in John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) one of the most popular and famous Westerns ever filmed, with Jimmy Stewart as ‘The Man Who’ (but not really…) and with mean, brutal and nasty Lee Marvin as Liberty, the evil character we Western lovers love to hate!

References: The Film Encyclopedia (1994 edition) ; Leonard Maltin’s 1998 Movie Guide; The Presidents of the United States by Maxim Armbruster (1982) and The Encyclopedia of Military History by the Du Puys (1986 edition)

As you probably have noticed by now, my 4th Cinema Komments installment, this weekly feature of mine is not a conventional “Movie Review” column, but more of a combination of history, pop culture and my great love of the movies.  Thanks for reading me, and please forward this column to a friend. 

See you under the flickering lights!

Robert M. Katzman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note from the Author:

 

Robert M. Katzman, owner of Fighting Words Publishing Company, with four different titles currently in print and over 4,000 books sold to date, is seeking more retail outlets for his vivid and non-fiction inspirational books: 

 

Independent bookstores, Jewish and other religious organizations, Chicago historical societies or groups, English teachers who want a new voice in their class who was a witness to history, book clubs, high schools or museum gift shops.  I will support anyone who supports me by giving readings in the Chicago Metro area.  I have done this over 40 times, and I always sign my books, when asked.  Everyone, positively everyone, asks.  I was amazed, at first, by that.

 

Individuals who wish to order my books can view the four book covers and see reviews of them at www.FightingWordsPubco.com 

 

There are links to YouTube and podcasts, as well.  Or, anyone can call me directly at (847) 274-1474.  Googling my name will also produce all kinds of unusual results.  That other Robert M. Katzman, now deceased, whose name will also appear and who also published, was a doctor.  He actually bought one of my books!  Such a nice man.  Rest in peace, Dr. Katzman.

 

There will be short poems, stories and essays published in this space every two weeks by either myself or my co-blogist Richard G. Munden, or both.  If you find our postings thought provoking, moving or even amusing, please tell others to come view this site.  We will find our strength in your numbers.

 

 Next year, I will publish my fifth book, a collection of my best poetry and essays, called,

                                         

        I Seek the Praise of Ordinary Men

 

Individuals who know of independent bookstores that might be interested in a rough-hewn guy like me, who ran a chain of newsstands for 20 years in Chicago, please tell them about my books, will you?  I am partial to independent bookstores, having owned two, myself, until my last one was killed by the giant chains, in 1994. I still miss it. 

 

I’m also looking to find someone who would want to make a play out of some of my stories in the Chicago area, so I could go there and do some readings sometimes.  I think there’s enough honest sex, drugs and rock n’ roll to hold anyone’s interest, as well as a lot of authentic dialogue from ordinary people in extraordinary situations.  I think the plays would work anywhere, frankly, in some intimate theater with talented actors.

             

 

1 Comment »

Comment by dwlarson

January 26, 2008 @ 2:54 pm

Bob said,

“So, I was thinking about America’s nineteen century two-term President Andrew Jackson—whom I sure wish was president of the USA right now, because even dead, he’d be far better than our current disaster…”

The only way I can respond to that is that even if the current President Bush were deceased he would be better than a wimpy Al Gore or an even wimpier John Kerry as Presidents. 🙂

But enough of this squabble over the way it really is and the fantasy imagination of the disenchanted.

I liked those movies. All those actors were good. Keep up your interesting reviews.

Don

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