00:00:00:26 – 00:00:21:27
Dan LeFebvre
Let’s kick this off by getting an overall look at the Manhattan Project. Because if I were to try to summarize the movie’s depiction, basically it seems like a top secret program by the US military at the end of World War two to create an atomic bomb. Can you give us an overall explanation of what the Manhattan Project actually was?

00:00:21:29 – 00:00:55:27
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, it was a project, as you say, during World War Two, to build an atomic bomb. And this is work that, played out mostly in the United States, but it involves scientists from Britain and from Canada as well. As well as is this is something we see really clearly in Oppenheimer, many, many European scientists in exile in the United States who are working on the project, who had been, you know, involved in, nuclear physics, who were bassists or chemists, you know, before they fled the United States and who were involved in the project, you know, working at places like University of Chicago, working at Los Alamos, etc..

00:00:55:29 – 00:01:23:02
Alice Lovejoy
And the basic idea behind the bomb is something that Oppenheimer details well, which is the idea, the discovery, really, that if you could split the nucleus of an atom of uranium atom, nuclear fission, you could create a chain reaction, a great amount of energy that would create a chain reaction that would split other atoms. And so this could be the basis for an extremely powerful weapon, really more powerful than any weapon that existed before.

00:01:23:04 – 00:01:51:26
Alice Lovejoy
So that’s the kind of science behind it. But the, the actual project itself, was huge for the size of atoms. Atoms are really, really small. And on a scale large enough to make enough fissionable material for a bomb, you needed, government and scientific cooperation and investment across multiple factories and multiple places. And so in Oppenheimer, we are focused on Los Alamos for the most part in New Mexico, which is where, our Oppenheimer worked.

00:01:51:28 – 00:02:22:04
Alice Lovejoy
It’s where a lot of the physicists were. But there was a huge amount of production work happening in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in Hanford, Washington, which were cities that were built for the Manhattan Project. But they didn’t exist before, as well as in Washington and then in university centers like Berkeley, which we do see in the film, and the University of Chicago, which we see briefly as well, underneath the football field, and in New York, places like Columbia and here at places like the University of Minnesota, it really was really across the, across the country and, universities.

00:02:22:04 – 00:02:24:19
Alice Lovejoy
But there were some that were more involved than others.

00:02:24:21 – 00:02:41:20
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it definitely in the movie, it definitely focuses on Los Alamos, which is, I mean, it’s Oppenheimer, so it’s mostly focus on him. There is a scene in the movie, I think it’s a madman’s version of General Leslie Groves. He talks about buying like 1200 tons of uranium and how it’s being processed in a facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

00:02:41:27 – 00:03:00:21
Dan LeFebvre
But we don’t ever see Oak Ridge in the movie. It just kind of shows like two glass bowls. One of them is supposed to be Oak Ridge. One of them, I think, is Hanford. And one of them is the uranium in Oak Ridge. And then the other one is plutonium in Hanford. So they’re talking about making a fission bomb and a hydrogen bomb.

00:03:00:23 – 00:03:10:27
Dan LeFebvre
And so the impression I got from the movie, it sounds like not only are they doing something that’s never been done before and building an atomic bomb, but they’re trying two different ways to do it. Is that true?

00:03:10:29 – 00:03:35:12
Alice Lovejoy
So yes, I think there’s some nuance there. I think the the film gets that scene in the film is great because it gets at not just the scale. Right? How small the this the amount of materials that Hanford and Oak Ridge are able to breathe are so small. And yet they’re so hard to make. Yeah. And the scene gets at the fact that the Manhattan Project was working on two different kinds of fissionable materials for the bomb, so uranium and plutonium.

00:03:35:19 – 00:03:51:29
Alice Lovejoy
And this is all for the same kind of bomb, which is efficient bomb, and Oak Ridge, and Hanford were the places where this was happening. But because this was a project that was happening at such speed, because the war was ongoing, they were afraid the Germans would get the bomb, which is something that the film shows very well.

00:03:52:01 – 00:04:15:06
Alice Lovejoy
There was there were numerous ways of creating this material that were happening at the same time. So in Oak Ridge there were three plants. One of them was using the electromagnetic separation process, to separate fissionable uranium 2005 from uranium 2008. And then there was a gaseous diffusion process at another plant at Oak Ridge and at Oak Ridge.

00:04:15:06 – 00:04:38:03
Alice Lovejoy
There was also another plant that was transforming, spent uranium fuel slugs into plutonium. And then Hanford was working fully on plutonium. So we see a little bit of the electromagnetic separation process in Berkeley and an early scene in the film where, Josh Hartnett, who is playing Ernest Lawrence, shows us that machine. And that is what was operating a large scale at Oak Ridge.

00:04:38:03 – 00:04:57:25
Alice Lovejoy
And the electron and the white, all the electromagnetic separation plant. But the hydrogen bomb is something different. And this is a thermonuclear weapon. This is something that comes up in the film because, Edward Teller, the, physicist who kind of is at odds with Oppenheimer, throughout their time. And Los Alamos is really invested in this.

00:04:57:25 – 00:05:18:24
Alice Lovejoy
And hydrogen bombs work through, through fusion and not through fission. So thermonuclear bombs, hydrogen bombs, where something that became a reality in the 50s, and they were very, very dangerous. They’re much more powerful. They are much more powerful than the kinds of bombs that were being worked on at Los Alamos. And so I think this is part of the moral story.

00:05:18:27 – 00:05:37:00
Alice Lovejoy
Right, that’s operating in Oppenheimer at the same time as sort of scientific and industrial story, which is about what are the costs of working on a bomb this powerful. And so Teller’s character is there and to sort of, show what he would do later, which is accurate, right. Working on the hydrogen bomb really being responsible for a lot of that science.

00:05:37:02 – 00:05:54:18
Alice Lovejoy
But also to, to set up the, the, the ways in which this project would evolve and in, unforeseeable ways, right in the future that these bombs that they were making in Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, and Hanford would lead the way for things that couldn’t be seen at that point.

00:05:54:20 – 00:06:15:00
Dan LeFebvre
So because, yeah, they kind of they kind of talk a little bit about that. You know, I think the concept of the bomb just becoming a never ending explosion and that sort of thing is, is that kind of what you were referring to is, you know, some of the, the moral elements of it more than just, you know, World War Two, we want to end the war.

00:06:15:02 – 00:06:18:15
Dan LeFebvre
But what’s going to happen after that and that, that whole concept.

00:06:18:18 – 00:06:43:25
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, I think that’s part of it. One of the the key parts of this film for me is that, is Oppenheimer is grappling with the the intersection between the scientific work he’s doing and the politics of this work and the real world consequences of this work. And we see that, as something that’s shared with the scientists as well, when they have a meeting, at Los Alamos and they say, hey, Germany has capitulated, why are we still making this bomb?

00:06:43:27 – 00:07:03:25
Alice Lovejoy
Right? You know how many people are going to be killed? And what does this mean for the future of humanity? That’s something that Niels Bohr, the, who the physicist who comes in earlier in a later in the film says, like who? What is going to happen with this? Are you going to destroy humanity with this? So it’s not just about the possibility that the film deals with, which is an uncontrolled chain reaction which could really destroy the world.

00:07:04:00 – 00:07:21:13
Alice Lovejoy
It’s also about, thinking forward to the arms race and to whether this would be used. And this is sort of one of the key debates of the Cold War, whether the existence of nuclear weapons would prevent countries from going to war or whether they would just create, more and more danger for the world.

00:07:21:16 – 00:07:50:00
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned with Germany, the other the possibility of Germany doing it, too. And this is outside the scope of anything that we see in Oppenheimer. But it would they have the thought of, well, if somebody is going to do it, it might as well be us first, right? I mean, I know that’s a simplification, perhaps, but, you know, if they were afraid that Nazi Germany is going to be building this, then I could see how they’d be like, well, we want to do it first.

00:07:50:03 – 00:08:11:14
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. And that is the logic right in there. And there was a logic behind this too, that, you know, there were people that this could end the war, it could end all war. And that we don’t want the Nazis to have, to be the ones to get there first, because it could be quite dangerous. And as we learn in the film and this is accurate, they were the Germans were not as advanced as people had feared, even though they had their Heisenberg.

00:08:11:14 – 00:08:30:09
Alice Lovejoy
And they had these, you know, great scientific minds working on the project. The allies were much more advanced with it. So it wasn’t, as much of a threat as had been feared. But there was a breakdown in scientific communication at this moment, too. Right. So people weren’t publishing in these international journals, as much there wasn’t as much circulation of knowledge.

00:08:30:09 – 00:08:48:18
Alice Lovejoy
And this is a real question, you know, in the history of 20th century weapons, it goes back to poison gas, right? Then the question of whether in poison gas for World War One was really the most destructive weapon. It was the thing that raised the most moral, qualms as well. Right? Because it’s a weapon of mass destruction.

00:08:48:20 – 00:09:05:25
Alice Lovejoy
And so there were discussions about whether this is, a weapon whose, development and circulation should be known about widely, so nobody else would develop it. Right, so the world could be protected. But those kinds of networks of scientific communication, which built up after World War One and after poison gas had really broken down by this point.

00:09:05:28 – 00:09:25:07
Dan LeFebvre
When you’re talking about how much goes into creating, you know, going back to the glass bowls and those being filled up, can you fill a little bit more? I mean, I, I don’t know much about what actually goes into creating those, but, I mean, it’s one thing that we see in the movie I it’s called Oppenheimer. Right?

00:09:25:07 – 00:09:45:09
Dan LeFebvre
So he’s he’s the main character, but it does kind of talk a little bit about what you’re, talking about before with what it takes to create these materials. You know, even at Los Alamos, which the movie focuses on, they talk about building a town, churches and schools and building this whole thing. You talked about, you know, Oakridge and Hanford being towns that they built in other areas.

00:09:45:09 – 00:09:50:18
Dan LeFebvre
So can you share some more historical context around the size of the Manhattan Project?

00:09:50:21 – 00:10:12:28
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, it’s a great question because it was huge. And we see this, early in the film when I think, it’s a scene between when Leslie, our Groves, meets Oppenheimer for the first time, and Oppenheimer says, well, if we’re going to do this, we need to have these four spaces, and they need to be coordinated. And the the difference in scale between the number of marbles, you know, these tiny little marbles that you need to make enough charge material for a bomb.

00:10:12:28 – 00:10:36:09
Alice Lovejoy
And the the scope of the project across the United States is really a good way to look at it. So let’s just think about Y-12, the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, which is the one that I know the most about my my recent book, deals and in in detail with the history of Y-12. And it was run by the Tennessee Eastman Company, which was the main chemical subsidiary of the Eastman Kodak Company, the photographic and film company.

00:10:36:11 – 00:11:07:07
Alice Lovejoy
And at its height, there were 22,000 employees working for Y-12, 22,000, and this plant was only one of three at Oak Ridge. The plant itself was, at the time, I think, around 800 acres in size, which is, if we’re going to go by a football field, around 600 football fields, I think. And so there were multiple buildings within it, multiple calutrons, which are these, machines that separate, uranium 235 from uranium 238.

00:11:07:09 – 00:11:33:29
Alice Lovejoy
And all of these huge factories were what was needed to make this very small amounts of fissionable material. But that’s only part of it. Right? So it’s an engineering project. It’s a factory project. It’s a chemical engineering project. And you have major U.S. companies and, and, Canadian companies involved in this. Right? So not just Eastman Kodak, but DuPont, Stone and Webster Engineering for many, many other well known companies.

00:11:34:01 – 00:11:57:03
Alice Lovejoy
And, so this is a good example of the big science of World War two. And, and you bring up towns and that’s part of it too, right? Because big science and big industry is, something that, as they say, we can’t attract top scientists without bringing their families. So we need to make whole cities, that kind of company that can accommodate, these families, you know, these, civilians, really.

00:11:57:09 – 00:12:17:15
Alice Lovejoy
And so overnight, these cities are built and, since this is a podcast about movies, I can give you a statistic that at Oak Ridge there were seven cinemas plus a film society that were built to accommodate the 75,000 people who lived there at the town’s peak. And so the film society was showing all sorts of things.

00:12:17:15 – 00:12:48:02
Alice Lovejoy
They were showing 39 stops. They were showing Sergei Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky, there. And this is just part of the leisure offerings that the town, offered at the time. So bowling alleys, baseball leagues, etc. people were working 24 hour, the factories were working 24 hours a day. There was a patchwork of shifts. So you see these towns built very, very quickly out of nowhere, really, to accommodate these massive industrial projects, which is where I think Oppenheimer doesn’t quite get this right.

00:12:48:02 – 00:12:54:21
Alice Lovejoy
It doesn’t quite get at the massive industrial scale of what’s happening because it it really is a film about, about Oppenheimer himself.

00:12:54:24 – 00:12:57:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. It’s it’s not called Manhattan Project. Right, exactly.

00:12:58:01 – 00:12:59:10
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah.

00:12:59:12 – 00:13:31:00
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, that’s it’s mind boggling the amount of work and effort to create, like you said, just this tiny little that you splitting atoms literally, like, and and the amount of effort. And then on top of that, being top secret, I mean, I can’t imagine you have you said there’s 22,000 people working and then 75,000 overall. So all these, all these families, were they essentially locked in?

00:13:31:00 – 00:13:44:28
Dan LeFebvre
They’re like locked it. I’m thinking of like a military base. You know, there’s there’s housing on base. But, I used to work in a military base and you could go in and out. You had to have credentials, obviously, but you can go in and out. It’s not like you’re you’re stuck in there. But base wasn’t top secret.

00:13:44:28 – 00:13:54:26
Dan LeFebvre
And dealing with this top secret things in the middle of a world war. And so what was it? I mean, again, this is way outside the scope of acting either, but it’s just fascinating how much goes into it.

00:13:54:28 – 00:14:14:01
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. And I think they were closed me people came to work from outside Oak Ridge as well. And, you know, there were busses that went long distances and, and, you know, labor was a huge issue because you have to remember, this is the draft is happening. They’re relying primarily on to a large degree on female labor because that’s what’s available.

00:14:14:03 – 00:14:31:03
Alice Lovejoy
And so, people are, you know, coming in and out, the secrecy works in part through something that comes up a lot in the film, which is called compartmentalization. Right? The idea that one area doesn’t know what the other area is doing and very, very few people have a sense of what the whole is of the project.

00:14:31:10 – 00:14:40:03
Alice Lovejoy
And so, that was really important. And, you know, many, many people who worked at places like Oak Ridge didn’t know what they were involved with until the bomb was dropped.

00:14:40:06 – 00:14:49:14
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, okay. Okay. Would that be why they had Los Alamos and Oak Ridge and Hanford? I mean, they’re not close to each other geographically at all.

00:14:49:16 – 00:15:07:19
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, that’s a great question. I don’t know the answer to that. I think part of it was about available space and proximity to and really remote spaces, right? Was what they were looking for. And so, in Oppenheimer and I don’t know exactly the story behind this, he, he has a personal relationship to this area near Los Alamos.

00:15:07:19 – 00:15:13:17
Alice Lovejoy
And so they they put the project there. In the case of Oak Ridge, it was, through farmland and towns.

00:15:13:19 – 00:15:28:00
Dan LeFebvre
One of the other famous people that we see in the movie is Albert Einstein. And from the movie’s depiction, it doesn’t really seem like Einstein is involved in the Manhattan Project itself. But he does help Oppenheimer with some calculations. When we were talking about earlier, you know, the thought of triggering a chain reaction that destroys the world.

00:15:28:03 – 00:15:37:24
Dan LeFebvre
But in the movie, it almost seems like Einstein is just someone that everybody’s going to know. And so they just kind of throw him in there. Was Einstein involved in the Manhattan Project at all?

00:15:37:26 – 00:15:56:07
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, I agree with you that it seems like he’s put in there just because, you know, we know his face, we know his hair, we know what it looks like. But he didn’t play a direct role in the Manhattan Project. But he did, however, and this comes up in the film, he famously signed a letter written to President Roosevelt by the physicist, Leo Szilard.

00:15:56:07 – 00:16:13:16
Alice Lovejoy
Edward Teller, who we see in the film and at Zealand as well, we see in the film, and Eugene and Victor, who are all, Hungarian scientists, I believe, in exile, warning Roosevelt that it was possible that the Germans would create an atomic bomb and explaining what that kind of a weapon might be and what its dangers were.

00:16:13:18 – 00:16:41:23
Alice Lovejoy
I think as a film scholar, my reading of Einstein’s role in the film, goes beyond the fact that he is so well known. I think, you know, in my reading, Oppenheimer is a great man film great. It’s not a Tatian of the biography. American Prometheus, about Robert Oppenheimer, and one of the key dramatic arcs in the film, beyond this kind of story of the bomb and how it’s created, is the tension between Louis Strouse and Robin Robert Robert Oppenheimer.

00:16:41:25 – 00:17:04:20
Alice Lovejoy
Right. And so to give some background here, for those who might not have seen the film recently, the film cuts back and forth between the story of Oppenheimer’s education, how he comes to the Manhattan Project, the process of creating the bomb, and then, what happens afterwards when the Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss, attempts to discredit Oppenheimer?

00:17:04:23 – 00:17:27:26
Alice Lovejoy
Who has since the bomb was dropped, develops very strong moral qualms about, the potential of this weapon and what and what it represents. And so, you know, Oppenheimer wrote this for this point has developed cloud. He’s developed a certain amount of power. And Strauss, I think, finds this threatening. And Strauss also has different political, you know, idea of what bombs can do than Oppenheimer.

00:17:27:26 – 00:18:05:00
Alice Lovejoy
Right? He’s he’s more conservative. He’s a Republican. And again, party, the party questions don’t work exactly like they do now. But, that he was, somebody who advocated for, building up the U.S. nuclear arsenal and for using weapons like the hydrogen bomb, which were quite destructive. So the film intercuts between these two stories, and it ends at the end of the film when Strauss loses his bid to become secretary of commerce, and Congress, because it comes out that he has orchestrated this, essentially a closed door show trial against Oppenheimer that’s designed to discredit him and show to prove that he was a communist.

00:18:05:00 – 00:18:30:10
Alice Lovejoy
And remember, this is McCarthy, and this is the moment of McCarthyism. It’s a second red scare, etc.. So this brings us back to Einstein, because there’s a key moment in the film at the very beginning where Oppenheimer and Einstein have a conversation on the grounds of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Strauss is working there at the time, and Strauss has invited Oppenheimer to consider coming to work as well, which he eventually does.

00:18:30:12 – 00:18:56:03
Alice Lovejoy
So Strauss doesn’t hear what the two physicists say to one another. But, as we learn at the end of the film, he’s paranoid that they’re talking about him. And, it turns out they’re not talking about him. They’re talking about something entirely different. And what they’re talking about is that Eisenstein. I like Eisenstein to me, Einstein, is offering Oppenheimer a warning about what happens when you reach such achievement as he has.

00:18:56:03 – 00:19:23:06
Alice Lovejoy
Right. He says that this kind of achievement is followed by great punishment, public punishment, which we’ve just seen him endure in the film. And so there’s a frame right at the end of film where we see the three men, Strauss and Einstein, and often hammer together right in against the same background. And we can see how much this is a story about power, about the costs of ambition and about the idea of the great man, which is something that this film was playing with a lot.

00:19:23:09 – 00:19:43:18
Alice Lovejoy
And how it’s sort of, created in contexts that are complicated, right, that do have to do with power and other people’s ambition. And so Einstein, I think, is kind of a foil to these two men, Strauss and, Oppenheimer, who has relationships to what we might think of as greatness are very different. Right. Oppenheimer is a very ambivalent.

00:19:43:18 – 00:19:54:03
Alice Lovejoy
At least the film shows it to the idea of being kind of a great man, whereas Strauss, wants that, right? He wants power. He he is very, very ambitious. And ultimately it’s not about him.

00:19:54:05 – 00:20:06:15
Dan LeFebvre
It’s the mere fact that he thought that they were talking about him when I, when I when he said that in the movie, I was like, oh, this is one of those guys that thinks the world revolves around him. Everything is about him. So they must be talking about him.

00:20:06:18 – 00:20:20:12
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. And so I think that’s I think that’s one of the, the key points of why Einstein is there. Because he is a great man, right? He is sort of somebody that everybody recognizes and knows. And it’s sort of yeah, puts that into relief and interesting ways.

00:20:20:14 – 00:20:42:20
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if you have back to the movie’s timeline, there is immense pressure to use an atomic bomb to end World War two. And in the movie, we see that the movie, their military has a list of like, love and Japanese cities. They want to drop bombs on two of those cities. And there’s a tight deadline. So first, they need to detonate an atomic bomb for the first time ever to make sure it works one and then gather data about it.

00:20:42:20 – 00:20:52:01
Dan LeFebvre
And that’s how we get in the movie. The Trinity test. And quite in the movie, at least, it seems to be a massive success. How well do you think the movie did depicting the Trinity test?

00:20:52:04 – 00:21:13:09
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, I think what is effective about the way Oppenheimer depicts the Trinity test is that it really drills down on two things. The first, that no one there knew what they were doing or if it would work. Right. So this is a scientific experiment, much like a laboratory experiment. But but it’s operating on a huge scale with huge consequences.

00:21:13:12 – 00:21:49:28
Alice Lovejoy
And so that’s the second thing really, that perhaps somewhat unusually for these kinds of laboratory experiments, this lack of knowledge meant a lot. Right? So the film has already shown us again, that at this point, Germany has already capitulated. So there’s this question of whether it makes sense to use the weapon. And then, and I don’t know the accuracy of this timeline right before the test, General Leslie R Groves, played by Matt Damon, speaks with Oppenheimer about the non-zero chance that this explosion is will set off a chain reaction that will destroy the world and, I think that’s a moment where it’s a little too late, right, for those consequences

00:21:49:28 – 00:22:13:11
Alice Lovejoy
to become clear. And so, in a cinematic sense, it really makes sense to shoot this scene in a very stark, dark way, right? Because it’s, it’s all shot in at night. I mean, it was happening very early in the morning. The sound, is taken away. There’s no sound or very little sound. In the moments around the explosion, it goes into slow motion.

00:22:13:11 – 00:22:37:22
Alice Lovejoy
So it’s really telescoping. The moments around the explosion into a longer period. There’s low contrast until we get to the explosion, which is very, very bright. So I think what the film so that the film shows us a depiction of the Trinity test that is about Oppenheimer and his own experience of it and these sort of like these moral accompaniments to the scientific questions.

00:22:37:24 – 00:22:53:28
Alice Lovejoy
But, you know, in fact, this this test had been planned for over a year. The planning was meticulous. You know, the film shows us, a moment where they say, oh, we have to hurry. We have to get this thing tested in time for the Potsdam Conference. But in fact, it’s been in the works for for a while.

00:22:54:00 – 00:23:18:29
Alice Lovejoy
And so part of the goal here was not just to see if it worked, but also to document its effects and to study it. Right. This is a scientific, feat as well as a military, endeavor. And so part of this documentation involved cameras. There were 55 cameras, at the tests. Most of them motion picture cameras, which were designed to be started by the same mechanism that trip the bomb.

00:23:19:01 – 00:23:47:01
Alice Lovejoy
And so they were recording what happened. And so we don’t see a lot of that right in the scene. It really you just go into the, the, the, the moral, ethical, psychological questions that surround it. And I think it does a very good job of that. And I think this is also why we get that quote from the Bhagavad which, Bhagavad Gita coming up at the end, that Oppenheimer first encounters with Jean Tatlock earlier in the film.

00:23:47:03 – 00:24:01:03
Alice Lovejoy
Now I am become death. The destroyer of worlds. Right. So in reality, this is a much more planned, you know, carefully documented event. Even if it does have all this moral significance.

00:24:01:06 – 00:24:24:11
Dan LeFebvre
It sounds like, again, I mean, kind of what we were talking about with the Manhattan Project. There’s a lot more than what we see in the movie. But again, the movie is called Oppenheimer. It’s also not called Trinity Test, you know? So, you know, it’s showing it. But, from, I’m gonna say from his perspective, but more from his perspective than from anybody else’s or from, you know, the test itself or any of that.

00:24:24:13 – 00:24:44:29
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Well, during the Trinity test, the movie does show everyone’s watching the explosion using glasses to shield their eyes. Some of them take their glasses off, watch huge ball of flame. A moment later, the shockwave hits. And as I was watching this in the movie, I was thinking, what about the radiation? The movie doesn’t really talk about that that much.

00:24:44:29 – 00:25:04:03
Dan LeFebvre
And, you know, we think of the knowledge that we have now, you know, knowing that the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more recently, like Chernobyl or Fukushima, you know, these disasters on nuclear scale that, you know, the radiation is a huge thing. Was radiation a concern for the scientists working on the Manhattan Project?

00:25:04:06 – 00:25:27:09
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, the radiation, dangers of radiation were known. There was something that the Manhattan Project had studied. The historian Kate Brown has written about this in her work on Hanford, showing that the project studied, what radiation could do to animals, even in a very small doses. But there was a prevailing sense that there was a level under which radiation was essentially harmless.

00:25:27:09 – 00:25:48:02
Alice Lovejoy
And this is known as the tolerance dose, at the time. So, you know, we do see them talking about the dangers of radiation earlier in the film where the scientist Lilli Hornick, who is, a woman working on Oppenheimer’s team, is sort of told you shouldn’t be working on this. It’s dangerous to your reproductive system. And she says to one of the men most equally dangerous to yours.

00:25:48:04 – 00:26:05:26
Alice Lovejoy
Which is true. And, and this might be why, in the scene of the Trinity test, we see most of the project scientists just lying out in the open, right? That there was the idea that there was a tolerance dose might explain this. You know, they’re lying down, so they’re not knocked over by the shockwave.

00:26:05:29 – 00:26:30:00
Alice Lovejoy
And they have welder’s glass to hold up against, the the explosion, which is the same thing that we used to look at eclipses now, but, and then there’s one person, I think it’s Edward Teller who puts on what looks like sunscreen against the explosion. But, you know, this also gives a sense of just how little was known about, they knew it was dangerous, but but they didn’t have a sense of what the explosion would bring.

00:26:30:02 – 00:26:49:20
Alice Lovejoy
But there’s something else here. Which is the scene ends as the sun comes up. The sun comes up, it’s in the desert. They’re all celebrating, or most of them are celebrating, and, the wind is coming up. All right. So, this is something that’s, crucial here, but it’s not discussed, because even though the wind just seems like atmosphere at this moment.

00:26:49:20 – 00:27:22:25
Alice Lovejoy
Right? It’s the desert. There’s wind. That wind is really crucial because, as the project would find out later, the same wind was carrying radioactive fallout from the test site across the country. So the effects of this, were, of course, particularly stark near the test site. And this is something that, especially as testing moves in about in a desert, we know the really horrible cases of who were called the people called the Downwinders, who developed really terrible cancers and other health issues from being, in proximity to radioactive fallout.

00:27:22:27 – 00:27:44:02
Alice Lovejoy
But one of the things that I talk about in my book is that the radiation from these tests and from Trinity tests, the Trinity test as well, the radiation traveled much farther than the test sites themselves, even though the AEC and the Manhattan Project thought that they couldn’t. Right. So they were found, in Indiana. They were eventually found in the East Coast and beyond.

00:27:44:04 – 00:27:58:19
Alice Lovejoy
And it was traveling the fall. It was traveling on the same wind that we see start up there. So I see that as a really important kind of moment in showing the the effects of these weapons that went well beyond what anybody had imagined just from the explosion.

00:27:58:22 – 00:28:06:07
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. Yeah. You don’t really think about I mean, that’s one of those things. It’s a.

00:28:06:09 – 00:28:42:09
Dan LeFebvre
You don’t see it. So you don’t think that it’s something that will that will do. And I could see how, you know, back then this is one of those moments in the movie where it’s, it’s difficult to put myself back in the historical context of what it was like then, because we know so much. I don’t know a lot about the nuclear world, but, you know, things like Chernobyl and Fukushima, you know, hearing about that and learning about those, you hear about things like, I think with Chernobyl, if I remember right, you know, one of the reasons they learned about it was because other countries in Europe were detecting these things from the radiation

00:28:42:09 – 00:28:57:17
Dan LeFebvre
on the wind, you know, stuff like that, that obviously they knew more about then. But we’re talking, you know, in the 1940s, first, first time, I can’t imagine how much there was that. They weren’t they weren’t tracking it. So they would know basically. Right.

00:28:57:19 – 00:29:21:26
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, exactly. And this is where Kodak comes in an interesting ways because, in after the Trinity test, Kodak realizes that there are spots of black spots or spots of radiation that are showing up on unexposed film. So film that’s been sitting packaged for a while, and they trace it back to, microscopic particles of radiation in the packaging material that’s containing the film.

00:29:22:02 – 00:29:38:05
Alice Lovejoy
And they realize that that material is from Indiana, and that it must have been harvested, it was made of straw, or it’s kind of straw bore that they had turn to after, cardboard waste paper during the war ended up having a lot of radium in it. Right. So they couldn’t use that either because it would expose the film.

00:29:38:05 – 00:30:01:08
Alice Lovejoy
So they started making the straw board and then the straw has radiation in it. And that is coming. They trace it back to the Trinity test. So that happens, in the late 1940s and then and the early 1950s, Kodak becomes really the first industrial site to alert the Atomic Energy Commission to just how far radiation is traveling, because our film factories are so attentive to radiation to begin with.

00:30:01:10 – 00:30:11:20
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. I mean, so that wasn’t even the you just mentioned. There were a lot of cameras there at Los Alamos. That wasn’t even the film that was there that was filmed. That was thousands of miles away anyway.

00:30:11:22 – 00:30:29:03
Alice Lovejoy
That’s right. Yeah. The film that was there was singed. It was burned. And so it definitely was affected by it. And they were doing everything they could to protect the film, you know, whether that was through glass or led led, cases for cameras. But this is something different where it shows up, really, as you say, invisibly.

00:30:29:05 – 00:30:33:01
Alice Lovejoy
And film becomes a way to, to track it that they didn’t, they weren’t expecting.

00:30:33:03 – 00:30:51:03
Dan LeFebvre
In the movie, the very next scene, after the successful military test, we see some military guys, saying with respect, Doctor Oppenheimer will take it from here. And then with that, they just pack up a bombs and drive away. It happened. So quickly in the movie. It’s almost as if, okay, we had this successful test and now Manhattan Project is over.

00:30:51:06 – 00:31:05:13
Dan LeFebvre
We don’t really see what happens to the town. Of course, we didn’t really see a lot of the town anyway, so we don’t really see what happens. We don’t see anything about what happened with Oak Ridge or Hanford. So can you fill in some more history around how the Manhattan Project actually came to an end?

00:31:05:15 – 00:31:20:08
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, I think that’s I think you’re right that this is a moment that seems abrupt because it I think that’s what it feels like to Oppenheimer. Right. He’s all of a sudden this is a political thing. It’s a government thing. It’s no longer a scientific thing. And that’s really one of the tensions in the film, right, between Strauss and Oppenheimer as well.

00:31:20:11 – 00:31:46:01
Alice Lovejoy
But the, you know, all of the moral and scientific complexity that goes into this is kind of flattened by politics, right? You know, you have Germans saying, this is my weapon. You know, it’s my it’s mine now. And, and, you know, one of the thought things that film does, I think very well is to show us all of the sophistication of Oppenheimer’s thinking and how he was working within a context that had to do with modernist art, and that had to do with reading in multiple languages.

00:31:46:01 – 00:32:04:11
Alice Lovejoy
That had to do with poetry. That was really drawing on, multiple ways of thinking about the world. Whereas the world of politics is much more about power. Right. And Oppenheimer is not part of that world. So, we see that moment. I really think that’s a great scene because it just the weapon goes away and all of a sudden, it’s out of his hands.

00:32:04:11 – 00:32:23:16
Alice Lovejoy
It’s not his anymore. So the successor to the Manhattan Project was the Atomic Energy Commission, which Strauss was the commissioner of between 53 and 58. And the impression that we get from the film is that the AC was more directly politicized in the Manhattan Project, and I think that was true. Right. This is, again, the context of the Cold War.

00:32:23:16 – 00:32:43:22
Alice Lovejoy
The early 50s is the moment when, you know, the Soviets have the bomb. And so there’s the arms race. There is the anti-communist hysteria with McCarthyism in the US. And this really, changed, the context, right, for the kind of work that the Manhattan Project had been doing, which wasn’t about the Soviet Union, really at the time.

00:32:43:24 – 00:33:05:26
Alice Lovejoy
And so at the end of the film, we see this kind of abrupt ending, but it isn’t quite it wasn’t quite that abrupt. The Manhattan Project continue to work, continue to exist for a while. The AEC was founded on August 1st, 1946 with the Atomic Energy Act, and by 1947, the Manhattan Project’s work had been fully absorbed by the AEC.

00:33:05:29 – 00:33:30:29
Alice Lovejoy
But the Manhattan Project, was involved, for instance, with the atomic test Bikini Atoll in 1946, the operations crossroads tests, and eventually all of the infrastructure that the Manhattan Project had built. So at Oak Ridge, at Hanford, at Los Alamos was transferred to the AEC. And those installations still exist. And they’re a really important legacy of World War Two’s big science.

00:33:31:01 – 00:33:52:11
Dan LeFebvre
So it’s not like the the Manhattan Project name went away, mostly. But the technology or obviously the technology still exists. But, you know, a lot of even the facilities and things like that were just essentially transferred to, oh, now we had this new technology. Would it make sense? They wouldn’t have an EEC. There’s no Atomic Energy Commission prior to atomic energy not even being a thing.

00:33:52:11 – 00:33:56:10
Dan LeFebvre
So having that set up, I guess that makes sense. It just transitioned into that.

00:33:56:16 – 00:34:19:16
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. So it’s really a governmental I mean, it’s it’s a it’s a movement from a wartime exigency. And an agency that is built really swiftly during the war by the Army Corps of Engineers, among others. And that’s coordinating things through this question of how do we institutionalize this now that we know we have this technology that’s both for weapons and for energy, and that’s the other part of the story that, you know, is crucial to how the AEC evolves.

00:34:19:18 – 00:34:48:06
Dan LeFebvre
Obviously, my audience is made up of a bunch of film lovers, and as I’m sure film lovers are aware, Christopher Nolan used Kodak’s 65 millimeter large format film to shoot Oppenheimer, and it was released and various other Kodak film formats for Imax in theaters around the world. So from a historical perspective, though, I found that kind of ironic that they used Kodak film to tell the story of how America entered the atomic age using technology from a company that was so closely tied to it all, Kodak.

00:34:48:13 – 00:34:58:24
Dan LeFebvre
And that’s something that you talk about in your book. Is it true that the actual Kodak film company was involved in the chemical production of weapons grade uranium back in the 1940s?

00:34:58:26 – 00:35:18:08
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, yeah. And this is really at the heart of, of my my new book, Tales of Mines and Chemistry, which talks about how Kodak and specifically the Tennessee Eastman Company, which was its main chemical subsidiary. So how those two companies really one company, but two branches of one company came to run the Whitehall plant at Oak Ridge.

00:35:18:10 – 00:35:35:19
Alice Lovejoy
So again, Y-12 is a huge part of Oak Ridge. It has many, many buildings. It’s running the electromagnetic separation process. So why this Kodak, which is a company that we know for its film and for its cameras, is really the key figure in the history of photography, maybe globally. How does this come to play such a crucial role?

00:35:35:19 – 00:36:00:09
Alice Lovejoy
And the Manhattan Project and what’s interesting is that the answer to this stretches back to, the history of safety film. So the less flammable cellulose acetate film that has been basically universally used since the early 1950s and as a successor to cellulose nitrate film, which is, basically the same thing as nitrocellulose and was used in the first part of the 20th century, to make film based.

00:36:00:09 – 00:36:24:26
Alice Lovejoy
So the plastic that goes under film emulsion and what I point to in the book is that, so again, as you say, Oppenheimer, which is a story about one of the men behind the Manhattan Project, was shot on 65 millimeter, which is the Kodak format, on cellulose acetate that’s used, do one up to 70 millimeter production prints and 65 millimeter is the film that requires the largest amount of cellulose acetate.

00:36:24:26 – 00:36:48:07
Alice Lovejoy
And that’s the material that brought Kodak to the bomb. So there’s an industrial connection here that goes very quickly through weapons. Because safety film is made using cellulose acetate, safety film is made using the chemicals acetic acid and acetic and hydride. Those chemicals brought Tennessee Eastman from safety film to making the anti-submarine explosive RDX during World War two.

00:36:48:09 – 00:37:08:28
Alice Lovejoy
And this was happening at the Holston Ordnance Works in Tennessee, the world’s largest ammunition plant at the time, again operated by the world’s largest film manufacturer. And this is a project that was run by Leslie R Groves and the Army Corps of Engineers. And so Groves sees how well Tennessee Eastman is able to sort of build and operate the Holston Ordnance Works at the same time.

00:37:08:28 – 00:37:20:18
Alice Lovejoy
And he says, okay, this is a company that’s going to do a good job, running Y-12. They know how to put these projects together. They know how to operate factories. So let’s ask them to do it.

00:37:20:21 – 00:37:43:15
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. Yeah. So it wasn’t completely random at all. It was they were already doing something beforehand. And then. Yeah, Groves comes in and asks him, wow, it’s fascinating. Well, after everything we’ve learned today, it seems obvious that Oppenheimer is just giving us a small peek at the true story surrounding the Manhattan Project. So let’s say you’re put in charge of making a movie all about the Manhattan Project.

00:37:43:15 – 00:37:49:12
Dan LeFebvre
It’s not called just Oppenheimer. What’s one approach that you would take to telling the story on screen?

00:37:49:15 – 00:38:08:29
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, and it’s a great question because I would take a different approach in the great man approach, which I think Oppenheimer does really well. I think it goes into this all these questions, as I’ve said with Einstein, with Strauss as the foil, etc. it’s a really good adaptation of the biography, but I think the smaller stories are stories of smaller or less famous people are equally important.

00:38:09:01 – 00:38:37:03
Alice Lovejoy
Because these are stories that were crucial to shaping the Manhattan Project and making it what it was. So one of the characters that I follow in my book is a man, named Alfred Dean, who is, known as the Kodak Spy. So slack was an employee of Kodak who, started in the Rochester, New York factory, moved down to the Tennessee Eastman factories in Kingsport, Tennessee, eventually moved to the Holston Ordnance Works, and then works at Y-12.

00:38:37:06 – 00:39:03:09
Alice Lovejoy
And from his time in Rochester onward, he was spying for the Soviet Union. While he was at Kodak, whether that was giving the Soviets color film technology formulas or whether it was, in the case of Holston Ordnance Works actually giving them samples of RDX, this explosive. So slack was not a spy, though, in a way, we might want to show a spy, if you’re like a the genre of the spy film, right?

00:39:03:09 – 00:39:20:07
Alice Lovejoy
He wasn’t in it for the politics. He was in it for the money. He really didn’t want to be doing it. He was kind of like stuck in this relationship. He wasn’t a very good spy. He kind of like, talk too much. And there are these, you know, things said about him at the plant where he would, you know, he would chat about the atomic bomb even though you were supposed to be doing that.

00:39:20:10 – 00:39:50:01
Alice Lovejoy
And I think that story is interesting because he paid for this. I mean, he went to prison in 1915, again at the height of the Red scare. And his story doesn’t really neatly fit into Cold War narratives because, again, his betrayal was pretty mild compared with people like class folks who we do see in Oppenheimer, who was a Soviet spy who was there, or David Greenglass, who was also at Los Alamos, and who worked for the same Soviet handler as Alfred Dean slack.

00:39:50:03 – 00:40:08:01
Alice Lovejoy
And he’s also slack is also interesting because he’s one of those many, many thousands of people who are working on the industrial processes of the Manhattan Project who don’t have these kinds of big names, but were equally important. And there’s been some wonderful work done to by historians on the women who worked on the Manhattan Project, whose roles were were absolutely crucial.

00:40:08:07 – 00:40:16:26
Alice Lovejoy
But I think the smaller story is the stories of people like slack are, interesting. And they tell us they tell us a lot about the nuances of that period.

00:40:16:28 – 00:40:37:07
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. That’s fascinating. I guess. You know, there’s always there’s always people that, don’t love their jobs. But you can I think of, you know, as spies. You don’t think of a spy as somebody that. Why would you be a spy if you don’t want to? If you don’t love what you’re doing? It’s such a high risk. But I guess the reward, if the reward is there and it’s monetary and that’s what you want, then.

00:40:37:09 – 00:40:52:28
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. And I think he was persuaded. Right. I think there was there was persuasion. And that happened by convincing handlers and so yeah, it’s it is one of those odd stories. And he really gets stuck in jail for quite a while. His life is and is ruined by this. And, you know, to be fair, he did spy right?

00:40:53:02 – 00:41:02:24
Alice Lovejoy
He he did it. But it is, in the context of early 50s, where everything is so heightened as we see in Oppenheimer, it can have these consequences that might not have occurred at a different moment.

00:41:02:26 – 00:41:24:21
Dan LeFebvre
That would be a fascinating movie. Speaking of other movies, is it all right if I shift the conversation away from the Oppenheimer movie for a moment? Yeah. I’d like to get your take on current events that I’m sure will be a movie in the future. As a history podcast, it talks about movies and TV shows. We have covered a lot of political events in history, from the Watergate scandal in all the president men to the more recent Nuremberg movie.

00:41:24:23 – 00:41:41:04
Dan LeFebvre
And even with today’s topic, as we talked about Oppenheimer, his political views impacted not only his own life and career, but also impacted how we view his part in history. And all of that is to say, this is not a political podcast, but I think the current events of today will end up in the movies at some point in the future.

00:41:41:09 – 00:41:57:19
Dan LeFebvre
And when it does, I’m sure the events that took place in Minneapolis will play a big part. So as a film historian who lives in Minneapolis, what do you want the filmmakers of the future to know about the true story right now that they should make sure to include in their movies?

00:41:57:21 – 00:42:20:20
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. Thanks. That’s a great and a really important question because I think, there is a widespread sense, among those of us who live in Minneapolis, in the Twin Cities, and Minnesota, that we are living through history in a way that is, very pronounced right away. That’s not too different from what happened in 2020 after George Floyd was murdered.

00:42:20:22 – 00:42:47:04
Alice Lovejoy
In a lot. It’s playing out in the same area of Minneapolis, in south Minneapolis. So I think what’s interesting about this moment, watching it from the inside, is that there’s so much documentation, there’s so many cameras everywhere showing what’s happening, whether these are, observers, legal observers, with cameras, whether these are, body cameras on federal officers, whether these are drones coming out with their photojournalists.

00:42:47:06 – 00:43:09:28
Alice Lovejoy
And there’s also a lot of national and international media coming here, right, flying in to document what’s happening. And what a lot of what we see in the media is pictures of, physical brutality. We see a lot of pictures of, tear gas, federal forces, use of tear gas and pepper spray, chemical munitions, and all this is happening.

00:43:09:28 – 00:43:33:09
Alice Lovejoy
It’s as accurate, but it also leads to the war zone comparisons that are made by, many media outlets, which are not incorrect. Those are those are correct in many ways, but they’re, the media isn’t able to get, to aspects of what’s happening that I think are fundamental but are less, less, attractive as subjects of documentation of filming.

00:43:33:11 – 00:43:55:25
Alice Lovejoy
One is and I will say, some journalists have done a very good job with this. One is the experiences of people who are in hiding, who cannot go to school or cannot go to work, can’t buy groceries, can’t seek medical care because, they’re afraid of being detained, many simply for the color of their skin. And so this is a less again, it’s a less, it’s a harder thing to document, right?

00:43:55:25 – 00:44:28:22
Alice Lovejoy
When you’re on the streets, when you’re when you’re somewhere that you haven’t been before. Because these are stories of isolation and fear and often deep need. And they’re playing out, you know, in the space of a house or an apartment. They’re one of the central stories of this moment. The second thing is, I think the deep and really extraordinarily, supportive and enthusiastic networks of people who are just there supporting their neighbors and their communities, whether that’s through helping people with rent, helping people with food, and so on.

00:44:28:24 – 00:44:48:17
Alice Lovejoy
There’s a lot of solidarity and, cooperation that’s just about taking care of your neighbors. That’s less dramatic. And it’s also quieter. But I think it’s also an essential story to the moment. So I would hope that future filmmakers, can see that the war like aspects of what’s happening here are one part of the story.

00:44:48:18 – 00:45:10:07
Alice Lovejoy
It’s real. It’s happening. But, I would encourage them to have the courage to make a film that can be quieter and less dramatic. And that would also see all of what’s happening with and longer histories of racial injustice and of community organizing, in Minnesota that are really informing what’s happening here. And we’re not that far off from 2020.

00:45:10:09 – 00:45:30:21
Alice Lovejoy
And I say courage because. Right. More films sell. They sell better. They’re, you know, they’re easy to picture. It’s easy to to, you know, to make these kinds of dramatic images. But it’s harder to make a film that is quieter, right, that is playing out inside a house or an apartment or that’s about neighbors just working together.

00:45:30:23 – 00:45:46:27
Alice Lovejoy
I will say this film could still be made on 70 millimeter. I would love to see a quiet film about, a changed everyday life made on 70 millimeter because you can include so much detail, even everyday detail. But would it be a great man story? It would not be a great man story. And I think that’s the point, right?

00:45:46:27 – 00:45:50:29
Alice Lovejoy
That this is a story that’s holding out, in everyday life in many ways.

00:45:51:01 – 00:46:15:27
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah, it’s it is easier to throw up, you know, action movies and explosions and, and big things that you see in war movies and, get an audience that way, as opposed to not saying the films can’t tell good stories, but it is difficult to tell a good story. And when you can just make big explosions, you know.

00:46:16:01 – 00:46:35:21
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. I think there’s a commercial, right. There’s a, there’s a, you know, how do you make money making movies, too, is one of the questions. And I think, what happens if we make a movie that’s less dramatic but no less, urgent? Right. In terms of what’s actually happening? So I think it’s a great question, and it’s a question about and an accurate portrayal of reality that is many things at once.

00:46:35:21 – 00:46:37:21
Alice Lovejoy
And that’s hard to do in a film.

00:46:37:24 – 00:47:01:05
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. I’m just curious because something that we see in a lot of, historical movies especially, you know, talking about something like Oppenheimer, that’s, during World War II, you know, many decades ago is they use a lot of documentation. And for something, it’s I think it’s easier to do, like in a military film where the military documents everything.

00:47:01:07 – 00:47:21:14
Dan LeFebvre
So would you have a recommendation for what people now can do to help document some of those lesser known stories that aren’t going to get documented by, the military or the, you know, like in Oppenheimer. You know, they have documents of everything that happened there that filmmakers can then go back to, what do you think?

00:47:21:14 – 00:47:26:09
Dan LeFebvre
What would you recommend as being able to document some of those smaller stories for feature filmmakers?

00:47:26:12 – 00:47:48:27
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, and I think part of this is about communities documenting their own work and individuals documenting their own work. We know that diaries have played a huge role. Written diaries have played a huge role in this over time. And Frank’s diary being sort of the most famous example of this. And, I think that the amount of, footage that’s being made every day will be crucial as well.

00:47:48:29 – 00:48:07:18
Alice Lovejoy
I think that, you know, the way we use images has changed a great deal, right? Images are being I as a huge part of this. But also the way images are being slowed down and analyzed forensically and used for identification and all sorts of things, you know, that law enforcement wears them too, like there’s all sorts of different ways that images are being used now.

00:48:07:25 – 00:48:21:24
Alice Lovejoy
And I think that’s part of the truth of the moment to the reality of the moment is that there are so many different ways it’s being, shown and represented. And the more that can be done to preserve them and to sort the I from the rest, I think that’s crucial too.

00:48:21:27 – 00:48:57:04
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat about the movie Oppenheimer. Even though we’ve mostly talked about one movie today, it’s worth remembering that the entire cinema industry exists because of the chemistry and technology that made motion pictures possible. And when we’re watching a movie, a war movie like Oppenheimer, I think most people don’t really think about how the technology that made the movie itself possible intersected with war time weapon development, but that’s a connection that you’ve explored in your book called Tales of Militant Chemistry The Film Factory in a Century of War, and I’ve got a link to that in the show notes for everyone to pick up their own copy.

00:48:57:11 – 00:49:04:16
Dan LeFebvre
And while they do that, can you share something that you came across in your research that would come as a surprise to the average moviegoer?

00:49:04:23 – 00:49:30:22
Alice Lovejoy
Great question. I think beyond the fact that the Manhattan Project was so closely tied to Eastman Kodak and to film manufacturing, I think we can go back a little bit and think about George Eastman again, the founder of Kodak, somebody who was closely involved in, the the way that cinema evolved in the way it developed, that he, you know, he grew cotton, on a kind of gentleman’s farm in North Carolina.

00:49:30:22 – 00:49:54:20
Alice Lovejoy
Now, cotton as as many of your listeners will know, is a crucial ingredient in film. It’s, source of the cellulose that goes into much motion. Picture film. And it’s a it’s a material with a very, dark history, racialist history in the United States that goes back to, to, chattel slavery and, and to, to many, many other, you know, plantations, etc., and the United States.

00:49:54:20 – 00:50:20:12
Alice Lovejoy
And so thinking about those connections that, that existed between the, really the founder of film, somebody who made it into the mass of industrial products that became in the 20th century. And these materials is something that I wasn’t expecting to find. But that underscores for me just how, closely tied this material is to events in the 20th century that go beyond cinema.

00:50:20:12 – 00:50:34:06
Alice Lovejoy
Right? Which is something we see in Oppenheimer, to which we see, you know, the links between nuclear weapons and film is not something that we necessarily think of, but in my view, they are two of the most important technologies of the 20th century atomic weapons and film.

00:50:34:08 – 00:50:37:13
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I’ll make sure to add a link to that in the show notes. Thanks again so much for your time, Alice.

00:50:37:15 – 00:50:38:23
Alice Lovejoy
Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.

The Movie

The movie fades up to the sounds of rain pattering as Cillian Murphy’s version of a young J. Robert Oppenheimer watches. Then, with a cut to a massive explosion, we get some text on the screen that reads:

“Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.”

Then, just as quickly as it cuts to the quote, it cuts back to an older J. Robert Oppenheimer.

The True Story

As you can probably guess, that comes from Greek mythology. It’s not really a direct quote of anything, though, but rather it’s more of a paraphrased synopsis of the Prometheus myth.

The whole story is thousands of lines of text, so I won’t include the whole thing here either, but I’ll add a link to it in the show notes if you want to read it all. The movie’s summary is pretty good, though, considering they’re breaking it all down into just a couple lines.

Prometheus was a Titan who was bound by Zeus’s servants Hephaestus, Power, and Force as punishment for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to the humans. That’s how humans were able to progress to a more civilized society with technology thanks to harnessing fire. When he was bound, Prometheus’s torture was basically being exposed to the scorching sun by the day, freezing at night, and then an eagle would eat his liver. The next day, the liver would regenerate and the cycle repeated itself.

The Movie

Back in the movie, we see Oppenheimer going to Europe to study under Patrick Blackett in Cambridge. He’s played by James D’Arcy in the movie. While Oppenheimer is there, the movie focuses on a rather curious moment when Oppenheimer injects Blackett’s apple with potassium cyanide. Then, the next day, he seems to have a change of heart and when he rushes back to the classroom while Neils Bohr is talking to Blackett, and Oppenheimer knocks the apple down just in time, claiming there was a wormhole in the apple.

The True Story

While the movie doesn’t really focus on Oppenheimer’s time as a student in the United States as it does in Europe, it is correct to mention him going to Europe to study under Patrick Blackett at Cambridge.

To back up for a moment, though, what we don’t see much of in the movie is Oppenheimer’s time at Harvard. He went there in 1922 when he was 18 years old and majored in chemistry. That’s how he got interested in physics, when one of his professors named Percy Bridgman taught a course on thermodynamics that interested Oppenheimer. And so, after graduating summa cum laude in 1925 after only three years, Oppenheimer went to Christ’s College, Cambridge, to study physics.

More specifically, that was at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physics. Oppenheimer was there for about a year from 1925 to 1926.

And that scene with the poisoned apple? That really happened!

The movie implies that Oppenheimer was rather clumsy in the lab, and that’s a bit of truth that frustrated Oppenheimer. On top of that, Professor Blackett was an incredibly demanding teacher. This grew into a resentment for Blackett and by the time the autumn of 1925 rolled around, the then-22-year-old Oppenheimer was struggling badly and feeling incompetent with his lab work.

So, Oppenheimer used chemicals from the lab and injected them into an apple on Blackett’s desk. There’s some debate around exactly what he used and how much—after all, it’s not like this is the kind of thing that gets documented—but we know it happened because he confessed what he’d done to one of his friends. It was most likely cyanide, and probably wasn’t enough to kill him, just to make him sick.

But, that’s irrelevant, because just like we see in the movie, Blackett never ate the apple. Although the movie shows Oppenheimer having a change of mind and rushing back to toss the apple before Blackett can eat it, and that part of the movie seems to be a bit of dramatic license.

The sources I saw merely mentioned that Professor Blackett simply tossed the apple without ever knowing it had been poisoned. There’s nothing I could find that suggested Oppenheimer had a change of mind and rushed back, or that he was even there when the apple was discarded.

The Movie

Going back to the movie, during the apple scene we also see Oppenheimer talking to the visiting lecturer Neils Bohr. In that conversation and due to Oppenheimer’s lack of skills in the lab, Bohr recommends Oppenheimer go to Germany to study theoretical physics under Max Born because there’s no lab work required for that.

The True Story

Since we already learned the poisoned apple story didn’t happen exactly like that in the movie, it’s probably not a surprise to learn this other side of it didn’t happen the same way either.

What is accurate, though, is that the Oppenheimer did meet the Danish physicist Neils Bohr. While the movie doesn’t really mention much about who he was other than to suggest Oppenheimer was looking forward to hearing him speak. He won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922, so when he visited Cambridge just a few years later, I can only imagine how excited Oppenheimer must’ve been to meet one of the most respected minds in his field.

Unlike what we see in the movie, though, it wasn’t Neils Bohr who recommended Oppenheimer go to Germany to study under Max Born.

As you might expect, Max Born was a German physicist and he was also highly respected in the 1920s, and after World War II went on to become one of the people who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics.

So, probably the biggest change is the movie simplified the events.

In the true story, Oppenheimer actually met both Neils Bohr and Max Born while he was at Cambridge. Not necessarily at the same time, though, so it makes sense why the movie simplified it all. But amidst Oppenheimer’s depression from his poor lab work, and I’m sure the whole apple debacle didn’t help, but Oppenheimer decided to leave Cambridge to go to the University of GURT-in-en (Göttingen) in Germany so he could study theoretical physics under Max Born.

GURT-ing-en

Unlike his time in Cambridge, Oppenheimer flourished in his theoretical studies. Just six months after moving to Germany, Oppenheimer graduated with his PhD and co-authored the Born-Oppenheimer approximation with Max Born. He was making a name for himself.

The Movie

After studying in Germany, the movie talks about Oppenheimer returning to the United States where he sets up the theoretical physics department at the University of California, Berkley. Then after all of this setup of Oppenheimer’s education and early career are taking place while we see black and white sequences with Robert Downey Jr.’s version of Lewis Strauss hiring Oppenheimer to work at what the movie only calls “the Institute.”

The True Story

This is where we really start to see the movie bouncing around in the timeline, because Oppenheimer wasn’t appointed as the director of the Institute for Advanced Study until 1947. That’s clearly after World War II and the Manhattan Project. Since we’re following the movie’s timeline of events, we’ll be bouncing around a bit as well, but here is a quick overview of Oppenheimer’s timeline in the true story.

After graduating with his doctorate from the University of Göttingen in Germany in March of 1927, Oppenheimer stayed in Europe for post-doc studies where he spent time in Leiden and Zurich studying under the great minds of the day.

In the fall of 1929, he returned to the U.S. and accepted a position as an associate professor at UC Berkley. He stayed there, but in the spring of 1930, he also started teaching at Caltech. For the next twelve years he went back and forth, splitting time teaching as a full professor at UC Berkley while also being a full professor at Caltech, although he had a special agreement with UC Berkley to release him for six weeks out of the year to teach at Caltech for a term.

This is the time that he built UC Berkley’s theoretical physics program into something of renown that we hear Robert Downey Jr.’s version of Lewis Strauss mention in the movie. But that was in 1947 when Oppenheimer joined the Institute, as we talked about before.

So, from 1930 until 1942, he was splitting time at UC Berkley and Caltech. In 1942, he was given leave to work on the Manhattan Project, and then he returned to Caltech in 1946. He resigned both Caltech and UC Berkley in 1947 to take the job of director at the Institute for Advanced Study.

The Movie

Speaking of the Institute for Advanced Study, in the movie that’s where we see another famous scientist: Albert Einstein. If we’re to believe the movie’s version of history, Oppenheimer seems to think Einstein is a has-been. For example, there’s a line of dialogue early in the movie when Strauss tells Oppenheimer that Einstein is the “greatest scientific mind of our time.” Oppenheimer replies by saying, “Of his time.”

The True Story

While I couldn’t find anything in my research to indicate this exact line of dialogue about Einstein being the greatest scientific mind of “his” time, but the movie is correctly capturing the essence of the relationship between Einstein and Oppenheimer. Before he worked at the Institute, Oppenheimer visited Princeton in 1935. After that, he wrote a letter to his brother where he said, “Princeton is a madhouse: its solipsistic luminaries shining in separate & helpless desolation. Einstein is completely cuckoo.”

About ten years later, Einstein said of the theory Oppenheimer was primarily focusing on, “The quantum theory is without a doubt a useful theory, but it does not reach to the bottom of things. I never believed that it constitutes the true conception of nature.”

Despite these differences, they still had a mutual respect and were cordial with each other. After Einstein passed away in 1955, Oppenheimer wrote publicly that, “…physicists lost their greatest colleague…”

The Movie

Heading back to the movie’s timeline, there’s a line of dialogue from Lewis Strauss as he’s showing Oppenheimer around the Institute when he says the position comes with a house for his family: His wife and two children.

And that introduces us to the next major plot point, because the movie doesn’t focus on Robert Oppenheimer’s personal life a lot, but we do see two relationships that he has…and according to the movie they overlap. First, he has a girlfriend named Jean Tatlock, but then he gets a married woman named Kitty Harrison pregnant. Since Kitty is pregnant, Robert leaves Jean while Kitty leaves her husband to marry Robert. But then, later in the movie, we see Robert having an affair with Jean again.

The True Story

This back-and-forth sort of relationship that we see in the movie does a pretty good job capturing what J. Robert Oppenheimer’s personal life was really like. The key thing the movie does, though, is to mess with the timeline because once again it’s jumping around.

Remember, Oppenheimer’s job at the Institute was in 1947. So, his wife at that time was the woman we see in the movie: Kitty Harrison. She’s played by Emily Blunt.

Kitty’s surname in the movie is actually from one of her husbands before Oppenheimer. Her maiden name was Vissering. She married Frank Ramseyer in 1932, then had that annulled in 1933. The next year, she married Joe Dallet. That lasted until he died in 1937, and then in 1938 she married Richard Harrison. They were divorced in 1940 when she married J. Robert Oppenheimer.

The two children Robert and Kitty had together, Peter and Toni, were the only kids either of them had.

The Movie

In the movie, we see Robert having an girlfriend in Jean Tatlock. But he sleeps with Kitty Harrison, who was a married woman as we just learned, and gets her pregnant. So, Kitty divorces her husband, Robert breaks things off with Jean, and then Robert and Kitty get married.

The True Story

Once again, the movie gets the essence of the story correct, but the timeline was sped up and changed from history.

So, here’s a quick rundown to unravel the historical timeline.

Robert Oppenheimer met Jean Tatlock in the Spring of 1936 when he was teaching at UC Berkley. She was a student there, and it didn’t take long for a romance to blossom. And if you’re wondering, since he was a teacher and she was a student, he was 32 and she was 22. Their relationship developed quickly and Jean had a big influence on shaping Robert’s left-leaning political views. Robert proposed to Jean twice, both of which she rejected, and then in the Spring of 1939, she broke it off with him.

A few months later, in August of 1939, Robert met Kitty Harrison at a party hosted by another physicist. At that time, she was 29 and he was 35. Almost immediately, an affair started. They didn’t hide it, either, as there were reports of Robert and Kitty driving around together in the open.

In the summer of 1940, there was a notable event when Robert Oppenheimer invited Richard and Kitty Harrison to his ranch in New Mexico. Richard Harrison declined the invitation saying he was too busy with work, but Kitty accepted. So, another physicist named Robert Serber along with his wife Charlotte, picked up Kitty in Pasadena and drove her to Oppenheimer’s ranch in New Mexico where they found Robert’s brother, Frank, and Frank’s wife Jackie there.

So, again, the affair wasn’t really a secret. Oh, and at that time, Kitty was pregnant with Robert’s child…who would be Peter, their firstborn.

Well, you can probably see where this is going.

On November 1^st, 1940, Kitty divorced her husband. The very next day, on November 2^nd, 1940, she married Robert Oppenheimer.

But…things weren’t all sunshine and rainbows, because only a couple months after marrying Kitty, who should show back up in Robert’s life? Jean. She reconnected with him and the historical record shows that Robert’s first New Years celebration as a married man, he spent it not with his wife Kitty, but Jean Tatlock.

For the next few years, Robert and Jean maintained contact a couple times a year. While we don’t know the specifics of what happened each time, it’s probably safe to say they were romantic connections.

Despite this, from what we can tell, Kitty knew about Robert’s affair with Jean, and she seemed to tolerate it. Although, to be fair, some have debated just how much she knew. Maybe she only knew them to be friends at first. We don’t really know for sure where that line was crossed, but we know from the FBI tapping their lines in 1943 that Oppenheimer himself said he told Kitty about the affair with Jean, so we can assume she at least knew by then.

The Movie

Speaking of Jean, I’ll throw out a quick content warning here, because something else we see in the movie is a suicide. It happens when Oppenheimer tells Jean that he can’t do the affair anymore, she gets depressed and takes her own life. Robert is shaken by this, but Kitty tells him that he doesn’t get to commit the sin and then make other people feel sorry for him.

The True Story

Unfortunately, that’s true. That was in January of 1944 when Jean was discovered in her bathtub in San Francisco. There was an unsigned note that suggested suicide, and officially it was ruled to be the result of ingesting sedatives and alcohol.

The movie makes it seem like she did it because Robert broke off their affair, but there’s been a lot of controversies surrounding her death.

For example, the note was unsigned. An autopsy suggested she’d eaten a full meal before she died, which the doctor at the time found curious since it’d slow down the effect of the drugs she’d ingested. Her body was discovered by her father, John Tatlock, who moved it from the bathtub to the sofa and then burned a bunch of her letters in the fireplace before calling the funeral parlor—it was the parlor that contacted the police some four hours after she’d died.

Curious things, perhaps, and to be fair as with many debated events in history, not all of those are documented as well as others. But, if there was a conspiracy around her death, that begs the question: Why?

Well, to go down that road, we’d have to remember the timeline. January of 1944. At this point, Robert Oppenheimer was working at the top-secret Manhattan Project. Jean Tatlock was a known member of the Communist Party. If you recall, a moment ago I mentioned the FBI tapped Oppenheimer’s line in 1943 and those revealed that he talked to Kitty about the affair with Jean. The whole reason the FBI was tapping his lines to begin with was because of his association with the Communist Party. They started that in March of 1941, even before he was recruited into the Manhattan Project. Of course, it didn’t stop once he was heading up the top-secret project, so that’s why some think perhaps there was a government coverup to kill Jean Tatlock to keep atomic secrets from getting into the hands of the Soviets.

Then again, Oppenheimer himself believed Jean committed suicide. She was clinically depressed, and she worked as a psychiatrist, so she had access to sedatives pretty easily.

What do you think? If you have any other details or research you’ve done, let me know!

The Movie

For now, if we head back into the movie for the next major plot point, it’s Oppenheimer being recruited into the Manhattan Project by Matt Damon’s version of General Leslie Groves.

But the way we see this happening in the movie, Groves tells Oppenheimer that his name didn’t even come up in the search for a project director even though it was Oppenheimer who brought quantum physics to America. So, the impression I got from the movie was basically if it wasn’t for Groves then Oppenheimer wouldn’t be involved in the Manhattan Project at all.

The True Story

In the true story, that’s not really how it happened. To know what really happened, let’s go back to around the time of Oppenheimer marrying Kitty in late 1940, and then Peter being born in May of 1941. While that was going on in his personal life, in his professional life, Oppenheimer was collaborating on a radiation lab with Ernest Lawrence, who won the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics. That lab was where Lawrence had invented the cyclotron, a particle accelerator he’d patented back in 1932.

After the United States entered World War II, Lawrence recruited Oppenheimer to work on fission and fast neutron experiments at the UC Berkley lab. As you recall, he’d built the theoretical physics program there, so from July to September of 1942, Oppenheimer assembled a group of theoretical physicists to come up with the principles of a bomb design. Seeing as Oppenheimer was the one who built the theoretical physics program at UC Berkley anyway, over those few short months he became a leader of that group.

So, all of that is to say:

That is why U.S. Army General Leslie R. Groves recruited Oppenheimer on October 15^th, 1942 to head up something called Project Y. About a month later, the two men visited Los Alamos, New Mexico for what they called Site Y.

The Movie

And that leads us into something else about the movie, because for a movie called Oppenheimer, it makes sense to focus on him as the main character. We do see a few others, like Isidor Rabi and at one point Robert brings his brother Frank in on the project, but the movie also mentions having to build a town with churches and schools and such, so it’s obviously not showing us the full scale.

The True Story

Now would be a good time to clarify the term “Manhattan Project” and why I’m referring to something in Los Alamos, New Mexico. This project was a lot bigger scale than what we see in the movie.

So, General Groves was from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and in August of 1942, they created something they called the Manhattan Engineer District, or MED. On the surface, it was routine construction in New York City. The true purpose was to cover up the work required for the atomic bomb project.

Over time, that name morphed from the Manhattan Engineer District to the Manhattan Project even though the project itself had sites around the country. As we just learned, Los Alamos, New Mexico was considered “Site Y,” while Oak Ridge, Tennessee was “Site X” and Hanover, Washington was “Site W.”

The Los Alamos location was where the primary work for the bomb design. That’s where Oppenheimer was at, along with about 6,000 workers. The other sites, Oak Ridge and Hanover, were more for providing the materials needed and they were much larger in scale than Los Alamos. There were about 50,000 people working in Hanover that focused primarily on producing plutonium, while Oak Ridge had another 75,000 people focusing on enriching uranium.

So, all in all, the Manhattan Project was a lot larger than what we see in the movie. But again, it’s called “Oppenheimer” and not “Manhattan Project.”

Actually, if you want to learn more about this, I’ve got another companion episode to this one with historian Alice Lovejoy that focuses more on the movie’s portrayal of the Manhattan Project. You can find that over at basedonatruestorypodcast.com/oppenheimer.

The Movie

Back to the movie now, and something that’s very easy to do when we’re watching a historical movie is to look at it from today’s perspective with the knowledge we have today. With that in mind, I thought Oppenheimer did a good job doing was helping us get a sense for what it was like before the nuclear age, because we see Oppenheimer having a major concern that an atomic bomb might start a chain reaction that would just keep going and going until the entire atmosphere has been destroyed and, by extension, everyone and everything on the planet would die.

The True Story

While the movie dramatizes the specifics of it, it’s very true that Oppenheimer and other scientists working on the Manhattan Project considered the possibility that detonating a nuclear device might start an unstoppable chain reaction that’d basically ignite the Earth’s atmosphere and end the world.

Although, as scary as that sounds, it’s often described as more of a “nonzero” risk. So, technically it’s not zero percent chance, but a miniscule chance that from a practical perspective is basically zero.

Except, we’re talking about the end of the world here, so you can understand why even a “nonzero” risk is still worth making sure it doesn’t happen.

The fear was mostly from the physicist Edward Teller, who was worried that a fission bomb would ignite the nitrogen in the atmosphere, or perhaps the hydrogen in the ocean, and just keep using that as fuel to burn. That was as early as 1942.

So, they did the math.

It wasn’t until 1946 that two other physicists at Los Alamos named Hans Bethe and Emil Konopinski formally published a paper that proved the reaction couldn’t continue on forever due to dropping air density and temperature thresholds. That was after the Trinity Test in 1945, but they’d obviously been working on it before then and from what we can tell, they had the math figured out by the time of the test, just hadn’t published the formal paper before it.

The Movie

Speaking of the Trinity Test, let’s head back to the movie because we’re at the point of the test itself. According to the movie, there’s an immense pressure to just use the atomic bomb to end World War II. The military has a list of 11 Japanese cities, and they want to drop two bombs on two of those cities. With a tight deadline, they need to detonate an atomic bomb to make sure it works and gather data like what’s a safe operating distance.

That’s how we get the test. In the movie, Groves asks Oppenheimer what they should call the test, and Oppenheimer says, “Batter my heart, three-person’d god.” Groves replies, “What?” to which Oppenheimer replies, “Trinity.”

It’s the first time an atomic bomb has been detonated and according to the movie, the test appears to be a massive success. As he’s watching this is when we see Oppenheimer use the now-famous quote, “I am become death. The destroyer of worlds.”

The True Story

In the true story, there wasn’t really a list of 11 Japanese cities like we see in the movie. There was actually about 16 cities that were considered by what the U.S. called the “Target Committee,” which was made up of 12 people at its height. Oppenheimer was the chair of the committee, along with members of the military and other scientists in the Manhattan Project.

By the spring of 1945, the 16 Japanese cities were narrowed down to five cities: Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, Kokura, and Niigata. They were chosen for size, military value, surrounding terrain to help amplify the bomb’s effects, as well as minimal previous bombing so they could see what effect the atomic bomb would have compared to other bombings.

Then came Monday, July 16^th, 1945. The day of the Trinity Test.

The name itself is something the movie alludes to when we see Oppenheimer say, “Batter my heart, three person’d God.” That’s a line from the 17^th-century poem from John Donne called Holy Sonnet XIV, which refers to the Christian Trinity. Much later when Groves asked him about the name, Oppenheimer said he wasn’t entirely sure why he picked it other than to think that “Trinity” might fit in with common Western-style names like “Three Rivers,” “Three Peaks,” and so on.

So, he must’ve thought the name “Trinity” wouldn’t attract much attention. Until it exploded, of course.

And the way see the Trinity Test itself happening in the movie is a pretty good re-enactment of what really happened that weekend. There were about 425 people at the Trinity Test site, which was roughly 210 miles south of Los Alamos, New Mexico. That broke down into about 250 scientists and engineers running the test, another 150 or so military as security, and between 20 to 30 VIPs. That included General Leslie Groves, who joined Oppenheimer at the primary command bunker that they called S-10,000 because it was 10,000 yards south of ground zero. That’s about 5.7 miles.

There were also scientists at N-10,000, and W-10,000, but there were mountains to the east so there wasn’t an E-10,000 post.

As for the goggles we see in the movie, those were real as well. The standard gear was dark lenses that filtered UV, and people were ordered to lie face-down, backs turned and put your arms over your eyes. Of course, not everyone did that. Most famously, Richard Feynman chose not to wear goggles and instead watched through the windshield of a truck.

At exactly 5:29 a.m. Mountain Time, the “Gadget” as they called it, detonated on a 100-foot tower. To say the blast exceeded all expectations was an understatement.

Radiation was higher than expected and people at the posts some 5.7 miles away were knocked over by the blast’s shockwave, although there weren’t any major injuries.

That brings us to the line, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

That’s a line from the Bhagavad Gita, a 700-verse Hindu scripture that Oppenheimer paraphrased into that now-famous quote. Chapter 11, Verse 32 says, “I am Time, the destroyer of worlds, grown great, come to consume the worlds.”

Oppenheimer never uttered those words aloud, but in a 1965 documentary for NBC, Oppenheimer recalled that seeing how successful the Trinity Test was, he recounted that he remembered the Bhagavad Gita verse.

The Movie

Heading back to the movie’s version of events, the very next scene after the successful Trinity Test is some military guys saying, “With respect, Dr. Oppenheimer, we’ll take it from here.” And with that, they pack up a bomb and drive away. It happens so quickly in the movie, it’s almost as if that seems to be that they had a successful test, so that’s immediately the end of the Manhattan Project overall.

The True Story

That’s not really what happened. At least not nearly as fast as the movie makes it seem. So, once again, let’s unravel the true story’s timeline.

The Trinity Test was July 16^th, 1945.

About three weeks later, on August 6^th, the uranium gun-type bomb called “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima, resulting in between 70,000 and 80,000 deaths instantly. The movie shows Oppenheimer finding out about the bombs through the radio, but he still worked at Los Alamos, where he found out that evening along with everyone else. Cheers erupted among the teams at Los Alamos on hearing the news, and Oppenheimer joined in the champagne toasts. Although, despite the celebrations, he also had moral qualms with the news.

Three days later, more news. The plutonium bomb “Fat Man” was dropped Nagasaki, with between 35,000 to 40,000 deaths instantly. Back in Los Alamos, there weren’t the same kind of celebrations. Oppenheimer was reported to say, “No, this is too much.”

On August 14^th, 1945, Japan announced their intent to surrender. That’s U.S. time, in Japan it was August 15^th. This effectively ended World War II, although the official surrender document wasn’t signed until September 2^nd.

Then, on October 16^th, exactly three months after the Trinity Test, Oppenheimer resigned from his position in Los Alamos. The Manhattan Project continued on without him, though, until it was disbanded on August 15^th, 1947. As for Oppenheimer, he returned to Caltech where he resumed teaching, but quickly realized his heart wasn’t in it anymore.

The Movie

That leads us right up to Oppenheimer’s meeting with President Truman that we see in the movie. You know, the one where Oppenheimer says, “I feel that I have blood on my hands.” Truman replies with, “You think anyone in Hiroshima or Nagasaki gives a shit about who built the bomb? They care who dropped it. I did.”

Then, as Oppenheimer is shown out of the Oval Office, we can hear Truman in the background saying, “Don’t let that crybaby back in here.”

The True Story

That was a real meeting that took place on October 25^th, 1945, not long after Oppenheimer resigned from Los Alamos. And the movie is correct to show that Oppenheimer told President Truman that he feels like he has blood on his hands. Truman’s reply was a little different than the movie, albeit with the same effect. Ray Month’s book called Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center quotes Truman as saying, “Blood on his hands; damn it, he hasn’t half as much blood on his hands as I have. You just don’t go around bellyaching about it.”

Then, he called Oppenheimer a crybaby and said, “I don’t want to see that son of a bitch in this office ever again.”

Except, unlike what we see in the movie, all of that supposedly happened after Oppenheimer had already left so it’s not like it was something he heard as he was leaving like the movie shows.

The Movie

After leaving the Manhattan Project, the movie circles back to something it shows throughout with Lewis Strauss answering to Congress about hiring Oppenheimer for the Institute.

While I was watching that play out in the movie, it gave me the impression that despite Oppenheimer’s contributions to the war effort, his reputation was almost immediately tarnished after the war because of what the movie calls “left-wing associations” and being tied to communism. The movie also seems to imply that Strauss was orchestrating it all, which is quite a turn for the guy who hired Oppenheimer at the Institute.

The True Story

For the most part, the way the movie shows this happening is pretty accurate. It’s dramatized, naturally, but the core elements are there.

What the movie skips are a few years between that meeting with President Truman at the end of 1945 and Oppenheimer’s 1946, when he consulted in Washington on atomic policy and was appointed to the Atomic Energy Commission, or AEC. That leads us up to 1947, which actually takes us back to the beginning of the movie when we learned that Lewis Strauss recruited Oppenheimer to be the director of the Institute for Advanced Study.

What started out as a good relationship turned sour mainly due to Oppenheimer’s Communist ties, such as his wife Kitty and his brother, Frank, who was a confirmed member of the Communist Party USA from 1937 until around 1940.

After World War II, Oppenheimer was famous, but as the Cold War sparked what we now know as the Red Scare, people started to grow suspicious of him. Rumors spread, and anyone with top secret clearance like Oppenheimer had for the Manhattan Project was called into question.

As for Lewis Strauss, that relationship started to sour a couple years after he recruited Oppenheimer. In fact, now that the Manhattan Project is a National Park, here’s a quote from the National Park Services’ website to explain the exact moment Strauss stopped liking Oppenheimer:

Robert Oppenheimer, testifying before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy including Lewis Strauss in 1949 on the military usefulness of Iron 59 said in part, “You can use a shovel for atomic energy. In fact you do. You can use a bottle of beer for atomic energy. In fact you do.” These and other comments by Oppenheimer, who was known for making biting remarks, caused people to laugh. Strauss looked foolish and was furious. “There was a look of hatred there [on Strauss’ face] you don’t see very often…” said one observer.

It wasn’t just that one comment, though, as you’ll notice that article talks about “other comments.” The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s website has another article that discusses another comment from Oppenheimer in that same hearing:

Strauss believed that radioactive isotopes had military value and argued against exporting them. However, with little patience for those he considered intellectually inferior, Oppenheimer publicly humiliated Strauss by saying, “My own rating of the importance of isotopes . . . is that they are far less important than electronic devices, but far more important than, let us say, vitamins.”

In response, Strauss didn’t hide his look of hatred. Oppenheimer had publicly revealed that Strauss knew little about physics, particularly nuclear science.

After that hearing, Lewis Strauss held a grudge against Oppenheimer. So, as Oppenheimer’s public image started to deteriorate into the Cold War era of the early 1950s, Strauss certainly didn’t want to do Oppenheimer any favors. Quite the opposite, actually, because Strauss asked the FBI to track Oppenheimer in 1953. They did, and delivered a report to Strauss on November 20^th, 1953, which Strauss sent directly to President Eisenhower. Upon reviewing the report, Eisenhower decided to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance. That happened on December 21^st, 1953, and Oppenheimer was given the choice to resign or appeal. He appealed the decision, which was heard by a three-man panel. They voted two-to-one not to reinstate the security clearance.

And with that, Oppenheimer’s government career was effectively over. But even though the movie doesn’t talk much about the rest of Oppenheimer’s life, let’s fill out the rest of the true story.

Despite his government career effectively coming to an end when his security clearance was revoked, Oppenheimer was still the director at the Institute for Advanced Study, but in 1954 he started taking vacations with his wife and daughter to the small island of Saint John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. They enjoyed sailing together, and they must’ve loved it there because in 1957, Oppenheimer bought some land and built a vacation home there.

He continued working for the Institute for Advanced Study and in March of 1963 he was awarded the Enrico Fermi Award. That’s kind of a lifetime achievement award for scientists with the medal physically given by the President of the United States. Oppenheimer winning that award was a big deal considering how he’d been shunned by the scientific community.

Unfortunately, though, JFK was assassinated before he was able to give the award to Oppenheimer, so President Lyndon B. Johnson formally gave him the award in December of 1963. Jackie Kennedy attended the ceremony and told Oppenheimer how much her husband wanted him to have the medal.

Oppenheimer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1965. He tried radiation treatment, but it was unsuccessful, so he resigned from the Institute for Advanced Study in 1966 due to his health. Then, on February 18^th, 1967, J. Robert Oppenheimer passed away in his sleep at home in Princeton at the age of 67.

I thought I’d end our story today with more recent news from just before the movie’s release in 2023. Because in 2022, the U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm issued this press release:

Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer occupies a central role in our history for leading the nation’s atomic efforts during World War II and planting the seeds for the Department of Energy’s national laboratories—the crown jewels of the American research and innovation ecosystem.

In 1954, the Atomic Energy Commission revoked Dr. Oppenheimer’s security clearance through a flawed process that violated the Commission’s own regulations. As time has passed, more evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed. The Atomic Energy Commission even selected Dr. Oppenheimer in 1963 for its prestigious Enrico Fermi Award citing his “scientific and administrative leadership not only in the development of the atomic bomb, but also in establishing the groundwork for the many peaceful applications of atomic energy.”

The Department of Energy has previously recognized J. Robert Oppenheimer in other ways including the creation of the Oppenheimer Science and Energy Leadership Program in 2017 to support early and mid-career scientists and engineers to “carry on [Dr. Oppenheimer’s] legacy of science serving society.”

As a successor agency to the Atomic Energy Commission, the Department of Energy has been entrusted with the responsibility to correct the historical record and honor Dr. Oppenheimer’s profound contributions to our national defense and the scientific enterprise at large. Today, I am pleased to announce the Department of Energy has vacated the Atomic Energy Commission’s 1954 decision In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

00:03:39:07 – 00:03:49:20
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you for coming on to talk about Titanic, Mark. And before we get started as a screenwriter, can you share how you got interested in the Titanic?

00:03:49:23 – 00:04:15:29
Mark B. Perry
Yes. I am a self-professed ship geek. I am, it’s one of my most passionate hobbies. I’m not an expert, but I know, a little bit about a lot of things as a result of, a lot of research that I’ve done over the years. I love 20th century ocean liners. I love ocean travel. I love the Normandie, the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth, the New Amsterdam of 1938.

00:04:16:01 – 00:04:41:08
Mark B. Perry
To the QM, to the contemporary ocean liner. I’m a big collector of memorabilia, furniture, artwork, China, silverware, that sort of thing. And I’m also on. I’m a founding board member of the SS United States Conservancy, which is a nonprofit that is working to preserve the legacy of my favorite ship, which is the 1950s era ocean liner, the SS United States.

00:04:41:11 – 00:05:04:24
Mark B. Perry
So as I say, I am a ship geek as a hobby, but I am a screenwriter, professional Lee. And to that end, in 1988, I got, before I got my first professional break on the Wonder Years in 1989, I wrote a screenplay with a writing partner, a wonderful writer named Dudley Sanders, and we wrote it.

00:05:04:24 – 00:05:25:29
Mark B. Perry
We sent it to the agent that was representing me at the time. She called on a Sunday and left a message on my answering machine. This was 1988, and she said she had just finished reading it. She was so excited that Monday morning they were going to send this script. Every studio and every producer in town, there was going to be a bidding war.

00:05:26:02 – 00:05:47:28
Mark B. Perry
This was going to be a huge success. Congratulations, kiddo. Monday came. They did. They sent the script everywhere. All over town. Everybody passed and everybody said the same thing. A version of the same thing. This is a great script, but it would be the most expensive movie ever made. And nobody cares about the Titanic.

00:05:48:00 – 00:05:50:00
Dan LeFebvre
Oh.

00:05:50:03 – 00:06:12:25
Mark B. Perry
So. Yeah. True story, true story. So that came about because when I was a kid, I saw a movie called The Last Voyage with Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone. It was from the early 60s, and in it they actually partially sank an old ocean liner, the Ille de France, which was one of the most famous liners of its era.

00:06:12:27 – 00:06:44:11
Mark B. Perry
And when I saw that as a kid, I was fascinated by the ship. And so I really got interested in the ships. And then, of course, I read Walter Lord’s book, A Night to Remember all about the Titanic disaster. And it wasn’t until the mid 80s when the National Geographic documentary came out about Bob Ballard finding the wreck and the story of the Titanic, that I got re-energized about the story, and I reread A Night to Remember, and there was one passage in there.

00:06:44:13 – 00:07:06:07
Mark B. Perry
It was, I think, about two sentences, and it was. A surviving crew member recounted the story of just after the ship struck the berg, that a passenger came up to him out of nowhere, holding ice in his hands, where he had scooped it up and shaved into the deck, threw it at the officer’s feet, and said as if it had been an ongoing debate.

00:07:06:08 – 00:07:43:17
Mark B. Perry
Will you believe me now? And that’s all Lord wrote was that little exchange. And I thought, that’s really interesting. So the script that we wrote was not a Jack and Rose story. It was, it was a time travel action adventure film set aboard the Titanic. But because we didn’t want to come across as, you know, exploiting a real life tragedy where real people died, we decided that we were going to work really hard to make sure that our version of events was is accurate, as it could possibly be, out of respect for the people who died and the events of that night.

00:07:43:19 – 00:08:03:02
Mark B. Perry
So we scripted the ship breaking in half, which had never been confirmed before or portrayed in any of the films, because it wasn’t really known until Ballard find that found the wreck in two pieces, and you may see the Ravel model behind me. I built that while we were writing the script, and I’m not a model maker.

00:08:03:02 – 00:08:09:29
Mark B. Perry
That funnels are the wrong part, but the the point was we wanted a three dimensional reference as we were plotting out.

00:08:10:01 – 00:08:10:19
Dan LeFebvre
The.

00:08:10:19 – 00:08:37:28
Mark B. Perry
The, the action of our script while the ship was sinking and again, trying to stick as close as we could to the established history. And since we did that, you know, research back then, there was no internet. So we had, you know, we went to the bookstores, we bought everything we could get our hands on. And, so that’s why I, my, my interest has endured in the story of the Titanic.

00:08:38:01 – 00:08:58:04
Mark B. Perry
But when it comes to my love of ships, I’m actually more drawn to the ones that were, that that did what they were designed to do and not the ones that failed. But, so anyway, that’s that’s how I came to know I can hold my own in a cocktail party. If the subject of the Titanic comes out.

00:08:58:06 – 00:09:19:14
Dan LeFebvre
Well, the movie that we are talking about today is 1953. So even before, the timeline of when you were writing your version of the story as well, and here on the podcast, it being based on a true story. Most of the movies that we talk about start with some sort of variation of based on true Story, but the movie that we’re talking about today goes a little bit further than that.

00:09:19:14 – 00:09:43:19
Dan LeFebvre
I think I’m going to quote with the opening text is from the movie. It says all navigational details of this film. Conversations, incidents and general data are taken verbatim from the published reports of inquiries held in 1912 by the Congress of the United States and the British Board of Trade, and while it does only mention the navigation details, it also kind of generically says the general data is.

00:09:43:19 – 00:10:01:02
Dan LeFebvre
So the impression that I get, as I read that when I started watching this movie was that this is trying to be more than based on true story. It’s trying to be as accurate as possible. So as we start our discussion today about 1953, is Titanic. If you were to give it a letter grade for its historical accuracy, what would again.

00:10:01:05 – 00:10:23:21
Mark B. Perry
First of all, I want to preface everything by quoting Walter Lord, who I think is the definitive. He said in his first book, A Night to Remember. It is a rash man indeed who would set himself as final arbiter on all that happened, the incredible night the Titanic went down. So, to be clear, I’m not a rash man, but, historical accuracy of Titanic 53.

00:10:23:23 – 00:10:54:08
Mark B. Perry
This movie was made before, Walter Lord’s book came out. This book was 53. His book came out in 55. And in Lord’s book is considered by many to be the Titanic Bible. And because he was able to interview dozens and dozens of people who survived the sinking who were still alive in the 1950s, though even he admits that it can’t be 100% accurate because of human memory.

00:10:54:15 – 00:11:17:28
Mark B. Perry
Memory eyewitnesses are notoriously fallible, and stories would change. People swore they saw Captain Smith saving a baby, you know, in the water, before he went down. Others swore they saw him on the on the bridge. So this is what I think about this film. I think that they really tried, I think with what they knew at the time, they really tried.

00:11:17:28 – 00:11:41:11
Mark B. Perry
And it wasn’t until five years later when when A Night to Remember the movie came out that was based on, Walter Lord’s book. That was that was much more of a documentary like dramatization of the sinking. But, in this one there, as for Titanic 53, I love this movie because it is. It’s a soap opera.

00:11:41:11 – 00:12:13:16
Mark B. Perry
First it and and it’s a good soap opera. The script won an Academy Award, and, it’s also a soap opera, a disaster movie hybrid. And I think more than based on a true story, we could say it’s inspired by a true event. The focus of this movie is the Sturges family. Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb as Richard and Julia Sturges and it’s it’s how the disaster plays a role in their relationships and not the other way around.

00:12:13:16 – 00:12:39:16
Mark B. Perry
And on that level, I think the movie works really well. So the navigational details may indeed be correct and taken verbatim from the reports that were available. But remember that those hearings were held very quickly after, the the survivors arrived in New York and they didn’t ask all of the questions of the people who were available, and not everybody was testifying.

00:12:39:18 – 00:13:03:00
Mark B. Perry
So they didn’t know as much. In 1953 or 52, when the writers were working on the script. And they didn’t have a lot of photographs of interiors of the ship and things to go. And they did not have the absolute wealth of information that we have now. So in fairness to the film makers, I think that they were making do with what they had in terms of reference.

00:13:03:00 – 00:13:24:21
Mark B. Perry
So as for the general data, that may refer to the timeline of things like, you know, which boat left when, how many people. But this film is not really beholden to historical accuracy, despite its lofty claims at the top. And I think it’s trying to set the stage to say we want to be respectful to the true story.

00:13:24:23 – 00:13:51:07
Mark B. Perry
But and, you know, not unlike what Dudley and I were doing, I do think that they were trying to be respectful and, they just didn’t didn’t have the material research available. There’s also there’s a famous story about the night they were filming in the in the tank on the backlot when they were lowering the lifeboats. And Barbara Stanwyck was in one of the lifeboats, and she started sobbing uncontrollably, not as the character, but as the actress herself.

00:13:51:09 – 00:14:19:01
Mark B. Perry
And it was because she was suddenly overcome with the reality of what they were reenacting in this movie. And from what I’ve heard, that sentiment also, pervaded some of the crew as well. But in the end, they had to answer to Darryl Zanuck, you know, and the accountants at 20th Century Fox. So, you know, they couldn’t throw as much money, certainly as Cameron did to to make his film.

00:14:19:04 – 00:14:51:15
Mark B. Perry
But I think they get a fair amount. Right. The film is often disparaged in Titanic circles, but they don’t always take it in context of the fact they didn’t know as much as we we do now. And I think little things like there’s a there’s a brief moment once, Clifton Webb as, Richard Sturges gets aboard the ship and he’s this pompous, snob, wealthy guy, but he pauses to recognize a stewardess and he calls her by name, and he mentions the ship that he recognizes her from, and that was apparently a very real thing among the wealthy people of the time.

00:14:51:18 – 00:15:23:10
Mark B. Perry
That they they would make a point of knowing the people who waited on them on these ships. But in this movie, there’s no mention of Thomas Andrews being aboard. And of course, he was aboard. He was the ship’s designer. And he played an incredibly important role in, the events of that night. Also, there’s a version of that with Bruce Ismay in this, who was the White Star Line representative, who by all accounts, was pressuring Captain Smith to, you know, go faster, go faster, break the speed record.

00:15:23:12 – 00:15:49:15
Mark B. Perry
He died in the 1930s, so I’m not sure why they felt that they had to fictionalize him. There’s a there’s someone named, Mr. Sanderson who’s a fictional character who’s representing the White Star line at the beginning of the movie, but he disembarks in Cherbourg. Does not even take the maiden voyage. And I think that must have been the 20th Century Fox lawyers being worried about the estates coming after them because Ismay died in the 30s.

00:15:49:17 – 00:16:13:09
Mark B. Perry
Also, the maiden voyage was not sold out as it is depicted in this film, and it’s used as a device for, Clifton Webb to, you know, sort of buy a ticket from a third class passenger. He could have just bought a first class ticket. And, but in the movie, they’re going for drama. And so, you know, he the ship is sold out, but he’s got to get on that ship.

00:16:13:12 – 00:16:37:27
Mark B. Perry
And, you know, he buys a ticket from Mr. Oscar Doom, who’s who’s with his family. And that way, you know, like I said, there’s plenty of room in first class, but the film certainly goes for the more dramatic setup. And that gives the his character a chance to prove that he isn’t entirely a heartless snob when he makes an effort after this ship hits the bird to return to third class, find Mrs. Goodman or children and get them into a lifeboat.

00:16:37:29 – 00:17:01:06
Mark B. Perry
Marnie the character who’s played by Thelma Ritter, is clearly Molly Brown, but again, the lawyers at 20th must have been nervous. Even though Molly Brown died in the 30s and The Unsinkable Molly Brown was still a good seven years away, it wasn’t until the 60s that the play and then the movie was made. So one bit of trivia that I want to share, and I am I’m going to answer your question, by the way.

00:17:01:06 – 00:17:30:04
Mark B. Perry
I’m going to give you my, my rating. But one bit of trivia that I find fascinating is, is is more of a, it’s more of a continuity error, an error than, an historical inaccuracy. And that is the they depict the ship striking the iceberg on its starboard or right side, which is accurate. But then they cut to an underwater shot and they show the hull of the ship being ripped open by the iceberg, and it’s on the port or left side of the ship.

00:17:30:09 – 00:17:52:06
Mark B. Perry
Then they cut to the inside cargo hold where some men are fleeing as the terror is is in real time, going down the side and the water spilling in. And again, based on the the way the ship was moving, that’s also on the on the port or left side of the ship. Then it cuts back to the ship and the ship is again, you know, with the iceberg to starboard.

00:17:52:08 – 00:18:12:02
Mark B. Perry
And all they had to do was flip the negative on those two shots and my theory on that is, I think that the director, John Lesko, realized that by flipping the shots and keeping it accurate, suddenly the ship would be moving right to left when it hit the bird. But it would then be moving right, left to right when it hit the hull.

00:18:12:02 – 00:18:34:20
Mark B. Perry
I know this is a little confusing, but I think he left it that way because that way all of the action is consistent from right to left, both above water and underwater. And only a nerd like me would probably notice something like and then go into a dissertation about it. But anyway, the film depicts an alarm going off, when they’re loading the lifeboats.

00:18:34:20 – 00:18:59:15
Mark B. Perry
That did not happen. They did fire signal, flares. But there was no white siren wailing throughout the loading. The interiors of the ship, they’re more evocative. They’re certainly not reproductions. And again, there were only a handful of photographs available at the time. But I think on the scale of lavishness of of what they’re depicting, I think, you know, they got they get the general ambiance and the orchestra music in this.

00:18:59:15 – 00:19:23:26
Mark B. Perry
The ship’s orchestra is much more 1920s than it is 19 tens. And the dancing that people are doing is, is more 1920s. The Titanic Orchestra was all piano and string instruments. So in terms of historical accuracy, to answer your question, and for the very long winded answer, I give it whatever the razor thin line is between a B and a C minus.

00:19:23:29 – 00:19:48:29
Dan LeFebvre
I really like that you went that you were talking about the historical context of it, because that’s something that, you know, I hear a lot of, a lot of different stories that in history, it’s hard for us now to kind of put yourself, especially going back into ancient times or things like that. But even with this one in particular, too, because we you mentioning James Cameron’s movie 1997 is kind of that’s what everybody thinks of with Titanic.

00:19:49:01 – 00:20:18:01
Dan LeFebvre
And so even, you know, watching this, it’s really hard not to compare this to that movie and, and just assume that, okay, James Cameron’s movie showed it this way. So let’s compare it to that, even though, as you point out, like they didn’t even know a lot of that stuff. And that leads right into my next question, because in Cameron’s 97 movie, we see these lavish sets and obviously a lot more money put into that than the 1953 Titanic movie.

00:20:18:03 – 00:20:26:29
Dan LeFebvre
Do you think the 53 movie did a good job transporting us back to being aboard the Titanic? From a visual perspective.

00:20:27:01 – 00:20:51:26
Mark B. Perry
Does the film visually transport us back to the ship? Does it do a good job? And I’m going to give them props, and that’s an intended pun for the 28ft model. And the exterior shots on deck, all of which were sets, and they’re pretty convincing for the time, especially when you consider this was before CGI. It was before AI and before whatever other eyes are coming down the pike toward us.

00:20:51:28 – 00:21:19:09
Mark B. Perry
But I think it was much easier for audiences in 1953 to suspend disbelief because they hadn’t yet been made completely immune by seeing, anything imaginable rendered on film in a reasonable facsimile of reality, like people flying in anything you might see in a marvel movie. As I said earlier, the interiors of the of the the ship are evocative, and they didn’t have the visual resources for the designs.

00:21:19:11 – 00:21:43:28
Mark B. Perry
We have a context now from all the material at the endless documentaries, the, you know, everything. We have so much visual reference that they just didn’t have in 53. So I cut him some slack in this regard. The sets, I think they captured the lavishness and the scale and the ambiance of, of what a what a liner of that class would have been like back in the day.

00:21:44:01 – 00:22:06:21
Mark B. Perry
But they’re not exact replicas. And the iconic staircase is actually laid out more or less like the actual staircase aboard the ship. The one in, in Titanic 53. But again, the version to beat on that count is Cameron, who was obsessive about getting every rivet on the models of the hull in exactly the right place.

00:22:06:23 – 00:22:27:17
Mark B. Perry
And he had endless amounts of research, including having seen the wreck with his own eyes, diving down to the wreck of, the Titanic. So I, I think for the time period again, all in context, I think they did a pretty good job of putting us aboard a ship in 1912.

00:22:27:19 – 00:22:51:03
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. Again, it goes I mean, with Cameron’s not only having that extensive research, but also had a little bit of a bigger budget and better technology to work with. So, you know, being able to, to do that, and again, with the 53 movie is black and white too. So, you know, you’re capturing some of those lavish things.

00:22:51:05 – 00:22:55:06
Dan LeFebvre
It’s a little he’s going to suspend belief a little bit more.

00:22:55:08 – 00:23:15:17
Mark B. Perry
They were there was talk about making the film in color in 1953, but then they realized that the models would probably not look as realistic in color, which I think is a good point. And again, you know, for the special effects that were available at the time period, I think they do a serviceable job. I mean, it’s always funny when you cut to the ship sinking in there, clearly.

00:23:15:17 – 00:23:29:19
Mark B. Perry
No people on the deck, but, you know, they they had little motorized lifeboats with the oars moving in in one of the shots. And so, you know, they really tried, they really did try with what they had available at the time.

00:23:29:21 – 00:23:40:24
Dan LeFebvre
I think you mentioned his name. And early in the movie we meet Captain Edward Smith, and this movie seems to make a point of mentioning a flag that Captain Smith had when he was an apprentice on another ship called the Star of Madagascar.

00:23:40:25 – 00:23:42:22
Mark B. Perry
Star of Madagascar.

00:23:42:25 – 00:24:01:23
Dan LeFebvre
When I saw that, it made me curious about why the movie would mention that. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but the impression that I’ve always had is that even back in 1912, the maiden voyage of Titanic was a big deal. And the movie seems to allude to this. So as you talk about, you know, talks about the it was sold out since March, although you already mentioned that that’s not necessarily true.

00:24:01:25 – 00:24:25:12
Dan LeFebvre
But then the only experience that it mentions for Captain Smith is him being this apprentice. So that left me with the impression after watching the movie, that maybe Titanic’s maiden voyage was also Captain Smith’s first time being a ship’s captain, but then that just kind of seems to be a juxtaposition of this big deal. How experienced was Captain Smith prior to taking command of Titanic?

00:24:25:15 – 00:24:50:17
Mark B. Perry
Well, first, I can see how you would take that away from this particular film and the way Smith is depicted. But Smith was actually one of the most experienced captains of, vessels, on the North Atlantic. The star of Madagascar, as far as I can tell, existed only in the same universe where the Titanic’s maiden voyage was sold out.

00:24:50:20 – 00:24:52:18
Dan LeFebvre
So,

00:24:52:21 – 00:25:16:08
Mark B. Perry
I can find no reference to the Star of Madagascar. And I’ve always personally. I mean, I’ve seen this movie a hundred times, and I’ve always found that an odd bit of like, what were the writers trying to convey with. It’s delivered to him on the bridge and he says, run it up the main mast. And, you know, then there’s that moment at the end after the ship is sinking and he’s going down with the ship, and that’s what he looks up and sees.

00:25:16:08 – 00:25:45:09
Mark B. Perry
And I’m like, maybe they were trying to give us some sort of sentimental backstory to humanize him in some way. I mean, we’ll never know because the writers are all dead, and I don’t I don’t know, but it’s an odd beat, but it’s weirdly effective. But I and at the same time, I don’t know what it’s accomplishing. So and if it cast dispersion on Captain Smith’s experience, that’s an unfortunate, upshot of what I think they were trying to do.

00:25:45:11 – 00:26:23:13
Mark B. Perry
But Smith was very experienced. He had over 40 years at sea, as a as a commodore or captain for the White Star Line. And he was their go to whenever they would introduce new ships. And in fact, he had commanded the, he had commanded 17 White Star Line ships in his 40 years, including the maiden voyage of the Titanic’s bigger, older sister, the Olympic, about a year before the Titanic, maiden voyage, wealthy people at the time also very often chose their ship based on the captain, not on the vessel.

00:26:23:15 – 00:26:52:15
Mark B. Perry
And, Captain Smith had his own, groupies who followed him around from ship to ship, which I found to be a very interesting little factoid. But in truth, in some ways, Captain Smith’s abundant experience, I think, may have actually worked against him. On the night of April 14th. And to clarify, I want to read you a famous quote of his.

00:26:52:17 – 00:27:20:19
Mark B. Perry
He once said, I will say that I cannot imagine any condition which could cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that, and I wonder if that played a part in his apparent nonchalance about the ship’s speed, the ice warnings, if he felt that the ship was indeed impervious.

00:27:20:21 – 00:27:45:03
Mark B. Perry
But we don’t know. It’s all speculation at this point, but I do find that interesting that he did apparently say that, and that’s what he believed. And what’s even more poignant, I think, about the Titanic, is that opposed to it being the first time he commanded a ship, it was to be his last. He was going to retire after the maiden voyage once he got back to England.

00:27:45:06 – 00:27:54:01
Mark B. Perry
And to me, that’s a very tragic, bittersweet note to this man who had this long and storied career.

00:27:54:03 – 00:28:18:00
Dan LeFebvre
I wonder if maybe this is just my speculation, as you mentioned, that if this was going to be his last, if the writers of Titanic 53 knew that and then they because the the flag that you know from the Star of Madagascar, it mentions him being an apprentice. So maybe it’s kind of trying to do a bookend like this was, you know, the flag of his first command, his first ship.

00:28:18:08 – 00:28:28:21
Dan LeFebvre
And then this is going to be his last, you know, if he was going to retire after that, that that was maybe I’m just thinking out loud as, you know, as you mentioned, that that’s very interesting.

00:28:28:28 – 00:28:35:09
Mark B. Perry
That may have that I that had not occurred to me, but I think that’s a very, that’s a that’s a solid theory.

00:28:35:12 – 00:28:47:08
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you mentioned their names earlier and you know, the this May storyline throughout the movie follows, Richard Sturgis, his wife Julia, and their two kids, Annette Norman. Do we know if they’re based on real people on Titanic?

00:28:47:11 – 00:29:13:00
Mark B. Perry
Not that I know of, but they are certainly amalgams of, real people, real wealthy people of the time. And certainly real people who were aboard the ship. So I would say kind of yes and no. Now, in the film, Barbara Stanwyck is basically she’s kidnaped her children and she’s tried she wants to save them from, you know, the a life of insufferable snobbery growing up with Clifton Webb.

00:29:13:02 – 00:29:46:10
Mark B. Perry
And there was on the actual Titanic, there was a man aboard who had kidnaped his children in a custody dispute and was taking them to the United States, and the children survived, but the father perished in the the sinking. So it’s possible that, Charles Brackett and Richard Breen and Walter Rice had read about that particular passenger, and that may have been the the inspiration for the inciting incident of Julia kidnaping or taking the kids away from him.

00:29:46:13 – 00:29:49:28
Mark B. Perry
But again, of course, we’ll never know.

00:29:50:01 – 00:30:08:29
Dan LeFebvre
That leads into another tie. And speaking of, Annette, the the daughter in the 53 movie, that’s another tie into the James Cameron 97 one, which is that, you know, a young love story and that one, it’s Annette. And then a young guy named Gifford Rogers from the Purdue tennis team on his way home after playing Oxford during Easter.

00:30:09:01 – 00:30:25:25
Dan LeFebvre
And it’s not exact copy of, you know, the 97 movie with Jack and Rose. But then we it’s it’s hard watching the 53 movie now not to compare it to the 97 movie me like, oh on Titanic, there’s both these love stories. Do we know of any romances like that actually happening on Titanic?

00:30:25:27 – 00:30:54:10
Mark B. Perry
Well, first of all, let me just say this. If you look at Old Hollywood films, so many of them take place at least partly on, some glamorous ocean liner. Doris Day’s first movie wrote, romance on the high seas. Gentlemen prefer blonds. The Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell film, and The Lady Eve, which is one of my favorites, which is a Preston Sturges movie which coincidentally also stars Barbara Stanwyck.

00:30:54:12 – 00:31:17:25
Mark B. Perry
And in it she’s a con artist and she’s seducing Henry Fonda. And there’s a scene where they’re out on deck at night. It’s very romantic, and she says something like, A moonlit deck is a woman’s business office. And so there was a great romance associated with the old steamships and ocean voyages and the idea of shipboard romances has become a trope and a cliche.

00:31:17:28 – 00:31:36:14
Mark B. Perry
Did they happen on the Titanic? I think it’s very likely that they did, because people are people, and when you’re on a ship, there’s a there is a romantic aspect to it. I mean, I’ve crossed the Atlantic on the QE2 and the Queen Mary two and the old France as the Norway, and there is a romance to it.

00:31:36:14 – 00:32:05:22
Mark B. Perry
It’s, it’s it’s a very unique experience. There was a woman aboard the Titanic and her name was, Helen Candy. Candy. And she was traveling alone. And she had she had written a book, about how women can make a living. So I think she was a pioneer of women’s rights and, you know, good for her. She was traveling alone, and she caught the fancy and the attention of a handful of male passengers.

00:32:05:24 – 00:32:30:00
Mark B. Perry
And as Walter Lord describes it, they formed this little coterie of suitors with with miss Candy. And so who knows? You know, if I had to guess, I’d say yes. They’re probably more than one shipboard romance, but the chances are that many of them likely had very unhappy endings. Given what happened to the ship related to this in Cameron’s film.

00:32:30:02 – 00:32:38:17
Mark B. Perry
Leonardo DiCaprio. Jack, he dies because there isn’t room for him on that ginormous piece of wood.

00:32:38:20 – 00:32:42:04
Dan LeFebvre
I think we all saw the MythBusters on that. Yeah.

00:32:42:06 – 00:33:11:29
Mark B. Perry
That saves Kate Winslet. Yeah, there’s a debate about that. But that serves that story really well because that there’s a tragedy at the heart of the tragedy and a personal tragedy at the heart of the tragedy. And I find it interesting that, in 1953, which was closer in time to 1912, that the writers went out of their way to have Gifford, Robert Wagner be a hero.

00:33:12:01 – 00:33:36:16
Mark B. Perry
He’s the one who shimmies down when the lifeboat gets tangled. He’s the one who shimmies down, gets it free, gets it moving again, and then it’s when he’s trying to climb back up to rejoin the men that he loses. His grip, falls into the water. He’s pulled into a lifeboat, he’s unconscious, and that’s how he survives. And that way he’s not depicted as being dishonorable for not staying with the other man aboard the ship.

00:33:36:16 – 00:33:56:02
Mark B. Perry
And it. I think it’s an effective moment, but I also really thought that’s what they’re doing is they’re trying to justify him being able to survive. The Jack and Rose scenario, sadly, is probably closer to real life because so many of the third third class passengers perished.

00:33:56:04 – 00:34:16:19
Dan LeFebvre
That leads right into my next question that I have for you, because, we talked briefly about Richard Sturgis, and in the 53 movie, he buys a third class ticket to get in, and in the 97 movie, Jack wins a third class ticket. And it’s interesting because we don’t really see in both those movies, we see the first class and the third class.

00:34:16:19 – 00:34:34:19
Dan LeFebvre
They don’t really talk too much about a second class, but then both movies seem to imply that you can’t move around very much. In the 53 movie, after Richard gets his ticket, he deliberately moves a sign that says first class passengers, only to go from first. I’m sorry, from third class to first class and the top portion of the ship to where his family is.

00:34:34:22 – 00:34:40:18
Dan LeFebvre
Can you unravel some of the different classes that were aboard Titanic and how their experiences differed?

00:34:40:20 – 00:35:06:18
Mark B. Perry
Yes. This was something we researched quite a bit because in our script, the female sort of love interest, it wasn’t really a love story, but, she was a, an Irish immigrant, single mom who was traveling in steerage or third class, and our protagonist, our time traveling hero. He ends up, finding himself first in first class, but he spends the movie divided between the two.

00:35:06:20 – 00:35:41:21
Mark B. Perry
And we didn’t really get into second class, although Titanic 53. There is a brief sequence where Barbara Stanwyck escorts the defrocked drunken priest, played by Richard based Hart, another fictional character, by the way, down to his state room. And that’s the only time I think we see a second class state room. Then in the there was a 1970s made for TV movie called S.O.S. Titanic with Cloris Leachman and David Warner, and David Warner played a real life character, Lawrence Beasley, who was a survivor of the Titanic who was traveling in second class.

00:35:41:21 – 00:36:15:09
Mark B. Perry
So that film did a little more in second class than other films have historically done. And coincidentally, David Warner, who played Lawrence Beesley, is also in Cameron’s movie, playing Lovejoy, who is, the henchman of, Billy Zane’s character. And so he’s an actor who has the dubious distinction of being on the Titanic twice. But in a historic in a contemporary context, the first class aboard the Titanic was probably more like Claridges Hotel in London, which is considered to be one of the finest, most luxurious in the world.

00:36:15:11 – 00:36:51:08
Mark B. Perry
Or maybe a Four Seasons or a Ritz Carlton. Whatever the passengers wanted was available. They were pampered, like, the patrons on the show, HBO show White Lotus, with one exception that really surprised me. Everyone always talks about how this ship was the pinnacle of luxury, and it may have been for 1912, but it’s only some of the first class suites had private bathroom facilities, and most of the first class had shared bath facilities with other first class passengers.

00:36:51:08 – 00:37:16:01
Mark B. Perry
And to take an actual bath, you had to make a reservation with your cabin steward or stewardess, which I thought that was interesting. I would have assumed that in first class they’re paying that much money. They would have their own bathrooms. But no, second class is more like a marriott or Holiday Inn. It’s still nice, but it’s not quite as opulent as or as luxurious as first.

00:37:16:04 – 00:37:44:05
Mark B. Perry
My late friend, who was a historian and a writer. Her name was Sylvia Stoddard, and she was a Titanic fanatic. And she said that from her research second class aboard the White Star Line’s Titanic was more like first class aboard other liners from other shipping lines of the day. So I that says that says a lot about what first class must have been like.

00:37:44:07 – 00:38:10:07
Mark B. Perry
But the second class cabins had bunk beds, not regular beds, and they too had shared bathroom facilities. All of the second class had shared bathroom facilities. Third class, we’re talking super eight, Best Western, motel six. They were also equipped there. They were equipped with bunk beds. Some of them, I think, had up to 12 or 14.

00:38:10:07 – 00:38:35:10
Mark B. Perry
And so you, you would buy actually space in a bunk. If you were traveling either with you or just your family, and you may have to share quarters. And all of the bathrooms, of course, were shared in third class. And according to two sources, there were only two bathtubs available for third class, one for men, one for women, which I found to be pretty interesting.

00:38:35:12 – 00:39:06:03
Mark B. Perry
That said, people back in the day said that the third class on the Titanic was the best third class accommodations on any vessel at the time. So from what I’ve read about the separations between the classes, it wasn’t as regimented as it’s usually depicted. Yes, there were some physical barriers. There were gates and there were, but there were also chains and signs like we see in Titanic 53, when Clifton Webb lets himself into first class.

00:39:06:05 – 00:39:24:22
Mark B. Perry
It’s hard to imagine, but I think back then they still paid attention to, the honor system. And I hate this expression, but I think people sort of knew their place. And so, you know, they they didn’t break the rules. Yes. As they said, there were gates and there were barriers, and some of them were in fact locked in sort of thing.

00:39:24:22 – 00:39:39:13
Mark B. Perry
But it was not impossible, according to our research. For someone to move from one class to another if they were determined enough and in some cases sneaky enough or rich and entitled.

00:39:39:16 – 00:40:09:19
Dan LeFebvre
Which then makes sense in the 53 movie, how it would be so easy for him to go from third class to first class and just fit in exactly. Well, if we go back to the 53 movie, there are a few different scenes where we see mentions of an iceberg report. The one it focuses on most is a telegraph sent to Captain Smith from the commander of SS Baltic, about an iceberg at latitude 41 degrees 51 North, longitude 49 degrees 52 West.

00:40:09:21 – 00:40:36:21
Dan LeFebvre
And despite this, Captain Smith orders Titanic to go 21 knots. And doing the math on that. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s like 24mph. 39km/h. Going that fast seems to be something that one of the crew in the movie, Mr. Lightoller, is concerned with. So he asked Captain Smith about it, and Smith reassures Lightoller that they’ll be able to see any icebergs in the daylight, and so he’ll personally be on the bridge in the morning to watch out for those.

00:40:36:24 – 00:40:58:17
Dan LeFebvre
And just to help with some of the numbers, I looked up, Titanic’s top speed, and it’s about 23. Not so 26 miles an hour, 43km an hour. So our service speed was 21 knots that we see in the movie. And then, of course, looking at this with the historical context, it’s easy to see why, you know, with what happened, why the speed with the iceberg would have been such a big deal.

00:40:58:19 – 00:41:13:09
Dan LeFebvre
But then the movie seems to suggest that maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal. So with that in mind for how the movie portrays things, how well do you think the movie does explaining the iceberg reports, and then Captain Smith’s orders to maintain titanic speed.

00:41:13:12 – 00:41:41:15
Mark B. Perry
Is a good question. According to Walter Lord, again, the Titanic received at least seven ice warnings from ships like the Baltic, the, the Corona, the America, the Masada. And there may have been more, but the radio operators were very busy sending personal messages for the passengers who were basically playing with this brand new toy, the high tech of its day, the wireless telegraph.

00:41:41:21 – 00:42:13:05
Mark B. Perry
And they were sending personal messages about, oh, we expect to arrive in New York at such and such a time. Please have such and such available. And the it was a source of revenue for the White Star Line. And so the operators were sending outgoing messages, which meant that not some incoming messages. And in fact, in some cases the the, the operators aboard the Titanic told the people sending them messages to shut up and get off the line because they were sending messages through the Cape Race relay to the, the, the United States.

00:42:13:07 – 00:42:35:10
Mark B. Perry
So some of them probably didn’t even get through. And but that said, I’m not sure I, I think in the movie, if I’m recalling right, it’s the Baltic message that the captain flips over and writes the coordinates of the ship. I don’t think that’s true. I think he did receive the Baltic message in real life. Would it have made any difference?

00:42:35:10 – 00:43:13:06
Mark B. Perry
I don’t know, because Captain Smith believed his that ship’s shipbuilding had gone past the, you know, kinds of accidents they had. But this was a night of what ifs. This was a night of if this hadn’t happened, if this hadn’t happened, if this had happened. You know, I heard a theory recently that said that the iceberg, which I had never heard this before and I haven’t researched it, so I may be talking out of turn, but they said that the, the, the iceberg that they hit was actually had broken off and flipped over and was a dark blue on the bottom, and which there was no moon that night, and it made it almost

00:43:13:06 – 00:43:48:21
Mark B. Perry
impossible to see until they were right up on it. Whether or not that’s true, I don’t know. But Smith, by all accounts, was pretty nonchalant about the ice warnings. And again, I think it’s because of his overconfidence in shipbuilding. And being unable to envision any circumstance where a ship like this would actually flounder. So, again, not being the final arbiter of these things, my guess is the movie does a pretty good job in his attitude, if not the actual, facts as they played out aboard the aboard the ship.

00:43:48:23 – 00:43:58:08
Mark B. Perry
And, pretty much what he did, I think is, was supported by, contemporaneous accounts in those hearings and from survivors who were there.

00:43:58:10 – 00:44:23:22
Dan LeFebvre
I had never heard that theory about it, flipping over. But that brings up a good point of something kind of touching on what you were talking about before of, you know, if we don’t even it especially don’t, you know, during the 53 movie, they didn’t even have pictures or that much information there and then even even now, like how how old would you possibly be able to know about a specific iceberg in 1912, whether or not it had slipped over?

00:44:23:29 – 00:44:39:10
Dan LeFebvre
It’s not like there were footage or I mean, it’s that that kind of thing. I know there’s a lot of scientific stuff that people can do. It just blows my mind. But how we can jump to those sort of conclusions that we might know that, oh, there’s one particular iceberg might have flipped over. And that’s why they couldn’t see at that time.

00:44:39:10 – 00:44:48:02
Dan LeFebvre
And it’s like, okay, maybe. But also sometimes I think we just have to be okay never knowing what actually happened.

00:44:48:04 – 00:45:10:25
Mark B. Perry
Well, I think that’s true. And like I said, I preface that that’s I heard that recently and I have not substantiated it, but I thought it was interesting, but it still seems like that didn’t need to be part of the equation. I think if it had just been an iceberg, as it’s portrayed in the Cameron film and the the 53 film, and in a night to remember that just a big white iceberg, coming up out of nowhere.

00:45:10:25 – 00:45:32:14
Mark B. Perry
I mean, there was no moon that night, and it was it was difficult to discern those shapes at at the speed that they were moving and to maneuver properly in time. And, you know, again, you go back to eyewitness accounts. That’s all they had. And in 1953 that they only had what was on the record from people who were there.

00:45:32:16 – 00:46:01:19
Mark B. Perry
And those people weren’t carrying HD and 4K cameras in their pockets. The ship was not being charted by satellites. They weren’t in constant two way communication with other ships. It was a very different time. And so, you know, there’s so much speculations. There’s all the, you know, there’s the crazy conspiracy theory that that ship to to the Olympic and the Titanic were switched for some reason that I don’t think I’ve ever clearly understood.

00:46:01:22 – 00:46:10:03
Mark B. Perry
But, you know, it’s it’s fascinating to me that over 100 years after this happened, we’re still talking about it.

00:46:10:06 – 00:46:34:18
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, human memory is not great. But also to add to that, to everybody who survived had still gone through this extremely traumatic event. And so that’s going to affect memory as well. And just all these different. Yeah. We’re just never going to know all, all the facts.

00:46:34:20 – 00:46:53:27
Mark B. Perry
You know did clearly people can misremember. People can also make things up whether they mean to or not. I mean they might change their story because they didn’t run back to get the little boy who had fallen in the water and they just left them, you know, who knows? You know, we’re fallible.

00:46:54:00 – 00:47:11:00
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, very, very true. Well, if we go back to the movie, we do see we see a little bit, but there’s not a lot of dates and locations displayed out. Right? Like, you know, a lot of movies have had the text on screen, but we get some clues here and there, kind of what the path that the Titanic is taking.

00:47:11:03 – 00:47:27:03
Dan LeFebvre
At the beginning of the movie, for example, there are some signs that were in French. That’s when Richard Sturgis boards the ship, getting his his ticket. And after they start making their way to the open ocean, Richard is having dinner with his family, asks his daughter Annette what day it is, and she says it’s April 13th.

00:47:27:05 – 00:47:46:07
Dan LeFebvre
And then later in the movie, one of the sailors on the ship looks at the clock, making the movie make some notice that the clock is at 11:36 p.m. on April 14th, and that’s just before they see the iceberg in front of them. So based on these little clues that we have, do you think the movie does a pretty good job portraying the dates and places for Titanic’s timeline?

00:47:46:09 – 00:48:15:20
Mark B. Perry
I think they do an excellent job. In this case, the movie seems to be pretty accurate in the timeline. Maybe that’s what they meant by quote unquote general data in the, and, in the opening statement, the Titanic set sail on a Wednesday, which was April 10th, 1912, from Southampton, England. And there she was docked and the passengers boarded by gangway in the traditional fashion that we usually see in the movies.

00:48:15:22 – 00:48:37:00
Mark B. Perry
Interesting factoid. The the loading was done opposite of modern day air travel, and that they put the third class passengers aboard first before the first class and second class passengers boarded. I don’t know why, but apparently that was protocol of the day. Once she was fully loaded, she set sail. She arrived a few hours later in the French port of Cherbourg that you mentioned.

00:48:37:00 – 00:49:02:14
Mark B. Perry
And that’s where Titanic 53 picks her up, basically. Then they take on more passengers who come aboard by tender or those the smallish ferry boats that bring them out to the ship, because the harbor at Cherbourg did not have docking facilities that could accommodate a ship the size of the Titanic. So, incidentally, one of those tenders, the nomadic, survives to this day.

00:49:02:14 – 00:49:36:20
Mark B. Perry
It’s been restored. It’s on. You can visit it in Belfast, Ireland. And it was also designed by Thomas Andrews, who designed the much bigger sister ship, the Titanic. Only the nomadic is still afloat after all these years, unlike, the Titanic. There were while they were in Cherbourg. This is also where, this is where we see Julia and her children boarding, along with, Maud Young and other characters coming out on that tender.

00:49:36:22 – 00:50:10:07
Mark B. Perry
And that’s also where we see, Richard Sturgis, getting aboard by buying his ticket from the U.S. cruise and then sneaking up, and, let’s see. So then there were, passengers who disembarked in Cherbourg. There were about two dozen who left the ship because they had only booked passage to cross the channel. And I imagine they spent the rest of their lives with some pretty interesting cocktail party stories, about having, you know, just narrowly missed doom.

00:50:10:09 – 00:50:33:07
Mark B. Perry
And then from Cherbourg, the ship went to Queenstown, Ireland, which is they’ve changed the name and I’m blanking on what it’s called now, but, that isn’t even shown in Titanic 53. But it did stop in Ireland on Thursday the 11th midday, and then early afternoon it set sail for New York. And of course, infamy.

00:50:33:09 – 00:51:02:00
Mark B. Perry
April 13th would have been the Saturday. And that’s when when Annette says that the next day is when they’re in church on Sunday and they’re singing the hymn. And then by Monday morning, of course, the ship would be lost. And, you know, the story of the investigations and everything would begin. So in terms of accuracy, I think they got this, you know, with excluding things for time’s sake, I think more than anything else.

00:51:02:03 – 00:51:11:20
Mark B. Perry
I think they they did an excellent job. In fact, I’m going to upgrade my rating to a solid B at this point. Okay. Nice. That sizable.

00:51:11:22 – 00:51:30:13
Dan LeFebvre
Oh yes, of course, of course. Well we are at the point then if we go back to the movie, we’re at the point in the timeline where Titanic strikes the iceberg. It’s mere moments after it’s sited. According to the way the movie’s timeline is. And but Captain Smith is not on the bridge when the first actions are taken to avoid the iceberg.

00:51:30:13 – 00:51:46:26
Dan LeFebvre
But we can hear orders like Carter starboard and and full speed astern. Keep the helm hard over, and then movie cuts to the underwater shot that you’re talking about, where you see the, you know, the iceberg actually slicing the hull. And then at this point it cuts to, Captain Smith and he can feel the impact from where he’s on the ship.

00:51:46:26 – 00:52:12:15
Dan LeFebvre
And he rushes to the bridge, and he’s been informed that they picked up a spur. There’s no damage above the waterline, but the for pike is floated to the all top deck. There’s additional damage. After the the bulkhead be. And they’re taking water. And number one, two and three holds number five and six boiler rooms. And in the movie, Captain Smith seems surprised that there’s damage that far aft and asks if they can shore up.

00:52:12:18 – 00:52:29:26
Dan LeFebvre
No, is the reply, and they’ve been cut open like a tin can. And that’s basically a summary of the movie’s version of events. And there’s a lot of nautical terminology in there that, I would hope that you can help, kind of help explain what some of that is, but is that basically what happened?

00:52:29:29 – 00:52:33:00
Mark B. Perry
Well, no.

00:52:33:02 – 00:52:37:02
Dan LeFebvre
I’m sorry. Does that does that bring the grade back down to the B much? Yeah.

00:52:37:05 – 00:52:58:15
Mark B. Perry
No, no, I’m sticking with the B at this point. I, you know, I got a soft spot in my heart for this movie. So is that really what happened again? It’s a rash man indeed. Who knows. But from what we do know, the commands on the bridge. Hard to starboard. Full speed astern. All of that was pretty much exactly right.

00:52:58:15 – 00:53:22:04
Mark B. Perry
And it’s depicted as it’s depicted in the film. And I believe it’s the same thing in Cameron’s film. And that came from testimony at the hearings, because there were officers who survived, who were there, who knew what was going on. Captain Smith in Titanic 53 is sort of having a waxing, sentimental, poetic moment watching the kids sing their school anthem.

00:53:22:04 – 00:53:42:16
Mark B. Perry
And I think they’re in the I don’t know if they’re in the ballroom at the restaurant or where they are. But anyway, he was actually in his cabin, which was next to the wheelhouse on the bridge, and he did feel the impact. But it is very unlikely that the crew had that much information at their disposal, the way it’s portrayed in the film.

00:53:42:18 – 00:54:06:00
Mark B. Perry
In reality, Smith ordered inspections. He’s the one who ordered them to go down and do the inspections. And he also summoned Thomas Thomas Andrews, the ship’s designer, who again, isn’t in this movie conveniently, and I think the writers were taking license to just condense all the shoe leather so that they don’t have to play out every step because they want to get back to.

00:54:06:01 – 00:54:27:15
Mark B. Perry
They just want to set up the stakes that the ship is going to sink. What’s going to happen to the Sturges family? And it it seems unlikely that Smith, given his history, and again, that quote, it seems unlikely that he believed the ship was doomed from the get go and he sent an officer below to inspect the damage.

00:54:27:15 – 00:54:54:04
Mark B. Perry
And he then subsequently learned that the forward compartments were flooding. The mail room was flooding, taking on water fast, and he ordered the ship’s carpenter to go down and shore up the damage as best they could. And when, Smith was told that the ship foundering was a mathematical certainty by Thomas Andrews as the ship’s designer, he would know.

00:54:54:07 – 00:55:23:09
Mark B. Perry
That’s when Smith really knew that this was inevitable. So there were several steps in his process. I think some of it may have been denial, but some of it was also doing what he possibly could to try to buy as much time as he could. And, I just think the film for dramatic purposes condensed all of that because, again, that despite their claim at the beginning, that wasn’t really the focus of this particular film.

00:55:23:12 – 00:55:50:22
Dan LeFebvre
That makes perfect sense and that then these ships and my next question, because according to the movie, after hearing about this, this damage, it’s almost immediate. The Captain Smith just knows that the ship is going to go down. The very one of the very first things we see in the movie is he he orders the Ford pump start, and then he rushes to the wireless telegraph room, where he orders a Cicd to all vessels and then you know, the movie through dialog, very helpfully explains one of the officers or the telegraph operators.

00:55:50:22 – 00:56:14:23
Dan LeFebvre
Like that means a full distress. Yeah, yeah, we’re going down. Basically what Captain Smith says. So do we know I’m assuming then knew that we don’t know if Captain Smith immediately knew that they were going to sink. But then if that’s the case, would it be a fair assessment that that order that the movie points out, that he says, you know, starting the Ford pumps, that that’s basically just trying to delay the inevitable to try and buy time for the lifeboats.

00:56:14:25 – 00:56:36:03
Mark B. Perry
I think it was trying to buy time for the lifeboats. I, based on what I’ve read, what I know about it, you know, which again, it’s all speculation, but, I think, yes, they did have pumps and they could buy some time by pumping out the water, but at some point, you know, they get overwhelmed and the ship goes down.

00:56:36:05 – 00:57:00:10
Mark B. Perry
But I do think he was trying. He was he had so few options. And as soon as Andrews told him, it’s a mathematical certainty, which that’s apparently a direct quote from what he said. But he didn’t survive, of course, so who knows? But, I think once those words were said, then Captain Smith knew he had to do whatever he could possibly do to buy as much time as he could as the ship was going down.

00:57:00:10 – 00:57:06:24
Mark B. Perry
And he also simultaneously said, muster, the passengers, put them off boats, women and children.

00:57:06:27 – 00:57:30:24
Dan LeFebvre
I can only those are the kind of things I can’t wrap my head around. What that receiving that news must be, especially with that quote that you mentioned from Captain Smith. You know, just the assumption that this could never happen. And we all think of, you know, the Titanic is unsinkable and that whole aspect. And then to hear that it’s a mathematical, mathematical certainty that just has to be absolutely devastating.

00:57:30:24 – 00:57:39:11
Dan LeFebvre
I don’t I mean, I don’t know how you what sort of reaction to have to that. I mean, unfortunately we’ll never know. But that’s just it’s chilling.

00:57:39:11 – 00:58:04:08
Mark B. Perry
And I think, the actor who plays Captain Smith in Titanic 53, I think he plays that moment pretty well of the realization. And, you know, oh my God, what do we do? And the captain still today, the captain is responsible for the ship. They they are they are the last word. They are the they are the for good or bad, they’re they get the credit.

00:58:04:09 – 00:58:06:12
Mark B. Perry
They they get the blame.

00:58:06:15 – 00:58:08:18
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. The buck stops here as they say.

00:58:08:24 – 00:58:10:00
Mark B. Perry
Exactly.

00:58:10:02 – 00:58:27:09
Dan LeFebvre
Well, speaking of the the lifeboats at this time in the movie is when we find out that they don’t have enough light plus for everybody, Captain Smith’s orders the women and children in lifeboats because there aren’t enough for the men. Can you share some more historical context about the lifeboats situation on Titanic?

00:58:27:11 – 00:58:40:16
Mark B. Perry
Well, I’m going to say something controversial, which is the Titanic actually had more than a sufficient number of lifeboats. Okay, to meet the outdated regulations of the time.

00:58:40:18 – 00:58:42:00
Dan LeFebvre
Okay.

00:58:42:02 – 00:59:10:25
Mark B. Perry
Ships had grown in size so fast and mankind so arrogant, apparently, that they didn’t want to clutter the recreational space on the boat deck with, quote unquote, non-essential equipment that would block the view for the first class passengers out for a stroll on the boat deck. So there were, 16 boats, 16 wooden boats, and that’s eight on each side of the ship for forward and for aft.

00:59:10:27 – 00:59:32:13
Mark B. Perry
And there between the forward and aft boats, there was about 200ft of open deck, as you see in the film, where the passengers could enjoy the view as the ship was sinking. I don’t mean to make light, but it just so absurd to me that they didn’t take safety so as seriously as we do now.

00:59:32:13 – 00:59:35:04
Mark B. Perry
And one of the reasons we do now is because it happened.

00:59:35:06 – 00:59:40:02
Dan LeFebvre
They’re called lifeboats. I mean, that’s that’s pretty essential. Their life. It’s in the name of lifeboat, like.

00:59:40:06 – 01:00:10:07
Mark B. Perry
Yeah, all of those boats, those 16 boats, the the two in the front were smaller. There were slightly smaller, but they were still the wooden lifeboats. Those satisfied by the regulations of the day. But the Titanic was equipped with four additional collapsible lifeboats which were stowed up on one of the I don’t know what you call that. It’s one of the platforms on the boat deck, and they were lashed there and they had some trouble getting them down, but those exceeded the requirements.

01:00:10:07 – 01:00:35:23
Mark B. Perry
And that’s why I say that the Titanic actually had more than sufficient lifeboats to meet the regulations at the time, because they did have these other, these other collapsible boats that could once the other boats had been lowered from the davits, these collapsible boats could be fit into those davits and lowered away. The some of the passengers were made were aware of the disparity between the number of boats and the number of people aboard.

01:00:35:25 – 01:01:02:15
Mark B. Perry
Others were not. And it is true, according to testimony, that some of the first class gentlemen were let in on this dire news and so they could act accordingly. And as for the haphazard use of the boats, you know, going away with a handful of people, there had been no boat drill, for the ship. It wasn’t done, it wasn’t required.

01:01:02:17 – 01:01:31:11
Mark B. Perry
And even as the passengers were told to muster at their muster stations, which is where they’re supposed to gather to get on their lifeboat, the crew was still telling them that the ship was unsinkable. So imagine yourself. It’s freezing cold out. It’s like 28 degrees freezing cold. You’re standing on a solid ship. There’s there’s lights, there’s heat, there’s jaunty music playing from somewhere aft from the ship’s orchestra.

01:01:31:14 – 01:02:00:01
Mark B. Perry
And then there’s a little wooden boat hanging 70ft above the frigid water. And so a lot of people would not get in those boats. And so some of them went away with a handful of people. So, if I may, I’ll go into some, I’ll go into the weeds with the lifeboats. But, all told, there were, as I said, there were 14 largest boats could accommodate 65 passengers each.

01:02:00:03 – 01:02:16:15
Mark B. Perry
The two smaller cutters at the bow, they were called cutters. They were the wooden boats. They had a capacity of 40 people. And the four collapsible boats could handle 47 people each. And that’s a total capacity of 1180 souls. If all of them had been fully loaded.

01:02:16:17 – 01:02:21:02
Dan LeFebvre
And the movie said, I think there are 2200 overall on the Titanic, just a kind of.

01:02:21:04 – 01:02:53:03
Mark B. Perry
There are around 21, 20, 200. The the the number is still not has never really been certified because there were discrepancies in the passenger list and so forth. But there were, let’s say, 21, 20, 200 aboard the maiden voyage. So even fully loaded, the boats would still have been insufficient for some 900 people who died. And but had they been fully loaded, they would have been able to save close to 500 additional lives than what they were able to save.

01:02:53:05 – 01:02:57:03
Mark B. Perry
But hey, even God himself couldn’t think this ship, right?

01:02:57:06 – 01:03:19:07
Dan LeFebvre
What you mentioned there about how the, the crew was saying that, the ship is unsinkable. That reminds me of something that I saw in the movie where, you know, as as people are being told to line up for the lifeboats. This is movie’s version of events. Everyone’s, you know, donning the life jackets, and the crew is sending up distress flares, but then they’re still selling, telling the passenger there’s no cause for alarm.

01:03:19:12 – 01:03:47:02
Dan LeFebvre
Even as in the movie, we can hear alarms blaring across the ship, which seems pretty like a pretty stark contrast to that. And then there’s, it seems pretty obvious that they’re trying to keep everybody calm, but it doesn’t really take very long in the movie for people to start to realize what’s going on. That movie really focuses on Richard Sturgis in his family, and he tells a man they’re probably going to row out a few hundred yards where they repair the damage.

01:03:47:04 – 01:04:03:16
Dan LeFebvre
His wife, Julia, then thanks him for lying to them, and they try to seem to make up their differences in the final moments that they have. And there are a lot of tears in the movie, with only one exception of a man pretending to be a woman to get on the lifeboats. Most of the men seem to be resigned to their fate.

01:04:03:18 – 01:04:12:13
Dan LeFebvre
Do you think the movie did a pretty accurate job of portraying this tension? And then the realization among the passengers as they boarded the lifeboats?

01:04:12:16 – 01:04:33:05
Mark B. Perry
Again, I think it did capture the drama of the moment. I’m not sure if that captured the accuracy. You know, the the who was where and which person was in which boat. But there are cases that Walter Lord writes about of men reassuring their wives, as Richard does in the movie. And, you know, it’s just a precaution.

01:04:33:05 – 01:04:54:14
Mark B. Perry
And so forth. And while knowing that they themselves were doomed, as Richard Sturgis does in the film and, you know, but that gives him for the soap that and the drama that gives him that great moment with Norman when Norman sadly, tragically gets to, quote unquote, be a man, which is his whole thing in the movie. He wants to wear long pants.

01:04:54:14 – 01:05:18:07
Mark B. Perry
He’s grown up. And so he’s going to become a man, which means he’s going to perish with the other man, the other gentleman aboard the ship. And in terms of the drama and the tears and the fear and the terror, as the reality of it begins to dawn on these people, the goodbyes, the stoicism of the the men and the other people who stayed behind.

01:05:18:07 – 01:05:32:27
Mark B. Perry
I think the film captures the drama of that really well and is and is pretty powerful. But again, if you want to get into the weeds on the actual timeline, you got to look to Mr. Cameron’s opus.

01:05:33:00 – 01:05:57:20
Dan LeFebvre
That yeah, that’s fair. And it does still go back to especially especially in a moment like that, because that’s the moment when there is the most panic. Relying on the witness reports is going to be the most, for lack of a better way to say it, the most inaccurate. I mean, that’s when their most panic is. So that’s when the misremembering, you know, trying to piece together things after the fact.

01:05:57:20 – 01:06:03:24
Dan LeFebvre
I imagine that would be the most difficult element to remember, as things are flashing by so quickly.

01:06:03:27 – 01:06:14:29
Mark B. Perry
Rational thought goes out the window. It’s all about do I jump, do I stay? I mean, I cannot imagine the terror of that situation.

01:06:15:01 – 01:06:33:13
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we go back to the movie as as the lifeboats lowered and they row away, we the band plays nearer. My God, to the everyone left on board sings along, and the movie cuts to some shots of people in the lifeboats. They can hear the songs being sung as Titanic starts to pitch forward. All of a sudden things accelerate very quickly.

01:06:33:13 – 01:06:53:03
Dan LeFebvre
In the movie, there seems to be some sort of an explosion. The movie doesn’t really mention what’s happening here, but there’s some dialog earlier talked about, the ship being finished once the water hits the boilers. So that’s what I was assuming. The movie’s trying to portray as water hits the boilers is explosion of steam, perhaps, but in the movie we see the ball fully engulfed in the water.

01:06:53:03 – 01:07:10:03
Dan LeFebvre
The water just kind of starts bubbling at the surface. And then there’s this rumbling that knocks everybody off their feet, stops them from singing Near my God to thee. And then within a few seconds, she slips beneath the waters entirely. Do you think the movie did a pretty good job recounting what we know of Titanic’s final moments.

01:07:10:06 – 01:07:41:13
Mark B. Perry
For the time? Once again, I’m going to put everything in this film in context of what they knew at the time. So I think they tried to do a, I, they tried to do a good job, a respectful job of depicting the final moments based on what they knew and with the technology they had available at the time, which was basically models, miniatures and, you know, air canisters so they could blow, you know, the water could bubble as the ship goes down and that sort of thing.

01:07:41:15 – 01:08:01:19
Mark B. Perry
There’s always been lively debate about the whole nearer, my God to thee thing, or whether it was nearer, my God to thee or a popular tune of the time called Autumn, which was a waltz. But the nearer, my God, to thee thing is such a. I don’t know if romantic is the right word to use, but it’s so evocative.

01:08:01:19 – 01:08:22:16
Mark B. Perry
I think it’s kind of become Titanic gospel, if you will. But Walter Lord writes about it in his sequel to A Night to Remember that came out in the 80s, called The Night Lives On. And, in this film, they start playing in Titanic 53. The captain asks them to start playing, and it’s much later in the process.

01:08:22:16 – 01:08:45:10
Mark B. Perry
And in truth, the captain didn’t ask them a while. Wallace Hartley, the band leader. He was the one who instigated it, which is portrayed pretty accurately in the Cameron film. And they were playing light music of the day. They were playing ragtime. They were playing, you know, waltzes. They’re playing popular songs because the whole idea was to take people, take people’s minds off of, you know, what was going on.

01:08:45:10 – 01:09:13:22
Mark B. Perry
And keep everybody calm. Interestingly enough, Nearer My God to Thee was the original title of Titanic 53, until somebody wisely suggested that they change it. But witnesses at the time, again, with the testimony that they had, they basically said they saw the bow going under, and then that accelerated as the water rose, the decks began to slope precariously, making it impossible for people to stand.

01:09:13:22 – 01:09:37:02
Mark B. Perry
And we see all of this in the film. The musicians eventually fell, you know, and the music stopped. The lights went out. Then there was a steady roar. And in the the real witness accounts, there was a steady roar, which was apparently the sound of all the heavy machinery, the dishes, the glassware, the furniture, the pianos, everything breaking loose and hurtling toward the submerged bow.

01:09:37:05 – 01:10:05:04
Mark B. Perry
We only see some of this and 53 it is shown in horrifying, vivid detail in Cameron’s film, the dishes and everything else. As the stern rose in the air and the real, incident, the, the forward funnel detached, fell into the water. It’s depicted in Cameron’s film. They do not show that happening here. It may have been beyond their capable to make that, look realistic.

01:10:05:06 – 01:10:27:06
Mark B. Perry
Then in real life, the ship did go perpendicular, for up to two minutes, according to witnesses. And the noises stopped. And the stern then settled back slightly, then slowly began to slip. It’s picking up speed as it went. Now in Titanic 53, we don’t see it do this, but we see it stay at the angle and.

01:10:27:06 – 01:10:28:28
Dan LeFebvre
Then.

01:10:29:01 – 01:11:03:20
Mark B. Perry
Hang there for a moment and then begin to sink and pick up speed. And that settling back might well have been as the witnesses who saw it. That may well have been the ship actually breaking in two at the time. But we didn’t know that for sure until the wreck was found by Ballard in the 80s. And I find it interesting that of all the people who testified were interviewed, only three swore they saw the ship break in half and all the others said that that did not happen.

01:11:03:22 – 01:11:29:05
Mark B. Perry
And so that goes back to speaking to the reliability of eyewitness testimony. So I think it puts a big caveat on all of this. As for the explosion that’s portrayed in 1953, they were basing that on testimony of one seaman who said that he survived, and he said that he heard an explosion before the ship went down.

01:11:29:07 – 01:11:52:03
Mark B. Perry
But when Ballard found the wreck, there was no evidence of a boiler explosion. There was no evidence of an explosion. There was evidence of the ship having been strained to the point of breaking in half. And but it is possible that the bulkhead, when they were going down the bulkheads finally giving way with all of that pressure, could have made explosive sounds.

01:11:52:06 – 01:12:19:06
Mark B. Perry
And who knows what a huge ship actually sounds like when it literally breaks into. So I think they opted to rely on that one person’s testimony because it makes for drama. It it accelerates the sinking. In the movie it says this happened and that’s why this happened. And that’s how Richard Sturgis dies with his son without ever having shared his true parentage.

01:12:19:06 – 01:12:21:18
Mark B. Perry
Because, again, it’s a soap opera.

01:12:21:20 – 01:12:41:26
Dan LeFebvre
I you make a great point two, of how would we know what that would, what it actually would have sounded like. That goes back to, you know, relying on on witness reports. But even they wouldn’t they you hear this big noise, you wouldn’t be able to identify exactly what that is because there’s all these there’s a lot of noises, I’m sure, that were happening.

01:12:42:03 – 01:12:46:12
Dan LeFebvre
And being able to identify what they were not easy to do.

01:12:46:19 – 01:13:10:12
Mark B. Perry
Yeah, I, I and I give Cameron big props for and his crew and the sound mixers because if you have to imagine that and try to create that, I think they did an exceptional job because that’s a horrifying moment in the Cameron film, which I recently rewatched. And as a research before you, we have our talk today.

01:13:10:15 – 01:13:34:16
Dan LeFebvre
Well, we started our discussion today with the text at the beginning of the movie, so it seems fitting to end in a similar fashion because the movie ends with voiceover. It gives us a few details about the tragedy, and I’m going to quote the voiceover from the end of the movie. Thus, on April 15th, 1912, at oh two 20 hours, as the passengers and crew sang a Welsh hymn, RMS Titanic passed from the British registry.

01:13:34:18 – 01:13:57:28
Dan LeFebvre
712 people in 19 lifeboats survived. I found it interesting that the movie mentioned the number of survivors in lifeboats, but didn’t mention how many souls were lost. So I have a two part question. As we start to wrap up our discussion today. First is the part the movie included in the final voice over accurate. And secondly, can you fill in some of the historical details that the movie doesn’t mention?

01:13:58:00 – 01:14:24:29
Mark B. Perry
By all accounts, there were 712 survivors, and most estimates put the loss of souls at around 1500, which is an interesting omission in this film, because to me. That’s the more horrifying statistic, actually. But again, this number isn’t really known because we don’t actually know how many people were aboard the ship because they weren’t all scanned by computers.

01:14:25:01 – 01:14:44:26
Mark B. Perry
You know, they didn’t have wristbands like they do today. And there were discrepancies in the passenger list. There were people who were on the printed passenger list who did not make the voyage. And same for the crew. So I want to go back to the singing of the hymn, the because you mentioned the Welsh hymn and the movie says Welsh hymn.

01:14:44:26 – 01:15:19:14
Mark B. Perry
Well, as many, many people insist that, you know, the band didn’t play the hymn, because their goal was to calm the passengers and not, you know, serenade the arrival of death or whatever. But if they had actually played or sung nearer, my God, to thee. As Walter Lord points out, the British version has a completely different melody than the American version, and not everybody would have known the song by the same melody, so it would have been a cacophony as opposed to the way it’s depicted in Titanic.

01:15:19:14 – 01:15:43:11
Mark B. Perry
53 years ago, I bought an excellent CD called Titanic. Music is heard on The Fateful Voyage, and it’s by, Ian Whitcomb and his orchestra, and they do authentic recreations of the music from the ship, and they do a performance of this waltz called Autumn. And for me, I like to think that that’s the last tune that the band played.

01:15:43:14 – 01:16:14:09
Mark B. Perry
People may have said prayers, they may have sung hymns. But that’s what I prefer to think, because it’s a very haunting, beautiful melody. Another interesting thing is that two of those four collapsible boats that could have carried however many people I said earlier, they apparently floated away with nobody in them. And, so of the total of 18 boats, the 16 wooden, the two collapsible, that’s all that survived.

01:16:14:12 – 01:16:33:28
Mark B. Perry
But if those other boats floated off and there was a sea full of people flailing, it’s hard to understand why they wouldn’t have done. One of the collapsible, as we’ve seen, was upside down, and the they managed to get aboard it and keep it afloat all night until they were rescued. So it’s hard to imagine why that happened.

01:16:33:28 – 01:17:06:12
Mark B. Perry
And I wonder, actually, if those boats were still lashed to the ship and went down with it. And that’s why there’s no account of those two. Two missing, collapsible boats. And then finally, the Titanic was never advertised as being unsinkable, but was generally referred to that way. And that was repeated enough that people believed that even apparently Captain Smith.

01:17:06:15 – 01:17:40:20
Mark B. Perry
But when you look at the persist, a fascination with this ship, all the TV shows, the documentaries, the coverage of that tragic submersible implosion that happened two years ago, going down to the dive, the wreck, the movies, the operas, the musicals, the books, nonfiction and fiction and on and on. As I said earlier, this was a hundred years ago, but it’s still this tragic confluence of events that happened that night and resulted in everything that it did.

01:17:40:23 – 01:17:58:21
Mark B. Perry
It it still resonates. It’s still it’s still relatable for people and it still fascinates. So it’s and and in that way, as Walter Lord points out, the Titanic herself may not have been unsinkable, but the legacy of the Titanic is certainly unsinkable.

01:17:58:24 – 01:18:17:27
Dan LeFebvre
But you mentioned at the very beginning that you had written your own version before Cameron’s version came out. If, let’s say that you were in charge of a new adaptation of Titanic story, is there anything you would change or anything based on the new information that’s come out since you wrote that originally?

01:18:18:00 – 01:18:22:10
Mark B. Perry
I probably wouldn’t do it.

01:18:22:13 – 01:18:28:25
Dan LeFebvre
Because it would be compared to Cameron’s. And that I mean, that’s that’s because that just seems to be the one that everybody’s like, this is what happened.

01:18:29:02 – 01:19:00:11
Mark B. Perry
Of course. I mean, Cameron, whatever we think of all the Jack and Rose stuff in the film, it made it a blockbuster hit. It’s a movie that I don’t know that I’ve ever met anybody who hasn’t seen it, which is rare. And I think he has set the standard for generations to come. And it’s also known as the studio execs prophetically said to us, this will be the most expensive movie ever made, which at the time it was.

01:19:00:11 – 01:19:30:24
Mark B. Perry
And so they were right. Even ten years before. But, you know, especially a movie where everybody already knows the ending. That said, I do think that the script that Dudley and I wrote at and again, trying to be respectful but still tell an action adventure, time travel movie, I think that it removes one of those obstacles, because in our script, you don’t know what’s going to happen to the ship, because the hero has the moral dilemma of, do I try to save these people?

01:19:30:27 – 01:19:58:06
Mark B. Perry
Or do I let it? Do I let history take its course? And the ship founder and all of the positive, developments that came from the tragedy, like lifeboats for all, and, you know, 24 hour, wireless communications and people receiving wireless as well as sending them on the ships and the safety of life at sea regulations that are constantly being updated.

01:19:58:08 – 01:20:11:19
Mark B. Perry
So a lot of positive things resulted from this horrible tragedy. But, you know, in our movie, you don’t you don’t know what’s going to happen. So, you know, if somebody from Netflix is a fan of your show, maybe they’ll give me a call. I don’t know.

01:20:11:21 – 01:20:33:26
Dan LeFebvre
When you’re talking about the time travel. When I was, have you ever seen, Final Countdown? I think it’s called where they go back in time to, and they have that same sort of discretion, like, do we stop the attack on Pearl Harbor? Do we, do we stop this from happening? I mean, that was the first thing that came to mind when you talk about not even really knowing, are they going to let history play out?

01:20:33:26 – 01:20:41:16
Dan LeFebvre
Is this going to be that same sort of dilemma in the movie that takes an event that we all know what happened, but is it really going to happen this way in this movie?

01:20:41:19 – 01:20:45:01
Mark B. Perry
Right. Well, we wrote our script first.

01:20:45:03 – 01:20:46:00
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, yeah, I.

01:20:46:03 – 01:20:49:27
Mark B. Perry
We didn’t need it made.

01:20:49:29 – 01:20:51:16
Mark B. Perry
But we wrote.

01:20:51:18 – 01:21:08:09
Dan LeFebvre
Fair. Well, I’d love to switch away from the 53 Titanic movie to another story of yours, the your debut novel called and introducing Dexter Gaines. And I’ve got a link to that in some notes for everyone to pick up their own copy. And while they do that, can you share a sneak peek of your book?

01:21:08:12 – 01:21:34:23
Mark B. Perry
Yeah, thanks. I appreciate you asking. In addition to my love for ships, I love old movies. I love old Hollywood, and I. I love historical fiction. And, as a side note, I also love time travel stories, obviously. But, and when I, when I decided to try my hand at fiction, I wanted to myself, time travel back to the twilight of Hollywood’s golden age.

01:21:34:23 – 01:22:00:19
Mark B. Perry
And I’m. This is not a time travel novel. I’m just saying, me as a writer, I wanted to experience it, to put my head in the heads of those characters and that time period. And I wanted specifically to set it in the early 1950s, when TV was a threat to the movie business and when the studio system was beginning to change and be phased out.

01:22:00:21 – 01:22:27:28
Mark B. Perry
And I wanted to tell an unconventional story that starts with one of the most well-known tropes, which is a young person coming to Hollywood to become a star. And, in my case, he’s a young man from Texas with matinee idol good looks and the unfortunate name of Dan Root, and he’s escaping a, troubled past. He arrives in town, he falls in with one of the most powerful couples in Hollywood.

01:22:28:00 – 01:22:52:01
Mark B. Perry
And it’s a hotshot producer at 20th Century Fox who produced Titanic 53. His name is Milford Langdon and his wife, Lillian Sinclair, who’s a glamorous movie star, who’s kind of on the cusp between fame and fade out, as happens to women in this cruel industry. And together, Millie and Lily, they mentor, Dan and transform him into a promising young actor.

01:22:52:01 – 01:23:20:24
Mark B. Perry
And they rechristened him Dexter Gaines. That’s going to be his big movie name. And it becomes an unconventional love story about heartbreak and redemption and sexual awakening. And it’s told as a kind of emotional mystery that set in, two time periods. It’s set in 1994, when he when Dan returns to Hollywood to confront his demons, and the early 1950s, when he, first gets his, first bitter taste of stardom.

01:23:20:26 – 01:23:47:01
Mark B. Perry
And we know from the very beginning of the book these are there are no spoilers here. We know from the very beginning of the book that his time in Hollywood ended up being a spectacular failure that ended in violence and attempted murder. But the story is about this man finding self absolution in the in the ultimate truth that he uncovers from the literal and figurative, ruins of his past.

01:23:47:01 – 01:24:21:15
Mark B. Perry
And I’m happy to say it’s been on one of Amazon’s, bestseller lists since it came out May 6th. And and I, I and the, the critical acclaim, the reviews I’ve gotten so far have been overwhelmingly positive. And I chose the early 50s for a couple of reasons. I wanted a real scene and a real movie that my character, my fictional character Dexter, could have been in when the film was shot and then could have been cut out of before it was released.

01:24:21:18 – 01:24:48:04
Mark B. Perry
And I was watching Titanic 53 for the 800th time, and the scene presented itself to me and I thought, oh, and then I worked backwards from that. And that’s how I, I originally I was going to start the book in 1950, but I shifted it to 1952. So that it could accommodate the maiden voyage of the United States, which is also featured in the book, and some behind the scenes stuff and the making of Titanic.

01:24:48:04 – 01:24:57:06
Mark B. Perry
So if you want to know more about that, I would encourage you to pick up a copy or listen to the wonderful audiobook that was performed by Daniel Henning.

01:24:57:09 – 01:25:01:08
Dan LeFebvre
Fantastic. I’ll make sure to add link that in the show notes. Thanks again so much for your time, Mark.

01:25:01:10 – 01:25:06:19
Mark B. Perry
Thank you. I as you can tell, I’m always happy to shoot the ship as we say.

01:25:07:20 – 01:25:13:04
Mark B. Perry
And this was really fun. Thanks for having me, Dan.

Dan LeFebvre  02:40

Our movie today is a little different than what we normally cover here on the podcast. But even though it doesn’t claim to be based on a true story, Casablanca is not only set during the historical backdrop of World War Two. It was also released during the war as well. So if you were to give Casablanca a letter grade for its historical accuracy overall, what would it

Bob LeMent  03:09

get? I think it was pretty I think it was pretty close. So I think I would give it somewhere around the B. I don’t want to say b minus but I’ll give it. I don’t want to do minuses or pluses, so let’s just do B, A,

Dan LeFebvre  03:21

B, okay. That’s good. That’s good. I mean, again, it is one of the things. I’m kind of surprised that it’s that high, being that it was released during the war as well. And we know that there’s a lot of propaganda films that get released and such like that. So I’m glad to hear that it was pretty, pretty close,

Bob LeMent  03:36

I think. So I think, yeah, there’s a lot of instances there where they were, you know, pretty close to what was happening and, and since it was on right, everything was happening at that time, it’s kind of interesting that that they would, you know, put all that out there and not try to spin it too much, one way or the other. So, plus, to be honest, the movie, in parts of the movie were extremely vague. So, so it’s accurate in the sense that I think that’s probably what the times were, right? So you didn’t want to, you didn’t want to go one way or the other too much, because you didn’t know it was going

Dan LeFebvre  04:11

to happen. That’s true. And I guess I didn’t think about it until just now too like, they also didn’t know a lot of that stuff. Like, we didn’t know a lot of what actually happened until after the war anyway, right? And so that’s another element to it, that, yeah, okay, yeah,

Bob LeMent  04:27

if you because they were, I mean, this was the whole story of Casa block is trying to get away from the war, right? So people are using this as a as a point of departure, more than a point of arrival and and trying to get away from all of the, you know, the madness of Europe at the time and, and so I think it is. It’s fairly accurate in that portrayal. Obviously, it was much more gruesome and horrible than its portrayal. Trade, but that’s Hollywood, right? So they’re not, they’re not going to show all well at the time. That’s Hollywood. Now, maybe they would be more gruesome. But back then, it was all very, you know, clean and, and you know, all, they’re running away and, but it’s not like, you know, people were tortured and on screen and so forth. So, yeah, which you know, I’m sure happened even in Casablanca. You

Dan LeFebvre  05:26

mentioned getting away from the war. And at the beginning of the movie, it explains the storyline of why this is taking place in Casablanca. Basically, it says that the outbreak of World War Two in Europe, the civilians are trying to escape the war by heading to America. And to do that, they need to get to Lisbon, Portugal. Some people could get there directly, but because of the war, the movie explains that not everyone could get to Lisbon directly, so they had to kind of take this roundabout path from Paris to Marseille, across the Mediterranean to Iran and Algeria, and then across the northern coast of Africa to Casablanca, which is in Morocco. And then from there, people would try to barter or buy an exit visa from Casablanca to go the 380 or 615 kilometers, as the crow flies to Lisbon to then ultimately get to America. Was that an actual path that people took to try to escape the war in Europe? I

Bob LeMent  06:16

believe so, yeah. So I think that was the that was a path. It’s kind of like a political end around, right? So you couldn’t just, you couldn’t just go, Hey, I’m in Paris, which is a major metropolitan city, you know, even then, right? And just, I’m gonna hop on a plane and go to America. That wasn’t gonna happen. And so they had to go someplace, to go someplace, to go someplace in order to get where they needed to go. And so, yeah, this was a weird little stop along the way, as it were, in order to get to America, because you couldn’t just go straight. You couldn’t go, I mean, you couldn’t fly to London, right? So there was no way out of the situation other than going through, you know, kind of these backwater places in order to avoid the political, you know, devastation. Maybe we’ll say that was going on at that time because of, because of the war and all the different things that were happening that. So, yeah, I think the interesting thing to me, for all, I mean, it’s very, you know, sugar coated for perspective from today and so forth. But, you know, at the time, I think it was, it was deemed fairly tough in its portrayal of things that were happening for the for the general public. So there were, you know, they had guns, and they were Nazis, and, you know, people were, were, you know, running for their lives, a lot of them. And it didn’t really broach the, you know, the elephant in the room, which was the Jewish persecution so much. These were just, you know, when we say run of the mill people, I don’t think that’s the right word to say, but they, they weren’t in the Holocaust aspect of things. They were, you know, kind of the, the folks who were the, you know, bystanders who got caught up in everything and so And obviously some of them were as we watched the movie, some of them were against the war against the Nazis and so forth. But it really didn’t talk about the Holocaust so much in that regard. Now, if you look into the movie as who was working on the movie. It talks a lot about the Holocaust, right? So there are people who worked on this movie who knew things were going on and wanted to betray that. You know, this was not a good situation, without being so overt as to say, you know that this was happening.

Dan LeFebvre  09:01

Can you give an example of what you mean by that? I’m

Bob LeMent  09:03

so curious. You’re just saying there was, there were people in the movie who have escaped the Nazis, and there are extras in the movie, and there are characters in the movie, there are actors in the movie, and there’s also in the movie, there are folks who were the Jewish faith, who knew things were going on and they were working on this, as you know, I don’t know, I can’t get into their heads. But as this was going on, you can’t help but think, yes, we need to expose these people as, as you know, not being good people and but in a kind of, you know, non overt way, right? This is a bad situation. They couldn’t talk about, you know, the Holocaust or anything, but they could talk about how bad the war is. And so I think that was also. You know, if you look, you know, kind of an underlying thing. I’m sure, if you were to ask any one of those folks who are working on it, that that would be, you know, a surreptitious goal of theirs is to, is to make light of the fact that this was happening, and you need to pay attention. Everybody is, this is you’re not going to be, you know, it’s going to get you as well. We’re just in the first line. So, yeah, yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  10:25

which, which kind of goes back to being released during the war. It’s it. I mean, now we think of it as a period piece, perhaps, but it was, it was that during that time, like it was going on right then. So it was a way of getting that message out. I didn’t think about that, that it would, yeah, it’s a, not a documentary, but it’s telling what’s going on right now, right?

Bob LeMent  10:46

Yeah, if you take into consideration another movie that was, you know, kind of during this time period as well, earlier than this time period, actually, by a little bit, but, you know, very much in tune with kind of the things that were going on The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin, there was no ambiguity that he says. Hitler is a horrible person. This one’s a little more ambiguous. But The Great Dictator, you know, it was shouting from the rafters, hey everybody, you know, this is not going to be good for anybody. So this was, oddly enough, you would think that that would have been later, but it was earlier than Casablanca. And Casablanca is kind of the, you know, let’s get everybody on board with this politically and move our, you know, things forward, our position forward, but not be, you know, too upsetting in the political situation. I think so. Well,

Dan LeFebvre  11:55

movie doesn’t really talk about dates very much, but there is one line of dialog that mentions it being December of 1941 of course, we know Pearl Harbor was attacked in December of 1941 that brought the United States into the war. The movie doesn’t even mention that at all. What it does mention is things like Free France and Vichy France, and in case of Casablanca, specifically, they call it unoccupied France. But can you fill in a little more historical context? Because we’re, you know, recording this long after World War Two, obviously. And again, this was released in 1942 so just after the timeline of the movie itself in December of 1941 so can you give us some more historical context that we don’t see in the movie, that the audiences would have known then about these fragmentations of France and the location there in Casablanca?

Bob LeMent  12:38

That’s a that’s a good and I wish I could give you, like, a really detailed thing, but I can’t. But off my what I can’t tell you is that, basically, you know, Nazi Germany occupied France, and there was a point in time where, you know, everything’s a mess. That’s where the French resistance comes into existence because they don’t want to be occupied and, and if you, if you remember, in the movie, they’re talking about these papers that are signed by Charles de Gaulle, right? So those are very, very valuable, right? Because this is at a point in in transition where the Nazis are invading in French the French government is kind of going along with it a bit in order to, kind of, you know, not everybody get killed, I guess, and and so that’s why they, when they mention that in the movie, that’s why it’s so important, because it’s, they still have some, I won’t say, power, but they have some influence over the situation at this point. And because, you know, not too long after this, Charles de Gaulle, you know, who cares if he signed anything, right? Because the Nazis can, you know, totally occupy everything and batten down the hatches in France is, is part of Germany, in essence, during the war at that time. So this is that weird political time where they’re trying to figure things out. And the interesting thing is is, I believe, not too far after this time is also when they were trying to get Britain to sign on to something and allowed the Nazis to occupy them as well. In effect, right? A political strategy without, without having to be a military strategy. But they were moving towards the military strategy. And said, Hey, if you want to just surrender, like France did, go right ahead. We’ll let you, and they’ll be part of Germany as well, right? And so this movie portrays a really interesting time where people could still move, you know, even though not freely, but move somewhat by this kind of political end around going through northern Africa. And so it really is, and I think maybe that might be part of the attraction for the movie for the age. Is as it were, is because it’s portraying a time that was so, you know, interesting now, in hindsight, at the time, probably so, you know, incredibly frightful of what was happening. And can you imagine, I mean, you and I live in the United States. Can you imagine if all of a sudden something happens like, well, you can’t go, you know, if we go into the man of the High Castle, you can’t go past the Rockies, because we’re occupied on this side by one group, and the other side across the Rockies says is the other group. So you can’t do, can’t do that. We can’t even fathom that. But this was happening to in Europe, and it was happening to these people, and it just historically, looking back at is like, how can you you know? How can you fathom that? How can we, you know, as a generation beyond all of this, a couple generations beyond our list. But how can you, you know, bring that into your mind, because we’ve never had to experience but here you can see it. I mean, albeit very, you know, light in its presentation, a lot of people get killed and whatnot, but it’s not gruesome. It really is an interesting movie for that. And I reason I brought this up because I recently watched it before I contacted you, in amazingly, a very well made movie, and it moves right. So if you think of 1942 you know, a lot of movies are. Nobody watches a lot of movies from that time period because they’re not very the pace is very, very slow, and this one actually has a pretty good pace, man, that doesn’t answer the other part of the question, but it’s very interesting to me that this movie was so well paced and so and you kind of buy it, you know, you’re into the the what happens to These characters, because it is kind of an interesting situation, and then the corruption, right? So, I mean, for all intents and purposes, Rick is a gangster. He’s he’s selling access, right? There were other people selling access as well, you know, you want to get out of here. Well, guess what? You know, I mean, he was a nice gangster, but gangster nonetheless.

Dan LeFebvre  17:30

Yeah. Well, that leads right into my next question, because I have a feeling I already know the answer to this, but a lot of movies change the names or make up characters completely. But I have to ask like Rick Blaine, Ilsa Lund, Victor Laszlo, are kind of the three main characters. And then there’s the local French prefect of the police, Captain Renault, and then the German military officer, major Strasser, is kind of, there’s the main characters in the movie. Are any of them based on real people?

Bob LeMent  17:57

It’s based off of a play I’m trying to remember the title off the top of my head here, everyone can meet, everyone can go to Rick’s place. I think I can’t remember the I don’t know if you’re familiar with that play. I’m blanking on it here for some reason. But I don’t think that any I think they’re kind of a conglomerate of people who are going through there. I mean, the French, you know, Jardin person there he was, you know, he was somebody, but I don’t think he was that person with that name. And he probably, he was a gangster as well, if you think about it, because he was playing with people’s lives. And, you know, you can leave, you can’t leave. Where’s the money, you know, all that kind of stuff. But I think they’re all kind of a conglomeration of things that happened during that time, rather than actual people of the time. So it’s not a true story in any way, other than it’s based on experiences. Everybody’s welcome at Rick’s place. I think that’s what it’s called. Okay,

Dan LeFebvre  19:05

okay, yeah, and that makes sense. I mean, a lot of movies just completely make up characters like that too, well.

Bob LeMent  19:13

Plus, there was a time where I don’t think that they really wanted to do that, to be honest with you. I mean, can you imagine if you were, you were, you’re still probably outed

Dan LeFebvre  19:24

by the Hollywood movie. It’s still going on. That’s true. That’s true. That’s very, very true. Yeah.

Bob LeMent  19:33

So like, Hey, I’m not. You don’t use my name. Hey, I’m I’m still trying to make money on this situation, exactly,

Dan LeFebvre  19:39

and especially for, you know, according to the movie Victor Laszlo, is part of the underground fighting against the Nazis. We never, we never really find out exactly what his role is. There was a point at line of dialog where he says something like, you know, I’m privileged to be one of the great leaders, or one of the leaders of a great movement. And then we see that major strass is trying to use, um. Safe pass, or he’s trying to get safe passage out of Casablanca, and major Strasser is trying to use that to bribe him into giving up the other leaders of the resistance across major European cities. So we get the idea that Laszlo knows, you know, is very well connected with the resistance. And then there’s another part in the movie where Strasser is speaking directly with Laszlo and tells him that he’s an escaped prisoner of the Third Reich, and that’s why Strasser is there in Casablanca, tasked with making sure that Laszlo stays in Casablanca and doesn’t leave. But as I was watching it, I was I couldn’t help but think, why wouldn’t Strasser just take Laszlo into custody the moment that he sees him? The movie seems to imply the reason for that is because Casablanca is in unoccupied France, like we talked about. But looking at this from a historical lens, did the Germans behave differently in unoccupied France as they did in occupied territories? Yeah,

Bob LeMent  20:49

I think so. So, you know, we don’t have the benefit of living through it, which I’m glad. But yeah, I mean, there was weird political alliances and weird political happenings all during World War Two, you know, as it as it kind of went built up, right? And so, yes, I would say that there. I mean, I don’t think that they were as nice as they are in this movie, right? You know, where, where they’re singing, they’re singing the German, I can’t even pronounce it, Dirac and Rhine. And then they start singing le Marseille, you know, over it. And it was kind of like, you know, a rivalry for football teams, or something like

Dan LeFebvre  21:33

a West Side Story,

Bob LeMent  21:35

right? You know that? I’m sure that didn’t go on, you know, and go over very well, but no there. I think there was a they held to the political agreements because they, you know, it’s, it’s much easier to like when friends surrenders, right? It’s much easier to take over a country that way than it is to bomb them and shoot them and and go through all the fighting. And so I think at this point in the game, the Nazis wanted to do that. So they were probably on, you know, for lack of a better term, their best behavior. And so then, yeah, so it kind of makes sense that, I also think that it’s more of a an amalgam, right? So I don’t know that they just did one on one, let’s watch people not get out of the country, kind of a situation. But I think it’s more, you know, looking at the trying to build that into the storyline, that was probably the easiest, easiest way to do that. I think that they had people stationed, and they would communicate and say so and so is going to be in your area. Keep an eye on them, kind of just like the just like the French Jordan was, was keeping an eye on everybody and trying to make his money and live, live the good life in Casablanca and so, yeah, but I don’t know that it was just they were chasing each other on but hey, maybe, maybe they did. But I I couldn’t imagine, but you’re right, but you mentioned, you know, he’s like part of something again, all very vague, all very vague. They didn’t say the resistance. They didn’t say that. We don’t even know why Rick is there. They never explain why he’s got all this set up, other than it’s obviously lucrative, but he obviously didn’t move in yesterday. He’s been there for a while, and he’s set up shop. And this, to me, it was kind of implied that he’d been there for quite some time, and he’s taken advantage of the situation, as opposed to, he moved there to do this particular, you know, work. I think he was doing a lot of other stuff, and this just happened to pop up, and he’s like, Yeah, let’s, let’s make some money on this new idea.

Dan LeFebvre  23:56

Like you said it as a gangster, it’s take advantage of the situation, good

Bob LeMent  23:59

money. These people want to get out of here. So yeah, I mean, obviously he’s got a heart of gold in the movie, because he does help help them escape, essentially. But yeah, I think so. And I think it’s all you know, kind of set up to be, not strictly historical, but somewhat historical,

Dan LeFebvre  24:26

yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. And you mentioning Rick and kind of his backstory, we hear little bits and pieces throughout the movie. It’s, he’s born in New York City, so he’s an American. But then in 1935 it talks about how he ran guns in Ethiopia, and in 1936 he fought in Spain on the loyal side. But that’s as that’s as detailed as the movie gets. Do we know from history if there were things that happened in Ethiopia in 1935 and Spain in 1936 that the movie might be alluding to with Rick’s backstory? I

Bob LeMent  24:56

wish I knew the answer for you. I think that those things did happen, from my limited understanding on, on that aspect of things that those were, you know, they kind of star trekked it, you know what I mean. So they, they took real, cherry picked things out of history to put into his story. You know, like Efraim Cochrane, you know, he’s the person before him was, you know, Isaac Newton and all these real people. And then you get the Efraim Cochrane, and he breaks the warp barrier. But so if you’re familiar with that, sorry. And then, so, yeah, I think that those were actual things that happened. I took it that, I did not run that down necessarily. Sorry,

Dan LeFebvre  25:43

no, no, yeah, that makes sense, though. I mean, because, again, it’s alluding to there’s something vague there, kind of like with the resistance, or that that element and that they give it. One of the reasons it stood out to me was because it gave dates and places where most of the movie doesn’t really do that kind of stuff. And so, you know, the that they did that makes me think, yeah, kid, it must be something there that he was involved in. But then it again, alludes, since it mentioned December of 1941 like you had said, he’s already been there in Casablanca, and that was kind of the next thing that he was doing. And so he was doing things in other places, kind of behind the scenes. And then now he’s in in Casablanca. He’s been there, apparently, since after 1936 or at some point after that.

Bob LeMent  26:28

It’s kind of like a gun for hire, in a way, in the earlier stories. And now he’s older, and so this was the new venture that he took on because, you know, maybe he didn’t want to shoot people anymore, or at least not as many. We talked about him a little

Dan LeFebvre  26:45

bit, but I do want to ask a little bit more specifically about the relationship between Captain Renault and major Strasser in the movie, that’s the Renault is the French law enforcement. Strasser is the Nazi official, and again, Casablanca being in unoccupied France, but major Strasser is welcomed by Renault, and many of the locals in movie calls it unoccupied France. So it’s not occupied. I’m assuming that’s referring to, you know, not occupied by the Nazis, but then they’re still welcomed. What would the relationship have been like? Would the Nazis actually have been welcomed by local law enforcement? Did they kind of, do you think they foresaw what was going to happen, even though it wasn’t occupied by the Germans, but they’re like, Oh, we better appease them, because it’s coming. Or what do you think was happening there?

Bob LeMent  27:27

My guess would be that they’re, you know, obviously stuff’s happening. They’re seeing things and so forth, and, and just like Britain, you know, France was colonial, colonialist, right? And, and if, going forward in history, you know, part of the reason Vietnam became such a mess was because of colonialism, and that was French influenced. And so I think that they, you know, it’s again, it’s the times and the political thing. It’s, I don’t know that they would say welcomed as much as tolerated, more than likely. And so because what are you going to do? You don’t want them, you know, the the powers in Germany to say, Okay, well now we’re just going to take over this area, because it’d probably a pretty easy job. And obviously it was because they did take over most of North Africa by the time World War Two chugged along. That’s the whole Rommel aspect of things, and the Desert Fox and all that took over huge part of Africa for the for the Nazis. And so, you know, you, everybody’s playing it cool, right? So everything gets to happen and and they kind of just, they in the movie, they go into, you know, everybody falls into cronyism and, and, you know, being corrupt. And so, you know, the Germans money spends as well as the whoever else is coming through there, so you play both ends to get the money. So, yeah, I can imagine that that, you know, I don’t know that they would say open arms, but I think for sure, there was not any, you know, they’re like, Yeah, whatever, yeah, you can come in here and drink as well.

Dan LeFebvre  29:20

Yeah, yeah. I like the way you say that, that they, you know, they weren’t necessarily welcome, but they were tolerated. And the idea of, it sounds like they’re trying to survive, and, like, with Renault being that, you know, the the leader the law enforcement there, but also recognizing that he really doesn’t, I mean, if he does the wrong thing, like, I mean, they’re going to attack anyway, and, you know, so might as well just make the best of the situation that you have. He’s

Bob LeMent  29:45

corrupt, and so he’s trying to, you know, cash in. Because, I mean, guess what, he’s at the port of exit. So the going, it’s too tough. I’ve got these papers with Charles de Gaulle’s signature on them, and I. Will, you know, make my exit at the right time. And so it’s it. It really is, you know, even though, when you watch it, it’s not very it’s not like it is today, but it’s very corrupt situation. You know, in I think it’s portrayed in the film as palatable as corruption can be portrayed at the time period, you know, they’re not going to be, you know, overly terrible, you know, cutting off pinkies and whatnot. So, you know. But I think for the time period, this was, this was, you know, corruption at its best. You

Dan LeFebvre  30:40

mentioned the letters from De Gaulle, and you talked about that briefly before too, but that is that’s a core concept in the movie, that these letters of transit were signed by General de Gaulle, and they there’s also mentions of Captain Renault having exit visas that he’s signing, but they’re the letters of transit from De Gaulle are different because the movie specifically says that they cannot be rescinded or even questioned, which, of course, applies to me. Like, okay, well, of course, the only the people are going to want this are the ones that the Nazis would probably want to question. That’s right,

Bob LeMent  31:15

don’t question me, right? That that don’t want to have any, you know, they’re trying to skate right out of there without any kind of problems, whereas, you know, the other ones are like, maybe it’s going to work. Maybe it’s not going to work. So

Dan LeFebvre  31:31

is there any truth to the concept of those letters that we know

Bob LeMent  31:34

of, that we know of? I do believe that that is true, at least to a point, right? So that was, those were something that was available at the time, until, basically, De Gaulle stepped down and and so a lot of people got out via that mechanism, right? So that was, you know, you when you watch a lot of these movies, World War two movies and everything there’s with all these different things that are happening in corruption and everything this like Schindler’s List, right? So the list was there to save people because, well, they need to make ammunition, you know, munitions and so forth. And so Oscar Schindler was collecting people and saying that they were invaluable, and that would so I think all with all this corruption and everything going on that was, you know, the corruption on the good side of things, where it was helping people get out of the situation and, and, I mean, it’s happened since then in all kinds of different situations. And so, yeah, I believe so. And in the Now, as far as the the the officer, the French officer, have signed in those, I don’t know about that, that that may be part of the invention to show his corruptness. But I think when you’re when they’re invoking a real person, right? Charles de Gaulle and so forth. I think all that is factual to a point, obviously not, not forever, you know, I’m sure that he didn’t give it to those people or anything, but, you know, but the

Dan LeFebvre  33:16

concept of them being a thing, yeah? Which, again, goes back to something that I think is important to understand when watching this movie, is that it was released in 1942 during the war as well, and so the time period is very different than if we were to make a movie today of the same story we would we would know a lot more about The stuff going on behind the scenes and the but also, just like the political, the political side of it would be very different. I

Bob LeMent  33:47

think, I mean, we have a war going on over in the Ukraine, right? I don’t think that we know more than they knew

Dan LeFebvre  33:57

why. But I mean, like we would know more about what happened in Casablanca in World War Two, if the movie was made today, now, is what, yeah, but, but, because this was made during the war, they didn’t know a lot of the political mechanizations Behind the scenes that were going on. They just knew that there were these things that were going on, and so maybe that’s why they were so vague in a lot of it.

Bob LeMent  34:18

But they’re literally people in this movie, who took the route now there, yeah, so they knew, right? And they’re working on the movie. So I think the vagueness had more to do with the political climate probably than it had anything to do with giving away any secrets. Because they they talk, and there’s a, if you look on IMDb, they talk about when they did the whole, you know, singing thing, from the to the LE Marseille and everything, they were literally the people who were in the scene were crying because they had gone through this, you know, they had escaped. And now. Are, you know, in the film industry, and they’re trying to get by right during this time period, and they’re crying in this scene, because this is, this is so personal and and so, you know, I think I don’t know that they necessarily all the inside knowledge that they would have had made it into the movie. But, you know, there was known things. And just like The Great Dictator that was, they knew that stuff was happening, as far as the Holocaust was concerned, way back then, and that that Charlie Chaplin put into the movie, you know, insinuate, but it wasn’t totally proven. And, I mean, some people probably knew, but not everybody, and so they were, it’s a whole weird political climate that everybody was trying to navigate because that was so contentious, right? So you’re dealing with, you know, at this point, we call him a mad man, right in Hitler and the Nazi machine, and you’re trying to not get overly involved in in having everybody be killed in a war. And it was just massive. And so, you know, you say we were brought into the war after Pearl Harbor, right? And but we were involved in the war well before Pearl Harbor, because we were, yeah, we were supplying the British with all kinds of good stuff, because they were, at that point, they were the major power against the Nazis. And to this day, we’re supplying Ukraine with all sorts of good stuff in that skirmish. And so it’s not, you know, it’s not as if all this kind of just poof, you know, happened in a moment. So all this is, you know, ongoing. And I think that’s part of where you talk about Rick and his, his weird background and so forth, all all through history. This stuff doesn’t just happen overnight. Typically, it percolates and brews and and then things pop here and there, and then finally, it, you know, comes above the fray there, and everybody becomes aware of it. And so, yeah, I think that this was is like that. So we’re just emerging into the broader political ideologies that came out of all this. And at this point, when this was made, still not so sure where everybody’s at. I mean, people were taking meetings with Hitler from the United States all the way up until war was declared, right? And I’m talking, you know, known people. So it is weird. And I think the interesting thing about this movie is, is the ambiguity of all this, right? So it’s so ambiguous in parts that I think that that plays well to the politics that was happening, because they all had to get along still, but things were happening, but, you know, you didn’t, and people were obviously fleeing, but it wasn’t like it was a full blown situation, yet, kind of

Dan LeFebvre  38:30

like you’re saying before, just there are a lot of people that were tolerating each other and not not welcoming or but just a lot of toleration going on, even on the political side too. Yeah, it

Bob LeMent  38:39

was in and then you think of where it’s at in Morocco. I mean, it’s not Paris, right? Even in 1942 Morocco is not Paris. And so it really is not a major metropolitan, you know, forward thinking kind of place back then, and so all this is kind of, you know, a microcosm, terrible to say, the Gilligan’s Island of World War Two, right there in Casablanca.

Dan LeFebvre  39:15

Any other example? There? Nice, because,

Bob LeMent  39:17

because Gilligan’s Island was the microcosm of the rich and the poor and the working class and and everything. And that was how it was built, right? And so with the movie, that’s what they kind of built with this too, was, you know, you have people taking advantage. You have people who are trying to get away, and you have people who are just living there. And you have, you know, the waiters and so forth, that that the bar, who are, you know, just trying to to get through right in. And so it is. It is a microcosm for, I think the times

Dan LeFebvre  39:51

makes sense. You mentioned people kind of taking advantage. And other other than Rick, who we kind of had referred to before, there’s another guy named Ferrari, and he. Runs the big competitor to Rick’s, which is it called the Blue parrot. And according to the movie, he’s got a monopoly on the black market. At one point, talks about how buying and selling humans is the leading commodity in Casablanca. Was human trafficking a major issue in Casablanca during World War

Bob LeMent  40:17

Two. I hate to tell you this human trafficking still a major issue. Dan,

Dan LeFebvre  40:22

fair point,

Bob LeMent  40:25

yeah, I don’t know on, I don’t know what I would I would say that, chances are there was some of that going on. I don’t know to what extent, and so forth. It’s interesting that if you look at the two characters, you know, Rick looks very American, and then the the for our Ferrari guy looks he’s trying to acclimate. He’s wearing a fez. He doesn’t, he shouldn’t be wearing a fez. If you look at him, he’s, he’s got a suit on so forth. He’s wearing a fez. I mean, he’s trying to be a little more local, but he’s obviously not. He’s obviously, you know, American or British background so forth. As far as the human trafficking at the time, I That’s a good question. I wish I had a better answer for you. I would say that that unfortunately, it’s still an issue today. And so chances are, if that was the route that other people were taking, then that’s the route that they would take for that as well. The interesting thing that I found was that there was a lot of Jew Jewish people in Morocco, in that part of Northern Africa, and so then they, obviously, you know, wanted to leave because of what was happening, which, you know, I don’t know that it, it really dawned on me that’s a little bit of some research that I did. It was interesting to note that, because now, when we think about that, we don’t think of it as being particularly an area where a lot of Jewish people would be so that I found that interesting. Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  42:14

were they? Was it something they kind of, they were trying to escape from Europe, or was it a community that was already there. Oh, okay, okay, see, I would have expected that. Okay, there, everybody’s fleeing Europe. And, yeah, you know what?

Bob LeMent  42:27

It was already part of the already part of the community. They would live there. And so, you know, this wasn’t something they moved there. I mean, obviously, I’m sure there’s a wave of people during that time period. But no talks about the them being, having a community there. I wonder if they

Dan LeFebvre  42:46

were involved in, think of like with Victor Laszlo and being part of the resistance, if then he connected to, you know, the local community, because they knew what was going on and helping people escape. It seems like it could be a logical connection.

Bob LeMent  42:58

It seems like it would be a good connector. But they don’t go into that too much with the movie at all. They don’t actually get into the, you know, genetic stuff that the Nazis were into for that time, too much in the movie. And again, I think that was just the political climate, you know, they didn’t want to to broach that throughout

Dan LeFebvre  43:25

the movie. It takes place just across a few days in the movie. But there was a flashback sequence with Rick and Ilsa in Paris, and that’s, there’s artillery in the distance can be heard. And then Rick mentioned, you know, the German 77th is about 35 miles away. And then there’s another scene reading newspaper and talk about how the Germans are going to be in Paris by Wednesday or Thursday at the least. How well do you think the movie did just explaining the German invasion of Paris from the perspective of citizens like Rick and Ilsa who were living there at the time,

Bob LeMent  43:52

I don’t think they did a very good job, really. Okay? I mean, they talk about that and everything, but it’s always at a distance, right? And so, you know, it’s, it’s as if, well, we’re above all this. So it’s just, you know, the unlucky people, or the poor people are getting bombed or whatever, because we’re here in this hotel and we’re doing fine, where we know it wasn’t like that, you know, it was whenever they took over Paris, then there was fighting and so forth. And, I mean, you know, it was indiscriminate, right? It was wherever the fighting was happening. It wasn’t like they said, well, we can’t go over by the Ritz because, you know, all the rich people are there. So I think they, you know, it was a light way to bring it into the script, I think, but not really, you know, if you watch, you know, other movies, like Saving Private Ryan so forth, and you see the bombed out buildings and people still living in them. I think that’s a little bit more realistic portrayal of how things happened, where, you know, fighting. Happens. There’s so much, you know, just ancillary destruction, and people who aren’t even involved in the war dying, and then their family has to carry on, and all they’ve got is what’s left. And so, yeah, it was very, you know, the whole movie is very light on the realism, I think, in that, in that aspect of things, yeah. And then also, you know, they never went to Paris, obviously, so because they couldn’t at that time.

Dan LeFebvre  45:35

Oh, the Germans you’re talking about, yeah, no, I

Bob LeMent  45:38

mean the movie, they didn’t. They were all in the studio in Hollywood.

Dan LeFebvre  45:41

Oh well, right, yeah. Oh yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, yeah, that was a good point. I didn’t even think about that

Bob LeMent  45:48

Morocco. They weren’t anywhere they were. So the whole movie, and one of the aspects of the movie is, whenever they are at the airfield, and the we’re gonna get on the plane, and everything that was in that was indoors, because they couldn’t film outside during the war at night, because Hollywood itself was under alert, you know. So one of the things is the the plane is a model constructed, and they actually that one of the great stories trivia pieces from Casablanca is the plane is a model. And the people who, when they get you see them by the plane, they’re children in they’re dressed up as adults in order to get scale right, so to make the plane look bigger, because they could not film at an airfield, because the they were not allowed to have lights at night unless they were needed. So everything was dark because they were worried about invasion. And that’s and we can spin off into the Battle of Los Angeles, which is kind of a famous thing in and of itself, during that time period where something was in the sky and they shot the heck out of it, and no one knows. Yeah, I mean, they assume it’s a weather balloon or something. But, of course, but it, you know, that’s how high alert the West Coast of the United States was, at that time was, you know, there were people who, that was the Civil Defense, and they would sit out all night and watch the skies and so, yeah, which is something you

Dan LeFebvre  47:31

won’t even think about, watching the movie like that, that. I mean, especially watching the movie now. I mean, you think of, okay, it was, it was during the war. But you don’t think about little things like that, of even the production of the movie having to change because of the war that was still going on as they were, as they were filming it, yeah,

Bob LeMent  47:47

and, and so that that was, you know, since it’s all basically a studio movie, it’s all pretty much inside. I they didn’t, I don’t, I think, I think all that was inside, even the airplane thing, it was just in a big sound stage off in the distance and so forth, because you never really see the sky. It’s night. Yeah, it’s foggy, exactly, but, yeah, it’s interesting, like that. So, I mean, if you think about it, even they were under the threat because they were restricted, yeah, no, that makes sense. Shoots couldn’t do night. Shoots couldn’t do couldn’t go to Morocco, couldn’t hang on Casablanca, actually, you know, they just had to do it all from from the studio and, you know, relative safety, I think, at the time,

Dan LeFebvre  48:40

in the final scene at the airport, the airport, the way it all kind of ends, you have the Rick giving the letters of transit to Victor and Elsa so that they can take the last plane out of Casablanca. Rick stays behind. He ends up killing the Nazi major Strasser and so that the Germans won’t try to pursue the plane. But then, In a surprise move at the very end, Captain Renault doesn’t turn in Rick, but then he orders his police officers to go look for the other usual suspects. I think he says like he has normal people that they round up whenever there’s something wrong. And it seems obvious that that ruse isn’t going to last very long. So at the very end of the movie, you see Rick and Renault, kind of walking off in the distance, heading towards a Free French garrison in Brazzaville, which, again, was kind of something that seemed pretty significant that they would just mention Brazzaville. Was there any significance to that mention at the end

Bob LeMent  49:26

of the movie? I think that it was a safe haven still at that point as things were falling apart. But everything was like dominoes and so and it is interesting that that our French authority, you know, kind of turncoat. But you know, they kind of allude to his, you know, French patriotism, I suppose, in a way, it probably, you know, money was also a factor, because there, throughout the movie, the Germans are never portrayed. They’re not portrayed as super or they’re portrayed as negative, but they’re not portrayed as being in on the game. You know what? I mean, Rick and the blue parrot, they’re all in on the game. And then the Nazis are kind of there, but they’re ruining the game, as it were. And so, yeah, I think that’s also part of it. Yeah, he’s, he’s kind of a which way the wind blows, kind of guy in the whole movie, anyhow. And so I think that was part of that deal. But yeah, I think they were just heading the next, next free spot and on their way to, you know, whatever, wherever they had to go next as things were falling apart. Just

Dan LeFebvre  50:44

assume Casablanca. They’re done in Casablanca and head to wherever, wherever is safe next, right,

Bob LeMent  50:49

wherever or whatever that can make money, you know, because, you know, we started out saying that they’re, they’re corrupt, they’re, they’re gangsters of the period. And that’s, that’s how they had the flow with the, you know, go with where the money’s going to be. Whenever it gets to be no money. What’s the point of hanging out there? Yeah, but it’s weird that he, he let them go. But that was the whole thing that he knew her, and they, you know, kind of had some kind of a history and, and that was a little bit vague as well about their whole history, but, but he would, would make that move and not just take the flight himself. He could easily just went with her to, hey, let’s leave this other guy to be caught by the Nazis. But he, you know, but that’s not a happy ending. So,

Dan LeFebvre  51:44

yeah, I think they try to the impression I got was it’s way of him being selfless, because he loves her, and so it’s kind of, we’ll always have Paris, and you always get that line too, right? You wouldn’t have that otherwise,

Bob LeMent  51:58

yeah, well, at the time though, I mean, that would be that was a super hopeful thing to say, right? Always, Paris has fallen. Yeah, true. We’re, we are probably incredibly lucky that the Eiffel Tower wasn’t dismantled to make tanks. You know what I mean? So always have Paris in this movie is an incredibly hopeful statement, because I think about that, yeah, because it was all happening, and they’re like, oh, you know, we had, you know, metal rationing and and everything in the United States, let alone in Britain and in Germany and other parts of Europe, right? So, yeah, we’re so lucky that most of the architecture wasn’t just destroyed in order to support the war effort,

Dan LeFebvre  52:59

which it I mean, if not just taken apart, but also, like you mentioned, just that so many buildings bombed out in cities bombed out and things like that. You know that artillery and bullets don’t care where they fall, right,

Bob LeMent  53:11

exactly. And then they and they were, and they were rebuilt in some areas, right? And so, yeah, there’s a lot of things in Paris that are from before the war that are still there, thankfully, because of the way that it played out, and but it could have won anyway, and so yeah, we’ll always have Paris. Is, you know, an inspiring thing to say, right? Because they don’t know we may not have Paris, yeah, at that point, yeah. Who knows what’s going to happen to Paris? All up in the air? Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  53:46

that’s true. That’s true. Well, at this point, Casablanca, it’s like over 80 years old, so I doubt they’re going to do a remake. But just for the fun of it, if you were directing a remake of this film today, what’s something that you would do differently?

Bob LeMent  54:00

That’s That’s a tough one, because this is one of those movies that you can’t touch, right? Citizen Kane. I’m gonna remake Citizen Kane instead of a sled, he’s gonna have a motorbike. It’s not gonna work. I think if they were to try to remake it today, just in the trends for, you know, things and so forth, it would be, I think it would be more of a chase movie than it is in here. Here it’s very much a drama, very much, you know, there’s, you know, stuff happening, romance, kind of in the drama and all these people involved, and it’s but I think it would be like there’s a movie called salt with that was a chase movie or something like that. It probably would be like that, rather than being a drama like it is now and more just. People talking because, you know, you wanted to be on the run and and see the route. I think they could probably get away with that. They probably wouldn’t be able to call it Casablanca. It would just be one of the stops along the way. But, yeah, I think that’s probably what would happen. And then you could still have, you know, your Rick and and and your Renault and so forth in there to help you get through and make the the tension with Strasser and so forth. But, yeah, it wouldn’t be the same. I don’t know. The thing is, a lot of these older movies, it’s hard to remake just because storytelling has changed in what people want to see is changed. And so to me, that’s what makes this movie so interesting, is the fact that it still holds up, even though tastes and what people want to see have drastically changed over time. So it’s, it’s interesting that they that people still can go back to this one and say, you know, this is pretty good. I liked it,

Dan LeFebvre  56:11

yeah. And it’s interesting because it has, I mean, movies have been influenced, obviously, like we talked about, a lot of the history behind the movie, but there’s actually, I looked at, there’s actually a big cafe in Morocco, because that’s been inspired by the film, and things like that. And then we talk about things like, you know, we’ll always have parish. And there’s lines like, here’s looking at you kid, what are some of the favorite ways that you think Casablanca has kind of transcended the screen to make an impact on the world today?

Bob LeMent  56:39

Well, it’s given us archetypes, right? So this is a movie that set in motion, archetypes that you still have in film today, your gangster, your good gangster, is Rick right and Ferrari the blue parrot guy, Sydney, Green Street, his look right you when you see a bad person in the movie, they look like that guy, that actor, Sidney Green Street, I was just talking we watched it for my son is doing a film class in college. And we watched it for that reason, originally. And then I happened upon you and, and I’m like, do you recognize this persona? And he’s like, Well, I go, Well, mad, Max Fury Road. There is Sydney Green Street, sitting in the car as the oil guy, right? And he’s in the new one Furiosa as well. I mean, obviously it’s the post apocalyptic version of him, but it looks like him and so he, he transcended the movie so much that you can see it repeated again and again. You know the look of this person and his demeanor, right? He’s he’s not, he’s proper, but he’s evil. And then even Renault, the two faced authority. You know, all of these things have gone on to be repeated throughout cinema history since this was done. Now, there may be some ahead of this that helped with that too, but you can pretty much put your finger on this one and say, Yeah, this archetype came from, from this place, and we’re still using it in movies today. You know, it’s it’s interesting that that can have so much impact. And I think part of that is because it’s been revered and everyone has seen it. And so then, as you you know, anyone who does a creative endeavor right gets bits and pieces from everywhere, and the more popular something is, the more those bits and pieces infiltrate into the creativity. And so it really is, it really is something to see that and and think, you know people, people nowadays won’t even know it if they haven’t had to watch it for whatever reason. I mean, I don’t think that people actively go out and seek this movie nowadays unless they’re in it for other reasons, right? And films,

Dan LeFebvre  59:26

yeah, or

Bob LeMent  59:27

something like that, but, but there, it’s been influencing things all along the way in. So, yeah, so influential. It’s just interesting. It’s very which

Dan LeFebvre  59:38

ties in two things that you had talked about a moment ago where one it would be really hard to do a remake of something like this, because there are so many influences that you just have to get everything just right in order to know

Bob LeMent  59:51

how you get away with people would be, I mean, you had the way, I think another generation or so, unfortunately, it’ll be like, Oh, I. Can’t remember the title, but somebody they did a comical version of Hamlet the and it’s so they were trying to redo Hamlet, but it ended up the best way to do it was as a farce, and Woody Allen did this as a farce, right, played against Sam. That’s the way you have to do it. So, you know, you have to, you have to do the forest before. And I don’t think they’ll ever come back around. There’s always probably going to be someone, even in Hollywood, who’s like, we can’t make a buck off of this one, you know,

Dan LeFebvre  1:00:39

yeah, but it’ll still stick around. Because, I mean, what other movies are there that have, like, you said, I mean, you said it still holds up, right? And made, like, 80 years ago, another generation from now, it’ll probably still hold up too. So, yeah, you know, how many movies can say that they do that? And that makes sense why there’s so many things based on it? Not

Bob LeMent  1:00:57

a lot. I mean, weird. The weird thing is, it kind of goes in, if you look back, it kind of goes in waves a little bit. I mean, because the other thing we’re getting, I watched Maltese Falcon last night because my son needed to watch it for this class. I’ll watch it with it nice and so. So, yeah, we watch both of these. And they’re both from that time period, right? And they both are now have have transcended that time period. I would say Maltese Falcon is this. Casablanca is way better than Maltese Falcon, as far as a movie goes, as far as pacing, as far as story, as far as you know, drawing you into it and so forth is way better. But they captured, they both captured the imagination of people into, you know, today and will into the future. Because it’s just kind of that weird. It just so the funny thing is, we talk about it and we’re like, Humphrey Bogart is not the best actor, right? He’s not even that good, really, if you think about it, he’s kind of a one trick pony, and he’s the same in Maltese Falcon as he is in this but it’s the combination of things, right? It’s the combination of the story and and how it plays out and so forth in the direction of the movie that really bring it above the fray. And so to me, it, you know, I would say Renault is the best actor in this movie. He’s funny, he’s interesting. He plays the part so well, I mean, Claude Rains plays him and, and you’re like, if I met this guy in a bar, he’d be that guy. It totally convincing. You know what? I mean, whereas Humphrey Bogart, you’re like, I don’t know, and, but it’s interesting how the kind of the second tier players were all better actors than the top people. But unfortunately, in in the history of popular things, that’s usually the case. You can name almost any movie in the primary actor is probably not the best actor in that movie. It’s the second tier people who are all so much better at their jobs. The first thing comes to Maya Seinfeld, and he that he’s a horrible actor, but but everybody else in that cast is so much better in in that’s why it worked, because if you if they were all, if they were all lesser than Jerry, we wouldn’t be talking about it.

Dan LeFebvre  1:03:50

Yeah, yeah. No, that’s fair. That’s that. I think about that, but that’s a good point. Yeah,

Bob LeMent  1:03:55

so, but that’s, I think the same thing here, but, but at the time, he was the star power, and people really liked him. He was, I guess, kind of not really in every man. I don’t think he was. He was kind of portrayed as kind of a tougher guy, kind of a situation, kind of like Harrison Ford, right? So I would compare Humphrey Bogart to Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford, not the best actor, honestly, he plays Harrison Ford, right? He’s Harrison Ford. Is the President. He’s Harrison Ford. Is Han Solo. He’s Harrison Ford. You know what I mean, there’s, he’s not going to be Daniel Day Lewis, and meld into it, into his you know, he’d become Abraham Lincoln or anything. He’s Harrison Ford, and I think that’s what Humphrey Bogart was for the time, and and he did a good job at that, really good job of that. But, you know, I think everybody else in the even the the waiters and and so forth, were all better actors overall. I

Dan LeFebvre  1:04:58

guess they call him. Supporting actors for a reason, they support the whole show

Bob LeMent  1:05:02

characters. Yeah, yeah.

Dan LeFebvre  1:05:06

Well, thank you so much for coming on to help us separate fact from fiction in Casablanca. Before I let you go, let’s shift gears away from the movie’s history and shift to your own. Can you share a little bit more about static radio for our

Bob LeMent  1:05:16

listeners? Oh sure, if you want. So, I co host a show called static radio. We’ve been doing it for 25 years. Audio on the internet, and basically each week we tell funny stories about things that typically happen to us. We record. We recorded last night. So my story last night was about how I had a great hamburger in Columbia, Missouri. So if you want to have a great hamburger in Columbia, you might listen, and it veers off from there, it is comedic, humorous, and there’s no direction, so you never know where it goes. We start with a story, and then the story takes a life of its own, and by the time we’re finished, we don’t even know where the end is until we get there. I hope I’m Hope I’m more of a Claude Rains than a Humphrey Bogart. But who knows?

Dan LeFebvre  1:06:10

I like that. Like that analogy. That’s great. Isn’t that what we all want and like, be a little more Claude Rains and Humphrey Bogart

Bob LeMent  1:06:20

Exactly?

Dan LeFebvre  1:06:24

Well. Thank you again. So much for your time.

Bob LeMent  1:06:27

Thanks for having me. This is great fun. I hope I did it justice.

July 15th, 1815. Rochefort, France.

Our first movie this week is 2023’s Napoleon, and the event from this week in history starts at about two hours and 22 minutes in.

Before we hit play, let me take a moment to describe today’s opening scene in the movie.

It’s daytime. Overcast. 

The scene in the movie is focused on a huge wooden ship, although there’s another in the background as well. Both ships are docked along a long, cobblestone area that’s taking up most of the camera’s frame in the foreground. Imagine two ships docked in the harbor of a city in the year 1815, and you’re about there…haha!

Right in the center of the frame, layered on top of the large ship is text from the movie that gives us the date and location…similar to what we just heard at the beginning of the segment, although the movie says we’re in Plymouth in July of 1815, instead of giving us the day of the 15^th. But, that means this isn’t actually France we’re seeing, and I’ll explain that once we start fact-checking this, because the movie give us something else I haven’t mentioned yet, and that’s the name of the ship: HMS Bellerophon.

With a British flag on her stern, Bellerophon is moored in the bay, with sails all put away leaving the stereotypical lines of ropes connected to the three masts on Bellerophon. On the cobblestone in front of the large ship are a handful of British soldiers in red uniforms scattered along the cobblestone area.

As we hit play on the movie, the only movement to be seen is on the left side of the frame when we see beautiful white horses can be seen pulling a white carriage up to a ramp on the ship. Behind the carriage are two more soldiers on brown horses, along with what looks like three men on the carriage and four more sailors looking on from in front of the white horses.

After the establishing shot, the movie cuts to inside the ship, now, as we see a man walking into the ship. He’s taller, so he has to duck to get through the doorway without hitting his head. He’s holding his military hat in his right arm, and he’s wearing a blue cloak with a British uniform underneath.

He enters the ship from the right side of the movie’s frame, greeted immediately by a sailor in the center who is saluting at attention. Then, on the left side, we can see a row of sailors at attention.

Although we can’t see him yet, we can hear Joaquin Phoenix’s version of Napoleon Bonaparte speaking in the background. After a moment, the camera cuts to where Napoleon is at—and he’s having breakfast aboard the ship. As he’s eating, he’s continuing to talk and explain what sounds like some sort of military strategy. Another brief moment, and the movie shows us who he’s talking to. Lined up watching Napoleon eat are nine young British sailors…some of them are very young, and quite honestly, I’d be surprised if they’re teenagers yet. They’re eagerly soaking up the knowledge that Napoleon is sharing with them.

Just then, we can hear the man who just boarded the ship enter the room. As he does, we can see a little easier now that this is Rupert Everett’s character, the Duke of Wellington.

As Wellington enters, the young sailors clear the room to allow him to talk to Napoleon without anyone else there. Now, it’s just the two men: In his French uniform, Napoleon sitting at the small, wooden table with his breakfast on it. Standing in his British uniform is Wellington, who pulls up a chair and sits down across from Napoleon.

For a bit of a visual aid, the room is lit from the wall of windows across the stern of the ship that, since we’re inside, we can see on the right side of the camera frame. The wooden walls of the ship’s interior are a light, teal color, with an off-white ceiling and black and white checkered tiles on the floor.

As Wellington sits, he helps himself to what looks like some tea from the table. The British government won’t let Napoleon stay in England, Wellington tells him. Instead, Wellington informs Napoleon that he’ll be going into exile on an island called Saint Helena. He’ll be under the watchful eye of Governor Hudson Lowe and his family.

Napoleon gets a glass of water as Wellington continues to give him more details about Helena—it’s an island, but there’s not much on it. It’s a thousand miles from the mainland of Africa, so it’s out of the way. You’ll have time to reflect, Wellington continues.

Joaquin Phoenix’s version of Napoleon just looks ahead with a blank stare as he processes the news.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Napoleon

Right away, I’ll be the first to admit that the scene I just described did not happen this week in history—because that scene didn’t happen at all…which is also why our opening date in the segment didn’t have to be entirely on point, but we’re talking about it anyway because that fictional scene I just described was very loosely based on something that did happen this week in history.

We just have to unravel some of the facts from fiction…which is pretty much the case for the entire 2023 Napoleon movie if you’ve listened to the deep dives we’ve done into that film.

But for this week’s event, let’s start with the most glaringly painful issue with that scene: The Duke of Wellington was not on HMS Bellerophon on July 15^th, 1815.

And if you think about it, the Duke of Wellington was in the British Army, not the Navy. And so, it’s probably not too much of a surprise that the real person who was on HMS Bellerophon with Napoleon that day was the captain of Bellerophon, a man named Frederick Lewis Maitland.

That tells why the scene is fictional, since it was someone else completely who was really there—Maitland instead of Wellington. But, then again, the real discussion wasn’t about Saint Helena, either.

And that’s the other major thing I wanted to bring up as being inaccurate with the movie’s scene is the topic of the discussion. It wasn’t about Napoleon being exiled to Saint Helena. He wasn’t informed of the exile until August, though, so not this week in history.

So, what really happened?

The true story also explains why I started the segment in Rochefort, France, while in the movie the text places Wellington and Napoleon on the ship in Plymouth—or Plymouth, England.

The reason for that is something the movie never talks about, they started in France but ended up in England.

So, let’s back up a few days to last week in history, July 10^th, 1815, because that’s when Napoleon’s entourage first arrived at Bellerophon. That’s what we see when the movie shows the carriage pulling up to the ship…although it wasn’t a carriage in the true story, it was another ship.

As the story goes, the British didn’t know about Napoleon’s plans to surrender. He was defeated at Waterloo on June 18^th, so a little under a month earlier. He’d been forced to abdicate the throne, though, so he wasn’t welcome back in France. So, that brings us to July 10^th, when a French ship with a flag of truce approached HMS Bellerophon while she was in the port of Rochefort.

That’s where Captain Maitland welcomed Napoleon aboard Bellerophon. If you want to learn more about that, Maitland actually wrote a book about it afterward called The Surrender of Napoleon, and since it’s hundreds of years old you can find it in the public domain. I’ll link to it in the show notes if you want to read it.

Initially, though, it wasn’t even Napoleon himself who approached Maitland. The first people aboard Bellerophon was a small delegation of two men sent with the announcement of Napoleon’s intention to surrender. One of those was the Comte de Las Cases, or Count of Cases, who wrote a book about the encounter later. That was a common thing, people writing books about their interaction with Napoleon, so of course it happened around the surrender, too.

Over the next few days, negotiations between the French and British continued until, on July 14^th, the Count of Cases came over to Bellerophon with General L’Allarand along with a letter from Napoleon himself indicating his desire to discuss surrender terms. That was in the morning, at about 7 o’clock, which is important to the story, because the Count of Cases returned to Bellerophon at about 12 hours later, at 7 o’clock in the evening with another letter—that one was from another French General, Count Bertrand, and told Maitland that Napoleon was prepared to surrender.

The logbook for HMS Bellerophon offers us the documentation of what happened the next day, July 15^th.

“At 7 a.m. the French frigate L’Epervier, having a flag of truce, anchored near us. At 11 a.m. the Emperor Napoleon came on board to claim the protection of the British flag.”

Of course, that’s the short entry you’d expect from a ship’s log, and not something from a movie—we don’t get the details from dialogue between two people like in the movie. But, as I mentioned before, it seems like everywhere Napoleon went, people wrote about their meeting with him, so as the story goes, Napoleon asked for transportation to North America. He was interested in living out the rest of his life in the United States. Maitland refused, in a move that many suggest might’ve been due to orders from his superiors.

The day after Napoleon surrendered, Maitland sailed Bellerophon with Napoleon on board from Rochefort, France, to Torbay, England. That was on July 16^th.

And that’s where he stayed, basically, until the British government could figure out what to do with him. But, news of Napoleon’s capture spread, so later in July the English moved Bellerophon to Plymouth to avoid the public eye.

The movie is correct to mention the name of Saint Helena. That’s a 47-square-mile-island—one of the most remote in the world, way out in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. Oh, and 47 square miles converts to about 122 square kilometers.

To give you an idea of how remote, Saint Helena actually just started getting some tourism in 2017 thanks to a new installation: An airport.

Well, technically, the airport construction finished in 2015 and it opened in June of 2016, but the first commercial flights began on October 14^th, 2017.

That’s right, the first flights to and from Saint Helena were just a few years ago…and this is an island that was discovered by the Portuguese in 1502. It only took 515 years later for commercial flights.

As crazy as that sounds, not having an airport for so long makes sense when you know that Saint Helena is over 1,200 miles away from the closest land mass. That’s about 2,000 kilometers, so for a long time the only way you could get there was by ship. Which, of course, is how Napoleon got there, and being that remote is exactly why Saint Helena was chosen for him. After all, the British didn’t want to risk the chance of his escape—remember, Napoleon had escaped exile once before on Elba.

We learned earlier that Napoleon didn’t learn about Saint Helena aboard Bellerophon in July, that really happened in August, which is also when he transferred him from Bellerophon to another ship HMS Northumberland.

Then, along with a smaller escort ship called HMS Myrmidon, the British took their prisoner to Saint Helena. They left Plymouth on August 8^th and arrived in Saint Helena on October 14^th.

That’s all part of a story outside this week in history, though, so if you want to continue this part of the story, first go check out the 2023 Napoleon movie if you haven’t seen it yet. The scene from this week in history starts at about two hours and 22 minutes into the movie.

Or if you don’t mind the spoilers, you can jump right into the true story because I’ve talked to two different historians about the Napoleon movie.

I’d recommend checking out my chat with Alexander Mikaberidze first, because my chat with him was more focused on straight up separating fact from fiction…then for my chat with Louis Sarkozy, I had already talked with Alexander, so I was able to go deeper into different topics.

…and you can find both episodes with Alexander and Louis in one place over at basedonatruestorypodcast.com/napoleon

July 16th, 1969. Florida.

Our next movie is that classic film you think of first when you think of ‘based on a true story’ movies: Men in Black 3!

Haha! Okay, so, I kid—well, about the movie being the first one you think of as being a ‘based on a true story’ movie, but I’m not kidding about the fact that Men in Black 3 actually shows us something from history, and we’re actually going to wait on watching that movie together until tomorrow.

This’ll be something new for Based on a True Story, so let me explain.

Apollo 11 hit Range Zero on the countdown timer on July 16^th, 1969, at 13:32:00 GMT, or Greenwich Mean Time.

That means if you’re listening to this episode on the day it’s released: Tomorrow is the 55^th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch.

Actually, I know I just used GMT, but they took off from Florida in the United States, so just for consistency and also because sometimes my brain has a hard time calculating my local time zone from GMT, I’ll use Eastern Time throughout this story—local time for the launch, so that’s 9:32 AM Eastern Time, 6:32 AM Pacific—and I’ve got a link in the show notes to help you convert to your local time if you want. I’ll also include a link to the show notes for a great e-Book from NASA that has all the time, too, if it’s easier for you.

What that means, though, is the countdown timer was already started on this day, July 15^th, in preparation for the launch tomorrow.

NASA started that yesterday, July 14^th at 5:00 PM Eastern/3 Pacific.

Well, yesterday in 1969, not 2024—you know what I mean, haha!

On July 15^th, they did a planned hold of the GET, or Ground Elapsed Time that NASA used to track the mission, at 12:00 PM Eastern. They planned for an 11-hour hold, and as expected, the countdown resumed 11-hours later at T-9 hours.

As a side note, you know how you hear T minus 9, 8, 7, so on for the countdown? When that hits zero, that means the GET is at Range Zero, or exactly 00:00:00, then from there the timer counts every second of the Apollo mission to keep track of what happened when.

So, let’s pretend we’re in Florida 55-years ago as the excitement around the Apollo 11 mission’s launch is taking hold. Right now, we’re in the midst of the countdown hold. The CBS broadcast that would end up showcasing Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon hasn’t quite started yet; it’s scheduled for 6:00 AM Eastern in the morning for a planned 9:32 AM Eastern launch.

Will the Apollo 11 mission launch on time?

Or will it be delayed by the evil alien named Boris the Animal and his plan to prevent the ArcNet from being deployed, killing anyone who tries!?

Okay, I’m sure you already know the answer to that.

But, I hope you’ll join me tomorrow anyway in a little minisode just to cover the true story of the Apollo 11 launch as it was shown in the movie Men in Black 3.

That episode will publish at exactly 55 years after the Range Zero GET countdown hit 00:00:00.

Or, in other words, since Boris the Animal’s plans are not based in reality and Apollo 11 did launch on the scheduled time: Wednesday, July 16^th, 2024, at 9:32 AM Eastern, 6:32 Pacific.

What goes up must come down, at least it’s supposed to when it comes to Space, and we know from history the GET’s final count for the Apollo 11 mission was 195 hours, 18 minutes, and 35 seconds.

Doing a little math on that: 195 hours into 24 hours per day is eight days with three hours leftover, so then the 18 minutes and 35 seconds. So, that means Apollo 11’s mission comes to a close eight days later, so next Wednesday, on July 24^th, we’ll complete this little minisode miniseries by how 2018’s First Man shows the Apollo 11 mission ending at 12:50 PM Eastern that day.

And we’ve got a couple other episodes between now and then, so maybe we’ll check-in from time to time, as well.

Okay, so that’s what we’re doing around Apollo 11’s launch starting tomorrow! But, that’s just one event from this week in history! Let’s queue up our next movie…it’ll be the animated movie Anastasia, so if you want to watch it along as I describe, queue up about four minutes into the movie, and we’ll hit play after the break!

July 17th, 1918. Yekaterinburg, Siberia.

Our next movie to watch this week is the animated cartoon from 1997 called Anastasia. About four minutes in, the movie places us in a dimly lit room with an eerie red glow. The architecture is reminiscent of an ancient castle or a wizard’s lair, with towering stone pillars intricately carved with arcane symbols and patterns.

At the heart of the scene stands a mesmerizing, fiery pillar of swirling red energy, that’s where the eerie red glow comes from in the room. This pillar seems to be the focal point of the chamber, radiating a sense of powerful, magical energy. The surrounding walls are lined with bookshelves, filled with ancient tomes and scrolls, hinting at a repository of forgotten knowledge and secrets.

To the left, a large globe sits atop a cluttered desk, alongside scattered books and parchment, suggesting ongoing studies or experiments. The right side of the image reveals a grand staircase leading to a lofted area, adding to the room’s sense of depth and mystery.

A lone figure, draped in a flowing red cloak, stands near the fiery pillar, their face obscured by shadows.

We hear some voiceover explaining what’s going on as more magical elements are swirling around angrily in the shot…almost like a tornado.

The voiceover says that Rasputin was consumed by his hatred of Nicholas and his family and sold his soul for the power to destroy them. Ah, that’s who the cloaked figure is near the pillar performing some sort of ritual. He’s getting sucked into the tornado, leaving only his skeletal bones behind. The cartoon skeleton is outlined in a glowing blue that contrasts against the red lighting.

Just then, a glass vial wrapped with what looks like a snake with a skull on top appears in the air. Inside the glass vial is some sort of a green magical element floating. The blue skeleton grabs it, and we can see it forming around the skeleton.

Then, we see the evil-looking Rasputin again, his face lit by the green magic. Under his breath, he mutters to the magical green element that it must, go and fulfill its dark purpose—to seal the fate of the czar and his family once and for all.

The green element oozes out of the glass vial as it leaves the room and to the streets outside. The voiceover says from that moment on, the spark of unhappiness across our country was fanned into a flame, and on the screen, we can see the little green magical elements doing something that seems to be spreading into people rioting, revolting, and tearing down statues.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Anastasia

What the movie is setting up here is how Rasputin betrays and kills Czar Nicholas and his family, allowing only Anastasia to survive.

That is not at all historically accurate to what really happened. What is true is that the last Czar of Russia, Nicholas II, was killed along with his family in Yekaterinburg on July 17th, 1918.

Since the movie’s version of this event is highly fictional, let’s get a quick summary of what really happened.

To understand this, we have to realize that in mid-1918, the Great War was still raging. What we now call World War I. Of course, we know now that it ended in November of 1918, but in July of 1918, they didn’t know that for sure. What they did know was that things were going badly for Russia in the war.

They were one of the first countries to join the war in 1914, and almost right away the Russian armies were not doing well. They were being defeated so badly that Nicholas II decided to take personal control of them. His advisers didn’t like this idea, but he did it anyway, and for the next few years he spent most of his time away from the government running the military during the war.

That’s important to the story because of the other character we see in the movie: Rasputin. He was a real person, although he wasn’t necessarily the evil mastermind behind the demise of the Czar and his family.

That said, Rasputin was…well…there are a lot of questions around the real Rasputin. We do know he was a self-proclaimed holy man. He was a mystic. So, obviously, the cartoon movie takes those things to the extreme by making him some sort of a magician when in reality he was probably more of a religious figure—a prophet of sorts.

We do know he was a friend of Nicholas II and the rest of the imperial family, and he helped with the imperial family’s only son, Alexei, who was sick a lot due to hemophilia. So, Rasputin acted as a sort of religious healer for little Alexei which meant he was around quite a bit.

Meanwhile, when Nicholas II went away to lead the Russian army in World War I, as the months and years dragged on, Empress Alexandra relied more and more on Rasputin’s advice.

A lot of people in Russia didn’t like Rasputin and saw him as nothing more than a fake, a fraud, a charlatan. As his influence over the empire grew, so, too, did the unhappiness within the Russian public about how the Empress was allowing him to influence her decisions.

On top of that, Nicholas II was not doing a good job leading the Russian army in the war. They were suffering huge loss of life and the cost of the war weighed heavily on the economy. High inflation and lots of poverty became the norm in Russia.

So, the riots and unrest we see happening in the movie really did happen, but it wasn’t because of some magical power by Rasputin, but instead it was because the Russian people were fed up with the way the Czar was leading the country. The riots that broke out in February of 1917 were so bad that Nicholas II had no choice but to abdicate the throne—he did that on March 15th, 1917. That formally ended the monarchy in Russia that had been established back in 1721.

So, to back up with a little historical context: World War I is still going on. Russia is in the war. Meanwhile, back at home, Russians are without the monarchy that has led the country for hundreds of years. There was a provisional government in place, but that was overthrown by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik party in the fall of 1917.

Meanwhile, Nicholas II and his family had already left the palace after Nicholas II abdicated, and they were placed under house arrest.

At this point, essentially Russia was entangled in a civil war on top of World War I still going on, too. For the purposes of our story today, though, Lenin, had to figure out what to do with the former monarch and his family. Well…we wouldn’t be talking about it if we didn’t already know what they decided to do.

What’s tricky about this part of the story, though, is that there has been a lot of conflicting reports and sources about exactly what happened. As they say, history is written by the winners, and in this case, much of the history that survived is written by those who made sure the Romanov family did not survive.

The gist of the story, though, is that out of fear of approaching anti-Bolshevik forces nearing where the Czar and his family were being held, Nicholas II and his family were woken up in the early morning hours of July 17th, 1918 and led to the basement of a house. It was for their own safety against the oncoming forces. At least, that’s how the story goes for what they were told. Instead, though, the entire family was executed in the basement.

Or was it? Did their youngest daughter, Anastasia, survive? Some say she did.

Because of what I just mentioned, this version of history being written by the winners, the true story of exactly what happened in that basement has been studied, debated, and researched by historians ever since.

If you want to watch the story, this week is a great one to watch the 1997 animated cartoon simply called Anastasia. The sequence we started this segment with is right at the beginning, at about four minutes into the movie. And if you want to learn more about the true story, we dug deeper into what really happened back in episode #94 of Based on a True Story, where we learned what is most likely the true story of what really happened to Anastasia.

Let’s move onto our next segment now, where we learn about historical figures from the movies that were born this week in history.

On July 18th, 1895, George Kelly Barnes was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Or, maybe not. To be honest, we don’t know exactly when he was born. Some sources say he was born on July 17, some say July 18, some say it was 1895, some say it was 1897, some say it was 1900. But, regardless, George Kelly Barnes was born sometime this week in history. He was perhaps best known by his nickname, “Machine Gun” Kelly. He was a prohibition-era gangster who robbed banks and became famous after kidnapping an Oklahoma oil man for ransom.

He was played by Charles Bronson in the 1958 biopic about his crimes simply called Machine-Gun Kelly.

Oh, and if you’re thinking of the musician who goes by the name Machine Gun Kelly, his real name is Colson Baker and according to my research it seems Baker got the nickname because his rapping style was shooting off fast, like a machine gun. So, perhaps the nickname for the musician is inspired by the gangster, but that’s where the relation ends.

On July 19th, 1860, Lizzie Andrew Borden was born in Fall River, Massachusetts. She’s best known for the axe murders of her father and stepmother, although she was officially acquitted of the crimes…Her story was told in the 2018 movie simply called Lizzie where Lizzie is played by Chloë Sevigny.

On July 20th, 356 BCE, Alexander III was born in Pella, Macedonia. Or, maybe it was the 21^st. Or maybe it wasn’t this week in history at all, and it was the 23^rd…as you might imagine, tracking birthdays back in 356 BCE wasn’t an exact science, but nevertheless, this was probably the birth week of the great the king of Macedonia known as Alexander the Great. He conquered much of the known world at the time, a story that was told in the 2004 film simply named Alexander with Colin Farrell playing the lead role. We covered that movie back in episode #157 of Based on a True Story.

Oh, and as a personal note, my mom’s birthday is also this week on July 19th, and I know she listens to the podcast so happy birthday, mom! I love you!

Onto our segment about ‘based on a true story’ movies released this week in history, can you believe this week marks the one-year anniversary of Barbieheimer?

That’s right, it was on July 21^st, 2023, that the Barbie movie and Oppenheimer both opened in theaters.

While Oppenheimer is obviously more of a historical movie than Barbie, if you saw Barbie then you’ll know that about an hour and 40 minutes into the movie, an older woman named Ruth reveals herself as the creator of Barbie.

In the movie, Ruth is played by Rhea Perlman, but the character of Ruth is for Ruth Handler, who really was the woman who created Barbie. But the real Ruth Handler passed away in 2002, so obviously she couldn’t be in the movie herself.

Originally, Ruth and her husband Elliot were interested in making furniture, which they did with a business partner named Harold Matson. During World War II, their furniture sales declined, and they tried making toy furniture instead. It worked! In fact, it worked so well, they shifted entirely and that’s how Mattel got into toy manufacturing.

Oh, and the name “Mattel” comes from mixing Harold Matson’s name—his nickname was “Matt” with Elliot Handler’s name. Matt-El. I guess they couldn’t get Ruth’s name in there.

Despite not having her name on the company, Ruth was very much involved in Mattel.

At the beginning of the movie, we hear Helen Mirren’s voiceover talking about girls playing with baby dolls and they could only play at being mother. On the screen we can see a bunch of little girls playing with baby dolls. Then comes Barbie, and in the movie we can see a huge version of Margot Robbie’s Barbie wearing a black-and-white striped bathing suit, towering over the little girls playing with the baby dolls.

Once we get past the fact that it’s a highly stylized interpretation of things, that’s actually not a bad version of how Ruth came up with the idea for the Barbie doll. It is true that in the 1950s, most little girls in the United States played with baby dolls as a way of preparing them to be mothers later in life. But, one day, Ruth saw her daughter and friends playing with rolls of paper they were pretending were them—and they were roleplaying being adults.

So, Ruth had an idea: What if we make a toy for girls to roleplay what it’s like to just be an adult woman? A mother, maybe, but there’s a lot more to what women can do than being a mother, so why not let little girls use their imaginations?

Where the movie stretches things a little bit with that introduction is that it gives the idea little girls only ever played with baby dolls—that there was no such thing as anything but a baby doll. Which simply isn’t true. In fact, when Ruth had first pitched the idea of the adult-looking doll for little girls, other executives at Mattel rejected the idea. Then, in 1956, when Ruth was on vacation in Europe with her family, she came across a doll called Bild Lilli. That was a German doll based on a comic strip character named Lilli. And the newspaper the comic appeared in? Bild. Hence the name of the doll, Bild Lilli.

You can find images of that doll online if you want to see what it looked like.

In the movie, Rhea Perlman’s version of Ruth tells Margot Robbie’s version of Barbie that she named Barbie after her daughter, Barbara.

And that’s true. Ruth Handler named the Barbie doll after her daughter, Barbara.

That brings us to another little tie-in to history from the movie because when Barbie first premiered to the world on March 9^th, 1959, she was wearing a black-and-white striped bathing suit. That’s the same bathing suit Margot Robbie’s version of Barbie is wearing in the movie when we see her for the first time in the introduction.

And just like the movie was a hit so, too, was the doll back in 1959. Barbies were flying off the shelf. I would highly recommend you look up a photo of the original 1959 Barbie doll and compare that to what the Bild Lilli dolls looked like? You can see just how much Ruth was inspired by the Bild Lilli dolls for Barbie.

In 1961, Ruth and Elliot introduced Barbie’s boyfriend, Ken.

While we see Ken in the Barbie movie, Ruth doesn’t talk to Ken so she doesn’t mention where his name came from…but, in truth, just like Barbie was named after Ruth’s daughter, Ken got his name from Ruth’s son, Kenneth.

Although it’s worth pointing out that Barbie and Ken only got their names. Everything else about Barbie and Ken, from how they look to their backstories, and so on, that’s not based on the real Barbara and Kenneth.

Oh, and as a fun little fact, Mattel actually bought out the rights to Bild Lilli in 1964 and instead sold Barbies in their place.

But, going back to an hour and 40 minutes into the Barbie movie, we have a few more historical elements to pull from dialogue in this scene.

The first is when Ruth tells Barbie, “Baby, I am Mattel. Until the IRS got to me but that’s another movie.”

But…actually, let’s skip this one because the movie circles back to it later, so we’ll do the same.

Another line of dialogue is a clever nod to the real Ruth Handler not being in the movie, because when the character of Ruth in the movie who, as I mentioned before, is played by Rhea Perlman…when she comes out and tells Barbie that, “I’m Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie.”

Everyone around gasps and Will Ferrell’s character mentions her ghost keeps an office on the 17^th floor. I thought that was a smart bit of dialogue to allude to the fact that the real Ruth Handler is gone.

Then, our last bit of dialogue to examine is what Ruth says next. She says, “You guys, you think the lady who invented Barbie looks like Barbie? Ha! I’m a five-foot-nothing grandma with a double mastectomy and tax evasion issues.”

And all of that is based on truth, because the real Ruth Handler was all of those things. Well, I guess, I found sources that said she was actually 5’ 2”, but she was a grandma—I couldn’t find if Barbara has children, but Kenneth did. The double mastectomy mention is also based on reality because Ruth Handler was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1970, and then had a mastectomy. To add something the movie doesn’t mention, Ruth’s experience having the mastectomy led to her not being satisfied with the options for breast prosthesis available, so she invented her own.

But then that leads to the final mention in the movie’s dialogue: Tax evasion issues.

And this brings us back to a moment ago when I mentioned Ruth’s line, “Baby, I am Mattel. Until the IRS got to me but that’s another movie.”

I’m sure Ruth Handler’s life could be turned into a movie—although there’s not a biopic about her that I’m aware of.

But, the movie was correct to suggest that was the reason why Ruth left Mattel.

That happened in 1978, when they were indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy, mail fraud, and giving the SEC false financial statements. After pleading no contest, Ruth received a fine of $57,000, sentenced to 2,500 hours of community service—and she resigned from Mattel.

Oh, and her husband, and other executives, too, it’s not like Ruth was the only one affected by this. But the movie focuses on her more, so that’s why I was doing the same.

After she left Mattel, she focused on her prosthesis company for women—called Nearly Me—which she ran until she sold it in the 1990s and retired. Ruth Handler passed away on April 27^th, 2002, from complications during a surgery for her colon cancer.

So, that’s one half of the Barbieheimer that released one year ago.

The other movie, of course, is Oppenheimer, about the life of Julius Robert Oppenheimer.

Surprisingly, I haven’t covered that movie, and it probably could stand to have its own episode—let me know if you want that to happen—but for today, let’s cover a few of the movie’s major plot points, starting with probably the biggest thing you’ll think of when you think of Oppenheimer: The development of the atomic bomb.

According to the movie, another famous name was involved in that: Albert Einstein. There’s a scene about 54 minutes into the movie where Oppenheimer goes to Princeton to visit with Einstein to get his thoughts on whether or not an atomic explosion would destroy the world.

The movie is correct to show Oppenheimer and Einstein meeting—in fact, they had more than just one conversation. For a time, Oppenheimer and Einstein had offices just down the hall from each other, so who knows how many times they talked?

Unfortunately, those kind of conversations aren’t the kind that get documented, so what they specifically talked about—we don’t know. So, while the movie is correct to show Oppenheimer speaking with Einstein, the specifics of what they’re saying is all made up for the movie.

Speaking of the movie, can we take a step back from this movie for a moment? Because, did you realize we’re doing our own little Barbieheimer combination this week, talking about both movies…and since Oppenheimer was directed by Christopher Nolan, have you seen that other blockbuster movie of his: Inception?

Well, this is a bit of Oppenheimerception because not only did the Oppenheimer movie release this week in history, but one of the major plot points in the movie also really happened this week in history.

And since we’re not doing a full event from the Apollo 11 launch today, let’s make up for that pulling an event from this week in 1945 in the Oppenheimer movie that released this week in 2023.

July 16^th, 1945. Southern New Mexico.

We’re in a barren landscape stretching out as far as the eye can see. The ground is dry and dusty, with sparse vegetation dotting the desolate expanse. The sky above is overcast, and at the center of this image is the only sign of civilization, a solitary structure—it looks like an industrial rig or tower of some sort. Surrounding the tower, a few vehicles are scattered, connected by dirt roads that crisscross the otherwise empty terrain. These vehicles hint at human activity, but their small number emphasizes the remoteness of the location.

The movie cuts closer now, to the base of the rig, where an Army truck is unloading something big—something we can assume is a component of the bomb. They take it into a tent at the base of the tower. We also see Cillian Murphy’s version of J. Robert Oppenheimer figuring out calculations; how far people had to be away from the bomb’s test. For example, Oppenheimer determines that without high winds the radiation clouds should settle within two to three miles, so in theory anyone further than that should be safe.

Then we see what I’m guessing is the nuclear core being carefully placed in the large device they took off the truck and into the tent at the base of the tower. It seems to be a case of some sort, protecting the smaller core inside. Once inside, they seal it up and raise it by wires to the top of the tower.

But they don’t drop it right away. The movie has a lot of lead-up to the test that helps build tension, and I won’t describe it all here because it’s about ten minutes of movie runtime so that could be well over four or five times that to unpack it for our purposes, but eventually, at about an hour and 55 minutes into the movie, we hear the countdown: 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…

Any noise in the movie disappears.

What used to be nighttime looks like day as spectators donning welder’s glasses watching from a long distance away. There’s still no noise, just an unnaturally bright light as the movie shows people gazing in wonder. Huge plumes of fire rise into the dark sky. The movie mentioned something about 5:30, but the bright, orange ball of flame is a stark contrast against the pitch-black sky, so I’m guessing it’s 5:30 in the morning.

Then, the sound comes back with a roar. The violence of the explosion rips through scenes of different people at different times as they hear it where they’re at. After the bright light fades away, not much time passes before sunrise, and everyone starts to cheer the successful test.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Oppenheimer

In the interest of being up front, the establishing scene that I described of them taking the device off the truck probably didn’t happen on July 16^th. That’s when the test happened, but even in the movie after they put the core in the casing there is some time that passes until the actual test.

That test is the event from this week in history, and if you’re not familiar with the Trinity Test, that was the first successful detonation of a nuclear weapon, marking the dawn of the atomic age.

In the true story they nicknamed what the movie shows as a silver device the “Gadget’s” core. The bomb itself didn’t have a name, really, so they just called it the “gadget.” So, that sequence of putting it in the device and raising it up the tower was just a few days earlier than the test on the 16^th.

To be more specific, it was on July 12^th that the core was taken to the test area. On the 13^th, the non-nuclear components were taken to the test site and assembled with the gadget’s core. For a bit of geographical context, the test site was located in a region called Tularosa Basin, the Trinity Test Site is located on White Sands Missile Range, about 230 miles away from the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico where they built the device. That’s over 370 kilometers.

It’s now a National Park that’s usually closed to the public, but every so often they have open houses for the public. As of this recording, the next public open house is on October 19^th, 2024, so if you want to learn more about that check out the link in the show notes for the U.S. Army’s Trinity Test Site.

After a couple days of assembling the device, it armed and ready by the evening of the 15^th.

Oh, and something from the true story we don’t see in the movie, they had a pile of mattresses underneath the gadget as it hung over 100 feet from the tower. The idea was it’d break the fall if the cables snapped and the device fell to the ground…thankfully that didn’t happen, but I’m guessing the mattresses wouldn’t have saved the nuclear device had that happened.

Just like we see in the movie, at 5:29 AM on July 16^th, the Trinity Test was performed. And just like we see in the movie, it was a massive explosion of nuclear destruction.

But, the reason for going so far into the middle of nowhere was for safety. That’s what the movie is implying when it shows Oppenheimer trying to calculate the safe distances for people to observe.

And while that did happen, the calculations they came up with simply weren’t enough.

Some have estimated about 500,000 people lived within 150 miles of the nuclear detonation. Most weren’t informed of the test. They didn’t evacuate. But, they did see the bright flash. So they knew something was going on…but the U.S. government insisted the explosion they saw was an accident. Just some ammunition that blew up.

By the time the truth came out about what it was, it became so hard to prove deaths were a result of the test. Some have reported a spike in child deaths soon after it, though. And even though we’re talking about history, we’re not talking about ancient history…for example, a new group was started in 2005, with this purpose:

Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium

Seeking justice for the unknowing, unwilling and uncompensated, innocent victims of the July 16, 1945, Trinity test in South-Central New Mexico.

I pulled that quote from their website, and you can learn more about their work at trinitydownwinders.com. I’ll make sure to include in the show notes. And while you’re in there, if you want to watch Oppenheimer, Barbie, or any of the movies from this week in history, you’ll find where to watch them on streaming with the links in the show notes.

June 12, 1967. Virginia.

The camera is following two young boys as they’re playing in green grass with a wooden building just behind them. Just in front of both boys is a tire. They’re playing with the tire by pushing it along the ground as they run behind it.

As the boys continue playing, the camera cuts to a man under the hood of his car. He’s a white man with light hair, it almost looks like maybe blond or even some white hair. He’s played by Joel Edgarton in the movie.

In the background we can see the two boys running toward the man. He notices them and looking out from under the hood for a moment as they run around the car. They’re just playing, so he goes back to working on the car’s engine.

Now the camera cuts to a further away shot as we can see two cars parked in the grass field. An old, wooden building that looks like maybe it used to be a house that’s now abandoned is on the left side. That’s what the two boys were running past when we first saw them. They’re on the right side of the frame now, though, as they’re running around the car being worked on. The other car, which also has its hood up, has a young child standing in front of it. It looks like a little girl, and she’s just standing there holding what looks like a stuffed animal of some sort.

Overall, this scene looks like there are two cars being worked on by the man who seems to be the father of the three children who are playing in the yard. As the two boys run near the man, he stops working on the car to play with the kids a little bit.

Inside the house, the phone rings. A Black woman looks like she’s doing laundry, which she puts down to answer the phone. She’s played by Ruth Negga in the movie.

Picking the phone’s receiver up from the wall where it’s hanging, she answers.

“Hello?”

We can’t hear the other end of the phone conversation, but she addresses the man as Mr. Cohen. She listens a little more to whatever is being said on the other side. Then, something catches her attention.

“What’s that?” she asks, looking down more intently as if that’ll help her hear what’s being said better.

Whatever she’s being told is causing her face to turn a flurry of emotions…but she’s not crying or smiling, it’s hard to pinpoint what emotions she’s having. There’s something there. Or maybe it’s just that she herself can’t fathom what’s being said, so she’s trying to process it herself.

She’s still listening for a bit before flashing a quick smile and assuring the person on other end that she’s still on the line.

After listening for a few more seconds, she takes a deep breath and says, “That’s wonderful news” and “Yes, I understand.”

Thanking Mr. Cohen one more time, she hangs up the phone by putting it back on the receiver.

Then, she turns around and looks out the screen door at the front of the house. Outside is the scene of the children playing and man working on the car. She watches her family from inside the house, with a hand up to her mouth as if she’s not quite sure how to tell them what she just heard.

She slowly opens the screen door and walks out to the porch. Hearing the noise, the man pulls his head out from under the car’s hood and stands in front of it, looking at her.

She looks back at him as a slight smile crosses her face.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Loving

That is how the 2016 movie called Loving depicts the result of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. That was decided on June 12th, 1967.

And right away, I’ll admit that I don’t know for sure if the phone call we see in the movie happened on the same day as the Supreme Court’s decision. But, the movie focuses on the man and woman, and the case was about them. The man played by Joel Edgarton in the movie is Richard Loving, a white man, while his wife played by Ruth Negga in the movie is Mildred Loving, a Black woman.

And the movie’s mention of Mr. Cohen is talking about ACLU lawyer Bernard S. Cohen, who really was the Loving’s lawyer.

So, it makes sense the lawyer would let his client know about the Supreme Court’s decision in their case as soon as it happened.

With a coincidentally fitting last name, the Lovings just wanted to live their lives like any other married couple. Richard and Mildred fell in love with each other in high school, and were together ever since.

While this isn’t in the part of the movie that I described, it was less than a decade earlier, their relationship became more complicated when Mildred got pregnant in June of 1958. It was illegal for them to marry in Virginia, so they went to nearby Washington, D.C. to marry.

That didn’t make law enforcement back in Virginia happy, so when they returned home, the police raided their home in the middle of the night in hopes of catching the two having sex—since interracial relations was a crime, too, so that would allow the cops the chance to arrest them. They didn’t catch them in the act, but they were simply sleeping.

When Mildred showed the police their marriage certificate, the cops told her it wasn’t valid in Virginia and they were arrested anyway.

That led to a conviction in January of 1959 by the Caroline County Circuit Court in Virginia, which cited a law from 1924 that made interracial marriage a crime. They also pointed out a section of Virginia Code that prohibited interracial couples from going around the Virginia law by getting married out of state and returning to Virginia.

In short, the Lovings were sentenced to one year in prison simply for marrying the person they loved. However, they were given the option of suspending the sentence if they left Virginia and didn’t return together for no less than 25 years.

So, the Lovings moved to Washington, D.C.

But they couldn’t afford to stay there long. They also couldn’t go home to Virginia to visit their families together out of fear of being arrested.

So, Mildred wrote to the Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy who then referred her to the ACLU. That’s how Bernard S. Cohen and another lawyer named Philip J. Hirschkop got involved when they petitioned the Supreme Court of Virginia to vacate the Lovings’ sentences.

On January 22nd, 1965, Judge Leon Bazile issued these very racist words as part of his decision to deny their motion:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

Wow.

Thankfully, the ACLU didn’t stop working. They went above the state of Virginia and appealed the U.S. Supreme Court with the case we now know as Loving v. Virginia.

After a couple years of hard-fought legal battles, the Supreme Court finally issued their unanimous 9-0 decision in favor of the Lovings.

Part of that decision stated matter-of-factly the true reasons behind Virginia’s racist law. Here’s a brief section from the U.S. Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia, Page 388 U.S. 11:

There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.

If you want to watch how the movie shows the Lovings receiving news of the decision from this week in history, check out the 2016 movie named after them: Loving.

We started our segment at about an hour and 52 minutes into the movie, but really this is a great week to watch the whole movie.

June 15, 1815. The Netherlands. Modern-day Belgium.

We’re in an elegant ballroom filled with well-dressed men and women. Most of them are watching the men dancing to the music of bagpipes. We can see five sets of men in the frame, four men in each set and they’re dancing in very orderly fashion—so four men dancing in one set, another four in another set and so on.

The camera focuses in on a few of the people watching the dance. All the men seem to be dressed in their fine military uniforms while all the ladies are wearing beautiful dresses. It’s a very fancy affair.

The music stops at precisely the same time as the dancers and everyone claps. Then, the band of bagpipes and drums start up a new song. The dancers form a line with swords doing a military dance of sorts. This time, the band joins in marching along the ballroom floor for the approving guests. As they march out of the room, the music fades away and everyone turns as Christopher Plummer’s character, the Duke of Wellington, enters the room.

Wellington walks arm in arm with Virginia McKenna’s character, the Duchess of Richmond, as Wellington criticizes his own men in the room. They don’t hear this, of course, but Richmond says something like, “And you expect them to die for you?” Wellington just says, “Mmhmm,” and Richmond responds, “Out of duty?” Wellington again, this time with a smirk on his face: “Mmhmm.”

Richmond laughs, saying that she doubts even Bonaparte could draw men to him by duty. Wellington says, well, Bonaparte is not a gentleman.

In the next shot, we see Rod Steiger’s character, Napoleon Bonaparte, on his horse outside. In the background we can hear it’s raining and he tells one of his men they’ll cross the river and tomorrow we’ll dry out our feet in Brussels. It may be dark and foggy out, but we can see countless soldiers marching in unison as they cross a river. Some on horseback, some on foot. Some cross on a bridge, some—especially those on horses—cross through the river itself.

Back in the ballroom, there’s more music and dancing. It’s not the same soldiers dancing to bagpipes as before, but now the music is more what we’d expect in a ballroom with men and women all dancing together happily. After some time of this, we can see a soldier arriving who is wearing what looks to be a cross on his uniform. His overall uniform is different than the rest of the soldiers there. He finds the Duke of Wellington and tells him about Napoleon. Wellington says he’s aware Napoleon has crossed the border.

We can tell from the dialog that this man’s name is Muffling, and he’s played by John Savident. Muffling tells Wellington that Napoleon has all his horses, and he’s come between both our armies.

Wellington asks where, to which Muffling replies: “At Charleroi.”

A smile crosses Wellington’s face. He starts giving orders to his generals to start their soldiers marching to Charleroi.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Waterloo

That scene is how the 1970 film Waterloo sets up what would be a sequence of events that would be Napoleon’s final defeat at Battle of Waterloo. And it was, just like the movie shows, against Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. That battle was actually June 18^th, but I mentioned June 15^th at the start of this segment because that’s when the movie has the text on screen establishing the date.

Something the movie doesn’t really explain, though, is who the Prussian named Muffling is. He’s the one telling the Duke of Wellington about Napoleon’s movements in the movie.

The real Karl von Müffling worked for Generalfeldmarschall Blücher, who was leading the Prussian army, but he worked in the Duke of Wellington’s headquarters as Blücher’s liaison officer.

As a little side note, the British and Prussians were part of the Seventh Coalition, which included a number of countries that were allied together to try and end Napoleon’s rule. There were over 600,000 soldiers in armies from different nations and Napoleon wanted to defeat the armies separately before they could join together.

For the events that happened this week in history, the movie was correct to mention Charleroi, that’s nearby where Napoleon crossed the Sambre river on June 15^th. At about 2:30 PM on the next day, Napoleon attacked Blücher’s Prussian army near the town of Ligny.

The Battle of Ligny was a victory for Napoleon. Of course he didn’t know it at the time, but that would end up being Napoleon’s final victory in battle.

Although he won the battle, he didn’t defeat the entire Prussian army. So, Napoleon split his army at this point, sending about a third of his army after the retreating Prussians.

With the rest of his army, he went to face the Duke of Wellington. They met two days later, on June 18^th, 1815. Napoleon had about 72,000 soldiers while Wellington had about 68,000. That number changed, though, once 50,000 of Blücher’s Prussian army joined the battle in the afternoon.

When the day was done, there were about 42,000 French casualties to about 24,000 on the other side—17,000 in Wellington’s army and 7,000 in Blücher’s.

If you want to watch the multiple events that happened this week in history, check out the 1970 film Waterloo. The text on the screen telling us it’s June 15^th, 1815, is at about 35 minutes and 43 seconds into the film.

Then, of course, there’s the battle itself that we didn’t really talk about. As you can probably guess by the title of the movie, that’s most of it—so that’s why we didn’t cover it all. But if you want to learn more about the true story, we covered that back on episode #174 of Based on a True Story.

June 15, 1924. Washington, D.C.

We’re in a dimly lit office. The lamp on the desk is off, but there is some natural light coming in through the window blinds. Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, J. Edgar Hoover, is wearing a nice suit as he stands behind a black, leather chair in the office.

In the foreground there’s another man listening as Hoover explains he has files on potential suspects and with a congressional hearing…

The man behind the desk cuts him off.

On the other side of the desk, also standing, is Ken Howard’s character, Harlan Stone. Stone reminds Hoover that he didn’t call the meeting, Stone did. He invites Hoover to sit, and does the same.

Both men are now seated across from each other with Stone’s elegant, wooden desk between them.

Stone goes on to tell Hoover that everyone he’s worked with is gone, and there’s a reason for that. This Bureau is of exceedingly bad odor, would you agree?

Hoover agrees.

Stone goes on to mention Hoover has no social life. No wife, no girlfriend, and no pals at all.

Again, Hoover confirms.

Stone continues, talking about Hoover’s fixation on fingerprinting. Stone calls it a speculative science at best.

Hoover agrees, although the look on his face tends to indicate perhaps he doesn’t actually agree with this.

Stone asks about Hoover’s nickname, Speed. At this, Hoover stutters a bit. Then, we find out what this conversation is all about when Stone tells Hoover that he wants him to take over as acting director of the Bureau of Investigation.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie J. Edgar

That brief scene comes from the 2011 movie called J. Edgar and while the conversation is made up for the movie—like most dialog is, of course, it is showing an event that really did happen this week in history when then-Attorney General Harlan F. Stone appointed J. Edgar Hoover as Director of the Bureau of Investigation.

At the time, Hoover was just 29 years old, and he’d be pivotal in the Bureau of Investigation turning into the Federal Bureau of Investigation 11 years later, and J. Edgar Hoover would be the first director of the FBI for the next 37 years.

So, while the specifics of the conversation are dramatized for the film, this marks an important event in history as Hoover’s life would end up being both instrumental in the formation of the FBI as well as controversial for abusing his power as head of the FBI.

If you want to learn more about him, I had a chat with Paul Letersky, who is a former FBI agent that worked as J. Edgar Hoover’s personal assistant. We talked about the historical accuracy of the 2011 J. Edgar movie, and you can hear that back on episode #185 of Based on a True Story.

May 13, 1940. London, England.

Two doors open to show a large room filled with people, most of them seated. The two men who opened the doors are walking in front of the camera as it follows them into the room. There are a few lights in the room, but mostly we can see light streaming from a window somewhere off the camera’s frame.

There are two levels visible in the room, with a gallery of seats in the balcony overlooking a large, open area below. Also on the ground level are plenty of other seats on either side of the open space where the two men are walking into the room. It doesn’t look like there’s an empty seat, and everyone in the room are wearing dark clothes. Suits for the men and dark dresses for the ladies, although to be honest I only saw one woman in the entire room filled with what has to be hundreds of people.

As the men enter the room, the last few people are taking their seats as others are talking amongst themselves. There’s no specific words we can hear, but these little side conversations going on contribute to an overall sound of murmuring. A bell can be heard tolling in the background.

The camera cuts to one of the men in the audience. With a serious look on his face as he looks at the ground floor, he takes a seat in the balcony above.

Down below, Winston Churchill is one of the men sitting. He takes out a watch from his pocket, glances at it, then puts it back. He’s played by Gary Oldman in the movie.

In another camera cut to a couple men in the gallery above, one turns to the man sitting next to him and softly says he should look at Chamberlain’s handkerchief. The camera moves to an overhead view of a white-haired man below who is taking out his handkerchief and setting it on his knee. This must be Chamberlain.

The man talking says if Chamberlain waves his handkerchief at the end of Churchill’s speech, that’s our signal to show approval. If he doesn’t, we keep quiet. Without saying anything, the other man nods slightly.

Then, down below, the Prime Minister is announced.

Winston Churchill gets up from his seat and stands at a table with what looks like a decorated wooden trunk or podium of some sort. Churchill places a single piece of paper on the wood in front of him and looks up to the people in the room.

The scene cuts to the serious-looking man in the balcony above. He looks behind him as an older gentleman taps his shoulder. The older man says, “Here we go,” and they both smile as if they’re not a fan of what’s about to happen.

The camera circles from an overhead angle as Gary Oldman’s version of Winston Churchill begins to address the room: “Mr. Speaker, on Friday evening last I received His Majesty’s commission to form a new administration…”

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Darkest Hour

That is how the 2017 movie called Darkest Hour shows an event that happened this week in history when Winston Churchill gave his first speech to the House of Commons as the new Prime Minister of Great Britain. Today, we know it as the “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” speech.

The movie is correct to mention the commission last Friday. That was when King George VI appointed Churchill to be the Prime Minister to replace Neville Chamberlain. That’s the guy we also hear mentioned in the movie with the handkerchief.

Before we get to that, though, the reason I didn’t continue with the speech from the movie is because instead of reading the speech myself, I thought perhaps you’d like to hear the actual speech from the real Winston Churchill.

So here is the speech from the movie:

“On Friday evening last I received His Majesty’s commission to form a new Administration. It is the evident wish and will of Parliament and the nation that this should be conceived on the broadest possible basis and that it should include all parties, both those who supported the late Government and also the parties of the Opposition. I have completed the most important part of this task. A War Cabinet has been formed of five Members, representing, with the Opposition Liberals, the unity of the nation. The three party Leaders have agreed to serve, either in the War Cabinet or in high executive office. The three Fighting Services have been filled. It was necessary that this should be done in one single day, on account of the extreme urgency and rigour of events. A number of other positions, key positions, were filled yesterday, and I am submitting a further list to His Majesty to-night. I hope to complete the appointment of the principal Ministers during to-morrow. The appointment of the other Ministers usually takes a little longer, but I trust that, when Parliament meets again, this part of my task will be completed, and that the administration will be complete in all respects.

I considered it in the public interest to suggest that the House should be summoned to meet today. Mr. Speaker agreed, and took the necessary steps, in accordance with the powers conferred upon him by the Resolution of the House. At the end of the proceedings today, the Adjournment of the House will be proposed until Tuesday, 21st May, with, of course, provision for earlier meeting, if need be. The business to be considered during that week will be notified to Members at the earliest opportunity. I now invite the House, by the Motion which stands in my name, to record its approval of the steps taken and to declare its confidence in the new Government.

To form an Administration of this scale and complexity is a serious undertaking in itself, but it must be remembered that we are in the preliminary stage of one of the greatest battles in history, that we are in action at many other points in Norway and in Holland, that we have to be prepared in the Mediterranean, that the air battle is continuous and that many preparations, such as have been indicated by my hon. Friend below the Gangway, have to be made here at home. In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today. I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues, who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make allowance, all allowance, for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act. I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”

Going back to the movie’s plot points, do you remember the mention of Chamberlain’s handkerchief? If he waves the handkerchief at the end of the speech, the men listening say they’re supposed to show support. If not, they’ll be quiet.

Spoiler alert, at the end of Churchill’s speech in the movie, Chamberlain did not wave his handkerchief.

But, that’s not necessarily true…not just that Chamberlain didn’t wave his handkerchief, but the whole handkerchief thing at all.

Let me play you a clip from my chat with Churchill biographer Furman Daniel about this scene from the movie. This comes from episode #299 of Based on a True Story:

[00:16:38] Dan LeFebvre: That leads to my next question because in the movie we see even though Churchill is appointed as the prime minister and his first speech that he gives, people watching are actually watching Chamberlain to see if he waves his handkerchief to show support for Churchill. So Then they would follow suit oh if Chamberlain supports Churchill, then we’re gonna support Churchill, is the impression that I got.

I found that interesting, because it seems like the movie just said that Parliament has lost faith in Chamberlain, and that’s the whole reason why he’s being replaced, and then it talks, and then it’s oh, but not everybody, obviously, because some people are still following Chamberlain’s lead. So it never really seems to dig into why Chamberlain lost the faith of Parliament, why he resigned.

Can you clarify some of the reasons why Chamberlain stepped down?

[00:17:27] Furman Daniel: Sure. First of all the handkerchief as a signal to the party, whether to support or not support Churchill. There’s no evidence that actually happened. It’s a creative kind of device that the Filmmakers did and again, it’s one of those you can easily be tricked because it seems like something you could do or you would do To the broader question.

It’s important to remember that, as I said before Churchill was not trusted and old wounds heal very slowly and there are people that had known Churchill for 30 40 years and seen him as Someone that they should not trust someone that was dangerous Someone that was a schemer, someone that would gladly stab them in the back if he could get higher office or some kind of fame or fortune out of it.

So a lot of it was a personal dislike of Churchill. Some of it was also a personal like of Neville Chamberlain. Neville Chamberlain was a a true gentleman. He was a very sincere leader. And he was someone that in his own way, in his kind of understated way, the contrast to Churchill.

Got quite a bit of loyalty from his political supporters. The other thing to remember and it’s always hard as an American people didn’t serve fixed terms. They served at the kind of Whim of whatever coalition they could build in Parliament. So Churchill was able to peel off some conservative boats who thought Chamberlain was not an effective war leader And he was able to also peel off liberal and labor votes who realized they didn’t have the votes to put their own candidate as, as up as prime minister, but Churchill seemed more acceptable to them.

He would fight the war more aggressively. And he did have this kind of liberal streak in him that appealed to some of the members of the liberal and labor parties. So it’s one of those things. A lot of this was personal there, much like today, there is no, there, there is no single Tory or single liberal party, just like there’s no single Democrat or Republican party in America.

There’s factions within each one. A lot of that’s personal or a lot of that’s also regional and things like that. And then also it’s worth remembering the prime minister isn’t elected in the kind of same way. They are in the president would be elected to the United States. They have to build a coalition.

So oddly enough, the fact that Churchill had been in both major parties and was seen as this kind of somebody at least he’ll fight made him acceptable to enough conservatives and acceptable enough. Liberal and labor party members to where he could get that coat, that vote to force Neville Chamberlain out and then get a coalition that he could build to actually be prime minister himself.

If you want to watch the event from this week in history as it’s shown in the movie, check out the 2017 movie Darkest Hour and Churchill’s speech starts at about 23 minutes into the movie.

Once you’ve seen it and want to find out how much of the whole thing happened, check out episode #299 of Based on a True Story to hear the rest of my conversation with Furman Daniel about the historical accuracy of the movie.

May 14, 1607. Virginia.

We’re on a river as rain drops gently splash into the water. The banks of the river on either side of us are filled with deep green grasses. An even deeper green row of trees can be seen along the horizon, leading up to a stormy sky that still has hints of blue in it.

A couple birds fly into the camera’s view on the left side for a moment as our view glides along the river.

Now the camera cuts to show a man walking among a field of grass. It doesn’t seem to be raining anymore, but the sky is still a cloudy white with the slightest hint of blue. We also can’t see the river anymore, but the tall grass looks similar to what we saw on the riverbanks a moment ago. There are tall trees on either side of the grassy field.

With shoulder-length brown hair and a full beard, we can recognize the man as Colin Farrell’s character, John Smith.

Another camera cut shows Farrell’s version of Smith walking among the woods now. The sound of insects buzzing and chirping birds make for a peaceful walk under the green canopy of trees. As Smith walks, the camera shows images of the sun peeking through the tree leaves to cast off lens flares on screen.

Smith looks up at the greenery around him. Other than the noise of the bugs and birds, there is silence.

It’s calm. Tranquil.

Just then, the movie cuts away from Smith’s walk to some other men. On the left side of the frame we can see seven men in a small, wooden boat along the edge of a large body of water. It looks like a river because we can see green trees in the distance, but this river is a lot bigger than the one we saw at the opening of the segment.

Other than the seven men in the boat, there are two standing in the waste-deep water next to it. They’re reaching into the water with their hands as if they’re fishing for something. A little closer to the camera in the middle of the frame are three other men. The water is only ankle deep where they’re at along the bank of the river, but each of the three men are bent over with their hands in the water. They, too, are looking for something in the water.

The focus of this shot, though, is the one man who is walking toward the camera. From our point of view, we’re looking over the shoulder of a man along the right edge of the frame. The man walking towards the camera is addressing the man whose shoulder we’re looking over.

The man addresses him as Captain Newport, and showing something he has in his hand he says they’ve found oysters.

He goes on to say the oysters are as thick as stones, holding one out to the Captain in the foreground. And there’s fish everywhere, he continues to say, they’re flapping against our legs. We’re going to live like kings!

That must be what everyone in the river is looking for: Oysters and fish.

In the next shot we can see Captain Newport’s face. He’s played by Christopher Plummer in the movie. A bunch of men are behind him carrying tools or weapons as they watch the captain speak.

Facing the camera, Newport says he’s weary of looking further after all their months at sea. This place will serve. There’s deep water to the shore, we can see up and down river so our enemies won’t have any surprise advantage.

We can see shots of the men carrying cargo off the ships in the river and onto land. The movie shows an English flag they’ve set up, suggesting these must be Englishmen. Axes start cutting trees. The noise catches the attention of the indigenous people, and we see some of them watching from the tall grass as the Englishmen start putting up a tall, wooden fence made from nearby trees.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The New World

That comes a movie released in 2005 called The New World, and the event it’s showing us is when the first permanent English settlement in the Americas was established. That happened this week in history on May 14th, 1607. The settlement was called Jamestown after King James I of England, and today it still holds that name. It’s just in the state of Virginia in the United States now.

And the event I just described is a good example of how movies have facts from history that did happen and then fill it in with fiction to tell the story.

For example, did John Smith walk in the silence of the woods as other Englishmen started cutting down the trees to build Jamestown?

Maybe.

But it probably didn’t happen exactly like we see in the movie because, well, that’s just too specific and we don’t know those kind of specifics from something that happened in the year 1607.

So, what are the facts?

In this case, basically that the Englishmen from three ships decided on the location and started building a new fort there. It didn’t quite happen as fast as we see in the movie. For example, we see Christopher Plummer’s version of Captain Newport tell his men that he’s weary of traveling further and this is a good location. Then, they start building.

And while that did happen, in the true story they started building the day after Captain Newport decided on the location.

Take one point away from the movie’s historical accuracy. Perhaps that’s nitpicking, but it’s an example of how the movie speeds up the timeline.

So, let’s dig deeper into the true story.

I didn’t talk about this in the segment, but the movie does show the three ships in the river. I didn’t talk about it because that didn’t happen this week in history. Those three ships actually reached the Virginia coast in late April of 1607. And it is true that Captain Newport was the name of the man in charge of the expedition.

Ironically, his first name was Christopher just like Christopher Plummer who played him in the movie. Maybe we should give that point back to the movie’s historical accuracy. [haha]

Something else the movie got right was when it shows Captain Christopher Newport telling his men the location for Jamestown is a good one due to the deep water and being able to see up and down the river. It’s a good defensive position for a fort, and those were exactly the reasons why they picked the location.

That decision came on May 13th, and on May 14th, the rest of the people came off the ship and the work began to establish the colony.

And while the movie goes on to show the happenings of the days and months after this week in history, it’s also correct to show the English colony was in the middle of Algonquian Indians led by a man named named Powhatan. His daughter, Pocahantas, gets into a relationship with John Smith–but that’s a story for another day.

As a side note, if you want that day to be today, you can hop way back to episode #27 of Based on a True Story when we covered Disney’s animated Pocahontas movie.

Queue it up to listen to as soon as this episode is done.

If you want to watch the sequence I described in this episode, though, look for the 2005 film directed by Terrence Malick called The New World. We started our segment right around the beginning of the movie, just eight minutes in.

May 19, 1536. London, England.

We’re going under archways and there are tall, stone walls on either side of us. Walking down stone stairs behind two uniformed guards are three women. One in the middle, two on either side behind her.

They walk to a courtyard where a large crowd is gathered. Despite its size, no one in the crowd is making any noise. It’s quiet as the guards lead the three women up a wooden staircase across from the stairs they just descended.

One of the women, Natalie Portman’s version of Anne Boleyn, stands before the crowd and speaks. She says she submits to the law. As for her offenses, God knows them and she beseeches God and Jesus to have mercy on her soul.

In the crowd watching is Anne’s sister, Mary. She’s played by Scarlett Johansson. A couple other guards walk over to Mary and hand her a piece of paper. Anne notices this and gasps slightly—she’s expecting this to be a pardon from the king or something that stops what is going to happen.

Mary unfolds the note and reads it.

Tears fill her eyes as she realizes there is no pardon contained within. She looks up at Anne, who immediately seems to know what her sister does: Nothing will stop this.

Anne cries and takes off her hood, cloak, and necklace.

The executioner places his hand on her shoulder, commanding her to her knees. She continues crying as the sword is placed on her neck. In a brisk movement, he pulls the sword back and the camera cuts to Mary as she winces from the noise of the slashing sword followed by a thud.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Other Boleyn Girl

That sequence comes from the 2008 movie called The Other Boleyn Girl and it’s depicting the execution of Anne Boleyn, which took place this week in history on May 19^th, 1536.

She was the second wife of King Henry VIII of England, who annulled the marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, whom he had been married to for over 20 years. She was unable to have a son—at least not one that survived. She did have three sons in their marriage, but they all died through miscarriage, stillbirth and one through some unknown reason we don’t really know.

This didn’t make Henry happy, who started becoming enamored with the idea that the Bible was telling him if he were to marry his brother’s wife, she’d be childless. And Catherine was married to Henry’s older brother, Arthur, first. But, Arthur died a year later and so Catherine was betrothed to Henry. Things seemed to be okay for a couple decades until Henry started to pressure the whole idea of having an heir.

We know Henry wasn’t faithful to Catherine at least once as he had one son with one of her ladies-in-waiting. That’s not a legitimate heir, though, and soon King Henry VIII was infatuated with another of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn.

Oh, and we also know Anne’s sister that we see in the movie, Mary, was also one of Henry’s mistresses.

The Catholic Church refused to allow the king to divorce Catherine because there was no cause and divorce went against God’s will according to the Pope. When Anne got pregnant by Henry, he quickly married her in a secret ceremony anyway so the child would be a legitimate heir.

When Catherine refused to divorce him so he could acknowledge his marriage to Anne, Henry went on to instead divorced the whole of England from the Catholic Church to establish the Church of England with himself as the head of the Church.

As a little side note, this ushered in what we now know as the Reformation and a conflict between Catholics and Protestants that’d mean countless killed on either side as a result.

On May 23^rd, 1533, Henry was able to get his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled—about five months after he married Anne Boleyn.

That marriage didn’t go so well, either, as Anne also didn’t give Henry the male heir he wanted. So, Henry charged Anne with conspiracy against the king, witchcraft, adultery, and even incest with her brother George.

With that historical context in frame, it’s probably not too big of a surprise that the movie is correct to show King Henry VIII did not grant a stay of execution. After all, he was the one who orchestrated it to begin with.

The movie was also correct to show her execution being done by sword instead of the traditional axe.

Oh, and that child Anne Boleyn had that sparked Henry’s marriage to her? That would end up being the only of Anne’s children to survive childhood. It was a daughter, Elizabeth. After Henry VIII died without a male heir, his half-brother became King Edward VI until he died and she became Queen Elizabeth I in 1558.

As an extra bit of historical trivia for you, exactly 32 years after Elizabeth’s mother was executed, Queen Elizabeth I arrested her own sister, the woman history remembers as Mary, Queen of Scots, in a move that would ultimately end in Elizabeth solving her own political problems through by executing a relative.

If you want to learn more about Anne Boleyn this week, check out the 2008 movie The Other Boleyn Girl. The execution takes place at the end at about an hour and 45 minutes into the movie.

Once you do that, we covered the historical accuracy of The Other Boleyn Girl back on episode #92 of Based on a True Story.

December 11^th, 1936. Windsor Castle, England.

We’re in a room watching some historic footage of an NBC radio broadcast. The man behind the microphone is speaking into a microphone as he announces that they’re interrupting the program to bring a most momentous address by Mr. David Windsor, former King Edward VIII of England.

Then, the movie cuts to a grandfather clock. Then another quick cut to a different microphone, with a man sitting in front of it in the foreground. He’s facing the mic, so we can’t see his face, but we can hear someone else’s voice saying, “This is Windsor Castle. His Royal Highness, Prince Edward.”

The camera moves to in front of him, and he has sheets of paper with writing on it and lots of notes. Many lines are crossed out, it looks like there’s writing in the margins. The man puts a cigarette to his mouth and lights it. The lighter clicks closed, and he takes a long drag on the cigarette.

The clock ticks loudly in the background as smoke swirls around the man. He breathes out the smoke as he takes the cigarette and taps it on an ash tray on the desk in front of him. At least, that’s what I’m assuming he’s doing. His hand moves off camera as instead it focuses on a framed photograph of a man and a woman on the desk. He is the man in the photograph, and although the photograph is a very professional-looking picture of the two of them, it still gives us the sense they’re a couple.

In the foreground, with elbows resting on the desk, he buries his face in his hands now as he’s obviously very nervous about what’s to come.

The camera cuts to some black and white footage racing through a stately manor. In just a couple seconds, that is over and now we’re back inside a luxurious room. As the camera moves around the room, we can hear the man’s voice speaking, “At long last, I’m able to say a few words of my own…”

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie W.E.

That sequence comes from the 2011 movie directed by Madonna called W.E. The event it’s depicting is when David Windsor made his first public address after abdicating the throne of England, which happened this week in history on December 11^th, 1936.

The movie’s depiction of this is very dramatized. After all, as you can tell from the scene I described, there isn’t a lot of things happening other than a man being anxious about a radio broadcast. And, I’m sure it’s very true that he was anxious.

After all, no King of the United Kingdom had ever abdicated the throne before—ever. David Windsor was his name after he abdicated the throne. The day before, on December 10^th, that man was King Edward VIII.

Here is the statement of abdication that he signed the day before his broadcast:

Instrument of Abdication.

I, Edward the Eighth, of Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Emperor of India, do hereby declare My irrevocable determination to renounce the Throne for Myself and for My descendants, and My desire that effect should be given to this Instrument of Abdication immediately.

In token whereof I have hereunto set My hand this tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty six, in the presence of the witnesses whose signatures are subscribed.

Signed at Fort Belvedere in the Presence of

And then we can see the signatures of Edward VIII alongside the witnesses, his three brothers: Albert, Henry, and George. It was George who became the next King of the United Kingdom.

Of course, technically, since that was December 10^th, that was last week in history. But, the radio broadcast that the former King made took place on December 11^th. After all, when he was King Edward VIII, he was the first King of the United Kingdom to ever issue a radio broadcast. So, he knew this new technology was a way to reach people.

Why did King Edward VIII abdicate the throne? Simply put, he was in love. He was in love with a woman named Wallis Simpson—hence the title of the movie, W.E.

Wallis Simpson was an American socialite, and she was divorced. At the time, the only reason for divorce that the Church of England would recognize was adultery. That’s not why Wallis Simpson got divorced, so if she married Edward that would make the marriage bigamy—basically, a criminal offense marrying one person while still married to another.

That’s not something the King could do. As a result, King Edward VIII made the decision to abdicate the throne so he’d be free to marry Wallis.

Now, I ended the last segment before we could hear the speech. A big reason for that is because I thought you’d prefer to hear the speech from the former King’s own voice instead of having me read it.

So, here is an original recording of the speech that he gave on December 11^th, 1936:

At long last I am able to say a few words of my own. I have never wanted to withhold anything, but until now it has not been constitutionally possible for me to speak.

A few hours ago I discharged my last duty as King and Emperor, and now that I have been succeeded by my brother, The Duke of York, my first words must be to declare my allegiance to him.

This I do with all my heart.

You all know the reasons which have impelled me to renounce the Throne. But I want you to understand that in making up my mind I did not forget the country or the Empire which as Prince of Wales, and lately as King, I have for twenty-five years tried to serve. But you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to

discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.

And I want you to know that the decision I have made has been mine and mine alone. This was a thing I had to judge entirely for myself. The other person most nearly concerned has tried up to the last to persuade me to take a different course.

I have made this, the most serious decision of my life, only

upon the single thought of what would in the end be best for all.

This decision has been made less difficult to me by the sure knowledge that my brother, with his long training in the public affairs of this country and with his fine qualities, will be able to take my place forthwith, without interruption or

injury to the life and progress of the Empire. And he has one matchless blessing, enjoyed by so many of you and not bestowed on me – a happy home with his wife and children.

During these hard days I have been comforted by Her Majesty my mother and by my family. The Ministers of the Crown, and in particular Mr Baldwin, the Prime Minister, have always treated me with full consideration. There has never been any constitutional difference between me and them and between me and Parliament. Bred in the constitutional tradition by my father, I should never have allowed any such issue to arise.

Ever since I was Prince of Wales, and later on when I occupied the Throne, I have been treated with the greatest kindness by all classes of the people, wherever I have lived or journeyed throughout the Empire. For that I am very grateful.

I now quit altogether public affairs, and I lay down my burden. It may be some time before I return to my native land, but I shall always follow the fortunes of the British race and Empire with profound interest, and if at any time in the future I can be found of service to His Majesty in a private station I shall not fail.

And now we all have a new King. I wish him, and you, his people, happiness and prosperity with all my heart.

God bless you all.

God Save The King.

If you want to watch how the movie portrays the event from this week in history, you’ll find it about an hour and 16 minutes into the 2011 movie called W.E.

Now, as you can imagine there’s a lot more to the true story than we talked about today. There’s the politics and drama that led up to the abdication, and of course how it affected the marriage after it was no longer Wallis and Edward but Wallis and David—well, we did a deep dive into all of that when we covered the movie back on episode #208 of Based on a True Story.

December 12^th, 1899. South Africa.

It’s nighttime. We’re outside on a clear night, inside a prison complex. There are a few scattered guards around the yard, and a brick building on the right side taking up much of the frame. In the foreground, a man is watching as two other men walk toward him. The three men are all prisoners, but they’re wearing just regular clothes and not any sort of a prison outfit that we might think of today.

As they approach, we can get a better look at who they are to identify them. The two men walking are Edward Woodward’s character, Haldane, and the other is Simon Ward’s character, Winston Churchill. The man in the foreground is Maurice Roeves’ character, Brockie.

Haldane asks Brockie what’s for dinner. Without answering, Brockie walks around the brick column to meet Haldane and Churchill as they get closer. Then, glancing briefly over his shoulder, Haldane says they’re too close. Not the three prisoners, but a camera follows Brockie’s gaze to the prison guards tells us they’re too close to the guards to be talking about—well, whatever they’re going to talk about.

The guards are chatting amongst themselves, though, and don’t seem to be paying any attention to the prisoners. Brockie says Haldane is too afraid, to which Haldane suggests he goes to see for himself. With that, Brockie walks away from the building, across a path and to another building on the other side.

After a moment, Churchill says he’ll go look, too. As Churchill approaches the building, Brockie is walking back out. Once inside the building, the camera shifts to show Churchill standing on top of a toilet. This building is apparently the latrine. From atop the toilet, he can see the prison guards right close by. That must be what the other guy meant by them being too close.

He pauses for a moment, then as an older version of Churchill’s voiceover explains he felt it was now or never. Then, we see Churchill going to another part of the latrine building and climbing up the wall and through a little hole. On the other side, he uses the height of the building to climb over the top of the prison fence. Slowly and quietly, he climbs down the other side of the fence.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Young Winston

That sequence comes from the 1972 film called Young Winston. The event it’s depicting is the start of Winston Churchill’s escape from prison during the Boer War, which happened this week in history on December 12^th, 1899.

We already heard how Churchill got out of the prison camp through the latrine, but the movie goes on to show how Churchill navigated the 300-mile or so journey from where the camp was located through enemy territory to freedom. And it left a few things out in the process.

Oh, and 300 miles is about a little more than 480 kilometers or so.

To understand more about Churchill’s escape from this week in history, let’s hear a clip from my chat with historian and author Furman Daniel from earlier this year. In the clip, I’ll set up some of the things the movie shows right after the events we started our segment with before Furman shares some more details the movie left out.

According to the movie, we see Winston Churchill escaping from where he’s being held by the Boers by climbing out of a latrine and hopping onto a train. After a while, he jumps from the train while it’s still moving and wanders to a nearby house. Churchill seems to approach the first house he sees so it seems random, but as it turns out the man inside is Mr. Howard, a British man who says he’s the only house for miles that wouldn’t have turned Churchill over. Mr. Howard and his colleague Mr. Dewsnap hide Churchill in their coal mine for three days and nights before coming up with a plan for Churchill to escape safely to the border.

Then we see the plan, which basically involves distracting people enough for Churchill to hide under the tarp on a train until he safely reaches the border.

Was that really how Churchill escaped?

[00:36:36] Dan LeFebvre: You mentioned the escape, and if we go back to the movie, we do see Winston Churchill escaping from where he’s being held by climbing out of a latrine and then hopping onto a train, and after a while, he jumps from the train while it’s still moving and then wanders to a nearby house, and according to the movie, as I was watching, it just seemed like he Approach the very first house that he saw, and it just happens that the man inside, Mr.

Howard, is a British man who says that he’s the only house for miles that wouldn’t have turned Churchill over. So, then we see Mr. Howard and his colleague, Mr. Dewsnap, hide Churchill in their coal mine for three days and nights before coming up with a plan for Churchill to escape safely to the border.

Then we see the plan, which is basically seems to involve distracting people enough for Churchill to hide under a tarp on a train that then he uses to reach the border safely. Was that really how Churchill escaped?

[00:37:30] Furman Daniel: That’s about right. Three very minor things that the, that part of the movie leaves out.

So one is Churchill actually. Upset his fellow prisoners by escaping when he did, and the movie talks about how they didn’t want to include him in their escape plans, and it shows how he went out on his own without the other people he was supposed to escape with. It doesn’t actually highlight the fact this really upset his fellow prisoners.

His fellow prisoners felt betrayed. This fit some of the anti-Churchill narrative that he was this spoiled, selfish person who didn’t play by other people’s rules. So that his fellow prisoners, while they covered for him and helped him escape by keeping guards distracted and not telling them the next day when they discovered him where they, that they knew about this, they were not happy with that.

So it conveniently leaves out the fact that Churchill Upset his fellow prisoners. It also leaves out the fact that Churchill wandered in the middle of the night, after jumping off one of the trains, he wandered in the middle of the night through the desert for quite a while. And he actually used the stars the North star to help guide him through this kind of wasteland in South Africa.

And then it misses part of, it makes the scene where he’s crossing the border. a little more dramatic. He actually does not emerge and jump out of the train and say, I’m Winston Bloody Churchill, fire the pistol in the air. He doesn’t actually do that until he’s two stops into safety, not immediately after the border when he does it in the film.

But, I can understand for all those reasons, wandering in the desert at night’s kind of a boring scene, upsetting your fellow prisoners. Yeah, you probably don’t want that. And then being two stops out rather than just across the border is less dramatic, but three very minor points. The larger thing is entirely true.

And Churchill, you mentioned it was so lucky to knock on the door. He did in the middle of the night and Howard and the British crew at that coal mine, the house of the coal mine were very brave to take him in and really did not have to. And let him hide in the coal mines.

The other thing actually doesn’t talk about is when he was down in the coal mine for three days hiding while they came up with a plan to sneak him out there were rats and he was terrified of rats and the rats were eating his food and eating his candle said it was this gross thing.

And again, I can understand why. The movie doesn’t want to it was a Disney movie. I’m sure they’d be talking rats and they’d be fast brands and help them escape. But given that they’re trying to be historically accurate, they left the rats out.

If you want to see how the event from this week in history is shown in the movies, check out the 1972 film called Young Winston. We started our segment at about an hour and 57 minutes into the movie.

And if you want to learn more about the true story, you can find my full interview with Furman about the historical accuracy of the movie back on episode #259, or through the link in the show notes.

December 12^th, 1953. California.

A large, four propeller plane is taking off just as the sun rises over the horizon just as we see the text on the movie’s screen to tell us the date. Inside the plane, Sam Shepard’s version of Chuck Yeager makes his way into the cockpit of an airplane in the belly of the larger plane.

Yeager asks another man there, Ridley, if he has a stick of Beeman’s. Ridley gives Yeager a stick of gum. With that, Ridley secures the glass canopy over the cockpit with Yeager inside. We can hear the pilot of the mothership saying they’re coming up on 20,000 feet at 210 mph. That’s a little over 6,000 meters at about 338 kmh.

Inside, Yeager says he’s ready to be dropped. One of the pilots of the mothership confirms and gives a countdown.

Three.

Two.

One.

Drop!

The camera cuts to an outside angle underneath the huge propeller mothership. On its belly is a smaller, silver plane that falls free. After a moment, the rocket engine bursts to life and it speeds ahead of the huge plane that was carrying it a moment ago. For a brief moment we can see some writing on the side of the small plane. It says X-1A and Bell.

Inside the cockpit, Yeager says number three is coming on. Then, he flips a switch on the control panel that says “Engine Ignition.” With a jolt, the plane jumps to a new speed going even faster, pushing Yeager back into the seat. The plane streaks through the clouds in the sky and creating a trail across parts clear blue sky that are visible from below.

Yeager watches the Mach Meter as it hits 1.0. A boom sound is heard.

Yeager keeps going, and when the Mach Meter is at about 1.5 we hear him saying, “Number 4.” He reaches for the same “Engine Ignition” panel and we can see three of four lights are lit red. Pushing the fourth button, now all the buttons are red. There’s another jolt, and Yeager is forced further back into the seat as the plane speeds even faster than before.

The Mach Meter passes 2.0. 2.1. Over the radio, someone tells Yeager he’s got it now, so he can ease it on back. But Yeager says he’s going to push the envelope. The Mach Meter hits the line nearing 2.5. It’s still going, now it looks like it’s passing 2.5…but then, Yeager’s vision starts to go blurry.

Suddenly, the plane is spinning out of control.

On the radio, someone is saying, “Come in, Chuck!”

We can see the plane falling out of the sky, upside down, spinning, in an uncontrollable way that no plane should do. At a bar below, people are listening to the communications as someone over the radio calls, “Mayday! Mayday!”

In the cockpit, Yeager seems to be coming out of whatever daze he was in. The plane is still spinning crazily and Yeager is wrestling with the stick to regain control. After a moment, the fighting seems to pay off as he gets the plane back under control. He says he’s okay now, causing a sense of relief to everyone listening.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Right Stuff

That sequence comes from the 1983 epic film called The Right Stuff. The event it’s depicting is when Chuck Yeager set a new speed record, which took place this week in history on December 12^th, 1953, over Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Although it looks like he’s going a little past Mach 2.5 in the movie, the actual speed record he made that day was Mach 2.435, or about 1,650 mph. That’s about 2,655 kmh.

The movie was correct to show the plane that Yeager flew that day was a silver Bell X-1A. It was also correct to show the Bell X-1A was attached to the bottom of a much larger plane that took off to drop the X-1A.

While the movie doesn’t take the time to tell us what aircraft was, it was a modified Boeing B-50 Superfortress. Something else we see happening in the movie is when Yeager’s plane starts to spiral out of control.

That really happened!

In fact, that’s the reason why Yeager didn’t hit Mach 2.5, because the plane started tumbling out of control. Miraculously, after cracking his helmet on the canopy, Yeager was able to get the plane back under control and land it safely.

Actually…do you want to hear the original cockpit audio from Chuck Yeager’s flight?

The audio quality isn’t great, though, so tell you what—I’ll put it at the end of this episode. So, if you want to hear that, stick around ‘til the end.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, you’ll find it about 39 minutes into the 1983 movie The Right Stuff. And if you want to learn more about the true story, we covered that back on episode #75 of Based on a True Story.

May 19, 1536. London, England.

We’re going under archways and there are tall, stone walls are on either side of us. Walking down stone stairs behind two uniformed guards are three women. One in the middle, two on either side behind her.

They walk to a courtyard where a large crowd is gathered. Despite its size, no one in the crowd is making any noise. It’s quiet as the guards lead the three women up a wooden staircase across from the stairs they just descended.

One of the women, Natalie Portman’s version of Anne Boleyn, stands before the crowd and speaks. She says she submits to the law. As for her offenses, God knows them and she beseeches God and Jesus to have mercy on her soul.

In the crowd watching is Anne’s sister, Mary. She’s played by Scarlett Johansson. A couple other guards walk over to Mary and hand her a piece of paper. Anne notices this and gasps slightly—she’s expecting this to be a pardon from the king or something that stops what is going to happen.

Mary unfolds the note and reads it.

Tears fill her eyes as she realizes there is no pardon contained within. She looks up at Anne, who immediately seems to know what her sister does: Nothing will stop this.

Anne cries and takes off her hood, cloak, and necklace.

The executioner places his hand on her shoulder, commanding her to her knees. She continues crying as the sword is placed on her neck. In a brisk movement, he pulls the sword back and the camera cuts to Mary as she winces from the noise of the slashing sword followed by a thud.

This depiction comes from the 2008 movie called The Other Boleyn Girl and it depicts the execution of Anne Boleyn, which took place this week in history on May 19^th, 1536.

She was the second wife of King Henry VIII of England, who annulled the marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, whom he had been married to for over 20 years. She was unable to have a son—at least not one that survived. She did have three sons in their marriage, but they all died through miscarriage, stillbirth and one through some unknown reason we don’t really know.

This didn’t make Henry happy, who started becoming enamored with the idea that the Bible was telling him if he were to marry his brother’s wife, she’d be childless. And Catherine was married to Henry’s older brother, Arthur, first. But, Arthur died a year later and so Catherine was betrothed to Henry. Things seemed to be okay for a couple decades until Henry started to pressure the whole idea of having an heir.

We know Henry wasn’t faithful to Catherine at least once as he had one son with one of her ladies-in-waiting. That’s not a legitimate heir, though, and soon King Henry VIII was infatuated with another of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn.

Oh, and we also know Anne’s sister that we see in the movie, Mary, was also one of Henry’s mistresses.

The Catholic Church refused to allow the king to divorce Catherine because there was no cause and divorce went against God’s will according to the Pope. When Anne got pregnant by Henry, he quickly married her in a secret ceremony anyway so the child would be a legitimate heir.

When Catherine refused to divorce him so he could acknowledge his marriage to Anne, Henry went on to instead divorced the whole of England from the Catholic Church to establish the Church of England with himself as the head of the Church.

As a little side note, this ushered in what we now know as the Reformation and a conflict between Catholics and Protestants that’d mean countless killed on either side as a result.

On May 23^rd, 1533, Henry was able to get his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled on May 23^rd, 1533—about five months after he married Anne Boleyn.

That marriage didn’t go so well, either, as Anne also didn’t give Henry the male heir he wanted. So, Henry charged Anne with conspiracy against the king, witchcraft, adultery, and even incest with her brother George.

With that historical context in frame, it’s probably not too big of a surprise that the movie is correct to show King Henry VIII did not grant a stay of execution. After all, he was the one who orchestrated it to begin with.

The movie was also correct to show her execution being done by sword instead of the traditional axe.

Oh, and that child Anne Boleyn had that sparked Henry’s marriage to her? That would end up being the only of Anne’s children to survive childhood. It was a daughter, Elizabeth. After Henry VIII died without a male heir, his half-brother became King Edward VI until he died and she became Queen Elizabeth I in 1558.

Exactly 32 years after Elizabeth’s mother was executed, Queen Elizabeth I arrested her own sister, the woman history remembers as Mary, Queen of Scots, in a move that would ultimately end in her execution.

If you want to learn more about Anne Boleyn this week, check out the 2008 movie The Other Boleyn Girl. The execution takes place at the end at about an hour and 45 minutes into the movie.

Once you do that, we covered the historical accuracy of The Other Boleyn Girl back on episode #92 of Based on a True Story.

May 20, 1927. New York.

James Stewart’s version of Charles Lindbergh looks at the watch on his nightstand. Then, unable to sleep, he decides to turn the light on and get up. I guess if you can’t sleep anyway, might as well get some work done.

He splashes some water on his face. Benjamin Frank Mahoney, he’s played by Bartlett Robinson in the film, walks into the room. He asks Lindbergh what’s up, it’s not time yet. Lindbergh says it’s close enough. Mahoney asks if he got any sleep at all, to which Lindbergh just says he’ll be all right.

In the next shot, we see the two men checking out of their room and almost immediately they’re swarmed by reporters.

It’s too early in the morning for the sun to be up yet. It’s also raining as their car drives to the hangar. There, men are checking all the items. They can’t pack a parachute, it’s too heavy. The weight of that is about four gallons of gas and Lindbergh would rather have the gas. So, no parachute.

One of the men still doing final checks on the plane tells Lindbergh he hung up the magnetic compass in the best spot he could find so it’d swing less in the rough air. The only downside is that it’ll be right above Lindbergh’s head, so he’ll have to read it in a mirror. The only one of those he could find is a big, clunky one. Lindbergh says that’ll be too heavy, so he asks the others in the hangar if anyone has a small, pocket mirror.

From outside, one of the people in the crowd standing in the rain outside the hangar replies. Lindbergh invites the woman over to the plane where he lets her sit in the cockpit in exchange for her mirror.

She remarks how empty it is in there. He says they have the bare minimum to keep the weight down. She notices there’s no window in front, they should cut a hole to see. He explains the front is filled with gas for the trip, but he points to a little slot that he can look through to see ahead through a periscope like on a submarine.

Before she goes, he asks how long she’s been standing out there. She says she was standing out there all night. He asks if she’s from Long Island. Nope. New York? Nope. Where? She says she’s from Philadelphia.

“You came all the way from Philadelphia?” He asks.

She says she had to, you needed a mirror. Then, she rejoins the crowd watching in the rain outside. A weather report comes in and they’d recommend waiting until noon. Maybe another 24 hours, just to be safe.

Lindbergh goes outside. It’s not raining anymore, but it’s super foggy out there.

He goes back inside. “Let’s roll her out,” he says and the men in the hangar spring into action, rolling the airplane outside. Once there, the back of the plane is hooked up to a truck and it’s towed to the runway, followed by scores of other cars, trucks, motorcycles, and all the spectators on foot.

The rain has washed out the runway, so now the challenge will be whether he can get the plane off the ground before the runway runs out of room.

Getting in the plane, Lindbergh turns on the gas from inside the cockpit as a man manually spins the propeller.

“Contact!”

The engine roars to life. It’s running 30 revolutions low, but they attribute it to the weather. It’s just damp air, nothing mechanical.

Lindbergh puts some cotton in his ears and then puts on a leather cap with goggles. He checks the flaps and looks through the periscope. Things seem to be okay. He turns to Mahoney, who is just outside the cockpit and says he might as well go.

They shake hands and Lindbergh takes off without incident despite the mud and a close call with the power lines and trees at the end of the runway.

This depiction comes from the 1957 film named after the airplane we see Jimmy Stewart’s version of Charles Lindbergh piloting: The Spirit of St. Louis.

It was this week in history, on May 20^th, 1927, that Charles Lindbergh took off in New York for the flight that would make him the first human being to fly solo across the Atlantic.

Although there is more to the true story that we don’t see in the film’s sequence I just described.

For example, the “solo” bit of Lindbergh’s achievement is important because he was not the first to fly across the Atlantic nonstop. That would be two British pilots, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, who flew from Newfoundland to Ireland in June of 1919. At just under 2,000 miles, or about 3,200 kilometers, Alcock and Brown’s trip was about half the distance of Lindbergh’s flight from New York to Paris.

So, that begs another question. Why from New York to Paris? Why those cities in particular when he could’ve made history as the first solo aviator to fly nonstop across the Atlantic while also flying a much shorter distance similar to Alcock and Brown.

Well, one of Lindbergh’s reasons for making the trip was to make history, of course, but it was also because of a $25,000 reward put up by a French businessman named Raymond Orteig who owned hotels in New York City. In 1919, he set up a prize of $25,000 for whoever could achieve the first non-stop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris.

That’s about $434,000 in today’s U.S. dollars.

So, of course, Lindbergh was aware of the history he would be making, but he’d also be making a fair amount of money for himself and those who financed his trip.

The plane he used was built by Ryan Airlines in San Diego, which we see happening earlier in the film. They customized one of their M-2 planes for Lindbergh to allow for the weight of additional fuel and dubbed it the Ryan NYP for New York-Paris. It was powered by a J5-C engine from the Wright Brothers’ aircraft manufacturer.

Although Wilbur Wright wasn’t alive—he died in 1912—his brother, Orville, was alive and friendly with Charles Lindbergh. About a month after his historic flight, in June of 1927, Lindbergh went to Dayton, Ohio, to meet with Orville Wright at Wright Field. That’s where the U.S. Air Force’s headquarters are today.

As for the name of Lindbergh’s plane, that came thanks to his financiers who were in St. Louis. That was Lindbergh’s hometown at the time, where he was an airmail pilot.

That’s key to the story because it ties into something else we see in the film: The Spirit of St. Louis not having any front window.

Lindbergh’s experience as an airmail pilot meant he was used to flying with limited visibility. You see, mail planes back then used to carry the mail bags in the front with the pilot in the rear cockpit. So, Lindbergh was used to navigating by looking out the side of the cockpit.

Since Lindbergh didn’t have to look out the front of the plane, having a front window didn’t matter that much too him. What mattered more was being able to carry more fuel, so the movie was correct to show that instead of a front window there was, instead, fuel tanks in front.

Oh, and there really was a periscope in the plane, too. That was just in case Lindbergh needed to see out front, but we don’t really know if he used it at all.

The film was also correct to show the main compass in the plane being mounted in a location where Lindbergh needed to use a mirror to see it. In some of the final tests before taking off, Lindbergh noticed it was too difficult to see the compass.

So, it’s also true that they used a mirror from a woman’s makeup case mounted with chewing gum to help him see the compass.

The takeoff itself was shown fairly well in the movie too, all things considered.

It is true that the weather wasn’t great. And just like we see in the movie, Lindbergh himself had trouble sleeping the night before, so he was at the airfield by about 3:00 AM. He wasn’t the first to the field as spectators had started showing up overnight.

He’d hoped to take off sooner, but the rain delayed them some. At 7:51 AM on May 20^th, Lindbergh’s plane started down the runway to the delight of the 500 or so people who showed up to the field to watch.

After some bouncing on the wet runway, Lindbergh managed to get the plane in the air and he was off!

And while we didn’t talk about this part of the film, it was also this week in history that Lindbergh successfully landed in Paris, France at 10:22 PM on May 21^st, 1927. That was 33.5 hours and 3,610 miles, or about 5,800 kilometers, away from where he took off in New York.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, check out the 1957 film called The Spirit of St. Louis. The takeoff sequence starts with James Stewart’s version of Charles Lindbergh heading to the airfield on the early morning hours of May 20^th at about 53 minutes into the film.

Oh, and as a fun little fact, James Stewart himself was also born on May 20^th in the year 1908.

May 20, 1932. Teterboro, New Jersey.

Our next event this week takes place exactly five years after Lindbergh took off for his historic flight. This is yet another historic flight, too.

There’s a woman wearing a brown, leather flight suit walks around the silver propeller of an otherwise bright, red plane. There are a few other people, all men, who are looking over the plane as well. She walks away from the plane toward a bespectacled man wearing a fedora and a suit.

He asks if she’s still tired. She smiles, saying she’ll nap on the way. That’s the good thing about flying solo, no one else is there to make any noise. She chuckles lightly at her own joke.

He gives her $20, saying he spent the rest of the money on the ship’s ticket back. It’s non-refundable, so he begs her to please do her part. She smiles and makes the promise. Then, she walks back to the red plane and hops in the cockpit.

In the next shot, we can see the plane flying above the clouds. A full moon is peaking behind the clouds in the distance as it casts light on the foreground clouds making for a beautiful scene.

In the cockpit, Hilary Swank’s version of Amelia Earhart smiles as she takes in the view. Then, a look of concern crosses over her face as she sees the flashes of lightning in the clouds. Here comes the thunder and the rain. And now her propeller plane shakes and rattles as she coaxes it through the clouds of a strong thunderstorm.

She makes it back above the clouds for a moment of peace before there’s another challenge: Ice. Her windshield starts to ice up, forcing her down below the clouds. This, too, she makes it through as she guides the plane back above the clouds into clarity.

The camera cuts to the same bespectacled man from the airstrip. This is Richard Gere’s character, George Putnam. He’s listening to the radio, which is talking about a crowd gathering in Paris in anticipation of the historic moment when Amelia Earhart touches down where Lindbergh did years ago.

Back in the cockpit, Earhart is facing a new challenge now: Exhaustion. We can see she’s starting to doze off to sleep. After a moment, she wakes up with a jolt.

The sun is coming up now and she laughs as she sees the sprawling, green landscape unfolding in front of her. She touches down in a grassy field.

Getting out of the cockpit, the first person she sees is a man with a bunch of sheep. She asks the shepherd where she is. He says she’s landed in Gallagher’s pasture. Where were you heading?

She tells him she was aiming for Paris.

He gives her the bad news—well, you missed. Then, raising his cane, he points it off to the left side of the shot: It’s over there.

Amelia laughs and greets the sheep with a look of joy on her face.

Back in the United States, the phone rings and George Putnam answers. The voice on the other end says that she’s made it. She landed in Ireland. Jumping out of his chair, George cheers the good news.

This sequence comes from the 2009 movie simply called Amelia, and it depicts an event that really did happen this week in history: Amelia Earhart becoming the first woman to fly solo and nonstop across the Atlantic.

Although there was no $25,000 prize money up for grabs since Lindbergh had already gotten that, so there was no need for Amelia Earhart to fly from New York to Paris.

As a little side note, Richard Gere’s character in the movie, George Putnam, was based on a real person. The real George Putnam was the one who published Charles Lindbergh’s autobiographical story of his 1927 flight. That was published in July of 1927, just a couple months after the trip itself, and in less than a year it had made over $250,000.

That’s over $4.3 million in today’s U.S. dollars.

That was also a big driver for Earhart’s flight, because Putnam suggested she follow in Lindbergh’s steps to make history of her own.

I’ll admit that’s a bit of an oversimplification because Putnam himself was actually contacted by a woman named Amy Phipps Guest who wanted to finance a woman to follow in Lindbergh’s path. She contacted him because of his work with Lindbergh on the book and Putnam found Amelia Earhart.

So, it’s not coincidental that Earhart was trying to get to Paris, too. The movie is correct to show that was her destination. Although she took off from Newfoundland, the original plan was for her to follow in Lindbergh’s path and land in Paris. However, icy conditions and bad weather blew her off course. So that’s why the movie was also correct to show her landing in a pasture in Ireland.

While Lindbergh’s flight took him over 33 hours, Earhart’s flight took less than half that time at about 15 hours. Of course, as we just learned, Earhart didn’t make it to Paris. So, part of the reason her flight wasn’t as long was because she landed in Ireland instead. That cut the distance to about 2,000 miles, or about 3,200 kilometers.

Nevertheless, it was a historic flight as it made Amelia Earhart the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic as well as just the second human to do so. No one else had done it in the five years since Lindbergh’s flight.

Five years after successfully becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, Earhart tried to set another record in 1937. She was trying to become the first woman to fly around the world. Sadly, this attempt was not successful and she disappeared along with her navigator, Fred Noonan. They were presumed dead two years later, although searches for exactly what happened to her continue to this day.

If you want to watch her taking off in the 2009 movie called Amelia, that sequence starts at about 42 minutes and 37 seconds into the film.

00:02:10:18 – 00:02:19:13
Dan LeFebvre
Before we get into some of the details of the movie, if you were to give a United Kingdom a letter grade for historical accuracy, what would it get?

00:02:20:15 – 00:02:47:08
Jens Heycke
It would get a B+, you know, on the whole it’s very accurate. There are there are some kind of annoying anachronisms at all and a number of details they got wrong. But I defer to the family itself and the whole family when it came out. They were actually very pleased with the movie. The only real criticism they had, they said, you know, you was much more serious in real life.

00:02:47:08 – 00:02:56:09
Jens Heycke
He wasn’t nearly that emotional is a much more stoic character, which is kind of curious because he seemed pretty stoic and aloof and actually.

00:02:57:13 – 00:03:18:08
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah, that’s fair. I mean, I guess the movie does focus a lot more on the the romantic side kind of that that aspect of it and the the stoic royalty side of it definitely plays a part. But maybe perhaps they played up the the drama side a little bit more for the movie, which again is normal. It’s a movie.

00:03:19:04 – 00:03:46:11
Jens Heycke
Yeah. And, you know, there were a couple of little things that jumped out at me. For example, Seretse and Ruth, when ruthless down the road in Botswana where fish oil land, and he was up in the United Kingdom, They were talking on the phone and, you know, there was no phone cable between England and Southern Africa until 1968, 18 years after that was supposed to take place.

00:03:46:24 – 00:03:54:18
Jens Heycke
Oh. But, you know, it was mostly smaller details like that on on the whole that really, you know, true to reality.

00:03:54:25 – 00:04:16:16
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we go to the movie and the way the movie starts, it starts in 1947 with cirrhotic Khama, and he’s about to return to his homeland of Beichuan, Thailand, as you mentioned. He’d been studying in law in London while his uncle Shakti was the regent in Beichuan, Thailand, until society was ready to rule. And now, according to the movie, that time has come.

00:04:16:22 – 00:04:36:22
Dan LeFebvre
We also learned early in the movie that when threats his grandfather was king, he asked for Queen Victoria’s protection from the racialist South Africa. So now, the way the movie kind of establishes everything, it sets up the timeline of the movie. In the beginning, the timeline is a protectorate of Britain and threats is coming home. How old is the movie?

00:04:36:22 – 00:04:40:18
Dan LeFebvre
Do setting up the situation in 1947 for Thailand?

00:04:41:23 – 00:05:08:00
Jens Heycke
Well, it got a little bit of that wrong because of to too, to make Botswana land a protectorate. And the movie threats he attributed not to racial of South Africa, although that was an anachronism because the union of South Africa didn’t exist until 1910 and Botswana land protector protectorates down the summit meeting 85. So long time before South Africa per se existed.

00:05:08:23 – 00:05:36:23
Jens Heycke
What did happen is there were Boer trekkers, all Afrikaners, who were coming up from the Nepal strongholds down, basically infiltrate infiltrating Botswana land and taking over taking over the land. So. So that was really the initial challenge of life protectorate status. But what really wasn’t motivated about Anzacs by Canada? Third, who was Rex? His grandfather. What motivated up those?

00:05:36:25 – 00:06:02:20
Jens Heycke
It was that on Cecil Rhodes, whites in the Onyx books weren’t allowed down there. They had to make case against doing that. So Kamala Theron, along with several other tribal leaders, went took a long trip to England. They spent several months there, visited Queen Victoria, and persuaded her and British government, you know, to stop protectorate status and stop Cecil Rhodes.

00:06:03:06 – 00:06:12:08
Jens Heycke
So, you know, the short answer is it wasn’t a South African racialism, actually, it was Rhodesian racialism not going to happen.

00:06:12:18 – 00:06:23:14
Dan LeFebvre
So then would that be why? I think there was a mention in the movie that certainly it was studying law there in London. Would that be why he was studying law as as a way of trying to help his his country in that?

00:06:24:11 – 00:06:45:17
Jens Heycke
Exactly. So his uncle determined I think he literally said if if we’re going to protect ourselves against the white man, we need we need to know his laws and spirits. He was an assiduous do very, you know, clearly a very, very sharp guy and did quite well out of it.

00:06:46:08 – 00:07:07:14
Dan LeFebvre
If we go back into the movies timeline before starts, he returns to Mitch Wineland. He does meet Ruth Williams. It’s at a missionary society dance that we see there. They catch each other’s attention right away, kind of seeing each other from across the room. And then the movie doesn’t really explain how much time is passing, but we see a montage of dancing, chatting, playing pool, spending time with each other.

00:07:07:14 – 00:07:25:19
Dan LeFebvre
This romance is obviously growing. And then we see there’s a scene where Seretse, he tells Ruth that it’s time he has to go back home, but he can’t leave his heart in London. So he gets down on one knee and proposes to her and she says Yes. How well does the movie do showing House or Betsy and Ruth met and fell in love.

00:07:26:19 – 00:07:51:00
Jens Heycke
You know, I feel like it now, Cregan showed there. The timeline felt a little compressed their courtship from the time they met to the very last a full year. The actual proposal, they they got a little off though they showed it occurring on the on the South bank of Thames River and in fact they occurred at his residence hall, which is sort of like Marble Arch, the place.

00:07:51:00 – 00:07:56:00
Jens Heycke
I’ve actually walked by several times and I can tell you it’s not as romantic, glamorous, and.

00:07:56:07 – 00:07:58:03
Dan LeFebvre
It doesn’t make for a good movie scene, apparently.

00:07:59:20 – 00:08:25:03
Jens Heycke
So, you know, on the whole, it was accurate or I wish they had shown, which would have been fun. It was a stretch. He was tremendous athlete. They kind of they they can be they played rugby an orchestra. He was a boxer. He was, however, a terrible ice skater and were. Whereas Ruth was quite a good one. And then they had a couple of dates where they did ice skating, and after that they did the three more.

00:08:26:17 – 00:08:55:09
Dan LeFebvre
Where they could added some humor into the movie, showing that in that contrast, there. Well, according to the movie, there were a lot of different reactions from people about this upcoming marriage between Sweaty and Ruth. And at least in the movie, none of them really seem to be very approving of it. Ruth’s father practically disowns her for marrying a black man while Seretse, his uncle, refuses to allow him to become king in Botswana land as long as he’s married to a white woman.

00:08:55:21 – 00:09:18:26
Dan LeFebvre
And then there’s Sir Alistair Canning, who’s the British government’s representative in South Africa. According to the movie. And he immediately tells them, being the couple threatening Ruth, that the neighboring countries in Africa have demanded that the marriage not take place. Despite this, according to the movie, the two end up getting married in what looks like a pretty small ceremony, maybe a dozen people there or so.

00:09:19:01 – 00:09:26:29
Dan LeFebvre
Not a lot of people in the ceremony in the movie. Was the movie correct to show kind of these initial reactions to the marriage between starting Ruth?

00:09:28:00 – 00:09:54:03
Jens Heycke
Yeah, it was dead on. In fact, there were there were a few things they didn’t show. It is absolutely correct that Ruth’s father said that if they got married, she would no longer be welcome in their house. And he followed through with that. Yes, he actually did that. What they didn’t show is that who was at Lloyd’s, who was actually a good friend of hers, was so close to marriage that they’re basically fire.

00:09:54:15 – 00:10:20:21
Jens Heycke
He told her she could transfer to New York and lose her job, which was equivalent to firing her at the time. So on the whole, that that portrayal was absolutely dead on the the British eye. I should qualify one thing, but Ellis electric piano character, by the way, didn’t exist. Oh, okay. Let’s talk about your character. The closest, of course, finding real life.

00:10:20:21 – 00:10:49:13
Jens Heycke
Alison was a figure by the name of Yuval and Barry, if you think of pairings by the same family. So he was very aristocratic and he was actually based in South Africa. He was a high commissioner in South Africa, and he was very much opposed to the overall British public was they found the whole thing really pretty a pretty controversial and outrageous person to deal with it at the time.

00:10:49:26 – 00:11:25:24
Jens Heycke
Why? Well, you have to remember, in England, I can say that at that point in time, they constitute less than know, four or 500, somewhat of a percent of the population. So very, very few black people in the country and the country, I would guess, on the whole was was very much opposed to interracial marriage. We don’t have polls for the UK, but I know this in the United States, 1989, 94% of the American public both start saying well to interracial marriage.

00:11:26:16 – 00:11:54:06
Jens Heycke
To give you an idea of what a novelty it was in England took a time while this controversy was raging. And this was the most controversial marriage of this century really ever, even beyond the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Like were the papers actually ran. Article by biologist discussing whether or not it’s possible for a mixed race couple to have children.

00:11:55:04 – 00:12:03:01
Jens Heycke
If you can imagine that. So apparently, you know, British public, this was such an unusual occurrence that they had to be educated on it.

00:12:03:23 – 00:12:18:12
Dan LeFebvre
They had to have known that there was going to be some some controversy around it just being in that time period. Was it? Were they kind of blindsided by just how controversial it was and all these things that came out about it?

00:12:18:13 – 00:12:40:25
Jens Heycke
I mean, they were they definitely understood that when you’re from birth, knew from from the beginning that the father would have a problem. And she actually sort of had the relationship wrong. Know, her mother figured it out. Her mother had lunch with her and Susie prior to her job, like the father. So they knew upfront that that would be a problem.

00:12:41:09 – 00:13:06:09
Jens Heycke
They they were caught off guard by the proposition of London missionaries society and how involved the British government got and so on. You mentioned they had a small ceremony. What they didn’t showing movie of some couples actually going to have a wedding, you know, a local church in an Anglican church. But the missionary society basically plotted against that.

00:13:06:09 – 00:13:29:26
Jens Heycke
They they positioned these goons at the back of the church to to protest when that moment in the ceremony came up. As it turned out, they actually persuaded them that or not to perform ceremony and beyond that. But then they persuaded the Bishop of London not to allow any of those people before she, which is why they ended up killing married them in a civil procedure issue.

00:13:30:11 – 00:13:38:11
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. They don’t I mean, they show some controversy, of course, but it sounds like it was even even more than that. We see in the.

00:13:38:16 – 00:14:04:23
Jens Heycke
Movie on the African art of security, who was really, you know, a pretty good character in the end. He was so opposed to interracial relationships that when he was acting as regent a few years earlier, he had a white male fly because that man was consorting with black women in his tribal area. And that became a huge controversy.

00:14:06:09 – 00:14:16:11
Jens Heycke
British government briefly removed him from his position because he had done that. So he was he wasn’t the instigator of a lot of the opposition America with on.

00:14:16:16 – 00:14:37:05
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned the British government and their opposition there. And that leads right into my next question that I had about it, because in the movie after they’re married, we see starting and Ruth get married they travel back to want to land. And when they get there again, the now we know the fictional character of Alistair Canning. And then there’s another man that enters the picture here, Rufus Lancaster.

00:14:37:05 – 00:15:02:25
Dan LeFebvre
He’s the district commander. According to the movie, he says that it is Seretse, his uncle, that’s refusing to accept Ruth as queen. And there’s a line of dialog in there that sounds basically like it’s a threat, that if he doesn’t like when Rufus says, If Seretse, he doesn’t give up his claim to Chieftain ship and Fawcett is forcing his tribe to take sides between himself.

00:15:03:02 – 00:15:27:18
Dan LeFebvre
So that’s the end. His uncle, then that’s going to make the country ungovernable. And then Britain might not be able to prevent South Africa from announcing Batswana land, which is where, as I was listening to that and seeing that in the movie, it was like, Oh, well, this is this is a threat without come out and saying it’s a threat, like, oh, if you’re going to force the country to take sides, then we might not protect you anymore.

00:15:27:18 – 00:15:37:05
Dan LeFebvre
And as a protectorate, well, you’re not going to get our protection. Was there really that sort of imposition and pressure from the British government on the marriage?

00:15:37:27 – 00:16:00:22
Jens Heycke
Right. Yeah, there absolutely There was that pressure, but they got the timeline a little bit mixed up. So what really happened is, Seretse, he went back to school, allowed by himself. You didn’t bring Ruth with, you know, at the time because he thought it would be too inflammatory. So he went well, he himself participated in that court. Well, which they which they showed.

00:16:01:09 – 00:16:24:25
Jens Heycke
And to persuade the tribe that it was okay for, you know, for them to accept his wife and for them to accept a mixed race as a whole was to rule the country. So that happened first. And the British, British officials or initially didn’t have a problem with that. They’d kind of shrug her shoulders and said, oh, the whole lot said it was okay, Oh, it’s okay.

00:16:25:01 – 00:16:48:01
Jens Heycke
And then they started to think about the implications of of relation with South Africa. And then they started going out, as it turns out, that that character, Rufus Lancaster, who also didn’t exist, the guy on the ground there was a guy by the name of sorry, and he was actually pretty bad, actually. Qazi He was a local. The character, though, show no movie at all.

00:16:49:04 – 00:17:11:27
Dan LeFebvre
When we do see the Newlyweds arrive in Botswana and right away we see some racial segregation. There’s a whites only sign at the hotel when as soon as they arrive there. And we also see again, I’m assuming, Alister Canning’s wife, that in the movie Lily is also fictional since he was fictional, but she offers as she asks Ruth if she wants something to drink.

00:17:11:27 – 00:17:25:23
Dan LeFebvre
And Ruth says something like a love of gin and lime. And then she goes to threaten and says, Well, I’ll give you lemonade because you know, there’s a prohibition of alcohol for blacks again in the trial land. Can you fill in some more of the historical context around the racial segregation?

00:17:26:14 – 00:17:55:12
Jens Heycke
Yeah, sir, you know, that was a very accurate portrayal. There was what they call a colored bar there and also in other Irish protectorates. In fact, the books that this movie was based on is called The Color or so. It was the case that the blacks were banned altogether. Some of the white establishments, other ones, they were allowed, but they could only enter through the back door or they could get things, but they had to take them out.

00:17:55:13 – 00:18:24:00
Jens Heycke
They had to either consume them outside would go elsewhere so that or it was very accurate. The book about the alcohol needs some qualification that was not imposed by the British government or in the white establishments that came from trauma. The third, you know, threats, his grandfather, who was absolutely opposed to alcohol and so spirits his uncle security followed up on that.

00:18:24:09 – 00:18:36:24
Jens Heycke
He maintained top down with alcohol. He just thought it was a bad things about local people. So that was the one thing that actually didn’t come from the British, that came from the tribal administration itself.

00:18:37:09 – 00:18:54:14
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Okay. What about there was a when we see that, I think threats, threat, remember the exact line of dialog. But he mentioned something about how well as the king he has some exceptions so he could go in to the the whites only area in the in the hotel there. Was there some exception there for him.

00:18:55:08 – 00:19:23:05
Jens Heycke
Yeah. So that was exactly correct. They didn’t really explain the reasons for it. Security as regent and its should have the power to remove those traitors and the owners of those establishments from one World War Two territory. So those people have to be deferential to to the security threats because they’re, you know, they hold power and they can they could.

00:19:23:05 – 00:19:30:20
Jens Heycke
And I think in one or two cases, they didn’t kick people out. So they wanted you know, they wanted to keep their stores there. So they have to be nice. Yeah.

00:19:31:17 – 00:19:48:26
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Okay. Well, that puts another perspective on something else that we see in the movie, too, with when Ruth first arrives, there’s a scene where she goes into a shop, she goes shopping for the first time. The store owner, I’m assuming the store owner, the lady behind the desk, she’s a white woman and she does not take kindly to Ruth being there.

00:19:49:11 – 00:20:11:03
Dan LeFebvre
It’s not until Seretse, his sister Naledi, comes in and kind of tides things over over between them. But it sounds I mean, that puts a different perspective on it because I would think, well, if the store owner knows that, okay, this is his wife and he has power, I might want to I might want to treat her a little nicer than we see happening in the movie.

00:20:12:02 – 00:20:41:28
Jens Heycke
Is the fact that she was treated Savoy by a by probably the majority of the white traders and store owners in the area for whatever reason. I guess somehow they they were that worried that she would tell her husband that he would there would be record collections for them because they, on the whole, did treat her appreciably like they really only had a handful of white friends one night when they first got there.

00:20:42:10 – 00:21:02:11
Jens Heycke
And in fact, on silhouettes, he made some wry comments at one point about how how much more cosmopolitan and sophisticated is tribal people of South Africa or Rashwan allowed or serves of. They simply use white people or so on.

00:21:02:11 – 00:21:26:03
Dan LeFebvre
Except that if we go back to the movie after we see Seretse refusing to give up his claim to the Chieftain ship and then his uncle leaves and he’s going off to start a new settlement somewhere else. And Seretse, he then is told, I think it was Canning that mentioned to him that he needs to go to London so they can talk to him about the matter of his teeth and ship face to face.

00:21:26:03 – 00:21:44:27
Dan LeFebvre
They say it’ll happen faster if we, you know, we talk about this face to face. And I thought it was interesting. This is a little side note. It was canning that mentioned that. But then when he gets to London, it’s also canning that he’s talking to you like it’s like just like I have to go to London to talk to the same person that was Dominic at Island.

00:21:46:01 – 00:22:05:20
Jens Heycke
Well, you know, that really underscores the fact that the Canning was positive to different people. So he was a composer that Barry, who was located in Pretoria, based in southern Africa and Commonwealth secretary, who was who was located on one.

00:22:05:20 – 00:22:09:08
Dan LeFebvre
But okay. So it wasn’t the same person traveling back and forth.

00:22:09:29 – 00:22:15:06
Jens Heycke
Yeah. So, so it actually was two different areas. So he went up to meet the colony was very.

00:22:16:02 – 00:22:37:18
Dan LeFebvre
I thought there had to be something there because I was like, Wait, why? I mean, you just talk to him down here, like instead of in his office in London. It doesn’t make much sense when he gets there. When he gets there, he thinks that he has Ruth stay behind because he thinks if he goes to London, then Ruth is they’re not going to let Ruth go back to Africa with him after she’s in London.

00:22:37:24 – 00:22:50:08
Dan LeFebvre
So he goes by himself. Ruth stays behind in between to land, but then when he gets there, so he’s kind of thrown off guard. When he’s told that he can’t return home, they’re exiling him from one island for five years. Did that happen?

00:22:50:28 – 00:23:15:27
Jens Heycke
Yeah. So that one was completely accurate, accurately portrayed or right down to the fact the societal rules and the longer war. Two people perceive that I think oh, pretty sure the British government was up to some trickery. And that is in fact why Ruth stayed. I think where they calculated as they could probably Zaretsky would be allowed to return and I think they made a mistake there.

00:23:16:15 – 00:23:48:26
Jens Heycke
No, the person that was coming, the first Commonwealth secretary, and they dealt with a fine was was really kind of disconsolate over the fact that he had to perform this, you know, this subterfuge, this, this trickery. And you know, he wrote some comments at the time that he really hated his role on one. It did happen. Shirazi held a press conference, which, by the way, you can actually see on YouTube.

00:23:48:26 – 00:24:26:21
Jens Heycke
It’s kind of interesting one where he talked about how Trek and it was there was a lot of outrage in the public and I’m not sure how. So this because it just ended with this the sense of fair play the British people had. And a few days later, Winston Churchill, who was opposition leader, famously muttered and all about, you said all version of a disreputable or, you know, he was really he was ticked off out and along with the Portugal legal because they just felt it violated the sense of, you know, British fair play violated sense of irony that they held.

00:24:27:18 – 00:24:47:10
Dan LeFebvre
Out your love, your Churchill voice there. That was great. You’re I did want to ask about Churchill, though, because he is mentioned in the movie. And there’s some a point where we hear some radio reports. We don’t hear Churchill himself, but we hear some radio reports saying that Churchill is talking about seriously being able to go home to his wife.

00:24:47:13 – 00:24:59:12
Dan LeFebvre
But then there’s an election. And after the election, Churchill wins, and then he turns around and says, no, sir, you’re not banned for five years. You’re banned for life. Did he really change his mind like that?

00:25:00:04 – 00:25:33:27
Jens Heycke
Yeah. So whether or not he changed his mind, we do know that the administration, you know, took a different policy and what Churchill was talking about prior to that so that that’s absolutely correct. They cannot change directions. And we didn’t really get the back story for that. We can actually only speculate about it. But what we do know is that there were only a handful of ministers and allied governments who were aware of negotiations between between Britain and South Africa over the radio.

00:25:34:00 – 00:26:12:10
Jens Heycke
Britain really wanted this radio. And so there were there’s all kinds of stuff going back and forth, but it was all a hill for ministers who knew about this and the strategic importance of not ticking off South Africa. So it’s quite likely that Churchill and his ministers weren’t aware of any of that until they actually took the role in government and then they became aware and and principals kind of went out the window and they said, you know, we have to we have to follow principles, real realpolitik, and then come to appease South Africa.

00:26:12:10 – 00:26:32:03
Dan LeFebvre
Of course, throwing the name Churchill out there, being a well known name. But it also gave me the impression between that and kind of things we talked about up until now with just the the the British public and stuff. Was that even after they were in Botswana land, it was still a big deal to the British government and kind of a maybe even a big deal to the to the British public as well.

00:26:32:03 – 00:26:50:00
Dan LeFebvre
You know, that they’re having all these radio reports. And throughout the movie, there are times where we see like, you know, newspaper headlines talking about threats and Ruth and, you know, the situation going on there. Did they stay in the news like that? Was it a a bigger thing even after they left London and went back?

00:26:50:00 – 00:27:14:04
Jens Heycke
Yes, it absolutely was down. That began as a big deal. In fact, when Ruth as to Ruth came down to this one alone or all down, she actually went under a secret identity. She wrote she was Mrs. Jones because she would be trying to hide from the press and they had the mistaken notion that somehow they would escape the press when they were down there.

00:27:14:04 – 00:27:45:28
Jens Heycke
In fact, when they got there, they were chased all over the place. You know, the Herald’s full of journalists everywhere from Australia to United States. One journalist, UVA, wrote a book claimed to for them. Oh, wow. You know, it was just a circus. There was one crazy incident where they were staying at a friend’s house in Lockerbie and they used journalists with her photographers, desperately wanted to get a photo of the black male and the white woman in bed together.

00:27:45:28 – 00:28:00:11
Jens Heycke
So they were joking around the windows and they, unfortunately for them, got the wrong window. And the key is to face with a shotgun held by by the son of the couple that was hosting night.

00:28:00:24 – 00:28:08:24
Dan LeFebvre
I guess there’s no record for trying to invade on privacy there. I mean, old school paparazzi, it sounds like.

00:28:08:27 – 00:28:09:07
Jens Heycke
Yeah.

00:28:09:27 – 00:28:33:00
Dan LeFebvre
You touched on something there with the uranium and we do see that mentioned in the movie. There’s a report that actually mentioned throughout the movie that the chief justice of the High Commission territory is the title of Sir Walter Harrigan, according to the movie and the Harrigan report is something that early on in the movie, the character of Canning uses as an excuse.

00:28:33:00 – 00:28:50:04
Dan LeFebvre
It says that was threats. He is not fit to rule, and that’s why the British government exiles him, according to the movie and then the beginning of the movie. And then as the movie kind of nears its end, Serenity actually manages to get his hands on a copy of the report and he finds out that that’s not what the report says at all.

00:28:50:10 – 00:29:16:15
Dan LeFebvre
Harrigan actually said that threat threats, he is fit to rule. But he and Ruth are not acceptable to South Africa. And then it starts to bring in South Africa, provides uranium, gold, some protection from Stalin’s advance in Africa. All these things seem to imply that the British government is justifying Prime Minister Mullins Apartheid in South Africa, even allowing it to affect the Red Sea.

00:29:16:15 – 00:29:35:21
Dan LeFebvre
And Ruth, because I think there was a line in the movie from one of the Parliament members like without the gold reserves from South Africa, how is the British currency going to be sustained? How well did the movie do showing this power? Was it really, really that much power that South Africa was holding over Britain’s influence?

00:29:35:21 – 00:30:10:28
Jens Heycke
Yeah, you know, it was it was pretty much dead on there. There were multiple things. The previous governments of South Africa, the previous Prime Minster, John Smuts, had left 90 million ounces of gold to go to Britain and Britain just, you know, it was in shambles after World War Two. I didn’t have the wherewithal to bail out onto that uranium, which was a huge issue for South Africa or I’m sure for Great Britain, because they desperately wanted to have a nuclear program.

00:30:11:08 – 00:30:33:01
Jens Heycke
And the United States kind of was helping a cop who they weren’t. One thing very helpful and the sort of leverage that Great Britain had, all the leverage they had was their walk on the South African rail. So so they really desperately felt like they needed that. And then to to talk all of that off the horse of their shoe.

00:30:33:01 – 00:30:59:03
Jens Heycke
But the British government put their into water on marriage improvements at sea. It would sowing rage. The South African white South African public and the far right extremists in South Africa that they would just move out and invade Victoire Land and al-Aksa and the British government really couldn’t do anything about it. Again, it’s it’s right about the report.

00:30:59:03 – 00:31:09:24
Jens Heycke
See, the ministers who who commissioned the report made the mistake. Then they basically enlisted an honest guy to do it.

00:31:11:02 – 00:31:17:22
Dan LeFebvre
They made the mistake of enlisting. And I love that.

00:31:17:22 – 00:31:41:27
Jens Heycke
Yeah. So it’s like I talked earlier about, sorry, the guy on the ground, they actually passed him over to the commission to choose someone else because sorry was too sympathetic and they knew that. They just didn’t know that the paragon was going to be honest. And you gave them the answer they wanted the Seretse You shouldn’t be king, but he gave them the honest reasons for it, which they really didn’t want.

00:31:41:28 – 00:31:59:10
Jens Heycke
These were reasons they wanted to hide. And why did they want to hide them? Well, they didn’t want to admit South Africa out of barrel and they didn’t want to messed up. It was appeasing this racist government. What a terrible city. So they had to hide the whole thing.

00:32:00:09 – 00:32:13:07
Dan LeFebvre
Was South Africa aware of of their whole how much hold they had over Britain, or was that I mean, that I’m assuming from your answer, that was part of the reason why Britain wanted to hide it was they didn’t want South Africa to know just how much power they had.

00:32:14:02 – 00:32:41:29
Jens Heycke
Yeah, I think they were aware to to a degree. I think they probably don’t like what hole they go down. It is interesting that that when strategy was banned the British officials will carefully monitoring the South African newspapers and the moderate newspapers down in the Cape were they were sort of relieved and an allied, you know, were happy.

00:32:41:29 – 00:33:08:15
Jens Heycke
The good that had done, however, grew up in the Truants ball, were the real extremists of sorts. People, people like, oh, no, no, not malign, but some of the radicals. And in this party they, they were kind of annoyed. They sounded annoyed. And and the reason they were annoyed is because their pretext for invading Switzerland had gone away.

00:33:09:14 – 00:33:28:22
Dan LeFebvre
You said that there weren’t that many people that knew about the uranium. Was it almost this this was their parts elements of the British government that was almost trying to keep it from other elements of the British government too, because there were some mentions of kind of that as well in the movie that I the impression that I got walking out.

00:33:28:22 – 00:33:34:25
Dan LeFebvre
When we see some of the scenes in parliament, you know, talking about the Labor Party and the Tories and all that.

00:33:34:25 – 00:33:59:01
Jens Heycke
Yeah, there absolutely was. And there was there was a lot of negotiating talk behind the scenes there. And back there the Labor government persuaded the Conservatives to protest too much about, oh, about the banning of sprouts. So that’s one thing that happened behind the scenes problem for the Labor leaders as they were focused on kind of squelching conservative dissent.

00:33:59:01 – 00:34:21:07
Jens Heycke
What happened is they got they really got the soup from their own backbenchers, people like Tony Brown and Senator Brockway, who are nicely depicted in the movie. Oh, Tony Benn was a huge order of the of the Congress. In fact, they named one of their sons out now in front of Rockwell’s youth.

00:34:21:07 – 00:34:46:15
Dan LeFebvre
What you touched on a little bit ago, Britain after World War Two being been a shambles there. And there is a very brief mention when we see Bruce giving an address to Churchill. She mentioned something. I remember the numbers. It’s is it like 10,000? She mentions a number of of I’m assuming the movie implies soldiers from Botswana and that helped in World War Two.

00:34:47:11 – 00:35:05:21
Dan LeFebvre
Were there actually soldiers that had helped? And then, I mean, again, this is kind of my assumption coming out of the movie is that with this newsreel that we see Ruth film in the movie feeling just betrayed by Churchill, like, Oh, we helped you and now you’re not helping us.

00:35:06:17 – 00:35:34:10
Jens Heycke
Yeah, absolutely was gave Sam and a lot of people from factories Southern Africa did help in World War Two because of the whole race of thing. They were mostly relegated to things like that trench Arabs and and kind of doing support work. They mostly weren’t, you know, front line type soldiers, but they contributed badly. Yeah. And yeah, so that was a source of a lot of South south.

00:35:34:15 – 00:35:37:01
Jens Heycke
She they felt like they had been double cross.

00:35:37:23 – 00:36:01:02
Dan LeFebvre
As the movie comes to an end, as the Red Sea shows the evidence, Britain using the land for its own purposes to his uncle. That Paragon report that we talked about and then his uncle Chickadee agrees to let their argument end and threats. He then uses his influence to get Parliament to agree that his people will have mineral rights to anything and they want to land.

00:36:01:02 – 00:36:28:13
Dan LeFebvre
He did that because he knew about some drilling and reports of finding a few diamonds. Then he uses this. That information mixed with the twisting of the Harrigan report to pressure the British government into allowing them to transition from a monarchy. The monarchy of Botswana land into the Republic of Botswana. Was that really how that transition happened from Botswana land into Botswana?

00:36:29:18 – 00:37:00:01
Jens Heycke
Oh, so a lot of facts were mixed up here. They got a few things right, all of them. Brockway was a friend of the of the Commons, a number of parliament did get the government to to concede that any minerals in the country was belonged to people. So so that car was accurate after the discovery of diamonds. However, it really didn’t happen until after Botswana got independence and the mineral.

00:37:00:02 – 00:37:27:02
Jens Heycke
Nobody was really aware of the mineral wealth at the time, and that was reflected in reports by British officials all the way up until the 19 the 1960s, where they talked about how they were happy to get rid of Botswana because it was it was all, you know, worthless does all it was trading or cash. But what really motivated the British government to grant the country independence or.

00:37:27:04 – 00:37:55:06
Jens Heycke
Well, first of all, to allow Seretse back was was lots of peaceful protest in Botswana land itself and passive resistance. But the movie accurately showed a fault line where where nobody showed up. And that happened multiple times. That went on for five years. And likewise all around the British Commonwealth. And, you know, it was it was an international outrage for a lot of the Commonwealth countries.

00:37:55:17 – 00:38:25:06
Jens Heycke
And in England itself there there was a lot of organization that was devoted to getting. Seretse You call him a back country, and that included all kinds of luminaries, people like Bertrand Russell, obviously Tony Benn, Federal Brockway, but a lot of other prominent figures. And it was finally when when he for the home and Waco people sent a cable to Queen Elizabeth saying, great quietly, you were sad.

00:38:25:06 – 00:38:38:07
Jens Heycke
Please send us back or. Right kin. And it was at that point that the British government relented and sent. So the Harrigan report and that stuff, it wasn’t involved.

00:38:38:27 – 00:38:59:14
Dan LeFebvre
Was we do see in the movie, we see the Red Sea doing some some radio broadcasts and kind of petitioning himself like, you know, to the British public. Did he actually do that and start to sway? Because earlier in the movie or earlier in our discussion, rather, we were talking about how the British public was was outraged at first.

00:38:59:21 – 00:39:04:26
Dan LeFebvre
What was he able to sway them into, kind of helping get him back home?

00:39:05:21 – 00:39:38:12
Jens Heycke
Absolutely. I you know, by the end of people around him play the neutral. But but he was a it’s a very charismatic and powerful speaker. And no ANC a people you know, an interesting side note is that is that all these British officials, when you read their notes and their correspondence of some and many of them were outright racist, but almost to a one, they had this sort of grudging respect throughout C November, you know as they they were screwing him over.

00:39:38:21 – 00:40:03:15
Jens Heycke
You can tell me or perceive that he was far more of a gentle man than any of them. Well, he you know, he basically out British men out class them. But and and he could, you know, his tone. He was always very cool and just argued with logic and was really had such poise that he he really impressed these officials even though they treated them jealously.

00:40:03:26 – 00:40:38:02
Dan LeFebvre
I definitely got that from the movie. Even in the performance, he seemed to always be in control of himself, like even when there were things that were said when it became he came to light that the British government was screwing them over or doing various things. You know, when even when when his when there was the obviously the marriage and that terror with his uncle had to have just torn them apart inside to I mean, we met I didn’t mention this earlier, but at the beginning of the he talks about how his uncle raised him.

00:40:38:02 – 00:40:54:23
Dan LeFebvre
He tells Ruth this, you know, I uncle raised him, was basically a father to him. So it had to have been so much more difficult than even is is voiced in the movie or just to have that sort of friction with with his uncle.

00:40:55:22 – 00:41:22:06
Jens Heycke
Yeah. And he handled it with such incredible poise and grace. And you know, the amazing thing to think is that, you know, he’s 27 at this point. And in several instances here, it’s it’s just him. And in one case, it was a worthless lawyer. He never spoke with with an array of like four or five senior ministers on the other side.

00:41:22:06 – 00:41:29:15
Jens Heycke
And here’s a swing. Somebody low guy just holding its own. It just used tremendously remarkable person.

00:41:31:06 – 00:41:36:14
Dan LeFebvre
What’s something from the true story that didn’t make its way into the movie that you wish had been included.

00:41:37:28 – 00:42:07:21
Jens Heycke
So there’s this one little directo that I think so just wonderfully illustrates the tenacity and the grit and the sure want for her husband their lives. How they did, in fact, will rebel. So there was this time when Ruth was and Shirley by herself, she was pregnant. And what the movie doesn’t show is that Charette was actually allowed to come back to the Warner Land, just wasn’t allowed to go to where she was.

00:42:08:09 – 00:42:30:11
Jens Heycke
He had to settle this lawsuit with his uncle. So he was he was confined to Motsi, which is way down in the south, of course, it’s 400 miles from Troy. Now. Ruth determined she she wanted to get them back no matter what. So what she what she did there, she deprived herself of sleep the three whole days, she set an alarm clock.

00:42:30:23 – 00:42:52:25
Jens Heycke
How to go off every single hour for three days straight. So at the end of three days. And remember, she’s pregnant, right? So I think it’s three days. She is a basket case. She goes to her doctor who takes one crusher and everything and said, oh, my goodness, this this woman is in dire straits. She tells the British government and they’re in a panic because she loses a pregnancy.

00:42:52:25 – 00:43:12:07
Jens Heycke
That’s it’s international scandal. Terrible. Let’s see. So they actually the lads and they say, okay, sir, UPS can come up and be with with the weeks and this woman just tell True Grit. Seretse was an amazing man. She was also an amazing woman. Oh, just really a remarkable girl.

00:43:12:28 – 00:43:28:21
Dan LeFebvre
Knowing that he that seriously was allowed but just wasn’t allowed to see her, that had to have been that much more painful. Like, I mean, you’re you’re close but not actually be able to see each other.

00:43:29:17 – 00:43:47:26
Jens Heycke
Exactly. And, you know, as it turns out, at the same time that she came up with the strict he was actually conspiring himself to drive in the middle of the night where she was a drive back know, or having miles on a dirt road. So this would be it. These two were you know, they were truly on young.

00:43:48:08 – 00:43:52:24
Jens Heycke
And again, you know, he forced just tremendous character and grit.

00:43:53:11 – 00:44:17:29
Dan LeFebvre
At the very end of the movie, there is some text that mentions that Botswana became the world’s biggest diamond producer and that just transformed the economy threats. He was then democratically elected as the country’s first president, according to the movie. And then Ruth became a prominent humanitarian. Did Seretse and Ruth’s story end as happily ever after as the movie seems to imply?

00:44:18:23 – 00:44:42:12
Jens Heycke
Let it begin because know, I also took a little bit of umbrage at the connection of Botswana’s success with the Diamonds. They absolutely did contribute. But, you know, when we look around Africa and frankly, the rest of the world, there are so many countries outside what was a euro trying and gold and America. Nigeria has boundless oil wealth.

00:44:42:13 – 00:45:11:22
Jens Heycke
Venezuela, all these countries that have wealth or to what Botswana and none of them have an evil or attempted success. As we can talk about, I think there was something special about Botswana that allowed it to turn about mineral wealth into a successful society. But to get to your other question about living happily ever after, yes, they did to some degree.

00:45:12:02 – 00:45:36:22
Jens Heycke
Sally Sara, let’s see what else? Three died before 60. He was president from 19 6 to 1980. When he died, Ruth worked until 2002 and to this day is still regarded as a sort of the mother of the country. She devoted herself to all kinds of charitable causes and still very highly regarded there.

00:45:37:24 – 00:46:05:26
Dan LeFebvre
I want to ask you, because you did mention some of the difference with Botswana and your new book right here comes out of the melting pot into the fire, Multiculturalism and the World’s past and America’s Future and the story of Batswana land. Botswana is really just one example that you give. What do you think separates Botswana’s story from some of the other civilizations that you cover in your book?

00:46:05:26 – 00:46:39:18
Jens Heycke
Yeah. So there is an element in our own society that goes back at least 200 years. It’s quite that there have long been very accepting of outsiders and refugees and and kind of breed people into their fold. And in a way that, you know, I think is pretty unusual. So if we go all the way back to the beginning of the 19th century, we have got Shaka Zulu, who was rampaging across southern Africa.

00:46:39:18 – 00:47:00:13
Jens Heycke
It was like the, you know, sort of the Genghis Khan of Southern Africa. And people are fleeing from him and a lot of the people were fleeing to them from him, came to to the point of people and they were brought down and allowed to become all about society. Very welcome. And 100 years later, the same thing happens.

00:47:00:13 – 00:47:51:24
Jens Heycke
The Germans in Southwest Africa are persecuting a group of people called the Herero. That was a genocide of the 20th century. And the Herero, who didn’t survive, fled to Seretse, whose grandfather, Khama the third, once again welcomed the man. And certainly that’s often shown in the movie Milwaukee, has a significant population of descended from the lands. Ferrero put on there an interval part of the society of the very successful and that continued on talks or the correct and the fact that they would they they allowed roots yeah so pretty readily I do a allow a white well it could become part of their society that was oh you know that all that was carrying on

00:47:51:24 – 00:48:32:20
Jens Heycke
a tradition that goes back at least to our years so that was already in the culture and in the society. It was sort of in their society, its DNA. But beyond that, there was a political decision on part of society and part of the vulnerable to people that I think is nicely captured in that one wonderful speech he gives in the hallway where he said, you know, we look at South Africa and look at the racism among the British and how they they divide people and and treat them differently because of what race they are or what group they’re born into.

00:48:32:20 – 00:48:56:18
Jens Heycke
And and he says, we’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to go the other way. And that one speech. So we don’t know for sure those were the exact words he said. But that feeling was captured in the founding of the country and in the countries called stitution. The one got to be one one unified society.

00:48:56:18 – 00:49:22:24
Jens Heycke
It doesn’t matter what the color is, you know, it doesn’t matter what tribe you are. We’re going to we’re going to function as a unified community. And it’s it’s actually symbolized in the Botswana flag. It’s got it’s got black and white stripes, which which symbolize black and white people together. They’re national animal. It’s the zebra animal that has no tribal associations.

00:49:22:24 – 00:49:58:24
Jens Heycke
So again, the stripes sort of symbolize black and white together. So to me, that’s one of the reasons that our country has been so wildly successful and built on independence. It was it was the eighth poorest country in the world. Now it’s a no, it’s an upper income country. And any statistic you look at corruption, public health in many of these measures, it’s how some countries in Europe particularly ranked corruption as the least crow country, African ahead of Greece, Spain, Norway, a number of other European countries.

00:49:59:03 – 00:50:12:00
Dan LeFebvre
You talk about a lot of that in your book. So first, thank you very much for coming on to talk about a United Kingdom. But for the listeners, you want to get an overview of your book. Can you share a little bit about it and where they can get a copy?

00:50:12:23 – 00:50:53:20
Jens Heycke
Absolutely. So I’ll answer the second question first. I can get a copy at Amazon. Barnes Noble, any of the online sellers as well as you can order from Bookshop.org, which will get it through your local bookstore on August, going to local bookstore and order it all. Yeah. To give a brief kind of overview of the book. What it does is it addresses what I think is the most pivotal question facing our current generation, and that is as we’ve had this massive influx of immigration over the last couple of decades, how are we going to bring those people into our country?

00:50:54:03 – 00:51:27:24
Jens Heycke
And to give you an idea of the scope of that, you know that 85 million people today looking at immigrant households, I’m not saying that’s a good or a bad thing. It’s a reality. And we have to we have to think about what’s the best way to make the people of American society. Now, traditionally, we’ve had this sort of melting pot paradigm where everybody comes in and kind of shares and we origin of unifying shared identity and the alternative, which has been pushed more and more in the last couple of decades as more of a multiculturalism.

00:51:28:06 – 00:51:53:13
Jens Heycke
So and more like the paradigm where where we maintain group distinctions and treat people differently based on what group orientation. And what my book does is it says, you know, these are not this isn’t a new dilemma. This is not a new question. This is something that’s inside there throughout history. So let’s go back let’s look at some of those examples.

00:51:53:17 – 00:52:18:04
Jens Heycke
So let’s see how how dividing people by group or out in Yugoslavia, for example, or how distinguishing Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and identity cards, sort of Belgian colonialist and, you know, other things like that work out versus you know, how does it work out one program and or under one or more of a Sure.

00:52:19:09 – 00:52:23:22
Dan LeFebvre
Learning from history. I mean, that’s so we try not to repeat the same mistakes again.

00:52:24:08 – 00:52:24:29
Jens Heycke
Absolutely.

00:52:25:11 – 00:52:27:01
Dan LeFebvre
Thank you again so much for your time.

00:52:27:04 – 00:52:34:09
Jens Heycke
It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you.