Mystery of how Confederate General 'Stonewall' Jackson was mistakenly killed by his own troops is solved

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Fate sealed by the Moon: General Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson was shot by his own troops who only saw his silhouette in the moonlight
 

Astronomers have cleared up the mystery of how Confederate general Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson was accidentally shot and killed by his own soldiers.

General Jackson was a major figure in the American Civil War, a genius general and second in command to Confederate general Robert E. Lee. He was shot by his own troops during the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863, and died soon after, an incident widely regarded as a turning point in the fight between North and South.

Now a reconstruction of the Moon's cycle at the time of the friendly fire incident has explained how General Jackson's own troops could have mistaken him for the enemy.

That fateful night, General Jackson kept his troops, who were fresh from a major victory against the Union's Twelfth Corps, fighting even as the Sun set - a rare move in that time. As the South's soldiers fought on under the moonlight, a Confederate officer on the left flank of the 18th North Carolina regiment spotted a group of riders headed towards his position.It was General Jackson and his command unit.  Fearing the enemy was upon them, Major John Barry ordered his soldiers to fire on the riders, riddling the group with bullets.General Jackson was hit in his right wrist and left arm, which was amputated, and died eight days later after catching pneumonia.

Now astronomers say they have worked out why Major Barry and his soldiers didn't recognize their commanders, and it has because the position of the Moon meant they appeared only as silhouettes to the men in their own lines.

Astronomer Don Olson of Texas State University and Laurie Jasinski, a researcher and editor at the Texas State Historical Association, used astronomical software to calculate the Moon's position on the night of the battle.

Battle plans: The positions of the Confederate (black) and Union (blue) lines at Chancellorsville, as well as the relative position of the moon, which meant the South's soldiers didn't recognize their commander
 

They scoured historical accounts and battle maps to extrapolate where the 18th North Carolina regiment and General Jackson's party were placed at the time of the shooting - apprx. 9pm.

Professor Olson told SPACE.com: 'Once we calculated the compass direction of the moon and compared that to the detailed battle maps published by Robert Krick, it quickly became obvious how Stonewall Jackson would have been seen as a dark silhouette, from the point of view of the 18th North Carolina regiment.'

General Jackson's death was seen as a major blow for the Confederacy, affecting not only its military prospects, but also the morale of its army and of the general public. Jackson in death became an icon of Southern heroism and commitment, joining Lee in the pantheon of the 'Lost Cause'.

Regarded as one of U.S. history's greatest tacticians, historians still debate whether the outcome of the Civil War might have been altered if he had survived.

Illustration showing Stonewall Jackson with his troops at Bull Run, July 21, 1861
 

His Valley Campaign and envelopment of the Union Army right wing at Chancellorsville are studied worldwide today as examples of innovative and bold leadership. He excelled in other battles; the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) where he received his famous nickname 'Stonewall', Second Bull Run (Second Manassas), Antietam, and Fredericksburg.

Jackson was not universally successful as a commander, however, as displayed by his weak and confused efforts during the Seven Days Battles around Richmond in 1862. He was greatly admired and respected throughout the South, and his death had a profound effect there on civilians and soldiers alike.

A poem penned by one of his soldiers soon became a very popular song, 'Stonewall Jackson's Way'.

A stone marks the spot where Stonewall Jackson was shot Guinea, Virginia

'We are always interested in any historical event that happened at night — very often, the moon plays an important role'

Professor Don Olson, Texas State University

On learning of his injuries, General Lee wrote to Jackson stating: 'Could I have directed events, I would have chosen for the good of the country to be disabled in your stead.'

This isn't the first time that Professor Olson has used astronomy to clear up other historical mysteries. He has previously calculated the direction of moonlight on the night of Paul Revere's ride to warn Colonial militia of the advance of British forces to explain why he was not spotted by sentries on a Royal Navy warship.

He did the same to explain how sailors on Japan's I-58 submarine were able to spot and sink the USS Indianapolis in 1945.
'We are always interested in any historical event that happened at night - very often, the moon plays an important role, as happened here,' he added.
Professor Olson and Mr Jasinski reported their findings in the May 2013 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine.

A painting commemorating the last meeting between General Robert Lee and Stonewall Jackson, the two confederate leaders of the U.S. Civil War

Memo sent by Admiral Nelson on eve of Trafalgar

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

A handwritten memo sent by Admiral Lord Nelson on the eve of the Battle of Trafalgar shows that the naval hero had more on his mind than defeating the enemy.
Rather than worrying about battle plans, the 47-year-old naval tactician was thinking about onions, and how the pursers of his fleet were profiteering by using up free government supplies of them and keeping the money for food for themselves.

On October 10, 1805, Lord Nelson fired off a detailed bureaucratic missive, telling the purser of every ship of his fleet not to cheat the system.

Admiral Lord Nelson hand-wrote the memo on October 10 1805, just 11 days before he died at the Battle of Trafalgar

The government sent out free onions to the ships to ensure troops received adequate vitamin C while on duty, but Nelson had discovered that the pursers, whose job it was to manage the ships' budgets, were using the government onions first and keeping the money they saved from their budgets for themselves.

As the British ships were busy blockading combined French and Spanish fleet at Cadiz, a gratuitous back-up supply of onions was shipped to be used in soup by the government to prevent the troops developing scurvy.
The document portrays the great naval hero as a prudent leader who was fiercely loyal to his employer at the time, the British government.

 

The note also shows that Nelson had to deal with the tedious administrative matters of running a fleet just days before going into a vital battle in the Napoleonic Wars.

 

His signed memo read: 'It is my positive directions that the Pursers are obliged to purchase vegetables for the ships soup when it is possible to procure them and that the Government onions are not used for the soup.

'And it is my further directions, that whenever fresh provisions can be procured on reasonable terms, that it is purchased; but that onions, for the account of Government, are not purchased without my orders.

Lord Nelson was a master naval tactician who died at the age of 47 when he was hit by a French sniper

'Ships, absent for any length of time from me, are at liberty to purchase the gratuitous onions of Government for the recruiting the health of their ships, who may have been long fed upon salt provisions.'

The memo is one of two signed by Nelson to be sold at auction in Knowle, West Midlands, having been privately owned for more than 50 years.

Andrew Baines, the curator of Nelson's flagship HMS Victory based at Portsmouth, Hampshire, said the documents showed another side to Nelson.

'Nelson had a responsiblity to his employer, the government, to make sure they weren't getting ripped off'
- Andrew Baines, curator of HMS Victory

He said: 'There were 31 ships in the fleet in total and each one had a purser.
'The difficulty with keeping a ship at sea with a healthy crew was massive because of the lack of vitamin C from fresh fruit and vegetables.
'The purser was required to supply these provisions and got to keep the money they didn't spend. Sometimes they were not able to get hold of fresh produce if the ship was at sea for months.
'Where they could, the government replenished the stocks and sent out boat-loads of gratuitous onions, which were anti-scurvic. They contained vitamin C and were easy and cheap to grow.
'But what was happening here was that when given the choice between the government onions or onions paid for out of their money, the pursers used the free ones.
'In this memo Nelson was telling them they could not use the government ones if they were able to buy them, otherwise the government was effectively paying twice.
'Nelson had a responsibility to his employer, the government and therefore the British people, and to make sure they weren't getting ripped off.

The Battle of Trafalgar on October 21 1805 involved a fleet of 31 ships and was Britain's greatest naval victory

 

'A lot of people think of Nelson for his brilliant military strategy and fighting battles at sea but here is the day-to-day minutiae of running a fleet, seemingly dull.'

The memo, along with a second dated November 7, 1803, reminding seamen to take medical notes when going to hospitals in port, are to be sold by Knowle Auction Rooms for up to £2,000 each. Auctioneer Simon Rayner said: 'I think it is quite surprising that just days before Trafalgar, when you would have thought Nelson's mind might be on how to defeat the French and Spanish, he was getting a bee in his bonnet about onions.'

The two documents will be sold by an unnamed woman from Sutton Coldfield. The auction takes place on May 8.

The Maggie we never knew

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

MARGARET THATCHER: THE AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY VOLUME I: NOT FOR TURNING BY CHARLES MOORE (Allen Lane £30)

Back in May 1951, the then Margaret Roberts took her driving test - and passed on the first attempt. But having paid for another two lessons in advance, she went ahead and had them all the same. ‘This,’ writes Charles Moore, ‘shows a virtually inhuman determination to get value for money.’
One of the delights of Moore’s book is that it’s full of moments like this - little dabs of colour that help give it a richness and bounce that other political biographies invariably lack. As he admits in his preface, Moore is not a great fan of political biographies, often finding them deathly dull. But it’s hard to imagine anyone, even the most rabid anti-Thatcherite, finding this dull. Rather it sparkles with insight, drama and wit. Above all, though, it constantly reminds you just how remarkable - and peculiar - Thatcher’s life story was.
The house where she grew up in Grantham had an outside loo, no garden or hot water and a darkly oppressive atmosphere. Religion and work dominated everything. Her father, Alderman Roberts, was a successful grocer and Methodist preacher whose simple moral precepts became the basis of his younger daughter’s political creed. But not all was what it seemed. Whenever Roberts put his Bible and his bacon-slicer aside, his hands were apt to stray - ‘If he had half a chance, he’d have his hand up my skirt,’ one of his neighbours recalled.

Family portrait: Margaret Thatcher (right) with her mother and father and sister Muriel

 

As for Thatcher’s mother, she was a watery, unhappy woman who barely impinged on his daughter’s life - ‘Mother didn’t exist in Margaret’s mind,’ as her sister, Muriel, chillingly puts it. Margaret may have been a tremendous swot and bossy boots, but she wasn’t a particularly promising pupil at school. Her early letters reveal she was an erratic speller who always got in a muddle about whether to use ‘I’ or ‘me’ - in later life, of course, she got round this problem by referring to herself as ‘we’.
She was, however, very keen on clothes. There’s something extremely odd about reading the young Margaret banging ecstatically on about her new undies - ‘a nice undie-set is essential to go away with,’ she writes to Muriel. But behind the girlish trilling, it’s noticeable that she always noted down how her chosen outfits were received - ‘I was wearing my blue frock and hat and wine coat and accessories. I think I won the day.’ From the word go, she knew the importance of making an impression.
At Oxford, where she read chemistry, her carefully groomed exterior and air of ‘smug perfection’ attracted admiration and ridicule in roughly equal measure. Once, the President of the Union poked her in the chest and chortlingly inquired, “Is it marble, Margaret?’
You might think that anyone trying this sort of thing on would themselves be turned to stone. But Moore has learned that Margaret’s heart wasn’t wholly fixed on political advancement. He’s unearthed two early boyfriends, one of whom, Tony Bray, bursts into tears recalling how he bought her some carnations 60 years earlier.

'Everything it took in politics except brains': Margaret Thatcher's view of Michael Heseltine

 

As for Dennis Thatcher, he seems to have made her distinctly queasy when they first met. ‘Not an attractive creature,’ she noted dismissively. Soon afterwards there’s another reference to his ‘unprepossessing personality’. Yet within a matter of months they were engaged. So what happened?
Moore suggests that for both of them - to begin with at least - this was a long way from being a love match. Denis was on the rebound - his first wife had dumped him for a baronet - while his wealth offered Margaret a passport to something she craved: ‘Home Counties respectability’.
By now, she had given up chemistry, qualified as a barrister and was hellbent on becoming an MP. In order to look her best for the electorate of Dartford, she went to see a milliner in Colchester - incredibly, the woman was called Mrs Prole - ‘who made me a smaller black velvet hat with a white ostrich feather on it and it looks very charming.’
After three failed attempts to win Dartford, Thatcher got picked as the Tory candidate for Finchley. The outgoing MP grumbled that the local party was having to choose between ‘a bloody Jew and a bloody woman.’
Soon after Thatcher became an MP, her mother died. As far as one can tell, this made no impression on her at all; she seems to have been far more concerned about her defective central heating. But while she could clearly be cold and brusque - she memorably dismissed Michael Heseltine as having ‘everything it took in politics except brains’ - it’s striking how flirtatious Thatcher was in her early speeches.
‘I have got a red-hot figure,’ she announced to the Commons, supposedly referring to some statistic about pensions. ‘Hear Hear!’ cried her male colleagues as Thatcher beamed coquettishly at them.
Ted Heath, who never liked her, piled her with more and more work, confident that sooner or later she would crack. Instead, Thatcher wolfed down the lot. She had an astonishing ability to absorb information on a broad range of topics - she once told the novelist Jilly Cooper that on one of her very rare holidays she’d read Kipling’s Collected Poems, all 845 pages of it.

Victorious: Margaret Thatcher visiting troops on the Falkland Islands in 1983

 

Towards her staff, she was considerate, even indulgent. That said, there were limits. When one of her advisors, considerably the worse for wear, was sick over her shoes - with Thatcher inside them, so legend has it - he found himself swiftly being shown the door. Although never the worse for wear herself, she did knock back industrial quantities of whisky as she ploughed through her red boxes deep into the night.
Perhaps Thatcher’s greatest attribute as a politician was sincerity. Nigel Lawson noted that she actually said what she believed. Yet while this went down well with the electorate, it proved less popular with her own party. After she became Prime Minister in 1979, disgruntled Tories confidently predicted her imminent downfall. They soon found they’d hopelessly underestimated her. They learned too that her wrath was a fearful thing to behold - at moments of high excitement, her earlobes would become engorged and her earrings pop off.
However, the Iron Lady could be surprisingly bendy and irresolute. During the Falklands Crisis, she gave serious consideration to a Peruvian plan which involved removing the islands from British administration and taking away the islanders rights to self-determination. No one outside her immediate circle knew this, of course, and when the Argentines surrendered and the war was over - the point at which this volume ends - Thatcher had become the living embodiment of strong leadership.
As a former editor of the Spectator and the Daily Telegraph - as well as Mrs Thatcher’s chosen biographer - Moore might be expected to have given her a determinedly unbumpy ride. In fact, he’s scrupulously fair, doling out criticism just as readily as praise.
But even-handedness is the least of this book’s attributes. Elegant yet colourful, dramatic yet thorough, deeply serious yet often wildly funny, it’s a triumph which all future Thatcher biographies will be measured against - and found wanting.

Colonial Williamsburg

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception


Founders or Traitors explores the later part of 1776, when Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge met with British admiral Lord Howe, hoping to end the American rebellion peacefully.

Sign up to access the free Electronic Field Trip for an entire year:

Colonial Williamsburg's Gift to the Nation

giftnation.history.org

Celebrity Overdoses

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

With the loss of Chris Kelly of the popular 90′s hip-hop group Kris Kross, check out a list of celebrities who have died from drug-related causes here! http://bit.ly/ZYbJjd

Emmett Till Apology

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

No apology: Till was just 14 when he was brutally murdered in Mississippi for flirting with a white woman

The Rapper, Lil Wayne's failure to say the simple words 'I am sorry' after rapping a crude reference to brutally murdered teen Emmett Till, has left the family of the civil rights figure offended and awaiting an official apology.

Lil Wayne had featured in the song by Future called Karate Chop, but it was pulled by Epic Records after it was bought to the company's attention that the rapper uses the late Till, who was just 14 at the time of his death, as a way to describe having rough sex with a woman. Lil Wayne raps: 'Beat that p***y up like Emmett Till.'

 

The rapper sparked outrage when he made reference to the 1955 murder - which became a pivotal event in the civil rights movement - in comparison to a sex act and, after the family demanded Lil Wayne apologise, he wrote them a letter. In his letter to the family the 30-year-old said he supported the decision to pull the song: 'It has come to my attention that lyrics from my contribution to a fellow artist's song has deeply offended your family.' ... 'I would like to take a moment to acknowledge your hurt, as well as the letter you sent to me via your attorneys.

However, Till's cousin and Executive Director of Mamie Till Mobley Memorial Foundation, Airickca Gordon-Taylor said the family does not view the letter as a formal apology.  She said, 'While it’s commendable that he has vowed to respect the legacy of Emmett Till and his memory to ''not use or reference Emmett Till or the Till family in his music,'' this statement falls short of an apology, as none is mentioned.'
Gordon-Taylor said the family want the platinum-selling New Orleans rapper to understand how his comparison of a sex act to the 14-year-old Chicago native's torture death in Mississippi is hurtful to the black community.

Starving Settlers in Jamestown Colony Resorted to Eating A Child

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Detail of cut marks found on the girl’s jaw, or lower mandible in a stereo-microscopic photo. (Smithsonian Institution / Don Hurlbert)

The harsh winter of 1609 in Virginia’s Jamestown Colony forced residents to do the unthinkable. A recent excavation at the historic site discovered the carcasses of dogs, cats and horses consumed during the season commonly called the “Starving Time.” But a few other newly discovered bones in particular, though, tell a far more gruesome story: the dismemberment and cannibalization of a 14-year-old English girl.

 

“The chops to the forehead are very tentative, very incomplete,” says Douglas Owsley, the Smithsonian forensic anthropologist who analyzed the bones after they were found by archaeologists from Preservation Virginia. “Then, the body was turned over, and there were four strikes to the back of the head, one of which was the strongest and split the skull in half. A penetrating wound was then made to the left temple, probably by a single-sided knife, which was used to pry open the head and remove the brain.”
Much is still unknown about the circumstances of this grisly meal: Who exactly the girl researchers are calling "Jane" was, whether she was murdered or died of natural causes, whether multiple people participated in the butchering or it was a solo act. But as Owsley revealed along with lead archaeologist William Kelso today at a press conference at the National Museum of Natural History, we now have the first direct evidence of cannibalism at Jamestown, the oldest permanent English colony in the Americas. “Historians have gone back and forth on whether this sort of thing really happened there,” Owsley says. “Given these bones in a trash pit, all cut and chopped up, it's clear that this body was dismembered for consumption.”
It’s long been speculated that the harsh conditions faced by the colonists of Jamestown might have made them desperate enough to eat other humans—and perhaps even commit murder to do so. The colony was founded in 1607 by 104 settlers aboard three ships, the Susan Constant, Discovery and Godspeed, but only 38 survived the first nine months of life in Jamestown, with most succumbing to starvation and disease (some researchers speculate that drinking water poisoned by arsenic and human waste also played a role). Because of difficulties in growing crops—they arrived in the midst of one of the worst regional droughts in centuries and many settlers were unused to hard agricultural labor—the survivors remained dependent on supplies brought by subsequent missions, as well as trade with Native Americans.
By the winter of 1609, extreme drought, hostile relations with members of the local Powhatan Confederacy and the fact that a supply ship was lost at sea put the colonists in a truly desperate position. Sixteen years later, in 1625, George Percy, who had been president of Jamestown during the Starving Time, wrote a letter describing the colonists’ diet during that terrible winter. “Haveinge fedd upon our horses and other beastes as longe as they Lasted, we weare gladd to make shifte with vermin as doggs Catts, Ratts and myce…as to eate Bootes shoes or any other leather,” he wrote. “And now famin beginneinge to Looke gastely and pale in every face, thatt notheinge was Spared to mainteyne Lyfe and to doe those things which seame incredible, as to digge upp deade corpes outt of graves and to eate them. And some have Licked upp the Bloode which hathe fallen from their weake fellowes.”
Despite this and other textual references to cannibalism, though, there had never been hard physical evidence that it had occurred—until now. Kelso’s team discovered the girl’s remains during the summer of 2012 (while excavating a trash pile buried amidst the foundation of Jamestown Fort) and brought them to Owsley for a battery of forensic tests, including microscopic and isotope analysis. “We CT scanned the bones, then replicated them as virtual 3D models and then put them together, piece by piece, assembling the skull,” Owsley says. Digitally mirroring the fragments to fill in the missing gaps allowed the team to make a 3D facial reconstruction despite having just 66 percent of the skull.
The researchers used this reconstruction, along with the other data, to determine the specimen was a female, roughly 14 years old (based on the development of her molars) and of British ancestry. Owsley says the cut marks on the jaw, face and forehead of the skull, along with those on the shinbone, are telltale signs of cannibalism.
He’s probably one of the researchers best qualified to make this judgment. As one of the country’s most prominent physical anthropologists, he’s analyzed many cannibalized skeletons from ancient history, and as an accomplished forensic investigator that works with the FBI, he’s also worked on much more recent cases, such as one of the victims of 1980s serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. In total, he estimates that he’s examined more than 10,000 bodies during his career, oftentimes people who were killed in tragic circumstances, including victims of 9/11 and journalists who were kidnapped and murdered in Guatemala. Most of his time, though, is spent working on more inspiring cases, such as the 9,000-year-old “Kennewick Man” discovered in Washington State, and the mysterious remains of ancient Easter Islanders. “I love the moments when you come up with something that you're just totally in awe of," he told Smithsonian magazine when he was named one of “35 Who Made a Difference.” “Something that gives you an overwhelming sense of wow!”
Owsley speculates that this particular Jamestown body belonged to a child who likely arrived in the colony during 1609 on one of the resupply ships. She was either a maidservant or the child of a gentleman, and due to the high-protein diet indicated by his team’s isotope analysis of her bones, he suspects the latter. The identity of whoever consumed her is entirely unknown, and Owsley guesses there might have been multiple cannibals involved, because the cut marks on her shin indicate a more skilled butcher than whoever dismembered her head.
It appears that her brain, tongue, cheeks and leg muscles were eaten, with the brain likely eaten first, because it decomposes so quickly after death. There’s no evidence of murder, and Owsley suspects that this was a case in which hungry colonists simply ate the one remaining food available to them, despite cultural taboos. “I don’t think that they killed her, by any stretch,” he says. “It's just that they were so desperate, and so hard-pressed, that out of necessity this is what they resorted to.”
Kelso’s team of archaeologists will continue to excavate the fort, searching for other bodies that might help us learn about the conditions faced by some of the country’s first European colonists. This might be the first specimen that provides evidence for cannibalism, but Owsley is pretty sure there are more to come. Percy’s letter also describes how, as president of the colony, he tortured and burned alive a man who had confessed to killing, salting and eating his pregnant wife—so the remains of this woman, along with other victims of cannibalism, may still be waiting to be found underground. “It’s fairly convincing, now that we see this one, that this wasn’t the only case,” he says. “There are other examples mentioned here and there in the literature. So the only question is: Where are the rest of the bodies?”

Bogart

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

For someone named the top movie star of all time in polls, a surprising number of Humphrey Bogart's movies remain unavailable on DVD. Fox recently licensed "The Left Hand of God'' to the Twilight Time label, but we still await "Deadline U.S.A.'' and the bulk of his Warner Bros. B pictures from the late '30.


The TCM Vault Collection has helpfully filled in a couple of gaps in his filmography with the DVD recent premieres of the obscure "Love Affair''(1932) and Nicholas Ray's "Knock on Any Door'' (1949) as part of "The Humphrey Bogart Columbia Pictures Collection,'' which includes five of the eight movies Bogie made for Columbia Pictures (excluded are the high-profile "The Caine Mutiny,'' recently released on Blu-ray, as well as Ray's "In a Loney Place'' and Zoltan Korda's "Sahara,'' which I'd make an educated guess are planned for high-definition upgrades in the near future).

Unrelated to the Oscar-nominated, long-trapped-in-PD-hell 1939 Leo McCarey classic of the same name, "Love Affair'' is one of three Bogart films released in 1932 after the end of his unhappy stint as a juvenile lead at Fox. It comes right before his first two Warner credits, "Big City Blues'' (not on DVD) and "Three on a Match'' (on DVD), which predate his long-term contract with that studio by four years.

In "Love Affair' Bogart is billed second to Dorothy Mackaill, a British-born former Ziefeld Girl fresh off the notorious pre-code melodrama "Safe in Hell'' (1931), which concluded her own Warner contract (it was recently released by the Warner Archive Collection, which has a couple of her pre-code comedies on tap for next week). She plays an heiress who takes up with a peniless flyer -- that'd be a charming Bogart -- in this sexually frank romantic drama with slight pre-screwball tendencies. This would pretty much be Bogie's last romantic lead until "Casablanca'' a full decade later.

The transfer for "Love Affair'' is astonishingly clean for a scarcely known 79-year-old movie, and "Knock on Any Door'' also looks razor-sharp and bright. Bogart is very good as an idealistic attorney defending a young man (John Derek, best known today as the director husband of Bo Derek and Ursula Andress) accused of murder.
Bogie exudes a weary authority, especially in his long summation speech, which he reportedly thought was a rehearsal but was captured by Ray in a single take (with reaction shots edited in). A recent Ray biography says that Willard Motley was disappointed with this watered-down version of his acclaimed novel, which goes rather overboard in painting Derek as a victim of society.

"Knock on Any Door'' (1949) was the first film produced by Bogie's post-Warner production company, Santana, named after his beloved yacht. It wasn't a box office success, and he and his producing partner, Robert Lord, didn't have much more luck with their more commercially-oriented second film, Stuart Heisler's "Tokyo Joe,'' also released in 1949.

There are more than faint echoes of "Casablanca'' in Bogart's role as a Tokyo nightclub owner who returns to the Japanese capitol (some second-unit stuff was shot there in the first Hollywood activity during the occupation). after military service during World War II. He tangles with Sessue Hayakawa (in his Hollywood comeback) and Alexander Knox, who has married Bogie's ex-wife (Florence Marly).

"In a Lonely Place,'' which was popular mainly with critics, was followed by Santana's even more blatant "Casablanca'' homage, "Sirocco'' (1951), set in 1925 Damascus. Bogie's a World War I veteran who vies with a French occupation commander (Lee J. Cobb) for the affections of lovely Marta Torten. Curtis Bernardt, a visual stylist and German refugee who had guided Bogart though "Conflict'' (1945) back at Warners, directs a formidable cast that includes Everett Sloan and soon-to-be-blacklisted Zero Mostel in one of five films he made that year.

The financially ruinous Santana and its films were sold to Columbia for $1 million after "Sirocco,'' but Bogie returned to the studio for "The Caine Mutiny'' as well as his final film, Mark Robson's hard-hitting "The Harder They Fall'' (1956). Released a year before he died of lung cancer at age 57 -- takes were reportedly interrupted by his wracking coughs -- Bogart looks tired as a washed-up sports reporter hired by a crooked promoter (Rod Steiger) to act as press agent for a boxer with dubious talents (loosely based by original author Budd Schulberg on Primo Carnera). Bogie's still in good enough form to make this a satisfying finale to his cut-shot but iconic career.

The transfers of the three later films appear to be older, possibly the same ones used for earlier, out-of-print standalone DVD editions. "The Harder They Fall,'' a bit darker than the others, is a first-rate film that deserves a high-def facelift from Sony in the future.

The main special features are excellent on-camera introductions by TCM weekend host Ben Mankiewicz, his first for this series.

The TCM's Vault Collection recent hookup with Sony has also yielded the four-title "Jean Arthur Columbia Comedy Collection'' comprised of four lesser-known titles with the delightful actress that have never even been available on VHS as far as researchers can tell.

Signed by Columbia as a dramatic actress in 1934, her comic chops are evident even in a trifling B movie like Erle C. Kenton's "The Public Menace'' (1935). She sparkles as a manicurist forced into an immigration marriage to a wisecracking reporter (the less than scintillating George Murphy during his brief pre-MGM stint on Gower Street) who she helps corral the title character, a Mafioso played by Douglas Dumbrille.

Arthur enjoys top billing in Edward Ludwig's nonsensical but fun "Adventure in Manhattan'' (1936), but it's really a vehicle for freelancer Joel McCrea. He and Arthur had played the juvenile leads in the 1930 RKO Pathe adventure "The Silver Horde'' (newly available on a Roan Group DVD that I taped an introduction to years ago) and would be famously reteamed in one of her biggest hits, "The More the Merrier'' (1944). In this earlier effort, McCrea plays another reporter, a specialist in criminals tracking down a wily art thief (Reginald Owen). Arthur, who has great chemistry with McCrea, is cast an actress who helps with the hunt in one of the era's many imitations of "The Thin Man,'' including "The Ex-Mrs. Bradford,'' which Arthur made opposite William Powell on loan to
RKO just before this one.

Also in 1936, Arthur -- whose career in films went back to 1923 -- finally shot to stardom in Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.'' She finished that year with Alfred E. Green's moderately amusing "More Than a Secretary,'' wearing glasses and trying to seduce boss George Brent, who runs a health magazine. Arthur is joined in the comic heavy lifting by Lionel Stander and Ruth Donnelly, as well as a very funny supporting actress named Dorothea Kent.

The final film in this set was made eight years later, in 1944, and was Columbia's attempt to recapture the magic of "The More the Merrier'' without the participation of McCrea or director George Stevens. Charles Coburn, who had won an Oscar for "Merrier,'' is back as Arthur's father for "The Impatient Years'' (1944). But playing the GI husband awkwardly reuniting with Arthur after an 18-month separation following a whirlwind World War II courtship is the stiff, pencil-moustached Lee Bowman, who failed to achieve stardom at RKO, MGM or Columbia. The film has its moments, thanks to Arthur and Coburn, but journeyman director Irving Cummings was no George Stevens, and the film flopped.

The TCM Vault Collection, which was launched in 2008 with manufacture-on-demand discs of five long-unavailable RKO titles that fell out of the library inherited by Turner Entertainment, has mostly drawn from a partnership with Universal Studios Home Entertainment that began the following year. Like the Sony titles, these are pressed (rather than burned) discs, at least for the initial runs, which are available exclusively at TCM's website and that of its former e-tailing partner, Movies Unlimited.

The most recent of these releases consists of the very different 1941 and 1961 films derived from Fanny Hurst's novel "Back Street.'' The earlier and more notable of the two, set around the turn of the 20th century, stars the great Margaret Sullivan and Charles Boyer. Nobody suffered quite like Sullivan (whose voice was as distinctive as Arthur's) and this weepie has her carrying on a longtime convert affair with married banker Boyer under the able direction of the underrated Robert Stevenson (the 1944
"Jane Eyre'' and 'Mary Poppins'').
David Miller's Cinemascope remake, produced in slightly garish Eastmancolor by Ross Hunter, updates the action to the Korean War. This one stars Susan Hayward as a fashion designer and John Gavin of "Psycho'' fame, Universal's second-string Rock Hudson, as the married lover. Both versions have scores by the studio's insanely prolific house composer, Frank Skinner. Sadly, this release does not include the first screen version of "Back Street,'' directed in 1932 by the estimable John M. Stahl with Irene Dunne and John Boles. I've never seen it.

The Warner Archive collection has just released the long-promised first Andy Hardy Collection as its second box set of new titles (after October's Jean Harlow opus). Boxed in separate Amaray cases are six titles, beginning with the first official series entry, "You're Only Young Twice'' (1937, spun off from the one-shot "A Family Affair'' which had Lionel Barrymore and Spring Byington as Mickey Rooney's parents instead of series regulars Lewis Stone and Fay Holden). The set skips to the fourth series entry, "Out West With the Hardys'' (1938) and then proceeds chronologically from the seventh episode: "Judge Hardy and Son'' (1939) with Maria Ouspenskaya; "Andy Hardy Meets Debutante'' (1940) featuring Judy Garland; "Andy Hardy's Private Secretary'' (1940) with
Kathryn Grayson; and "Life Begins WIth Andy Hardy'' (1941), Garland's final appearance in the series. There are no extras. Four hundred copies signed by the 91-year-old Rooney quickly sold out when they went on sale Friday; they're going for as much as $150 on eBay.

Also new at the WAC website are a pair of titles available previously only as exclusives from Critics Choice Video: Anthony Mann's "Serenade'' (1956) with Mario Lanza, Joan Fontaine and Vincent Price in an adaptation of a James M. Cain novel; and Victor Saville's "Green Dolphin Street'' (1946) a lavish, black-and-white period adventure starring Lana Turner, Donna Reed, the unfortunate Richard Hart and a big New Zealand earthquake. The previously announced eight-title "Robert Montgomery Collection'' is also formally available for sale today.

Sony's MOD initiative, Screen Classics by Request, continues to mine the Columbia Pictures library seemingly at random with its Jan. 3 releases, including "Carolina Blues'' (1944) a musical with bandleader Kay Kyser and Ann Miller; "There's Something About a Soldier'' (1943) with Evelyn Keyes and Tom Neal; "Paradise Lagoon'' (1957), the U.S. title for this British adaptation of "The Admirable Chrichton'' with Kenneth More; and Anthony Mann's French Revolution noir "The Black Book'' (1949) starring Robert Cummings and Richard Basehart. The latter was previously released by VCI under its original title, "Reign of Terror.''

Kino continues its ambitious schedule of Blu-ray upgrades on Feb 7 with William Wellman's "A Star is Born'' (1937), sourced from a nitrate Technicolor print (Warner, which apparently owns the negatives for this longtime P.D. classic, has contemplated a possible release that never happened). On Feb. 28, Kino will bow Blu-ray editions for a pair of Fritz Lang classics: "Scarlet Street'' (1945) with Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett; and the 1919 silent "Spies.''

And finally, Paramount has announced the Blu-ray debut of Arthur Hiller and Erich Segal's immortal "Love Story'' (1970) starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw on Feb. 7, just in time for Valentine's Day. Features, including Hiller's commentary track, carry over from the previous DVD release. Pity Paramount didn't license the fascinating "Oprah'' episode devoted to the film's 40 anniversary in 2010, which reunited the two stars.

Reagan's Film Career

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

One of greatest presidents or a deeply mediocre chief executive? Glorified B-movie actor or a star who could have gone a lot further if it hadn't been for World War II?

In honor of Reagan's 100th birthday, a review of his generally underrated Hollywood career  was penned and points to a profusion of Reagan titles recently issued and reissued on DVD by Warner Bros., the studio where he was under contract from the beginning of his screen career in 1937 -- with time out for wartime service -- until 1952.

"The Ronald Reagan Centennial Collection,'' available through regular retail outlets, is comprised of seven of Reagan's best-known titles (many with special features) previously issued on DVD: "Dark Victory,'' "Knute Rockne: All American,'' "King's Row,'' "Desperate Journey,'' "This is the Army,'' "The Hasty Heart,'' "Storm Warning'' and "The Winning Team.''

Available exclusively from the manufacture-on-demand Warner Archive Collection are the lesser-known "Angels Wash Their Faces,'' "Love Is on the Air,'' "The Bad Man,'' "Juke Girl,'' "John Loves Mary'' and "She's Working Her Way Through College,'' as well as the four-title "Brass Bancroft Of The Secret Service Mysteries Collection.'' Today, WAC is marking the birthday with the DVD debuts of "Stallion Road" and "Night Unto Night.''

Taking the titles chronologically gives a pretty good feel for the trajectory of Reagan's career at Warner Bros., where he made 40 of his 53 films (plus one loan-out).

"Love is on The Air'' (1937) Reagan's big-screen debut is as available as a WAC double feature with "You Can't Escape Forever'' (1942). Both (the latter stars George Brent) are B-movie remakes of "Hi, Nellie,'' a 1934 Paul Muni comedy about a crime reporter who's busted down to a lovelorn columnist after he makes a mistakes. In Reagan's version he's a broadcaster (which the Gipper was previously in real life) reassigned to children's programming. Shot in three weeks by journeyman Nick Grinde and running 61 minutes, it's a pleasant piece of fluff. There isn't much in the way of romance between Reagan and Warner starlet June Travis; the title comes from a song that Dick Powell sang in the same year's "Varsity Show.''

"Secret Service of the Air,'' "Code of the Secret Service,'' "Smashing the Money Ring'' (1939) and "Murder in the Air'' (1940). Reagan had alternated between B-movies and supporting parts in more ambitious pictures when he was given his own series by the head of Warners' B-movie unit, Bryan Foy, who cast him as two-fisted secret service agent Brass Bancroft. Noel Smith's "Secret Service of The Air,'' Reagan's 10th movie, is the best in the series, with an unforgettable opening scene where smugglers dump a load of illegal aliens from a cargo chute when the bad guys discover their plane is being tailed. Reagan, who later described himself as the "Errol Flynn of the B-pictures,'' looks great in a leather jacket (or bare chested) and the films, all of which run around an hour, are action-packed fun. Smith's "Code of the Secret Service'' has an especially appealing leading lady in Rosella Towne, who starred in the terrific B-movie comic-book adaptation "The Adventures of Jane Arden'' that same year but soon retired from acting.
"Dark Victory'' (1939) Between the first and second Brass Bancroft adventures, Reagan donned a cravat and swilled martinis to play one of dying heiress Bette Davis' more improbable suitors -- he had competition from Humphrey Bogart as an Irish stablehand -- in Edmund Goulding's classic big-budget weepie co-starring George Brent. Reagan's role is not large, but it kept this movie, and all of his others, off TV during his 1980 and 1988 presidential campaigns due to equal-time requirements.
"Angels Wash This Faces'' (1939) Reagan's eight releases this year included a pair with the Dead End Kids: the B-movie "Hell's Kitchen'' and this more elaborately mounted psedo-sequel to "Angels With Dirty Faces.'' The latter's female lead, the up-and-coming Ann Sheridan, was the romantic interest of assistant district attorney Reagan in one of no fewer than three reworkings of another Cagney picture, "The Mayor Of Hell'' (1933) that Warner released in 1938 and 1939 (the other two starred Humphrey Bogart, who had appeared with the Kids in "Dead End''). Reagan has nice chemistry with Sheridan, playing the sister of trouble-prone Frankie Thomas -- who made this between his own B-movie duties in WB's Nancy Drew series starring Bonita Granville, Nancy Reagan's future real-life BFF, who also plays his girlfriend in "Angels Wash Their Faces.''

"Knute Rockne, All American'' (1940). Reagan, who played football in college, had to lobby hard to land his first important role, as doomed Notre Dame star George Gipp, and he makes the most of it. Pat O'Brien stars as coach Rockne, but everyone remembers Reagan in the supporting role. On his deathbed, Gipp delivers a speech in which he instructs Rockne to tell the team to "win one for the Gipper." This famous scene, which was cut from TV showings for many years for legal reasons, has been restored for DVD.
"The Bad Man'' (1941) His star on the rise, Reagan was fifth-billed as George Armstrong Custer in the Errol Flynn historical farrago "Santa Fe Trail'' (1940 -- available in multiple crummy-looking public-domain versions and long promised as a restored authorized DVD by Warner). He was loaned out by Warner to the more prestigious MGM for this more modest western, available as a WAC double feature with another film in which Wallace Beery plays a Mexican bandito, "Bad Man of Brimstone'' (1937). Playing in suppport as a beleagured rancher in love with Laraine Day (who is married to Tom Conway), Reagan had to contend not only with Beery's hamming but that of Lionel Barrymore, who Reagan reported in his autobiography kept running over the future president with his wheelchair. "The Bad Man'' is based on a much-filmed play that Warners had re-set in China for the Boris Karloff vehicle "West of Shanghai'' (1937). Clyde DeVinna's cinematography looks lovely in the DVD's sepia presentation.
"King's Row'' (1942) Reagan gives the best performance of his career in his 28th picture, a starry, big-budget adaptation of Henry Bellaman's notorious novel that was expected to be Warners' big hit of the year (but proved too dark for audiences after the Pearl Harbor). Reagan outshines the male lead, a miscast Robert Cummings as an aspiring psychiatrist in an early 20th century town brimming with the insanity. Working again with Sheridan, Reagan is powerful as Cummings' best friend who loses his fortune -- and then his legs, thanks to his girlriend's sadistic surgeon father (Charles Coburn). Famed is the scene (like "Knute Rockne,'' he's in bed) where Reagan's character discovers his legs have been amputated. "Where's the rest of me?" he asks Sheridan. Reagan appropriated the line for the title of his 1964 autobiography. "There was no retake," Reagan wrote. "Perhaps I never did quite as well again in a single shot." Powerfully directed by Sam Wood and stunningly photographed by James Wong Howe, "Kings Row" was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture.

"Juke Girl'' (1942) Warner Bros. was so impressed so impressed with Reagan and Sheridan's work in "King's Row'' that it quickly re-teamed them in this forgotten, unusual agricultural noir, filmed largely on location in Northern California by Curtis Bernhardt. Sheridan's dance-hall singer was the come-on for audiences in the poster and the trailer, but this gritty film actually centers on Reagan's left-leaning character, a drifter-turned-political activist (at one point he steals a truck) who organizes an uprising against a cannery owner (Gene Lockhart) exploiting migrant farmers in a Florida town. Lockhart's chief henchman is played by character actor Howard DaSilva -- identified by Reagan as a Communist sympathizer to FBI agents after the war (and subsequently blacklisted), according to FBI files released in 2002.
"Desperate Journey'' (1942) Reagan enlisted after Pearl Harbor, but the studio had his duty delayed so its new star could share co-star billing with its top attraction, Errol Flynn, who was deemed unfit for real-life service, in this morale booster. Aussie Flynn and Reagan (who says he's from Jersey City) are part of an international squadron of downed RAF flyers who fight their way across Germany in Raoul Walsh's rather fantastic but entertaining adventure tale.
"This is the Army'' (1943) Lt. Reagan, who was mostly stationed in Hollywood making training films, returned to the Warner lot on a special leave to appear in the story framing Michael Curtiz' lavish Technicolor version of Irving Berlin's famous fund-raising show, the studio's biggest grosser to that point in its history. When he's not romancing Joan Leslie, Reagan introduces a segment with GIs singing in drag. Top-billed George Murphy, who would later become a political mentor to Reagan (in his early days a liberal) plays his father. The DVD has an excellent documentary, "Warner at War,'' narrated by Steven Spielberg.
"Stallion Road'' (1947) Reagan's first film after wartime service was intended as a Technicolor vehicle for Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who went on suspension after they read William Faulkner's adaptation of Steven Longstreet's novel. The script was rewritten by other hands, and Reagan was especially fond of his role as a horse veterinarian who almost loses his gal (Alexis Smith) to a novelist (Zachary Scott) because he's preoccupied with an anthrax outbreak. Filmed on location in the Sierras by cinematographer Arthur Edeson ("Casablanca''), it showcases Reagan's charm, virility and skill as a horseman.

"Night Unto Night'' (1949) Filmed directly after "Stallion Road,'' this drama was held on the shelf for more than two years while Reagan made three other films and the studio tried to figure out what to do with this problematic project. Reagan was cast as an epileptic biochemist who is prevented from committing suicide during a hurricane by his tenant on Florida's Gulf Coast, a lonely widow (Viveca Lindfors). Reagan is not bad in a challenging part, but as he wrote, "If you are thinking this was a hard story to bring to life on the screen, you are right.'' By the time the movie was released, Lindfors had left the studio and was married to director Don Siegel -- who hired Reagan for his last acting job, playing a gangster in "The Killers'' (1964).
"John Loves Mary'' (1949) One of the later films released before "Night Unto Night,'' romantic comedy with Reagan as a discharged Army sergeant was designed to replicate the success of 1947's similar "The Voice of The Turtle'' (shown on TV for decades as "One For the Book''). Briskly directed by David Butler, it was the movie debut of Patricia Neal (but released after her incindiary turn in "The Fountainhead'') in an adaptation of Norman Krasna's romantic stage farce by screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron (Nora's parents). Reagan does lots of double takes as Neal's fiance, who's entered into an immigration marriage he entered into with English girlfriend of a pal (Jack Carson) who saved his life in the war. Reagan also contributed a cameo as himself in Butler's "It's a Great Feeling" (available on DVD only as part of the "TCM Spotlight: Doris Day Collection'') released the same year. Reagan's ex-wife and sometimes co-star, Oscar winner Jane Wyman, appears in a separate scene with their daughter Maureen.
"The Hasty Heart'' (1950) Reagan took a subsidiary role again in one of his best films, playing an American soldier in Vincent Sherman's adaptation of John Patrick's play about a dying Scottish soldier (Richard Todd) who rebuffs overtures of friendship from his fellow patients at a British military hospital in Burma. Neal appears as a nurse in the film, which was filmed in England with Warner funds that had been frozen under British tax laws.
"Storm Warning'' (1951) Reagan voluntarily took a 50 percent salary cut for the last two years of contract so he could accept assignments from other studios -- including the notorious (but not really that awful) "Bedtime For Bonzo,'' made at Universal that same year. Back at Warner Bros. he was very good as a D.A. who gets Doris Day to testify against a Klansman relative (Steve Cochran) in Stuart Heisler's hard-hitting variation on "A Streetcar Named Desire.'' The top-billed role, as Day's sister -- a visiting model who gets attacked by the Klan -- was refused by Lauren Bacall, whose Warner contract was cancelled. She was replaced by Ginger Rogers.

"She's Working Her Way Through College'' (1952) Virginia Mayo, Reagan's co-star in "The Girl From Jones Beach,'' is the focus of this musical remake of "The Male Animal'' with songs by Sammy Cahn and Vernon Duke. Reagan has Henry Fonda's old role as a liberal professor -- only this time he's crusading for burlesque queen Mayo's right to appear in a campus production of Shakespeare instead of a student's right to read a letter by anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Reagan does have a drunk scene that's almost as good as Fonda's. With Don DeFore, who played a student in the original, in Jack Carson's old role as a blowhard alumnus.
"The Winning Team'' (1952) Reagan ended his 15 years at Warners on a high note. Though he's pushing 40, Reagan is terrific as real-life baseball legend Grover Cleveland Alexander, who triumphs over alcoholism (the film leaves out Alexander's epilepsy) with the support of his wife, played by Doris Day. Reagan worked mostly in television -- there were only seven more features elsewhere, plus an ill-advised stint as a Las Vegas headliner -- over the next 12 years. But the skills he developed in Hollywood came in very much in handy when Reagan enterered politics.

'The Country Doctor' (1936) starring The Dionne Quintuplets

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Lou Lumenick

The new Fox Cinema Archives manufacture-on-demand program has my everlasting gratitude for providing the first-ever video release of Henry King's ultra-super-rare "The Country Doctor'' (1936), a one-time "event movie" (before they were called that) "starring" the Dionne Quintuplets "with Jean Hersholt'' (in that billing order). I spent years kicking myself for sleeping through an alarm and missing a middle-of-the-night screening on WCBS's "The Late Late Show'' during my high school years in the the mid-1960's. As far as I can tell, it was never shown on TV again; the last screening in these parts apparently occurred as part of a MoMA Fox retrospective around 1970. Attesting to the film's extreme scarcity -- it's never popped up on AMC or the Fox Movie Channel, much less TCM (the latter despite despite my lobbying) -- is the absence of a single user comment on the film's IMDB page, with not a single review written after 1936 to be found on the Internet. No entry in "Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide'' either.

I have no idea why "The Country Doctor'' has been out of circulation for nearly half a century; it's not based on a book, play or magazine article (the story was "suggested'' by a Chicago newspaper reporter who helped secure incubators for the quints). And it's not like a film depicting the most famous multiple birth in history -- the first time five siblings survived -- is an obscure subject, even after nearly eighty years. "The Country Doctor'' may be light on star power -- Hersholt, who made "Heidi'' with Shirley Temple that same year, was a replacement for Will Rogers, Hollywood's No. 1 box office draw, who died in a 1935 plane crash. But it still holds up as a glorious example of studio-crafted entertainment by a major (if largely forgotten) director, even if Sonya Levien's screenplay plays fast and loose with the facts. According the AFI Catalogue, the March 4, 1936 opening of "The Country Doctors'' in 326 North American theaters theaters was "one of the largest, if not the largest, day-and-date engagements in motion picture history.'' The day before, the film centering on -- you could just as easily say exploiting -- the birth of the Canadian quints premiered in Toronto and at the massive 5,940-seat Radio City Music Hall (Fox having bypassed its own only slightly smaller and less prestigious Roxy a block west on 50th Street).

Sold-out shows were fueled by rare reviews like the one by future Oscar-nominated screenwriter Frank S. Nugent ("The Quiet Man,'' "The Searchers'') in The New York Times: "An irresistably appealing blend of sentiment and comedy, the Twentieth Century-Fox picture justifies even that anonymous advertising genius who described the birth of the Dionne Babies as the greatest event since 'The Birth of a Nation.' " Graham Greene, no Hollywood fanboy during his reviewing days (which ended abruptly when Fox brought suit over his notorious review of "Wee Winnie Winkie") called it an "honest film…the theme is serious, the treatment has unusual edge.'' Even Thornton Delehanty, writing in what was known as The New York Evening Post and awarding it merely a "good'' (not "excellent'') rating on the paper's antique "Moviemeter'' had to admit that "The Country Doctor'' "could have maintained the comedy level of the scene in which an expectant father is overwhelmed by the cumulative births of five daughters it would undoubtedly have emerged as the most exhilirating picture of the year.''

That terriffic scene comes 75 minutes into a 95-minute movie mainly devoted to the travails (apparently recycled at least partly from an unproduced 1930 screenplay by Levien and Don Marquis) of the title character, a highly fictionalized version of Allan Roy Dafoe, here referred to as Dr. John Luke. Working for 35 years with little or no compensation in a lumber town in Canada's north woods, Dr. Luke is a beloved medico who battles a diphteria epidemic -- there's an unforgettable image of a woman watching through a window as her child receives last rites in a makeshift quarantine ward -- with the assistance of his loyal nurse (Dorothy Peterson, whose acting, like Hersholt's, is beyond reproach). When Dr. Luke goes to Montreal to plead for a real hospital to Montague Love's indifferent titled company bureaucrat (in a sequence singled out by Greene as "a fine satirical portrait… of brutal complacency") Dr. Luke ends up being replaced by a young company doctor. It doesn't help that Dr. Luke has been practicing without a license for 35 years, because he couldn't afford the fee.

There's a less compelling romantic subplot involving Dr. Luke's nephew (Michael Whalen), an intern who's also a pilot and a boxer, and the daughter (June Lang) of the hot-headed head of the lumber camp (Robert Barrat) who wants to be rid of both the Lukes. The elder Dr. Luke is about to depart from Moosetown by ship when Asa Wyatt begs Dr. Luke, who has already delivered six of his children, to attend to his wife, who has gone into labor two months early.

Superbly played by Swedish-Canadian character actor (and John Ford favorite) John Qualen, Asa Wyatt is a fictionalized version of Olivia Dionne. Thornton Delehanty is correct about what he called the "excruciatingly funny'' scene depicting the father reacting to the birth of the five girls -- in fact, I'd say it's actually funnier than the corresponding scene in Preston Sturges "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek'' (1944) which turns out to have been influenced by King's film. Expertly partnering Qualen in this scene is Slim Summerville -- a character actor I've never found especially funny before -- as the town constable waiting to arrest Dr. Luke for practicing medicine without a license but pressed into service helping with the multiple births. (The baby's mother is only momentarily glimpsed in a later scene).

This is followed by around 15 minute of charming footage of the "Wyatt'' Quintuplets -- who are addressed by their actual Dionne first names -- including delightfully improvised scenes with Dr. Luke and his nurse that we're told were "photographed under the personal supervision of Dr. Dafoe'' by cinematographer Daniel Clarke in Callander, Ontario, when the quints were toddlers. Dr. Luke, who has finally gotten his hospital (while his nephew has gotten the girl) is pulled away from the babies long enough to receive the Order of the British Empire for a heart-warming finale.

"The Country Doctor'' is presented in a more than acceptable transfer but no apparent restoration -- there are minimal scratches and the contrast varies a bit. The first reel or so looks darker and more grainy than the rest -- like it was taken from a later-generation dupe -- but I'm inclined to cut this one some slack because of its extreme rarity.

There are no reliable box-office numbers I can find, but "The Country Doctor'' did well enough that a sequel, "Reunion'' with the Quints was rushed into theaters just eight months later. I've not seen this equally rare film, but but their third and last feature, "Five of a Kind'' has popped up several times on the Fox Movie Channel in recent years. Reportedly Fox's Darryl Zanuck harbored hopes that the quints might rival the studio's top attraction, Shirley Temple, and planned a full-scale musical for them. Shot when they were four, "Five of a Kind'' (1938) shows four awkward moppets (pictured on the set above) singing out of tune, basically supporting a hackneyed comedy about a pair of rival reporters (Cesar Romero and Claire Trevor) trying to bring the quints to New York City for a radio show.

Hersholt (a silent veteran of "Greed'' for whom Oscar's Humanitarian Award is named) was in both these sequels (along with Qualen and Summerville). Basically the benevolent Dr. Luke was spun off into Dr. Christian, a small-town doctor who Hersholt played on CBS radio from 1937 to 1954, as well as a six-film RKO B-movie series (1939-1941). Just before his death in 1956, Hersholt reprised the role one last time in the first two episodes of a Gene Roddenberrry-scripted "Dr. Christian'' TV series starring MacDonald Carey.

"The Country Doctor'' has a scene where it's mentioned that the self-effacing Dr. Luke has turned down commercial endorsements for the Quints, but in real-life who was nowhere near as modest or shy about cashing in on his and the quints' new-found fame. He was appointed one of several guardians of the quints by the Ontario government, which turned the girls into a tourist attraction at a hospital-nursery in Callendar called "Quintland.'' An excellent 1978 CBC/NFBC documentary (unfortunately not available on video) contrasts the fictions of the three Fox films with the sad reality of the girls' lives.

The Dionnes were finally returned to their parents in 1943, but it wasn't a happy reunion: the three surviving quints said in their heartbreaking 1995 memoir they were sexually abused by their father during their teenage years. Emilie, a nun, died of an epileptic seizure at 20; Marie, of a blood clot at 35; and Yvonne, at 67, of cancer. Before Yvonne's death, in 1998, she and her two impoverished surviving sisters (who were all divorced and never remarried) received $2.8 million from the Ontario provincial government to settle a suit they brought over misappropriation of their trust fund.

"The Country Doctor'' is also important as a key work by Henry King, a skilled veteran of the silent era who was compared with Ernst Lubitsch, F.W. Murnau and Frank Borgaze but has been wrongly dismissed as a studio hack by some film historians because all his talkies, which stretched into the early 1960s, were made for Fox. Hopefully more of his inaccessible work will be offered by the Fox Cinema Archives in the future.

Another longtime Fox hand involved with "The Country Doctor'' was screenwriter-producer (and later director) Nunnally Johnson ("The Grapes of Wrath''), here credited as executive producer under Darryl F. Zanuck. Johnson has the same credit on two other titles of above-usual interest in this month's first wave of releases from the Fox Cinema Archives.

Georgia-born Johnson also took a writing credit on the delightful "Banjo on My Knee'' (also 1936), well directed by another criminally underrated helmer, John Cromwell ("Since You Went Away'' and incidentally the father of character actor James Cromwell). Barbara Stanwyck makes her on-screen singing debut as a "city girl'' from Tennessee who marries into a "shanty boat'' family on the Mississippi River. On her wedding night, her hot-tempered husband (Joel McCrea in the first of his six films with Stanwyck) flees to New Orleans after he mistakenly thinks he's killed a man (Victor Kilian, later famous as Grandpa on TV's "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman'').

Stanwyck, her father-in-law Walter Brennan and his nephew Buddy Ebsen all follow McCrea to New Orleans, where they all end up performing at the "Creole Cafe'' with Tony Martin, who tries to romance Stanwyck at the same time Katherine DeMille is plying her feminine wiles on McCrea. With this cast, plus Walter Catlett as a lecherous photographer; gorgeous black-and-white cinematography by Ernest Palmer (shown off in a nice transfer); songs by Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson; and an impressive storm climax, the seldom-seen "Banjo on My Knee'' should bring a smile to classic movie fans. A wonderful production number, "St. Louis Blues'' performed by the Hall Johnson Choir, is a lagniappe.

More in the category of a fascinating curiosity is the Johnson-produced melodrama "Nancy Steele Is Missing!" (1937). Victor McLaglen, an Oscar winner for "The Informer'' (1935), gives one of his more endearing performances as a quasi-pacifist waiter with a fierce temper who kidnaps the infant daughter of a munitions magnate (Walter Connelly) just before World War I (this occurs offscreen to honor the letter, if not quite the spirit of the Production Code). In this credulity-straining tale, he tells an old pal and his wife that he's the baby's father and puts the infant in their custody -- which stretches to two decades when he's jailed for another offense before he can even write a ransom note.

Upon his release, McLaglen arrives as the now-grown kidnapee's custodian (the wife is never mentioned) is dying, and the daughter (now played by June Lang) assumes that McLaglen is her long-lost father. McLaglen goes to drop off the delayed ransom-note at Connnelly's office -- but in one too coincidence too many, he encounters Connelly, who remembers him as a waiter and offers him a job, as well as a cottage on his Long Island estate to share with "his'' daughter. A major obstacle to an improbably happy ending is McLaglen's former cellmate in prison, entertainingly played by Peter Lorre, who overhears McLaglen talking about the kidnapping in his sleep. So Lorre concocts a scheme to pass off his "own'' orphan as Connelly's long-lost daughter to collect his millions…

"Nancy'' is briskly directed by the versatile George Marshall ("Destry Rides Again''), who was a replacement for Otto Preminger -- reassigned when Wallace Beery, who originally had McLaglen's role, balked at working with Preminger (as had Loretta Young, immediately prior, on "Love is News''). The role of a sympathetic kidnaper -- theoretically a no-no under the production code -- was originally intended for Jean Hersholt, and Connelly was originally assigned to Lorre's role as the cellmate. It's an old but serviceable transfer with the old National Telefilm Associates logo following Fox's.

Fox Cinema Archives has confirmed it's releasing two waves of releases of around 15 titles apiece every month. The next wave, out today, consists of these titles previously listed in my column, here in alphabetical order: "The Daring Young Man,'' "Deep Waters,'' "Don Juan Quilligan,'' "Earthbound,''"Elopement,'' "For Heaven's Sake,'' "Forbidden Street,''"In the Meantime, Darling,'' "Love on a Budget,'' "Mother Didn't Tell Me,'' "My Gal Sal,'' "Nob Hill,'' "The Power and the Glory,'' "The Secret of the Purple Reef'' and "Secret World.''

Incidentally, the first wave of 30 or so FCA titles from late June/early July (including a bunch I reviewed last month), discounted to $11 at Amazon over the past six days, today jumped to $14 -- still less than the $20 price at Movies Unlimited and Oldies, among other e-tailers.

Today's Warner Archive Collection releases include five previously announced Film Noir titles: "Born to Bad,'' "Las Vegas Story,'' "Southside 1-1000,'' "Walk Softly, Stranger'' and "A Woman's Secret.''
Movies Unlimited is taking pre-orders for three Jeanette McDonald vehicles on which it has Warner Archive exclusives for a limited period beginning Sept 21: W.S. Van Dyke's "Cairo'' (1942) with Robert Young and Ethel Waters; Richard Thorpe's "The Sun Comes Up''(1949) co-starring Claude Jarman Jr. and Lassie; and "Three Daring Daughters" (1948) with Jane Powell and Jose Iturbi; plus McDonald's frequent co-star Nelson Eddy in Roy Del Ruth's "The Chocolate Soldier'' (1941), a musical remake of "The Guardsman'' co-starring Rise Stevens.

"The Universal 100th Anniversary Collection,'' due Nov. 4, is apparently the largest Blu-ray collection of feature films yet, with 25 discs, and is being sold for only $50 more ($350) than the DVD version. The titles, which are all available on Blu-ray, or will be, before then: "All Quiet on the Western Front,'' "Dracula'' (1931) and its Spanish-language version; "Buck Privates,'' 'Pillow Talk,'' "Spartacus,'' "To Kill a Mockingbird,'' "The Birds,'' "American Graffiti,'' "The Sting,'' "Jaws,'' "National Lampoon's Animal House,'' "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial,'' "Scarface'' (1983), "The Breakfast Club,'' ""Back to the Future,'' "Out of Africa,'' "Field of Dreams,'' "Do the Right Thing,'' "Jurassic Park,'' "Apollo 13,'' "The Fast in the Furious,'' "The Bourne Identity,'' "Mamma Mia!'' and "Despicable Me.'' (The DVD version of the collection has 26 discs and swaps out the Spanish-language "Dracula'' for "Schindler's List,'' whose Blu-ray debut has been postponed until 2013). A DVD-only bonus discs collects all the anniversary-themed featurettes on previous releases this year, plus 14 previously available animated shorts with the likes of Oswald the Rabbit and Woody Woodpecker; and three-live action shorts featuring Shirley Temple, Babe Ruth and animator Walter Lantz. There's also a CD with 15 tracks of soundtrack music, from "The Bride of Frankenstein'' and "Touch of Evil,'' as well as many titles in the collection. Plus a 72-page book.

The Criterion Collection's bountiful November releases include a digitally restored version of the full 226-minute original theatrical cut of Michael Cimino's notorious "Heaven's Gate'' (1981) starring Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert and Christopher Walken, out Nov. 20. Features include a new interview with Cimino and a featurette on the film's historical background. On Nov. 16, Criterion will release Blu-ray upgrades for Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon'' (1950) as well as Jean-Luc Godard's out-of-print "Weekend'' (1967). Also on that date, Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Trilogy of Life'' will be released as a set comprising "The Decameron'' (1971), "The Canterbury Tales'' (1972) and "Arabian Nights'' (1974). On Nov. 20, Criterion's DVD-only, no-frills Eclipse Line will release the four-disc "When Horror Came to Shochiku,'' consisting of four titles from the Japanese studio: "The X From Outer Space'' (1967), "Goke: Body Snatcher From Hell'' (1968), "The Living Skeleton'' (1968) and "Genocide'' (1968

historical figures ... today

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception



ABOVE: ADMIRAL LORD NELSON

A Vice Admiral and dedicated navy officer, Nelson is dressed in a modern naval uniform.
In today's Navy, Nelson would likely be more deskbound and would have gained weight which is reflected in the portrait. To replace the right arm lost after battle, he has been given a prosthetic to wear. The Victoria Cross, though not available in his time, had they been in existence, he would have qualified.

Famous faces from history including William Shakespeare, Henry VIII and Horatio Nelson have been given a modern makeover - how they would look if they were alive today?
 
The project, comissioned by History TV channel, to celebrate a new series, saw digital artists working closely with history experts to ensure portraits of  historical characters look as if they were alive in the 21st Century.

At the link http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/10030619/Historical-Figures-for-the-21st-Century.html#?frame=2551564

Norma Talmadge

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Norma Talmadge!

Norma Talmadge (May 2, 1894 – December 24, 1957), American actress and film producer of the silent era and major box office draw for more than a decade. Her career peaked in the early 1920s, among the most popular idols of American screen.

Talmadge was an elegant and glamorous film star of the roaring twenties but at the end of the silent film era, her popularity with audiences waned. After two talkies proved disappointing at the box office, she retired a wealthy woman. Although little remembered, in her day she was hugely popular and the epitome of stardom.

Elijah McCoy

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Have you ever heard the expression, "The Real McCoy"?

 

If you have, did you know it relates to a Black man named Elijah McCoy (pictured) who was an engineer and inventor? McCoy is best-known for creating a lubricating cup that distributed oil more efficiently and allowed trains to run longer without manual assistance. His inventions were so relied upon that railroad workers would ask whether the oil cups they were using were "the real McCoy."

 

He would go on to start his own company and gained at least 57 patents for his work. He would also create designs for ironing boards, lawn sprinklers, and other machines. All this from a man who was blocked from working as an engineer due to the racist policies.

 

Honour Elijah McCoy today on his birthday.
 

Theodor Herzl

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

"We believe that salvation is to be found in wholesome work in a beloved land. Work will provide our people with the bread of tomorrow, and moreover, with the honour of the tomorrow, the freedom of the tomorrow."

- Theodor Herzl, born 2 May 1860.

Austro-Hungarian journalist and writer. Father of modern political Zionism and in effect the foundation of the State of Israel.

Vintage

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception