00:04:08:10 – 00:04:26:20
Dan LeFebvre
We have a few movies to talk about today, but before we do that, let’s start by flipping things around a little bit. Normally here on the podcast, we talk about things that filmmakers change from the true story. But I know you’ve been working to get your book called Not a Real Enemy About Your Father urban story told into a movie.

00:04:26:22 – 00:04:43:03
Dan LeFebvre
Of course, we can’t predict the future to know when or if that will happen soon, but let’s hope for the best and say it is turned into a movie. So what’s one key thing that you want to make sure the filmmakers don’t change from the true story in the film adaptation?

00:04:43:06 – 00:05:01:18
Robert Wolf
Well, hopefully all of it, of course. But, that’s the easy answer. My dad’s for escapes or what? For example, my dad was a four time escape artist, and he missed an escape, too. He was fortunate, and he sports enough to go to the wrong train station under communist Hungary. And everybody made that train got arrested, including his, medical school classmate.

00:05:01:18 – 00:05:08:07
Robert Wolf
So all of that. I’d like to be, as accurate as possible as, cinematography. Cinematography.

00:05:08:10 – 00:05:09:02
Dan LeFebvre
Cinematography.

00:05:09:04 – 00:05:29:27
Robert Wolf
Yeah, yeah, as close as possible. Color movie, color in color. Obviously, a lot of the older movies are black and white, like Schindler’s List, which I hope we talk about a little bit more. That movie I just saw the movie and a resonates very, very much so with the story that I’m that we’re telling here. And then his upbringing, you know, it doesn’t have to be a long part of his upbringing.

00:05:30:00 – 00:05:49:23
Robert Wolf
And if I could cast a movie, it’d be Tom Hanks playing my dad and Tom, or that Tom Hanks Tom cruise. Tom Hanks plays one of the nicer, guards in the labor camp, a forced labor camp. A lot of the movie should cover the forced labor camp, the beatings, getting urinated on, getting shot at by Russian planes, all that kind of thing.

00:05:49:23 – 00:06:09:12
Robert Wolf
So there’s a lot of content. And, you know, of course, we wanted as close as possible, but any good producer writer screenplay would, would switch it up a little. I just hope they keep the, you know, as they keep the fidelity as much as possible. I mean obviously you got to make changes to capture an audience and hopefully that would be the case.

00:06:09:16 – 00:06:29:04
Robert Wolf
And you know the other thing is some people say could be a feature film. Some people say a documentary docu drama series. I wouldn’t care as long as they did a good job with it. There’s 40 chapters in our book, so, you could. I don’t think it’d be a 40, 40, show series, but certainly 10 or 15 would be, you know, one season’s worth at least.

00:06:29:04 – 00:06:45:15
Robert Wolf
So it’s always up to the producer, or whoever gets a hold of, the story. The it’s not in a screen stand in a screenplay yet, but, I, I leave that to the I leave that to Hollywood or whatever, discovers whatever we’re doing here. And if they do so it’s a, it’s a wing and a prayer.

00:06:45:15 – 00:07:02:01
Robert Wolf
And I know it’s a such a long shot. It’s easier to get into medical school, which I’m a position. I’m a radiologist, recently retired. It’s easier to get into medical school than to sell a New York Times bestseller. A bigger story and a movie, as we well know, nobody knew Schindler was, you know, 20, 30 years ago and nobody knew who.

00:07:02:01 – 00:07:18:29
Robert Wolf
And Frank was way back in the day. And, the, Life is Beautiful story I never wanted I mean, I never even think about, Italy and the Holocaust until I saw that movie and both of them the second time. Both great movies. And we could talk about those details and how they resonate with what we’re doing.

00:07:19:01 – 00:07:29:01
Robert Wolf
And I’m glad I saw them after I wrote a book regarding the Holocaust and beforehand to what a what a different viewpoint or what a, what a difference that makes.

00:07:29:01 – 00:07:48:26
Dan LeFebvre
Certainly we’re going to we’re going to talk about those for sure. But as we shift into some of the movies that that have been made, there are a lot of movies that are set before and during World War Two. So what I’d love to do is to get your take on some of those and how they compare to your family’s experiences that you talk about in your book.

00:07:48:28 – 00:08:06:05
Dan LeFebvre
And the first movie that I’d like to start with is a classic film, The Sound of Music, and it tells the story of how life changes for the von Trapp family as Nazi Germany annexes Austria in 1938. And as we watch a movie like Sound of Music, it’s possible to see the warning signs when we watch the movie now.

00:08:06:05 – 00:08:26:00
Dan LeFebvre
But of course, anytime we’re watching a movie like that, we’re also looking at it through a historical lens because we already know what’s going to happen from history instead of being there in the moment. And correct me if I’m wrong, but Austria is like less than 100km from where your father grew up in Hungary, so he wasn’t that far from where the annexation unfolded.

00:08:26:03 – 00:08:30:24
Dan LeFebvre
What were things like in that region as Germany annexed Austria?

00:08:30:27 – 00:08:57:20
Robert Wolf
Well, as you know, the fact the rise of fascism almost simultaneously with the Great Depression, the Roaring 20s, were okay in Hungary and throughout the world. We think the war was over. Things were doing well. And meantime, of course, Hitler was it was a building, the military machine that he was, because Germany’s economy was, it was, that’s how they that’s that was their economy was the military, of course, 33 is where fascism was on a rise in 38, 1938.

00:08:57:20 – 00:09:17:28
Robert Wolf
And in Hungary, there were anti-Jewish laws were initiated. So you couldn’t on the radio, you could only go out at certain times. There was, no Jews or dog signs up, of course, Kristallnacht. If, I’m not mistaken, in Germany, Austria was 1938, a very big event. That’s where they started taking force.

00:09:17:28 – 00:09:39:06
Robert Wolf
Laborers, the men, the young men that were wealthy, they started to take them away to forced labor camps and, really didn’t affect Hungary. I mean, the anti-Jewish laws were there. So they were persecuted and shunned, if you will. But the the killings and the, the the the most of it didn’t really, happened in Hungary till 1943, 1944.

00:09:39:09 – 00:10:03:00
Robert Wolf
My dad ended up going to after his first forced labor camp in 1943 and October, and then his parents were taken away to Auschwitz, in 1944. So Poland got hit first, obviously in 1939, Kristallnacht before that, 1938. And then Hungary, a little bit later, what I’m told. And from when I’ve read Hungary had the fastest, the fastest pace of homicide, of genocide of any of them.

00:10:03:00 – 00:10:33:07
Robert Wolf
So, that includes Ukraine and Russia, which they were brutalized and the Polish, 1939 of the refugees went to Hungary. And, the Hungarian government sent the refugees back, unfortunately. And, and it really badly for them. And so this resonates with Poland, with the, with the Schindler idea too, because, a lot of similarities between that and what happened to Hungary, although we’re talking about 1941 versus 1943 and 1944, but it could be the same, the same idea that, you know, a little bit, a little bit different background, different scenario.

00:10:33:07 – 00:10:36:09
Robert Wolf
But, a lot of the common, a lot of common themes.

00:10:36:13 – 00:10:59:15
Dan LeFebvre
Since you mentioned it didn’t really touch Hungary, but it’s touching all these countries around. And I’ve, I’ve never visited Hungary, but I can imagine that the proximity isn’t that far. I mean, there’s borders, you know, it’s technically a different country, but there’s these atrocities that are happening. What was it like for your your father as a child and your your grandparents?

00:10:59:15 – 00:11:04:12
Dan LeFebvre
And when they’re, when they’re seeing, I mean, they had been seeing in the news what’s going on where they.

00:11:04:15 – 00:11:30:29
Robert Wolf
Well, what a great question. Well, you say seeing in the news, we realize that my dad in Hungary and his parents never own a car. They never owned a TV. You bring up a great point. Jews were not allowed to have radios. So. And so they had a radio. He, his dad had enough courage to hide a radio, and they would quietly listen to the BBC, during the uprise of the uprising, with a lot of hope and a lot of prayer that that it end soon and relevant to that.

00:11:31:01 – 00:11:50:08
Robert Wolf
During my dad’s first escape toward. They thought it was the end of Lord, they don’t get much news that the forced labor camp, but they’re in the middle of nowhere, about near the Austria Hungary border. And even though they escaped, the Jews first of four, which some are remarkable, they didn’t know whether to flee to Budapest or stay in Hungary or go to Austria because they didn’t know who’s going to win the war.

00:11:50:11 – 00:12:04:24
Robert Wolf
And, you know, the Nazis won the war and they end up in Austria. They’re dead men. And if there’s a chance in Hungary, not Hungary proper, but the West, turns out it’s not the West. It was Soviet Union. If they win the war, maybe they’re better off in Hungary. It turns out either way, you know, you’re a Jew.

00:12:04:24 – 00:12:28:23
Robert Wolf
You’re screwed. I mean, those men, only 5% of the forced labor survived, in the in that process, including my dad, because he was on the run and hiding at the time. He wasn’t the. The rest of them that survived were treated as prisoners of war. Unfortunately. So 5% of forced labor, they had death marches. And that’s why my my dad and his friend Frank decided to, escape the first time because they thought they were on a death march.

00:12:28:28 – 00:12:59:27
Robert Wolf
And nobody knows about death marches in Europe. They don’t. I mean, historians might know. We all know about Okinawa and, the Pacific, but not a lot of people know. So when they thought you weren’t useful anymore, they killed you. So. And that was true at the Danube, very end of the war. Unlike Schindler, where the guards just go home, I, I’d like to talk about that for a few minutes, too, but, it’s a fantasy that these people, because the, guardians were treated and my mom and dad said that, that, the the Arrow Cross, for example, was like a Hungarian Gestapo and the the White Terror or the Red

00:12:59:27 – 00:13:17:14
Robert Wolf
terror or the the Nazis. The communists, they didn’t treat if you felt like if you’re Jewish, you were still scared of whoever was in charge. And, the Hungarians, the police and the military treated the Jewish people worse than the Nazis themselves. And that’s another thing that resonates with some of these movies, too. Women versus men.

00:13:17:14 – 00:13:26:27
Robert Wolf
Women guards versus Benghazi, pets. A lot of the, you know, a lot of things, humiliation. There are a lot of compare, a lot of things to talk about that are that resonate, big time.

00:13:27:00 – 00:13:48:21
Dan LeFebvre
I love that you mentioned the the radio and the communications there, because that’s something that I think I kind of like what I mentioned before, you know, when we watch a movie, we’re looking at it with a historical lens. So we think of, oh yeah, you can get news from all around there. And in my question I ask, you know, seeing things, but there’s that there has to be that almost added level of fear.

00:13:48:21 – 00:14:06:13
Dan LeFebvre
I would imagine, of not knowing, like, you know, that there’s some bad things going on, but you don’t know the full extent of it. And you then there’s that fear of just not knowing, because then your mind would start to go make things up that, I mean, there were some horrible things, but I, I mean, and it’s something I have a hard time wrap my head around.

00:14:06:14 – 00:14:12:26
Dan LeFebvre
What, like put yourself in the historical context of what that must have been like. It had to have been just terrifying for your for your father.

00:14:12:28 – 00:14:31:13
Robert Wolf
Well, part of the reason. Yeah. No intervention for many, many years, after the war started, it, because the United States had the, for example, had the, had the, the duty to protect its own citizens. So getting involved with the war, it was, was tough communications. I couldn’t say it better. You know, the real cell phones there, no lawyers or no courtrooms.

00:14:31:15 – 00:14:50:23
Robert Wolf
The cops and the. And the military pointing guns. It. Yeah. And fortunately, in this country, we. That’s not happened yet. So there’s one thing. No communication, just the radio, which was illegal. It probably would’ve been shot and killed if they got caught with it. And, and forced labor camps out in the middle of nowhere, even less communication than we had a regular camp in the US growing up, you know?

00:14:50:23 – 00:15:11:04
Robert Wolf
So, word of mouth. So things got a little easier for the men? Not much. But as the their guards got bribed, dental treat, free dental treatments. But, yes, there was a dentist. Obvious, obvious threat to society, killed at Auschwitz and his mom as well. And Deb didn’t find out about two months afterwards. Another miracle, from an eyewitness.

00:15:11:06 – 00:15:29:04
Robert Wolf
And, that’s another point that, the witnesses besides no cell phones, no video, a lot of photographs taken, as we know, the Nazis took many, many photographs. So denying the Holocaust and even communist Hungary just. There’s no way you can’t sell that. But the witness, the witness was the next victim is how it turned out.

00:15:29:04 – 00:15:46:14
Robert Wolf
Like at the Danube walk and death marches. Or as we’ve seen, these mass burial, sites, in Ukraine for example, or in the concentration camps. So the witnesses were literally the next victim. So very, very hard to, to wrap my arms around that. And like you said, very hard to get information again.

00:15:46:20 – 00:16:07:03
Dan LeFebvre
I it’s it’s hard to wrap your head around, but but putting yourself in that context of what that must have been like, I, I love the like in your book when you’re when you’re telling that story, it, it it does a really good job of, of helping to put the, the reader in that place of what that must have been like in there.

00:16:07:07 – 00:16:23:18
Dan LeFebvre
And I’m curious because there are a lot of details of your, your father’s earlier life were those things that he that he told you specifically or were they things that you had to research after the fact? Or how did that part kind of come together for that story as you’re putting all these pieces together?

00:16:23:21 – 00:16:41:21
Robert Wolf
A little bit of both. I can’t imagine the boredom in living in quarters like that packed when with people or even hiding out in your own home, with, you know, yellow stars, yellow armbands, the anxiety, the depression, the fear. I can’t imagine that. And but like you say, you can feel it, like during my dad’s first escape.

00:16:41:21 – 00:17:00:02
Robert Wolf
So, Yeah, my dad. Mom wrote an autobiography. They wrote the his story, from World War one. The of World War one to the end of the Hungarian Revolution. So literally 1916, 19 1718 to the end of the Revolution, 1956. They wrote the story in the 1970s. They they wrote it as though it happened the previous day.

00:17:00:09 – 00:17:17:04
Robert Wolf
Sharp. Chris. And I turned into a biography many, many years later. Growing up, the first half of my life, not so much as I went to college and medical school at a career as a radiologist, family, all of that things. So I didn’t, but I did read the it went from paper and pencil to typewriter to computer to disk.

00:17:17:06 – 00:17:36:04
Robert Wolf
And, when it was a manuscript maybe 30 years ago, I read it once and didn’t think much of it and didn’t remember much except my dad’s first escape. But then when I reread it after my my dad passed and fortunately my mom, a historian friend, handed me the story on the disk, and I turned his autobiography to biography and, just doing that alone.

00:17:36:07 – 00:17:52:25
Robert Wolf
Long story short, I went back to radiology, and that brought me to the book. And, long story short, the stories were so amazing. At least 20 miracles in my dad’s life and hungry for escapes and 20 miracles. I couldn’t leave it on a computer. I couldn’t leave it on a disk. I wanted to share it with the world and,

00:17:52:27 – 00:18:07:18
Robert Wolf
And so I did. And that’s been my that’s been my charge. That’s been my mission the last 6 or 7 years. The book’s been out a little while now, but, that doesn’t stop me from trying to fight antisemitism. So, this is my main thing, the why I’m doing this, and, but, yeah, it’s my own little corner.

00:18:07:18 – 00:18:23:07
Robert Wolf
I need help with that, obviously, but, no, my my mom and dad, they did this as though they knew I would like if you know me, six years ago, and my mom was a Holocaust educator, by the way. My dad, too, but he was an ObGyn, by the way, deliver 10,000 babies in the Detroit area, which is so a form of redemption.

00:18:23:10 – 00:18:41:06
Robert Wolf
That’s the punch line. It doesn’t bring back 6 million and doesn’t beat back 50 million that died in World War two. But at least he brought some life back in jovial and jolly. No PTSD. My mom to they they educated. They were well-rounded people. And the stories like I said, they were crisp and and then they had a lot of friends in the unlike what’s going on in the world now.

00:18:41:06 – 00:19:00:00
Robert Wolf
They had a lot of friends where I grew up in Michigan and throughout the world, from continental Africa, Asia had Indian friends, a muslim, Christian, Jewish, fellow Holocaust survivors. They shared the stories and, and I, I bought into it. I got a little burnout from it. And then, I brought it back to life, at least in my own legacy towards my family.

00:19:00:00 – 00:19:15:00
Robert Wolf
So, I got this app, you know, Superman’s Kryptonite. You just sort of called out to me, you know? It’s summoned me back in me. So. And so I’m doing it, and I. I couldn’t leave this on a disc. I couldn’t leave it on computer. And so that’s why we’re sharing it. But, very well done by my mom and dad, you know.

00:19:15:00 – 00:19:16:09
Robert Wolf
So.

00:19:16:11 – 00:19:43:12
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, well, I’m glad that you are telling that story to to because the world does need to know. And the part that kind of made me think that was when you talking about the the photos and things like the Nazis and the Soviets took. But again, putting yourself in that perspective, a difference from watching a movie today versus versus being there when you like the people that took the photographs to document a lot of that, those wouldn’t be photographs that you’re parents and grandparents would have had access to because they were taken by the people doing a lot of it.

00:19:43:12 – 00:19:53:06
Dan LeFebvre
So it’s not something that they’re going to show. So I was very curious how that story then survives despite trying to be suppressed.

00:19:53:09 – 00:20:12:02
Robert Wolf
Yeah. No, you’re right. I mean, but very, very little, belongings left over, from my dad’s side of the family. My mom saved a lot of photographs, and somehow they were preserved, by my mom. So it was a little less harrowing. My mom was in hiding, you know, with her mom, grandma, uncle, grandfather who’s different, you know, on farms and sometimes in Budapest.

00:20:12:02 – 00:20:35:14
Robert Wolf
So she was able to preserve more things. And as a and she also was into genealogy. And I wish I followed it a little bit more, but I do at least have back to World War one. I can’t go back there beyond that. But no, it’s unimaginable. The fear that my mom must add in hiding to and and the fear my dad must have had every day competing and starving and and doing forced labor for hours from, you know, dawn to dusk.

00:20:35:16 – 00:20:52:07
Robert Wolf
Can’t. I can’t imagine it. So, the reality and also photographs. So the Nazis were they took a lot of photographs. They, they sent them home to their families, let them know what they’re doing. And I have a collection of about 18,000 photos on my phone, and some of them are exceptionally disturbing. The last guy surviving in Vilna.

00:20:52:09 – 00:21:18:00
Robert Wolf
They’re about to kill him, and he’s surrounded by, mostly Nazi, officers. And there’s a gun pointed aside, and he knows he’s next. Reminds a little Schindler to you, but he’s the last survivor. They’re a very disturbing photo. I haven’t shared it because they’ll probably kick me out of X and meta and LinkedIn. If I were, were to, the, you know, the burning synagogue is another one, the smashed in homes, the burning homes, one disturbing one.

00:21:18:05 – 00:21:40:09
Robert Wolf
Well, they’re marching off the Jewish people. And I’m thinking, well, who’s taken a picture of all of this and not helping? You know, and these people lived in fear, of course. Another, disturbing photo. I’ve got some from juror. My dad’s home town. Very, very few, very few available. Another one is Kristallnacht. Whether the business, the glass is all broken up and the lady’s walking by the business smiling, I mean, I.

00:21:40:10 – 00:22:00:02
Robert Wolf
How do you smile when she got what? Are you, Jewish? You’re not smiling. If you’re Christian, you smiling, then, Well, I, I guess I know what party you’re in. You’re in the Nazi party or the Christmas party are very sadistic. Some and Christians were afraid for their lives, too. So the ones that helped the Jewish people or the gays, you know, almost sexual, LGBTQ, disabled, they’re there to be loud.

00:22:00:02 – 00:22:15:03
Robert Wolf
It, including guys like Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg is another one that comes to mind. So a lot going on. I can’t imagine being so remote and, and, secluded from the truth, let alone the news.

00:22:15:06 – 00:22:50:28
Dan LeFebvre
If we shift back to the movies you mentioned life is beautiful, and that’s another movie I want to talk about. That one starts in 1939, just after the annexation of Austria. And it follows the story of how life changes around a Jewish man named Guido before and during the rise of fascism in Italy. And the movie, it starts off with everyday life, but one of the key differences between life is Beautiful and the Sound of Music that we talked about before is that Life Is Beautiful shows how life changes for the main character because he’s an Italian Jewish man, whereas the Von Trapp family in the sound of Music, they’re not so well.

00:22:50:28 – 00:23:12:22
Dan LeFebvre
I, I we see little signs here and there and Sound of Music. We can see the signs in life and beautiful. Life is beautiful. Those signs are clearly the rise of anti-Semitism. They’re going on in Italy now. In particular, there was a scene where Guido pretended to be an inspector of Rome teaching children in school how they are pure Aryan, the superior race.

00:23:12:25 – 00:23:34:00
Dan LeFebvre
He doesn’t have very comical way in the movie, similar to later in the movie, when Guido’s young son just reads a sign in business window that says no Jews or dogs, and Guido makes a joke about there’s just saying. There’s also a drug store nearby saying that I’m not going to let Chinese in with kangaroo. Right. And he’s making a joke out of out of this very serious situation.

00:23:34:03 – 00:23:49:21
Dan LeFebvre
And that storyline in like Life Is Beautiful is a fictional one. Guido is not a real person, but how old do you think life is beautiful? Did showing signs of anti-Semitism slowly growing in everyday life before the outbreak of World War two?

00:23:49:24 – 00:24:06:05
Robert Wolf
Great question. I mean, that’s an our answer, but fantastic movie. Beautifully done. The cinematography is outstanding. I’m glad you mentioned that scene, because to me, that’s the turning point in the movie. The better part of the first half of the movie is about It’s a Beautiful Life. It’s a wonder it’s not It’s a Wonderful Life.

00:24:06:05 – 00:24:27:20
Robert Wolf
That’s a different, fantastic movie, too. But life is beautiful there. He falls in love with this lady. He’s on the bicycle. It’s a lot of humor. I mean, a lot of humor in that movie. Even to the end. And, you know, it’s admirable how he hides the truth from his son throughout, but, yeah, that’s the turning point in the movies when he’s up there talking about the the perfect race or our rewards it.

00:24:27:27 – 00:24:45:01
Robert Wolf
And then the poor, his relatives horse getting painted, I think was green and purple. I forget the color. Maybe green. That’s good. And. Yeah. And and that’s the turning point there. And then all of a sudden, boom, they’re, they’re in prison and they’re going off to, to concentration camps, different some different things.

00:24:45:09 – 00:25:04:29
Robert Wolf
Some of the similarities with my, my parent, they don’t talk about women that much, but both that movie and similar, the, the women, the women guards, especially at Auschwitz and then in these concentration camps were to me more sadistic and more brutal to the prisoners than, than otherwise. Interestingly, a lot of Nazis, the people that were guarding them were the Germans, the Nazis.

00:25:04:29 – 00:25:22:27
Robert Wolf
So where were the Italians? That’s that’s a little bit different than Hungary, I think, because the Hungarians were the ones who keep an eye on the force. Laborers, and child, my dad’s parents were taken from their home. That was, that was a Nazi. Blue striped pajamas. Interesting. It’s a, you know, we don’t know what color stripes they have in general because black and white movie, but it’s blue stripes.

00:25:22:27 – 00:25:39:21
Robert Wolf
But we all know that, you know, outfits in other places, they were, red stripes. So that was, another thing that, that was those was a familiar, but, or different, I should say. I thought, one thing similar with the both of those movies is the language was a little fast for me. It’s in subtitles.

00:25:39:24 – 00:25:56:13
Robert Wolf
Well, I think they just talked a little bit faster. Was a little. Because, you know, we can read fast, but it just won’t have the pace or the how they talk. Maybe at the very beginning, speed it up because it makes the humor, the humor scenes a little more humorous, so to say, so to speak. But, yeah, they kind of slow that down a little bit, too.

00:25:56:15 – 00:26:12:21
Robert Wolf
What else are we? Yeah. I mean, that’s, just a fact. The met the end was unbelievable. The way the they say, do they want or try? They’re playing in a game to win a tank and they won. You know, the kid survives, but he doesn’t. The mom survives. Was a Dora. And, you know, of course you gets shot.

00:26:12:23 – 00:26:31:18
Robert Wolf
He gets shot for warning. The ladies, including his wife, as are being hauled away in a truck. So another thing that may not be realistic is the son and the father in the same bunk. Because the kids were separated, like in Auschwitz and other places, and like a and Schindler, you know, the kids are all the way, in bundles.

00:26:31:18 – 00:26:52:14
Robert Wolf
And boy, are the parents freaking. They’re all running towards the fences and trying to follow the trucks and talk about learned helplessness and senior kids being all the way to who knows where. So that part may not have been as realistic. But yeah, it was such a well-done movie. And, and I don’t know that much about the Italian history in, in World War Two, so that’s that.

00:26:52:14 – 00:27:11:10
Robert Wolf
But comparing what you to the other movie and to what I’ve read and done, and learned about pretty realistic, I mean, in their own way. Obviously not every concentration camps will be the same. Not a forced labor camps going to be the same. The different guards, different, food supply, who knows? Different amounts of sadism.

00:27:11:12 – 00:27:21:00
Robert Wolf
It’s people to take orders and people that delight in torturing others. And that’s so hard to put your arms around to. It’s just. I don’t know how people could be like that at all.

00:27:21:02 – 00:27:41:21
Dan LeFebvre
But you mentioned Schindler’s List, and whenever we think of movies that depict the Holocaust, that’s probably the first one that does come to mind. In that movie, we see what life is like in the Jewish ghetto. Of course, Schindler’s List depicts the ghetto in Krakow, Poland, but your grandparents were forced to move to another Nazi controlled Jewish ghetto in your Hungary.

00:27:41:23 – 00:27:44:15
Dan LeFebvre
I’m probably mispronouncing that, but.

00:27:44:18 – 00:27:49:18
Robert Wolf
My Hungarians not so. They never taught me, so I. It’s fine. That was their shooting around which.

00:27:49:20 – 00:27:57:21
Dan LeFebvre
But based on the research that you did for your book, were there similarities to what we see in Schindler’s List and in the ghetto there, and what your grandparents dealt with?

00:27:57:24 – 00:28:19:27
Robert Wolf
Many, many, many. First, I want to talk about, so many. I mean, unfortunately, the movie was in black and white, but the cinematography in that movie is unbelievable. Like I said, they talk a little fast, especially when they’re talking about people’s names a little fast for me, some of the conversation, but, amazing. Some overlap when when they’re taken to Auschwitz, we don’t know if it’s accidentally or if it’s on purpose.

00:28:20:04 – 00:28:37:05
Robert Wolf
And they put them in the chamber and they think that that’s it. The gas chamber and the relief showers. I can picture my mom, my my grandmother, in the in the gas chamber. And, of course, when they’re on trains, when I visit Holocaust museums, when I do book talks, book lectures, I can’t even go into the I.

00:28:37:05 – 00:29:01:10
Robert Wolf
It’s hard to even look in the train, let alone go in the train just because. Just because that imagery. So, so that resonates. The dramatic irony. I guess I can get that, in a minute, but, the random shooting. Okay, so dramatic irony. I’m going to mention the three things where I well, first of all, the turning point is when they’re horseback riding and they’re randomly shooting all the people in the ghetto, the people that stayed, the people that that tried to hide very, very sad scene.

00:29:01:10 – 00:29:18:21
Robert Wolf
Because every. And you know, another thing that’s not talked about is pets. You know, how many did the pets get left behind and the pets get killed. And we know in, life is beautiful. There’s a little kitten, is strolling around the, the clothes that were stolen. Another thing. And I’m going to go back to the dramatic irony, another thing that resonates.

00:29:18:24 – 00:29:35:21
Robert Wolf
With all of it is the stolen luggage. They bring your goods, leave them here, and they’ll come. They will arrive. Big deception. And when my dad’s parents were all to Auschwitz, it was to be they were going to go to forest or farm, plant flowers, trees. Do you know, do, work on the foliage? That’s what.

00:29:35:21 – 00:29:53:15
Robert Wolf
That’s how they were to see. And they end up going to Auschwitz. So. So three points of dramatic irony, not necessarily related to my, my dad, but one is actually. So when, the, engineer they’re building the they’re constructing the building and the engineer comes up to, I think it’s almond goes, I don’t know if I’m pronouncing or I’m on both.

00:29:53:15 – 00:30:09:27
Robert Wolf
He’s the I think he’s a lieutenant, but he’s the most sadistic guy around. And, she says to me now, the structure is not sound, and we need to do this and maybe even start again. And, what does he say? We are not going to argue with these people. And and then he asks the guy shooter, shooter.

00:30:09:27 – 00:30:28:01
Robert Wolf
And it’s one of the few scenes where somebody gets shot and it’s not him doing it. So amazingly enough. And then the irony is that he decides to he changes his mind and, and decides to, to take it down and start all over again. Another irony was, the the lady that comes to Schindler, I don’t know if that was Helen Hirsch.

00:30:28:04 – 00:30:50:13
Robert Wolf
Helen, her hair, shoes, how to pronounce it. I don’t know if it’s her or the other one, but she comes to Schindler and says, can you get my parents into this? Into the factory here? And he says, you know, he’s practically screaming at her, saying, no, I can’t save everybody this and that and that. And then the guy escapes from the camp and, and just, randomly shoots 25 guys and then just Clarkston.

00:30:50:13 – 00:31:23:23
Robert Wolf
If I’m pronouncing Sharon I love, they really did their best trying to do the correct pronunciation and I think an accurate job. But stern tells Schindler that, you know, 25 people died. So Schindler, goes out of his way to bring in, the lady’s parents, which is which is pretty cool, too. I mean, and, so the other irony and oh, that resonates with my dad in the forced labor camp where, an officer would get drunk and some, some little piece of malfeasance, like somebody chirping a word or or moving in the line, and the guy gets past and he’s,

00:31:23:25 – 00:31:40:18
Robert Wolf
And he’s got the he’s got the gun. And, you threatened to shoot every tense man, in his drunk, in his drunk, state, and, in the end, doesn’t. But imagine the fear. You know, you dad, it can seem like that. And everybody else counting 1 to 1 through ten, you know, every 10th man they’re going to kill.

00:31:40:20 – 00:31:58:01
Robert Wolf
And, And the guy does that, too. He’s got the whole line of the men, and he shoots the guy with the, with the, I don’t remember. It’s a gun shot. I think it was a, shotgun. And then they shoot him in the head and and that, like, that scene is so vivid. The way that was bleeding, it would’ve been even more so in color.

00:31:58:04 – 00:32:16:22
Robert Wolf
But the irony there is the same thing. Just like when he randomly shoots the 25 men and, also the one person, and then he says, who’s, you know, who’s next? And then the kid smart enough to step forward and said, you know, you who did this? Who’s the one who created the malfeasance? And the kid points at the dead guy and probably saved a lot of lives, just by doing that.

00:32:16:22 – 00:32:36:01
Robert Wolf
So that’s more irony. And then and, and comparable with my dad had to go through, you know, random threaten to be killed randomly and thank God, they, they didn’t carry that out. The other piece of irony, which is almost redemption itself, is when, the I think it was the rabbi, was one of the older men making the parts, and his productivity was on the low side that compared it.

00:32:36:01 – 00:32:52:17
Robert Wolf
You know, it took some a minute to make the part, which is where you got so few partially take him out to shoot him and his gun jams and, you know, his backup gun jams, and he gets a gun from his, mother, the fellow officers and or soldiers, I don’t remember. It was an officer. And that gun jams and there’s 15 or 20 clicks.

00:32:52:19 – 00:33:08:03
Robert Wolf
We shoot this guy, and the poor guy’s got his neck going down. He knows he’s going to die any second. It reminds me of that, the Vilna, the Vilna photograph. And then he ends up just sitting with the butt of the gun and and lets him live. Imagine going through that kind of trauma and not having PTSD.

00:33:08:05 – 00:33:23:13
Robert Wolf
It’s amazing. But the irony is, when they hang golf, they have a trouble date. They’ve got him by the rope, but they have trouble checking out those. The step stool underneath him, it takes some at least like a half a minute. They can’t do it in the guy. So that’s a little bit of redemption too. But, more dramatic irony.

00:33:23:13 – 00:33:42:17
Robert Wolf
So I it’s a fantastically bad movie. And and so, so similar in in his point, you know, the trains and the, or the, forced labor and, you know, we see forced labor, of course, in concentration camps to sometimes women, sometimes men. We don’t talk about much about forced labor in, with women in our story.

00:33:42:17 – 00:33:48:08
Robert Wolf
But lately I’ve been taught and enlightened about that part, that part of it as well.

00:33:48:10 – 00:34:06:19
Dan LeFebvre
Something that we don’t see in Schindler’s List much is, is how others in the city reacted to the ghetto being set up and the Nazis moving the Jews into it. How did the civilians in and around Europe react to the Jewish ghetto being established for when your your grandparents were there?

00:34:06:21 – 00:34:23:12
Robert Wolf
Well, once they were in the ghetto, they had no access to the outside world. They had limited food, limited medical supplies and my dad, being a dentist, brought what he had. But it wasn’t enough. And ultimately it was to carry him off to Auschwitz to kill them. Most of them immediately, unfortunately. So I don’t think they had much time to even think about it.

00:34:23:12 – 00:34:48:26
Robert Wolf
But during, I’ll say this, that, but they were shunned. No doubt it was hard to go out shopping without being, bullied or picked on or even mugged. We talk about that in the or the fear of it. And also when my, my dad and his friend Frank were out on leave or whatever it was in town, or in that they were on camp, for one thing they didn’t have, then my dad needed a haircut.

00:34:48:26 – 00:35:06:12
Robert Wolf
And if you remember that scene, the anti-Semitic barber. But, they had the yellow bands was ridiculous hats that they had to wear and yellow bit unarmed paramilitary. And yeah, a couple what beautiful women walk by and they, they, they won’t even look at them. And believe me, the matter, they’re dying to meet A and B with a a warm blooded girl.

00:35:06:12 – 00:35:26:18
Robert Wolf
And it just didn’t happen. You were shunned. So, in its learned helplessness. I mean, people feared for their lives, for sure. And, they did what they were told, and and it’s scary stuff. So, and then. Oh, that remind me of another scene where in Schindler, the young girl, is yelling out, Goodbye Jews, goodbye Jews!

00:35:26:18 – 00:35:44:17
Robert Wolf
And, it’s awful to see that, because I think it reminds me of, what we just talked about. The Christians turning on the Jews. It also reminds me of what’s going on in Gaza at the, these children are being educated to hate Jewish people, hate Israel, hate Americans. And it’s that’s got to stop. That really has to stop.

00:35:44:20 – 00:36:03:18
Dan LeFebvre
There is a scene in in Schindler’s List where we see the Nazis going in there clearing everyone out of the ghetto, to take them to the concentration camps. You talked a little bit about that in the movie. The camps they take them to first is off, and then later in the movie we see Auschwitz, which you mentioned, and we’ll talk about Auschwitz in a moment, because I know your grandparents were there.

00:36:03:18 – 00:36:22:07
Dan LeFebvre
But according to Schindler’s List, seeing the brutality of the Nazi soldiers during the liquidation of the ghetto, that’s what leads Liam Neeson’s version of Oskar Schindler to start working with one of his employees. You mentioned him earlier. Is Doc Stern, Ben Kingsley’s character, to hire more and more Jews to help save them from being murdered by the Nazis.

00:36:22:09 – 00:36:36:13
Dan LeFebvre
Were there any transformational points like this for the civilians in Darfur in Hungary, where they started to change their minds about what they’re seeing? But the brutality of the Nazis, like, we kind of start seeing it happening in Schindler’s List with Oskar Schindler.

00:36:36:16 – 00:36:52:09
Robert Wolf
Well, great point. You know, that’s the turning point of that movie. If I haven’t already mentioned, when they’re horseback riding. Yeah, they’re looking down at that. One thing that resonates, too, is, the humiliation, the the general, the the men, the rabbis, you know, religious with the pious ain’t undercutting it. And they’re cutting their hair and laughing.

00:36:52:15 – 00:37:11:18
Robert Wolf
So that kind of humiliation, was there so humiliation we don’t talk about, as much. I think the Aryans were. And Hungary gets mentioned later that they were bringing in Hungarians, to one of the camps late, later in the movie. And that was true later in time, during at least a couple of years later. But that humiliation really, really resonates.

00:37:11:18 – 00:37:30:24
Robert Wolf
Well, what else is it? Yeah. The marching, the other humiliation is that, Gough has his own personal woman slave that he ends up abusing y’all. She’s. She goes the food and probably sex. Well, there is there is a sex scene or two in there. And of course, at the end he beats her up and but she survives.

00:37:30:27 – 00:37:46:29
Robert Wolf
But he beats her up and it’s drunk or whatever. It’s the wine cellar. I basically remember that scene, but, humiliation is a big thing about it. So, and then, of course, starvation is another one thing that resonates people to didn’t have food to eat. There was no there was no trade. There was nothing coming in. So shunned is the best word.

00:37:46:29 – 00:38:08:15
Robert Wolf
And like we said before, the the witness, the witness was the next victim. I also remember, golf shooting randomly at people that were sitting down and taking a break. So, Oh, and know the dramatic irony. He has a kid cleaning out his bathtub, and he’s trying to put the saddle on his horse. I don’t know if it’s the same kid, but, the guy that the kid that can’t put the kettle on the horse properly.

00:38:08:17 – 00:38:25:12
Robert Wolf
It’s right after Schindler talks about power and the power of the power, if you can forgive. And he remembers that for a while. So he forgives the kid, for the for the saddle. But then when he screws up using the wrong material to clean his bathtub, he ends up shooting him. And, it’s just, What a sadistic guy.

00:38:25:12 – 00:38:40:24
Robert Wolf
I mean, I was a guy who deserved to be executed without, without trial. I mean, so many witnesses. So, Yeah, that whole process, of course, it’s never going to be the same at every camp, but what? People running around in fear that they might get shot or killed, or if they take a break, they’re going to get killed.

00:38:41:02 – 00:38:48:14
Robert Wolf
You can’t. It’s just, some furthermore that what people had to think in their minds and stay strong while they’re doing it.

00:38:48:17 – 00:39:11:18
Dan LeFebvre
That those, those types of things are, like you said, unfathomable. Like it’s I, it’s what I’m trying to unravel. A lot of this. But, you know, in our discussion here, but also there are just some things like we there’s only so much that we can do as we’re talking here in this conversation that just it’s not. It will never be enough.

00:39:11:18 – 00:39:20:03
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, there’s to to to tell the true story of it. I mean, it’s yeah, I’ve tried to have words, but yeah, I can’t even do that.

00:39:20:10 – 00:39:42:08
Robert Wolf
Well, it was talk about Christians. You know, if we had Hamas, we had Hamas tanks and armored armored cars, guns, tanks, then that horrible flag, you know, marched in the streets here and, and, Florida or where you’re from, Oklahoma. God bless, the heartland. We would be thinking different then, it would affect us more then we would have.

00:39:42:10 – 00:40:03:26
Robert Wolf
We’d have a lot more fear. Yeah, but it’s it’s patchy areas. It’s Canada, Australia, parts of the U.S anti-Semitic. So it’s not it’s not directly in our face. But that’s why I’m doing this is so that it doesn’t happen. I mean, that’s why, 99% of us are good people. 99% of us believe in work, family, occasional vacation, religion, and if possible, whatever the freedom to vote, freedom speech.

00:40:03:29 – 00:40:26:01
Robert Wolf
Is that 1% or less that the ruins are for everybody and not just Hamas, you know, Osama bin laden and Saddam Hussein? Hitler, Pol Pot, the list goes on and on. We can counteract with better names Jesus, Moses, Noah, MLK, Gandhi, that. So there’s a nice there’s a balance there. But, we’re still talking about hate and war rather than these other guys.

00:40:26:01 – 00:40:41:27
Robert Wolf
I mean, unless you’re a staunch Christian or Jewish or Muslim, I don’t think a lot I meant for this to happen. Where? I don’t know, I don’t know much about the Muslim religion, but I do have Muslim friends, and they’re peaceful, and, So what’s going. I mean, I can’t get my arms around it. And, the thing about this book.

00:40:42:01 – 00:40:59:15
Robert Wolf
Yeah. And the story is my parents knew that it would be necessary to share it because they didn’t think that the hate and the Jewish scapegoating issue would go away. And each year they’re right, 60, 80 on our years. And the disturbing part is people find different ways to maim and torture, punish, kill each other. And it’s really sad.

00:40:59:15 – 00:41:16:27
Robert Wolf
And I just I can’t feel it because as a radiologist, we’re into preservation of life. The beauty of the human body, the beauty of the anatomy, the cell and all this training to go through it. There’s no room for racism or prejudice in my field. But these people would just. They would think nothing about chopping your head off or killing somebody instantly.

00:41:17:00 – 00:41:37:07
Robert Wolf
No respect for human life. And I can’t wrap my my hands around that. It’s just not that. It’s not what I was built for. And so we educate, we try to spread the word. We do podcasts, we do, book talks, book presentations, TV interviews, in some cases radio. And, we get the point across while sharing good stories, amazing stories throughout.

00:41:37:07 – 00:42:05:13
Dan LeFebvre
A lot of if you go back to Schindler’s List throughout a lot of that movie, it it does recreate the I mentioned your passion and and Auschwitz and where there were hundreds of thousands of people that were murdered. And unfortunately, that number also includes your grandparents, which is a very moving story told in the book. I think a lot of people base their knowledge of concentration camps today on what we see in movies like Schindler’s List.

00:42:05:15 – 00:42:23:23
Dan LeFebvre
But I remember the story of like The Latrine. And in your book, we don’t ever see in the movie Schindler’s List at all. So there’s obviously other things there that we don’t we’re not going to see in the movie. But based on what you know of your grandparents experience, how well do you think Schindler’s List does capturing the horrors of Auschwitz?

00:42:23:26 – 00:42:44:19
Robert Wolf
I think it’s amazing. Like I said, the cinematography is amazing. The storyline and the brutality. We’ll go back to the women guards that were were tougher than one thing that resonates. So, I mean, I don’t like spoiling too meaning, but my my dad’s a miracle. And my dad found out what happened to his parents. An eyewitness who happened to survive Auschwitz and meet, meet up with him in his hometown of Jura.

00:42:44:19 – 00:43:06:28
Robert Wolf
I mean, all of those. That’s a miracle after miracle that that happened. But, Yeah, being in the train reminded me of, my my my grandmother, the grandparents I never met, but my grandmother, was an orphan, a little girl orphan. And they went straight to the chamber. So, and actually, when I did that, when I first did this project, turning it from autobiography to biography, I had to walk away from from the book.

00:43:06:28 – 00:43:25:24
Robert Wolf
I had to walk away from the story for at least a week, ten days, because it profoundly affected me. So, so. And, you know, I hate to say this, but fortunately, she didn’t have to it. Her life didn’t have to linger on for months, months at a time. And where you’re starving and you’re trapped and you were on your forced labor, and you don’t know when your last day is going to be, Schindler.

00:43:25:24 – 00:43:40:00
Robert Wolf
I think they capture all of that pretty well. I mean, everybody’s going to have a different story. But it didn’t go well. And then another thing that resonates is my my grandfather, who was a dentist who told the the, the intake people at the intake that he was a dentist was a doctor, and he might be useful.

00:43:40:06 – 00:43:55:27
Robert Wolf
So they assign him to cleaning latrines, and we don’t see that in Schindler. But we sure see all these kids hiding in Auschwitz, including the one that you get shut out by every other letter, every other kid. And then he’s up, he ends up diving into the feces and he hides in the latrine or whatever you want.

00:43:56:04 – 00:44:07:07
Robert Wolf
It’s disgusting. I mean, I can’t imagine what was the movie with the kid from India who does the same thing. He ends up diving into the, into the feces, and it just, the. Joe, remember that movie?

00:44:07:07 – 00:44:07:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yes.

00:44:07:29 – 00:44:10:07
Robert Wolf
And he’s on jeopardy or something like.

00:44:10:09 – 00:44:11:14
Dan LeFebvre
Slumdog Millionaire.

00:44:11:16 – 00:44:15:27
Robert Wolf
Yes. Very good. Thank you. I knew you were. No, you got a brilliant memory. I can.

00:44:15:27 – 00:44:17:01
Dan LeFebvre
Go on.

00:44:17:03 – 00:44:35:10
Robert Wolf
And that’s the. Yeah. That’s good. I mean, I need more people like you helped me with the message. This is why we’re doing this, too. But, talking about great movies and and a story that could be a movie. At least some people say that, so, so that resonate. Yeah. And then. So these were I went by at least my, my dad’s parents, didn’t have to endure all that.

00:44:35:12 – 00:44:51:20
Robert Wolf
I mean, if you’ve ever fasted just one day without food, it’s tough enough. I can’t imagine week after week, we would bury little food. And, you know, you’ve seen the pictures of the people that are skin and bones. Those that were lucky enough to survive. But, what a what a terrible life. They must have adapted and they had to live then.

00:44:51:22 – 00:44:56:13
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it goes back to the words don’t really do it justice to to.

00:44:56:15 – 00:45:13:09
Robert Wolf
Not only that that personal. It’s the light. The light. So. So my dad’s father died probably of cholera week from the feces, you know. So that was, but there’s tuberculosis. There’s lice. My dad had a foot infection, when he was in, when he was forced labor camp, and he had lice a couple times. He had hepatitis.

00:45:13:09 – 00:45:30:10
Robert Wolf
He had a bad back. He had a lot going on. And then. And then recently talking about women in forced labor camps. There’s this guy in England, super nice and super dedicated to what we’re doing. He’s turning black and white photos into color photos, and he’s doing a good job, and he’s trying to get financial support for that.

00:45:30:12 – 00:45:48:13
Robert Wolf
But he did a, it was a short it was a short little documentary, maybe 2 or 3 minutes, maybe five, with conversion from black and white to color. And it was the forced labor. The women forced laborers from Hungary. And a lot of them had gangrene. They had gangrenous legs and gangrenous feet. And they actually, they depicted, what their skin look like.

00:45:48:13 – 00:46:12:14
Robert Wolf
And it’s brutal that. So, you know, you’d never think of gangrene. I mean, so a lot of health issues besides the starvation and lack of water to, of course, dehydration and, you know, electrolytes going to be off and, and, muscle mass goes and eventually you die because you’re, you’re malnourished. So I’m sure many, many people died from, I don’t know the exact numbers, but malnourishment, I’m sure, was not just getting shot or put in the gas chambers.

00:46:12:14 – 00:46:33:06
Robert Wolf
Just. Or other sickness, malnourishment, sickness. It’s just too much. It’s too much to think about. It’s 200. It is. And that need doesn’t need to happen. And it also resonates with Gaza. It with what’s the prisoners that are still there? I can’t imagine even if they released them today, the ones that are still alive, just talk about PTSD, talk about trying to overcome that kind of trauma, not knowing when your last day is.

00:46:33:06 – 00:46:38:03
Robert Wolf
Mostly that’s that’s the big thing, the wait and the boredom and, horror fun.

00:46:38:05 – 00:46:49:06
Dan LeFebvre
If we shift back to the movie, there’s, we’re talking about Schindler’s List, and that’s going to be the most popular movie about someone saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust. But it’s not the.

00:46:49:08 – 00:46:56:08
Robert Wolf
The Ten Commandments. Well, I gotta say, that’s a fantastic movie, too. But, I don’t mean. Sorry to interrupt. Yes.

00:46:56:09 – 00:47:01:15
Dan LeFebvre
No no no no no, that’s a that’s a classic a little bit outside the time frame that we’re talking about now.

00:47:01:15 – 00:47:07:18
Robert Wolf
And I’m kidding then Fiddler on the roof was another one. But it was a Rorschach. But, you know, that was a lot of anti-Semitism there too. But go ahead. I’m sorry.

00:47:07:18 – 00:47:41:02
Dan LeFebvre
I know you’re there’s another movie, called walking with the enemy about a Hungarian Jew named Ella Cohen, who he dresses up in an SS uniform to help rescue other Jews. Now, Ella Cohen is another fictional character, but he is based on a real person. Again, with with pronunciation. I believe it’s, Pincus Rosenbaum. He was disguised. He disguised himself in uniforms of the SS, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, which you mentioned earlier, the the Hungarian Lavant and the with the purpose of of saving, I believe hundreds of Jews.

00:47:41:04 – 00:47:51:15
Dan LeFebvre
During your research, did you come across other stories like Oskar Schindler or like Rosenbaum, of people who risked their lives to save the lives of others?

00:47:51:18 – 00:48:11:04
Robert Wolf
Raoul Wallenberg, my my, my dad and his friend Frank had those, passes, those forged papers. And he did, I don’t know, hundreds, thousands of them to help save people. Wallenberg was from Sweden, if I’m not mistaken. And I believe he was Jewish, but fantastic what he did. You going back to Schindler real quick is the way he laments.

00:48:11:04 – 00:48:26:23
Robert Wolf
You know this. Amongst all the murders he did no lamentation. You know. No. No sense of, of of, of mortality, no sense of, what’s the word I’m looking for? It just does. It doesn’t bother. And it doesn’t affect you.

00:48:26:25 – 00:48:29:21
Dan LeFebvre
No sense of decency. I mean, humanity, like Mr..

00:48:29:25 – 00:48:49:17
Robert Wolf
Schindler saving all these people. And he’s still got his car and he’s still got, like, enough jewelry or whatever. Yet on on him, he used his rings and he still your e remorse about. That’s the what I was and will remark you remorse is he elements about how he could have saved another eight or 10 or 12 Jewish people and and they had to console him because of that.

00:48:49:17 – 00:49:19:28
Robert Wolf
He cries, he breaks down. It’s a real it’s a real irony too. So, Yeah, but, but so he helps. So like Wallenberg, probably countless, Christian people, the Christians out, my dad, I mean, he wouldn’t survive without a lot of Christian help. Now, these aren’t famous stories, but being able to go to a casino, and hide in a casino, hide in a, a nunnery or, nursing home, with demented people and and, where else did he, his friend, hiding in a haberdashery and a hatbox, that kind of thing.

00:49:19:28 – 00:49:36:08
Robert Wolf
A lot of Christians help them. And then even after that, during communist Hungary, my my dad was getting, a few shekels sent, from Israel, from my mother’s mother and stepfather at this point, who was a Marky Mark in Israel, a consulate to Hungary. So they’d sneak them a few shekels, to, to this place in Budapest.

00:49:36:08 – 00:49:53:03
Robert Wolf
And my dad, it was a cloak and dagger story, the way my dad had to weave in and out of buildings to sneak to get that money, because he could have been in prison for that, too. So, a lot of people helped Jewish and Christian. Those that could a lot didn’t, again, fear for their lives. Not a lot of famous, well, here’s one actually.

00:49:53:03 – 00:50:14:15
Robert Wolf
Sorry. In communist Hungary, though, it’s not. My parents had an illegal Jewish wedding in 1953. My mom’s uncle, what? He sponsored that in his home. And like I say, it was illegal, and KGB was there, so, and my parents, when my parents, were on their honeymoon, the. He got arrested. He was a surgeon, chief of surgery in a Budapest hospital.

00:50:14:18 – 00:50:30:28
Robert Wolf
And they Waldemar for 13 months tortured him and, try to get him to confess to the to the murder. I think it was Wallenberg, if I’m not mistaken. So. And he wouldn’t he wouldn’t do it. And he was he came back a broken man, and obviously. And then they put him out in some rural clinic or something.

00:50:31:00 – 00:50:55:22
Robert Wolf
He ended up, ironically, in Sweden, where he had a successful career, and, solo daughter Susie, who was the last survivor in my book and just died in Jerusalem. Couple that soon after the attacks. 12 or 7. So she was comatose at the time and long standing on. And so as bad as that was, and it was great busier the year before, at least enough to know, about what was happening in Gaza and Israel.

00:50:55:22 – 00:51:22:01
Robert Wolf
So, all of them rest in peace. But yeah, so there’s famous and there’s not so famous in the autobiography. My dad mentions Mengele, that that is that Mengele greeted his father. But, the research that we this was a lot of research in our book, multiple people, historians, but, Berenbaum, Michael Berenbaum, who was one of the professors who wrote a tremendous, testimonial to other professors, did too.

00:51:22:02 – 00:51:38:06
Robert Wolf
They’re all good. But he mentions that don’t mix up where we’re talking about an Auschwitz because he had been there. He knows the history. And so we we took out Mengele. But, it may well be. And this is speculation that my dad’s father met Mengele, and he was the one that appealed since he was a doctor, too.

00:51:38:08 – 00:51:54:27
Robert Wolf
He was brutal himself, right? I mean, taking our feelings and using, humans as, for experiments and all that. But, if it was him or whoever it was, I guess I can’t call it nice, but got him a week’s worth. Two weeks worth of life, even though that week was miserable. So there are people that,

00:51:54:29 – 00:52:04:00
Robert Wolf
Yeah, the circles there are overlapping circles, for sure. And, as soon as we are done, I’ll probably think a couple more or two, but, you never know. And that’s a great question.

00:52:04:02 – 00:52:23:15
Dan LeFebvre
I think it’s great to know that. I mean, there are the famous one. Oskar Schindler obviously is famous, but he’s famous because of the movie and and the book and the as well. But he wasn’t doing it for fame. And there’s, you know, a lot of these stories, like you’re talking about the they’re not well known now, but that’s not why they were doing it.

00:52:23:15 – 00:52:54:21
Dan LeFebvre
They were doing it to help fellow humans. And I think that’s that in and of itself is a little bit of a light in, you know, in this dark time of history where there’s all this going on. But there are some people that will help. And I I’m happy to hear that. Yes, there were others that even though we might not know their names and whoever’s listening to this may not know their names, but they were still hoping because it was the right thing to do, not because they wanted to get their name, you know, a movie made about them.

00:52:54:26 – 00:53:00:16
Dan LeFebvre
So that we’d be talking about them on a podcast later. But, you know, it’s just the right thing to do.

00:53:00:18 – 00:53:20:26
Robert Wolf
Yeah. No, it’s it’s very palpable. And, you know, you really identify with Schindler and you always have the it’s another ironic thing. You have the swastika. Yeah. The little swastika on a super all the time. But it was, it was this guys, you know, that was it. But you’re right. He just did it out of, the love for human beings and and that that goes for Moses and that goes for Jesus and Gandhi and all these other former leaders.

00:53:20:26 – 00:53:35:03
Robert Wolf
And, of course they got some recognition, of course. But, and another one that comes to mind is Captain Khomeini. If you remember his, he’s the one who got them the forged papers. And, and I believe if I did my memory short, I’m going through my book again. You have to. Every so often. There’s never all the details.

00:53:35:11 – 00:53:54:17
Robert Wolf
But, he might have been Jewish, but since he was a big guy in the military, he had, privileges. So he helped my dad out to more than once, too. So that was another one. You may have been Christian, maybe Jewish, but, I’m glad that my parents didn’t know more famous people because. Or my grandparents, I should say, because, that to me, been more apt to be killed.

00:53:54:19 – 00:54:10:25
Robert Wolf
It didn’t matter anyway. But, if they lived in the out in the middle of nowhere, which Jer was, and it was a, pretty, very populated, industrial town. So, and that was it. They were they were in Transylvania first. And Albert. Julia, if I’m not pronouncing that right, might be I mean, if it was Spanish would be Albert.

00:54:10:27 – 00:54:42:04
Robert Wolf
Julia, I guess, or Julia it might be, but. Albert. Julia. So they they loved Mother Hungary, as do my parents. And, they decided to go back to George. So instead of living Transylvania. So. And that might have been an ill fated decision to my mom and dad. Love mother Hungary, too, by the way, and would have probably stayed if the Americans had taken over rather than the Soviets, because they had had enough with the two wars and, and and countless persecution, illegal weddings, torture, deaths and, deception.

00:54:42:04 – 00:54:58:18
Robert Wolf
You know, their, their colleagues and friends and fellow doctors were trying to get them to convert to the communist ideal. And my parents wouldn’t buy into that. And, and that state, the the Soviets, in their arrogance, called my dad not a real enemy. And that’s what they really were. They love Mother Hungary, but they weren’t going to stay.

00:54:58:21 – 00:55:13:17
Robert Wolf
My mom was a med school, by the way, to winning them. So. And dad was already in okay. And and he had to double down as a trauma surgeon during a revolution. So they’re both frontliners. And after that they said and they were closing the borders and people were leaving in droves. But they managed to get out.

00:55:13:21 – 00:55:19:13
Robert Wolf
That’s my dad’s fourth escape, which is they’re all harrowing, but, memorable for sure.

00:55:19:15 – 00:55:42:17
Dan LeFebvre
Right. Mentioning Hungary and, earlier I mentioned Ben Kingsley and Schindler’s List and that how that movie started in 1939. But Ben Kingsley is in another movie called walking with the enemy, and he plays another person that you mentioned, Regent Horthy, the Hungarian leader. That movie takes place in 1944, when the Germans finally occupy Hungary. And Regent Horthy doesn’t want to let the Nazis take the Jews.

00:55:42:17 – 00:55:58:02
Dan LeFebvre
So he’s trying to sign a deal with the Soviet Union to get the Nazis out of Hungary. But then in a group called Arrow Cross, which you had also mentioned earlier, takes control of Hungary up until the Red Army pushes the Nazis out of the during the siege of Budapest. This is all as far as the movie is concerned.

00:55:58:02 – 00:56:03:09
Dan LeFebvre
But what really happened with Hungarian, Polish artists during World War Two?

00:56:03:11 – 00:56:20:21
Robert Wolf
Oh well, that’s you. And you kind of said it yourself. I mean, you needed a guide. You needed it literally. So Horthy takes over after he was an admirable admiral in World War One. He takes over Hungary again. The Jews feel like he’s he’s not, friendly to the Jews, even though what if what you say is true, that might be the opposite.

00:56:20:21 – 00:56:23:24
Robert Wolf
But, kudos to him for for trying to prevent that.

00:56:23:26 – 00:56:26:25
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I was in the movie. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s the way the movie presents.

00:56:26:25 – 00:56:40:06
Robert Wolf
Oh, yeah. Got to see the movie in and review the book and compare notes. There’s not a lot in the book about there’s a lot of history, but it’s it’s history light. I call it my coauthor, Janice. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here. She’s a fantastic writer, but helped me turn the book and something really special.

00:56:40:06 – 00:56:56:26
Robert Wolf
But, if you were a junior school, they had the red chair. There’s a white chair. You know, you didn’t have communism. It was in then. They’re trying to say communism is no good. They’re beating up people. They’re going door to door. And then, of course, the rise of fascism, the Nazis entering, the, entering Hungary.

00:56:56:26 – 00:57:27:26
Robert Wolf
So the political climate then was you did what the Nazis said or you’re screwed. You know, that was Hungary trying to fight Germany. It was horse horses versus tanks, you know. How does that let me know how that goes for you. Right. And then, finally 1944 or 45, you Arrow cross, tremendously anti-Semitic. In my, I, maybe like a Gestapo or KGB type thing, they were worse to the Jews and they went out of their way opposite of Schindler, where, you know, the last day of the war and all the guards you only day, that’s all the guards.

00:57:27:26 – 00:57:42:24
Robert Wolf
And, in with the, prisoners, the laborers, and, he openly invites them to, to do what they want with them. Kill them or not. Or you can go home to your families, he says, and they all even go, well, that’s not what it was like in Hungary that at the end of the war, they went out of their way to kill as many Hungarians as they could.

00:57:42:27 – 00:58:07:09
Robert Wolf
And we all know about this. The Danube River, 21,000 Jewish people were shot to death, in cold blood, without their clothes on in the winter. December 43rd, January 44th. And, so that’s, it’s complete. Opposite of Schindler and it’s very set. So that’s the politics then. And of course, communism takes over. And, you know, we get the Stalin years and, and they wouldn’t go away.

00:58:07:09 – 00:58:25:20
Robert Wolf
And the irony is, like if the Americans had one or the West, the allies, then I probably wouldn’t be here. And I’d probably been born and raised in Hungary and maybe got lucky enough to go to med school. But they they left for the U.S., so. And then obviously, the Soviet, the Red Army and Soviet stayed on for forever and ever and ever.

00:58:25:23 – 00:58:45:13
Robert Wolf
Maybe now it’s a little bit of a democracy, but I don’t know much about recent Hungarian politics. But what I’ve seen and heard, the, Orban is, is Putin’s puppet. And, I could see him doing land for people. Deal, without dropping out. And let’s listen on. Jared’s never got a break for 80, 100 years, the most the majority of the 20th century was.

00:58:45:20 – 00:59:03:23
Robert Wolf
And the sad thing is, Hungarian Jews were. Well, if we’re going to flash, flash back to before World War one, 1890s, you know, the gay 90s and all that, Hungarian Jews and Jews in Europe were well treated. They were well respected. And and that boy that that climate turned, between world War one, World War two and and beyond with the Communist.

00:59:03:23 – 00:59:21:27
Robert Wolf
So, so Stalin dies in 53. That was good news. Hungarian, because he was really brutal, and I and Hungary in 56, they have their revolution. And, it goes badly for them. And then the hard liners became even more so because they were clamping down on the citizens. They didn’t want people to revolt.

00:59:21:27 – 00:59:37:12
Robert Wolf
And and they almost they didn’t almost win, but they almost got the Soviets out of there. And then just something changed about it. But instead of less, it became more with all the tanks coming in. And, that’s something that my dad said to the were that the men that were driving the tanks were from the Far East.

00:59:37:12 – 00:59:55:04
Robert Wolf
They were from, I don’t think it was Malaysia, maybe Burma. But they thought they were in Egypt. They thought they were in the Sinai, the Sinai War in 56. But they weren’t. They were. They were in Hungary fighting. So, that’s that was an interesting little tidbit. So it’s kind of like, oh, sorry, the North Koreans, you know, going to fight with the Russians kind of sounds like that, right?

00:59:55:04 – 01:00:01:08
Robert Wolf
They, they, you know, they recruit, they recruit people from other countries. Well, World War II was all about that, too.

01:00:01:08 – 01:00:26:05
Dan LeFebvre
But you you mentioned World War One and even before World War One, and that lead right into the last movie that I want to talk to you about, today’s, 1999 film, epic film called sunshine. I know up until now we’ve mostly talked about World War Two, but sunshine focuses on three generations of characters, all played by Ray finds across generations of a family called the Sun Shines, a, Hungarian Jewish family.

01:00:26:11 – 01:00:44:23
Dan LeFebvre
And the movie goes from the end of the 19th century with Hungarian nationalism through World War One, World War Two, and then into the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. And the first generation of the movie we see refines version of ignite, Sun and Shine. He wants to be a judge, but to do that he has to change his last name to something.

01:00:44:23 – 01:01:03:18
Dan LeFebvre
According to the movie is more Hungarian, so he changes it to show where there pressure even before the rise of fascism. Because in the movie this is happening, you know, before World War one and 19th century, was there pressure for Hungarians to hide their Jewish heritage?

01:01:03:20 – 01:01:18:12
Robert Wolf
Yeah. I’m thank you for reminding me of that movie, because I’ve heard of it recently and I didn’t remember the title. So if you don’t mind, please email me that, because that’s something that sounds like. But it’s totally, it’s encountered distinction too. Oh, he was in Schindler. I mean, that that kind of, that kind of wants to be a judge.

01:01:18:18 – 01:01:37:27
Robert Wolf
And he’s an excellent actor, don’t get me wrong. But, and so is the guy that played Schindler, you know, Liam, Liam Neeson, and we back to Ben Kingsley. But yeah, my dad’s parents converted. They converted to Christianity, reluctantly, but they did. And, it was so he could practice dentistry and hide his heritage. And my dad’s mother hated it, and.

01:01:37:27 – 01:01:55:00
Robert Wolf
But they did. So, and I’m sure a lot of other Hungarian Jews did. I mean, I’ve read about it and heard that other Hungarian used it in it, and of course, hiding certain valuables, hiding radios, hiding your religion. That was a part of your heritage. And it’s horrible thing. Now, they weren’t that religious, but for the Orthodox Jew either.

01:01:55:00 – 01:02:14:14
Robert Wolf
Good luck having that up. And, until they got to Auschwitz and you weren’t allowed to practice religion or do anything, they shaved off all your hair, humiliated you, killed you, clowns too. Not just the religious were clowns. But they were fortunate enough to convert back. My. I’m a mr. Cronenberg. My dad’s father’s, his cousin, just turns up.

01:02:14:14 – 01:02:30:21
Robert Wolf
I forget how the circumstances of how they meet, but he’s he’s wealthy, and he helps him open up a private practice, and they’re in their home and, lends the money or whatever. Maybe if ghost money and we don’t really talk about how it’s returned, if at all. But he has to convert. They have to convert back to Judaism.

01:02:30:21 – 01:02:45:13
Robert Wolf
And as soon as they get that news, my dad’s mom’s taking the cross off the wall. And, not that they didn’t like Christians because most of their friends were Christians, no doubt. Because they didn’t always share in with the Jewish people, especially the Orthodox. So, and so they converted back. So it was a big sacrifice for them.

01:02:45:18 – 01:03:02:19
Robert Wolf
I can’t imagine converting to Christianity. I love Christianity, I think it’s great religion and theory. I think, that Christians have had a hard time over the last, you know, thousand, 2000 years in certain cases. The Bible talks about the Spanish Inquisition. We talk about the Crusades. So all of that, both at both ends of it. Right.

01:03:02:19 – 01:03:23:06
Robert Wolf
And also Muslims and Jews as well, too. So, yeah, a lot of sacrifices they had to make, to finally get a life going, finally having my dad, who grows up, not wealthy, but, you know, upper middle, grows up as a spoiled kid, ironically ends up forced labor and gets through that. But, so the 20s were kind of easy on them.

01:03:23:09 – 01:03:37:02
Robert Wolf
But, in between where during, during certain times they had to convert at the either. And then of course, you couldn’t if you didn’t wear your yellow star or a yellow band. In my dad’s case, in the forced labor, you’d be punished or shot for sure. You’ll.

01:03:37:05 – 01:04:00:04
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you might have already answered my my next question on that one, because in sunshine, the next generation is very finds plays the same. He, he plays different characters in each generation. So in the first generation refines, character is ignites, and he’s trying to become a judge. And then the next generation, once the child grows up, they have a younger, you know, different actor playing the younger version, and he grows up.

01:04:00:04 – 01:04:18:27
Dan LeFebvre
And it’s also a great find, you know? But this time he’s Adam Shaw. And in Adam’s timeline, this is during World War two, and he has to convert. He converts to Roman Catholicism because Jews aren’t allowed to join the fencing club, which is what he wants to do. But then in the movie, obviously that doesn’t work. They find out about his Jewish ancestry.

01:04:18:27 – 01:04:31:29
Dan LeFebvre
And so you can’t just convert. It doesn’t doesn’t really work. So would it be with the movie’s concept there be correct that switching religions wouldn’t work as far as the brutality of the Nazis to escape that?

01:04:32:02 – 01:04:51:13
Robert Wolf
Probably not. I mean, I don’t even know how people know who’s Jewish and who is. And I mean, I have no idea what’s happened once the traumas, on the door. I mean, I, you know, I don’t know how they, how they could masterfully and systematically find them all and exterminate them. But, you bring up a good point, because my dad, my dad’s father, was Jewish.

01:04:51:13 – 01:05:13:02
Robert Wolf
He lost a government job as a dentist. They he had to be, first of all, let them do part time. And then they laid him off and they said, you know, no pension, no benefits. And then ultimately laid off. We talked about the sign. No Jews or dogs. That was out there in Hungary, too. So you weren’t allowed to fencing, you know, certain, bars, restaurants, places of worship, places of business.

01:05:13:02 – 01:05:27:14
Robert Wolf
So Jews weren’t allowed to go to. So and that same sign that we, we talk about in, life was beautiful and, also my dad was not allowed to be on the swim team because he was Jewish. And, my dad loved to swim. I was a pretty good swimmer in high school. I guess I got that from my dad.

01:05:27:14 – 01:05:44:23
Robert Wolf
I swam for four years, and, he did breaststroke, me butterfly and freestyle. But anyway, he had he was kicked off the swim team because he was Jewish. So, yeah, ramifications were there. And, very sad. And it’s too bad because his coach liked him and and his friends like them. And they were very sad for him, but there was nothing they could do,

01:05:44:25 – 01:06:02:03
Dan LeFebvre
Those sort of things. Again, it’s hard to wrap my head around because. So what does that have to do with swimming? Like it? Like you’re swimming in a pool in water. I mean, you’re competing in not to not to take away from how serious it can be for competitions and stuff, but it’s it’s still a sport and it’s similar.

01:06:02:03 – 01:06:21:02
Dan LeFebvre
We see the similar sort of thing in, in the movie with sunshine, except it’s fencing. He’s, you know, he’s fencing. He’s like, that’s part of the reason why he ends up he converts is because he’s like, this doesn’t really it doesn’t affect my how good I am at fencing and with my practicing. And I imagine a similar thing for, for swimming like it does, it doesn’t affect that.

01:06:21:02 – 01:06:29:17
Dan LeFebvre
And so it’s, it’s, it goes back to that concept of what as we’re talking about, it, there’s so much more that, you know, it’s just it’s hard to wrap your head around.

01:06:29:18 – 01:06:48:00
Robert Wolf
And so it’s awful now, you know, ironically, the Olympics came up in a recent podcast too, and y can every day be like the Olympics? Yeah. Why can’t we do peace negotiations and tear off negotiations in the hot tub, or over find a nice table with a tablecloth and, you know, nice silverware? The the Olympics, exemplifies that.

01:06:48:00 – 01:07:06:14
Robert Wolf
It’s the one time where for the 2 or 3 weeks that the all these countries get together, they compete, they put all the bibs, all the politics, all the disagreements off you know, back. They leave it on the field or behind them and they compete. And it’s great sportsmanship. And why can’t, why can’t our politicians, why can’t our leaders, do that?

01:07:06:14 – 01:07:24:14
Robert Wolf
I mean, it’s such a such a great lesson. So I love the Olympics, not only because I love sports, but also just that concept of, worldwide, a worldwide peace and, the amicable feeling that you got, and I just love it. I mean, third place, person congratulating the first on the gold medal winner, that kind of thing.

01:07:24:17 – 01:07:44:16
Robert Wolf
Arm in arm in arm, holding our flags. Just the fact, you know, we’re talking about kneeling and and, during, it’s not a big thing lightly, thank God. But kneeling or not respecting the national anthem, my mom and dad would spit in those people. They would be. How dare you? You know, we we were barely allowed to practice what we want in a free country.

01:07:44:16 – 01:08:04:15
Robert Wolf
How dare you do that in this country? And they would, think. I mean, they got to their dad, but they. I got the narrative experience, the the the people kneeling and and not respecting the flag, multi-millionaires, people that are privileged, privileged enough and talented enough, and marketable enough to to be in sports and make lots of money, be very popular.

01:08:04:15 – 01:08:24:06
Robert Wolf
And when they do that, it’s it just doesn’t hurt the snarling. And so those kind of things, that’s what we’re battling here. You know, we got to respect our country and our freedoms, and our luck and realize that what happened to my dad could happen to any one of us. Could be a bad neighbor. Bad local government, federal government, foreign government, natural disaster, bad business deal.

01:08:24:06 – 01:08:39:07
Robert Wolf
Whatever it is could happen to us where we’re on the run not knowing where your next meal is. So not only are we going to sleep, not not knowing if you’re going to get a job or where you will, and you still you’re still, you don’t know. You can’t meet people. You can’t be around people that that spot you and say, oh, there’s a Jew.

01:08:39:07 – 01:08:47:24
Robert Wolf
There’s, Because you hear that. So there’s we talk about the light at the end of the tunnel. Even during escapes, there was no such thing.

01:08:47:27 – 01:09:11:23
Dan LeFebvre
If we go back to sunshine, the last generation in that movie is Adam, son Ivan. And he survives World War two. But then he joins the communists because they seem to be the liberators of the brutality of the Nazis had inflicted in Hungary. But then, as the Hungarian Revolution breaks out in 1956, in the movie we see Ivan, he realizes the communists are brutal and corrupt also.

01:09:12:00 – 01:09:38:14
Dan LeFebvre
And then at the very end of that movie, Ivan learns from an old letter from his great grandfather, who was at the very beginning of the movie. It’s it’s a long movie. But he finds out that in this letter, it’s the goal is not to be accepted by others. And in this letter, as you reads it, Ivan then has the inspiration to change his name from shores back to sunshine to embrace his Jewish ancestry.

01:09:38:16 – 01:09:58:14
Dan LeFebvre
And like a lot of the movie characters that we’ve talked about today, the Shine is high. Family from the movie sunshine are fictional. They’re not real. But of course, the unimaginable hardships that they faced in the movie were real events that generations of of your family faced as well. So just like Ivan took lessons from his family’s past at the end of the movie and build a better life for himself.

01:09:58:14 – 01:10:09:04
Dan LeFebvre
As we kind of start to wrap up our discussion today, if you took a look at your family’s history, what’s one lesson that you’ve learned that people today can apply to create a better future?

01:10:09:06 – 01:10:26:04
Robert Wolf
I have to see that movie sunshine. It sounds. I mean, it sounds like they stole my stole my own story. Now, would you remind me? Because I do want to, but yeah, my, my mom’s uncle, Zoltan was she. He converted. He was a communist because he wanted to. He wanted to survive. And, my mom probably hated it, but he was.

01:10:26:04 – 01:10:43:18
Robert Wolf
It helped him. He was a he was a monkey in the government and in the economic the economic plan after World War two. And, I read some of the notes, those turned up and I it was really and I don’t mean to get off the subject, but it was really poignant and depressing actually saying, well, what what do we do with our, our Jews?

01:10:43:25 – 01:11:03:10
Robert Wolf
And they are mostly farms and factories. I’m not going to talk about military. I’m talking about the civilian Jews because they couldn’t work. They couldn’t be educated. Finally, they let my dad get into medical school, 10%, quota, which is 10% quota, which is amazing that he even got in. But, so but he was a communist, so he, you know, resonates really, really well with whatever.

01:11:03:10 – 01:11:23:24
Robert Wolf
My mom and dad wouldn’t buy into it as we already mentioned, that, like I said, this country is amazing. Accountability is an important. It’s an important message. Don’t point at people. It just, you know, after 911, we had Islamophobia. After the coronavirus epidemic. We had the Asian eight. Now tober seventh. That’s the Jewish people.

01:11:23:24 – 01:11:39:12
Robert Wolf
Well, what do I have to do with Gaza? And October 7th, I support Israel, I support peace, and, that that that unnecessary. You know, you’re wasting your time, with these protests, these kids in Colombia, you don’t know how good you have it. You know, I, I think people would tell the end of Harvard or Columbia or privilege.

01:11:39:12 – 01:12:03:24
Robert Wolf
They would be. And, people that are doing this and and protesting and calling for the death of Israel and America, it’s just there’s no room for it. Not for me, not for you, and not in this country. And so I identify with the peaceful people, try to get a handle around, at least. Finally, they’re curtailing funding for universities everywhere I could in there, I’d be showing them and and suing them and suing them and and doing more talks in the area.

01:12:03:24 – 01:12:20:28
Robert Wolf
I mean, believe me, that’s all I’m doing anyway, but we need to, appreciate what we have. Accountability. And if you’re bored with what you have, you got if you’re complaining, change vectors. If you don’t like your job, change jobs, work part time, write a book. Everybody’s got a story. Write a poem, write an opera. Go to the library.

01:12:20:28 – 01:12:37:28
Robert Wolf
Go to the museum. Spend more time with your family. Give back to the community. It’s not just about food, shelter, clothing. Unlike for my mom and dad and, all the victims, it’s all food, shelter and clothing. But for now, for us, I put a little more into your life, put a more pot, and, love your neighbor, you know, and I don’t I don’t mean to be corny.

01:12:37:28 – 01:12:57:02
Robert Wolf
Bring a neighbor some macaroons or whatever. Invite them for the Seder. Just get to know them better and embrace them. And things. And things. Well, it all starts. Leadership starts from within. You know, you’re not going to be a leader if you’re not a good person. If you’re not. And I don’t mean no Hitler leader because he just led by charisma and, and, all his, his garbage is, propaganda.

01:12:57:04 – 01:13:14:01
Robert Wolf
But, you can lead by example, and it’s never too late to do the right thing. There’s no substitute for experience. I got a lot of, you know, the trend is your friend, you can learn something from every case, as we say in radiology. But as now, I’ve been on both sides of the needle. You can learn something from every person you know.

01:13:14:01 – 01:13:30:13
Robert Wolf
You can learn from every situation. And don’t forget that, don’t be that. That dead shark swim in the water. Just keep on moving. And if you don’t like what you’re doing and don’t don’t watch and complain, do something else. Life is short here. It’s our only commodity. It’s. You know, time is. Our time is our only commodity.

01:13:30:13 – 01:13:41:24
Robert Wolf
It’s not gold or silver stocks, real estate. It’s time. So use it. Use it wisely. Like my dad used to say. Enjoy every moment. And now I understand why.

01:13:41:26 – 01:14:02:10
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I love that I love that, and that’s one thing as we’ve talked about you just looking back to some of the movies we talked about, the concept that I get is a lot of the things that led to like the atrocities Auschwitz that we talked about. It didn’t jump right to that. It was there were steps that they got there.

01:14:02:13 – 01:14:26:01
Dan LeFebvre
And although we’ve we talked mostly about historical events that took place around World War Two today, a lot of people have compared the current climate here in the United States as I’m recording this, similar to the rise of fascism that resulted in Nazi Germany. And I’m just curious, from your perspective, do you think there’s any truth to those comparisons, or is that kind of overblown just, extremism?

01:14:26:03 – 01:14:44:26
Robert Wolf
That’s such a great question. It’s hard to know. I hope not. That’s why there’s people like me trying to prevent that from happening. Call Congress, call you local government. What are you guys doing about anti-Semitism? I’m still doing it. I hate getting ghosted. That’s a big part of it being rejected. I don’t mind getting rejected like people that are apathetic, but too much apathy is going to be the danger to us.

01:14:44:26 – 01:15:04:25
Robert Wolf
And if the Jewish population doesn’t survive, you know, the LGBTQ, the criticize the Jewish and African-Americans, if you guys are next and and those those that glorify Hitler, you guys were next. You just don’t even realize it. So, now in some ways, yeah, in some countries worse than here. But even in America, in World War two, there was the rise of anti-Semitism.

01:15:04:25 – 01:15:23:16
Robert Wolf
And, fortunately not fascism. But until the guns are pointed at me, I feel relief. As long as the government and the local police are protecting us, then I feel safe. Whatever. If it starts to turn. And we talked about the your armored trucks and tanks going down the streets with the flags. If it ever comes to that, then I’d say, well, no, we’re doomed.

01:15:23:16 – 01:15:45:23
Robert Wolf
But, at least for the short term. But, hopefully that never happens. I can’t see that happening. But you never know. I mean, Australia and Canada, Europe, it’s still going on. So it’s up to the government, the people that are supposed to protect others. As Reagan said, that’s what government’s job is not to and not to, to to take from others or its or to use the people.

01:15:45:23 – 01:15:52:00
Robert Wolf
It’s, it’s I’m paraphrasing, but a government’s job is to protect us. Jewish. Christian doesn’t matter. Muslim.

01:15:52:03 – 01:15:58:26
Dan LeFebvre
We’re all human. We’re all. We’re all. What is it? The JFK quotes, we all share this planet together or something. Something along.

01:15:58:26 – 01:16:17:23
Robert Wolf
Those lines. Exactly. No. It’s true, it’s true. And we’re we’re getting beyond that. Why are the Soviets and the Americans get along in space stations and the moon or whatever, but they can’t get along and Mother Earth, right? I mean, so that’s, it’s another thing like the Olympics. Yeah. It doesn’t even make sense to me. And probably Antarctica and Greenland and everybody is going to set up whatever.

01:16:17:25 – 01:16:33:08
Robert Wolf
And that works for me. You know, it’s so how about annexing Canada? What about that kind of concept? I, you know, people are thinking out of the box lately and maybe I like it, maybe I don’t, but it’s worth a look because things have to change. Canada needs a security alternative to the US. On and on and on.

01:16:33:13 – 01:16:55:13
Robert Wolf
And maybe it’s good economically too, unless it’s come up. And I don’t know that it would be so complicated. And I know our resistance. The natives would be, Mexico. Maybe not so much, but that would be scary for me because I think it’s a it’s got it’s violent areas and etc.. But interestingly, a Jewish woman is the new president of Mexico, so and a Jewish lady is, is the new mayor of Beverly Hills.

01:16:55:13 – 01:17:15:18
Robert Wolf
So, that gives me hope. I think that’s great. I mean, I love California, and if it weren’t so expensive, I maybe I would live there instead of Florida. But, with who knows? And it’s one of the liberal for me, too. But, you know, it’s a great state and, many, many people. So it’s good to see that some people that are in leadership positions are going to be on the side of peace, not just because they’re Jewish.

01:17:15:18 – 01:17:29:03
Robert Wolf
That’s the side of peace. So they get it. They care. That’s another lesson. It’s good to care. It’s important to care if you, you’re doomed if you don’t. So whatever is your own life or the life of others? It’s important.

01:17:29:05 – 01:17:44:00
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show to chat about all these various movies. I know we’ve mentioned your book called Not a Real Enemy The True Story of the Hungarian Jewish Man’s Fight for freedom. We’ve mentioned a few times throughout our discussion today, but there’s so many things in the book that we didn’t even get a chance to talk about.

01:17:44:00 – 01:18:01:06
Dan LeFebvre
I’m going to add a link to it in the show notes, so anyone watching or listening to this right now can pick up their own copy. As I was reading your book, it really read like a movie and I can’t wait until it is turned into one. And since all movies have teasers and trailers before I let you go, can you share a teaser of your book for everyone watching this?

01:18:01:06 – 01:18:03:06
Dan LeFebvre
Now?

01:18:03:09 – 01:18:23:14
Robert Wolf
Wow. Yeah, yeah, from your mouth to God’s ears. Because, we we’ve been trying to clear some producers. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s a long shot, but a teaser. A man who escapes four times, I can’t imagine one escape. I mean, I’ve been reading books, guys escaping, and they’re not even Jewish. They’re. They’re prisoners of war from Poland or whatever, escaping from thousands of miles away.

01:18:23:16 – 01:18:40:12
Robert Wolf
And that’s like a one big, huge escape. But for escapes, 20 miracles in this book, like you as you know it. Or the way my dad got into medical school, cloak and dagger stories, arguing with armors and soldiers. That’s a scene I’d like to see, and winning the argument, but bluffing his way through it.

01:18:40:15 – 01:19:03:19
Robert Wolf
Of course, his first and last escape. But I think all of them would need to be included. Split second timing. The luck of God. What else? I mean, the fact that my dad was spoiled, but he was also beaten as a kid. It’s another interesting, interesting tidbit. Tidbit? So many, the way the table set, the way the way that you went from, being an upper middle says to starving and how life could change on a dime.

01:19:03:21 – 01:19:24:18
Robert Wolf
So many messages. Resilience, determination, hope, integrity, and ultimately redemption. So it’s it’s loaded. It’s packed with it’s history. It’s an adventure. It’s a biography. And, trials and tribulations. My dad and family and, must read and hopefully, more and more people read it. This is all I do is my charge is fighting anti-Semitism. You help me with that.

01:19:24:18 – 01:19:48:24
Robert Wolf
10% of my, I’m on socials across the board, so please, finally, Robert J. Wolfe, MD, or Google not relented me 10% of my proceeds henceforth and even when I’m gone and my trust are going to the Holocaust Museum in DC. So not only I’m educating in my own little corner, but I’m also contributing. And people that buy the book are contributing to education through the, to the mothership, as I call it, the U.S. Holocaust Museum in DC.

01:19:48:27 – 01:20:06:02
Robert Wolf
I’ve been fortunate enough to be there twice or two to the book signings. I could do that every day, educating kids and families about what’s going on now and then, genocide, etc.. So, it’s a must read. And, I hope that you do enjoy it and reach out to me. I do podcasts and and presentations programs.

01:20:06:02 – 01:20:09:03
Robert Wolf
Please help me fight antisemitism. Can’t do it alone.

01:20:09:05 – 01:20:16:27
Dan LeFebvre
I love education is is the key. Thank you so much for everything you do for educating. Thank you for for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.

01:20:17:00 – 01:20:24:22
Robert Wolf
Pleasure. I learned a lot today to.

00:02:26:21 – 00:02:42:11
Dan LeFebvre
Our chat today will be a little different than a usual episode of based on a true story, because we’re not looking at a single movie and we’re not even really looking at a real person from history. But what we are looking at is a very real job, how it’s portrayed onscreen by one of the most popular police officers in the movies.

00:02:42:13 – 00:02:52:16
Dan LeFebvre
So if you were to give the Die Hard franchise a letter, grade for how accurately John McClane shows us what a real police officer’s job is like, I wouldn’t get.

00:02:52:18 – 00:02:59:09
Patrick O’Donnell
I would go D plus to C minus. I think that would be my grade for for John. Yeah, honestly.

00:02:59:09 – 00:03:01:19
Dan LeFebvre
It’s a little higher than I was expecting.

00:03:01:22 – 00:03:03:17
Dan LeFebvre

00:03:03:19 – 00:03:16:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. I’m trying to be very charitable here. It’s. And I like Bruce Willis. I, I love the first Die Hard movie. The rest of them. Yeah, but, hey, that’s Hollywood right there.

00:03:16:16 – 00:03:24:03
Dan LeFebvre
That’s how it goes. And, you know, I guess as with many franchises, it it starts off and then it just kind of starts.

00:03:24:05 – 00:03:44:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. And I was thinking about that this morning, you know, it’s like one, one that pops into my head that was almost a little bit better was Terminator two. I thought I loved the first Terminator, but T2, you know, the way John Cameron filmed that and you know, the stunts and man, it was so over the top for that time period.

00:03:44:16 – 00:03:57:23
Dan LeFebvre
I think that’s one of those things that, it movies like that will stand out more because so many sequels in the franchises just do drop down that when you have one where actually this is better, it stands out that much more.

00:03:57:26 – 00:04:17:11
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes, exactly. Yeah. It’s like now I was thinking about Rocky and I was I loved the Rocky series and the first one, of course, was amazing. Second one was like, yeah, third one, I love Mr. T, so I mean, for comedic value. It was awesome. Yeah. I was like, what do you predict for yo the fight yo clubber.

00:04:17:11 – 00:04:27:00
Patrick O’Donnell
He’s like pain. I predict in the end I was like, oh, I wanted to follow the ground. I was laughing so hard. I’m like, I love this stuff.

00:04:27:02 – 00:04:28:25
Dan LeFebvre
It makes for great entertainment, that’s for sure.

00:04:29:01 – 00:04:30:06
Patrick O’Donnell
It does.

00:04:30:09 – 00:04:54:19
Dan LeFebvre
If we go back to the franchise of Die Hard, John McClane in the first movie is a cop from New York City visiting his estranged wife in Los Angeles. And of course, he happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time when all hell breaks loose. Throughout the movie, there are numerous lines of dialog about how McClane is out of his jurisdiction, but as a cop, McClane still takes it upon himself to do something about the situation unfolding around him.

00:04:54:21 – 00:05:12:04
Dan LeFebvre
Let’s say an off duty police officer is visiting a different city for personal reasons, like we see in the movie, and then they find themselves in the middle of the wrong place at the wrong time. Major crime happening in the movie. How realistic is it for the police officer to take it upon themselves to fight back against the criminals like we see John McClane doing in the movie?

00:05:12:07 – 00:05:29:10
Patrick O’Donnell
Most of the time you’re just going to be a good witness. Yeah, you you’re going to look at everything through cop eyes. You know, it’s like, okay, I’m going to look at you. You know, let’s say I’m in a situation where, like, something is getting robbed. You know, I’m in a grocery store or a bank or something like that.

00:05:29:12 – 00:05:56:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Nine out of ten times, nobody’s going to get shot. Nothing’s going to go too crazy, you know? And most of the time they don’t even have guns. They threaten like a gun or an explosive or whatever. So it’s like, I’m going to be aware of my surroundings. You know, and I’m going to be like, okay, the guy that’s doing all this is a white male about 40 years of age with a beard, mustache, you know, medium build, wearing a gray, not shirt.

00:05:56:16 – 00:06:16:07
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. And glasses. Yeah. That’s where my head is going. Then I’m just like, okay. Is he right or left handed? You know. What’s he holding? Like the bag. What’s he doing most of his stuff with. Is there any piercings tattoos. You know, anything that’s you know, so you’re going to be looking like a cop. You know, that’s what you’re going to be doing.

00:06:16:09 – 00:06:40:03
Patrick O’Donnell
But I will use a caveat. If you think somebody is in imminent danger of getting killed, you’re going to take action. You’re it’s the cop inside of you. Yeah. We can’t help ourselves, you know? So as far as jurisdiction goes, you know, if I’m out in LA, you know, I was out in LA. Oh, man. About 20 years ago, I couldn’t go around, like arresting people or anything like that.

00:06:40:03 – 00:07:00:19
Patrick O’Donnell
You could do a citizen’s arrest, quote unquote. But all you’re doing is opening yourself up to liability, and you know, you’re going to let anything short of an ax murderer get away because you don’t want to get sued later, and then you’re going to get into trouble with your department, etc.. So the chances are very, very, very slim, very slim.

00:07:00:21 – 00:07:14:18
Dan LeFebvre
They start off, if I remember right from that, from the movie, like the first thing that John McClane notices is something going wrong is there’s gunfire. So right away he’s like, okay, somebody’s life might be in danger. And so it kind of switches into that mode, it seems.

00:07:14:21 – 00:07:30:15
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. And, you know, and he’s talking to himself. That’s one thing I did like about that movie was the insurgents. I was like, why didn’t you go in there and try to stop him, John? And then he’s like, well, John, you would be dead right now, John, if you tried doing that, you know, and it’s like, absolutely. You know, that that makes total sense to me.

00:07:30:15 – 00:07:32:27
Patrick O’Donnell
It was like, yep.

00:07:33:00 – 00:07:36:08
Dan LeFebvre
The inner monologue that he speaks out loud so we can understand.

00:07:36:14 – 00:07:39:11
Patrick O’Donnell
So we can hear it. Right? Exactly. Yes.

00:07:39:13 – 00:08:00:00
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Another key plot point for John McClane in the first Die Hard movie is how he has to fight the local law enforcement, and I don’t mean physically fighting him like he does with the bad guys, but he can’t seem to get anyone to believe what’s happening. For example, when he first calls for help, the dispatch operator scolds him, saying that she’s going to report McClane for using a channel reserved for emergencies.

00:08:00:00 – 00:08:18:06
Dan LeFebvre
So it’s like, what do you think I’m calling for? And then later on, there’s cops that do arrive at Nakatomi Plaza, and the deputy chief of police doesn’t like John McClane because he’s a mouthy cop from New York City. And then, even after the federal agents arrive on the scene, they never seem to listen to any of John McClane warnings from the inside of the building.

00:08:18:12 – 00:08:33:00
Dan LeFebvre
And then that culminates at the end of the movie, when the federal agents actually in the helicopter shooting and they start shooting at McClane on the roof because they think he’s one of the criminals. How well does the movie do, showing the way local law enforcement would react to a crime being reported by an off duty police officer?

00:08:33:00 – 00:08:34:09
Dan LeFebvre
From another scene?

00:08:34:11 – 00:09:00:21
Patrick O’Donnell
That almost never happens. But obviously, you know, you know, like most of the time, is there an out of jurisdiction cop in our city if they’re official business, they’re going to check in hopefully. Yeah. It’s like, hey, you know what? I’m a Chicago cop. I’m coming up to Milwaukee to interview a witness for a homicide. So I’m going to let you know for two reasons.

00:09:00:21 – 00:09:21:21
Patrick O’Donnell
One, it’s the right thing to do. And two, if you go sideways, then at least you know somebody knows where I am and when. If I was like the acting lieutenant, I was a sergeant for 17 years. Once in a blue moon, I got pulled off the street and I’d have to sit behind a desk and run the shift if my boss wasn’t there.

00:09:21:23 – 00:09:41:13
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, I was. I started using whodunit, so I would get a phone call from, you know, hey, I’m from blah, blah, blah city. We’re going to be tracking for a suspect that we have a warrant on. And, you know, it’s not high risk. We’re just going to do a door knock. And my first the first things out of my mouth is like, you want some help?

00:09:41:15 – 00:10:09:11
Patrick O’Donnell
And I would try to get them some help. So there’s usually not always but usually good cooperation. The feds are really bad at that, especially the FBI. They don’t want anybody playing in their sandbox. So unless they need you, then all of a sudden they’re super cooperative. But that’s another story for another day. But yeah, you know, as far as, okay, I’m an out of jurisdiction cop, I’m in your city.

00:10:09:13 – 00:10:25:05
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. Mean in 25 years, I rarely had an off duty cop that was, like, on vacation or visiting their kid or whatever in Milwaukee. All of a sudden get involved in some high stakes arrest it. Almost. It it really doesn’t happen. Yeah.

00:10:25:07 – 00:10:26:20
Dan LeFebvre
That’s why it’s for the movies. Yeah.

00:10:26:20 – 00:10:28:02
Patrick O’Donnell
Sorry, John.

00:10:28:05 – 00:10:30:02
Dan LeFebvre
And.

00:10:30:05 – 00:10:49:10
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we move to the second movie, Die Hard two, this time, John McClane is an LA police officer who’s waiting for his wife’s plane to land at Washington’s Dulles Airport. And just like the last movie again, he finds himself the wrong place at the wrong time. And at first, now we have airport police involved, and they don’t believe McClane.

00:10:49:11 – 00:11:04:23
Dan LeFebvre
But then, as things start to go from bad to worse, we see McClane actually working with the local law enforcement at the airport. So not only do we have John McClane as an off duty police officer for a different city from a different city for there for personal reasons, but then it’s also happening at an airport where they have their own law enforcement.

00:11:04:23 – 00:11:22:13
Dan LeFebvre
And then on top of that, since Die Hard two came out in 1990, before the TSA was formed in 2001, I felt like things would probably be a little bit different now. But is it likely that a city police officer would collaborate with the TSA or airport police, like we see John McClane doing in the movie?

00:11:22:15 – 00:11:47:13
Patrick O’Donnell
Well, like TSA, you know, there are a branch of Homeland Security and they really aren’t cops. The way cops look at TSA is kind of we we look at them as, gee, I mean, there’s some fine, there’s some fine TSA agents and they do a thankless job, and it’s a very important job. But a lot of them, yeah, I shouldn’t say a lot.

00:11:47:15 – 00:12:07:27
Patrick O’Donnell
There are some that are that guy or that gal that has a little bit of power and you could tell, you know, they’re abusing it and, you know, they couldn’t get a job as a quote unquote real cop somewhere. I know I’m hurt some feelings out there. Sorry, but yeah, I mean, there’s a couple of people that I know that are TSA agents.

00:12:07:29 – 00:12:27:15
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, I have one friend that’s a TSA agent that did 30 years as a cop, and he didn’t have a pension where he worked. There was no pension. So he had to go work for the feds. You know, that’s a federal job. And they offered a pension and health insurance until he hits, you know, well, health insurance was the biggie.

00:12:27:19 – 00:12:47:10
Patrick O’Donnell
He had zero health insurance after he retired. And he was like 55. So he got ten years before he’s going to go on Medicare. So he kind of had to do something like that. You know. And he’s not a he’s not a, you know, idiot or anything like that. And then I knew some people that just wanted to do it because they thought it looked cool and, you know, whatever.

00:12:47:10 – 00:13:08:27
Patrick O’Donnell
And they’re doing it as a job and they treat it like that. And hey, yeah, you know, good on them. But cops aren’t going to be, you know, like the airport cuffs. Most of them. Well, all of them are, you know, sworn police officers that have full arrest powers. And if I’m out of jurisdiction. Yeah, I’m John McClane.

00:13:09:00 – 00:13:34:01
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, you’re with whatever is going on. If I was the airport police, I would use that cop as much as possible for Intel of what’s going on. I’d try and get some information and. But I wouldn’t include them in any, like, you know, like, takedowns or any action, because first off, he has no arrest power. So where he’s at, you know, you can’t arrest anyone.

00:13:34:01 – 00:14:02:16
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, he’s he’s drawn to you, citizen running around an airport with a gun. Yeah. It’s like, why are you doing that? Become a judge. You shouldn’t do that. So you know. Yeah, it silly to answer your question. Yeah. I mean, the TSA really wouldn’t be coordinating with that. It would be the cops from the airport. If there is a situation like that and if they have to call in help, they’ll call it help, you know, from other agencies they wouldn’t be relying on anybody.

00:14:02:16 – 00:14:05:08
Patrick O’Donnell
That’s the civilian job. It’s like.

00:14:05:11 – 00:14:34:27
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, you know what? I appreciate you clarifying that because, I mean, the movie did come out before TSA was even a thing. So I just know security has changed so much that when this movie takes place in in the airport, it’s like, well, there’s got to be maybe this extra layer to it, but it sounds like maybe there even wouldn’t be as much different other than, you know, setting aside all the fictional aspect of it, but just from the, you know, the airport security and police officer, it sounds like that that sort of relationship would still be pretty similar to the way it is now.

00:14:34:29 – 00:14:57:00
Patrick O’Donnell
Well, yeah, I did an internship when I was in college with the sheriff’s department in Milwaukee, and they had the airport. They still do. They’re in charge of security for the airport, and they have a little substation there. And you have sheriff’s deputies there, you know, walking around doing whatever. Some and some are plainclothes, some are uniformed, and they take care of business at the airport.

00:14:57:02 – 00:15:19:05
Patrick O’Donnell
And I had a real good, tour and, understanding of the airport when I was an intern. And one of the things that struck out was really stuck in my head with the movie was, you know, the tower is a sacred place. John McClane would not be in the tower, period. I mean, that is like super. Yeah, I mean, that is secure.

00:15:19:07 – 00:15:46:13
Patrick O’Donnell
And the air traffic controllers are in the basement. They’re not upstairs in the tower. They’re all in the basement looking at scopes, you know, looking at their computer screens, doing whatever. And you can’t even say a word. I mean, that is like, that’s hollow ground. They can’t have any distractions for obvious reasons. Yes, for very obvious reasons. And when I retired from being a cop, I got a job with Delta throwing bags.

00:15:46:13 – 00:16:11:06
Patrick O’Donnell
I was, I unloaded and loaded planes at the airport and Waukee, and that gave me a real good understanding to of the security, because almost everything is restricted and you have a badge, you know, it’s just like a ID, you know, either around your arm or a lanyard or whatever, and that gets you into certain areas that you have to get it to, you know, to do your job.

00:16:11:09 – 00:16:31:13
Patrick O’Donnell
But the thing about it is you only go in one person at a time. So you and I are in the concourse and we have to go unload a plane, and we’re by one of the gates, you know, you see the doors where the gate agent, like, enters like a keypad, you know, some numbers into a keypad. And then there’s two layers.

00:16:31:13 – 00:16:53:21
Patrick O’Donnell
You do the keypad and you flash the your little ID thing, and then the little green light goes on and unlocks the door. Well, I can’t just follow you. I have to go through the same ritual. Every person that goes through that restricted area has to do that. So there are layers. There’s so many layers of security when it comes to an airport.

00:16:53:21 – 00:16:55:17
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh my God. So it was which.

00:16:55:17 – 00:16:56:16
Dan LeFebvre
Is probably a good thing.

00:16:56:19 – 00:17:06:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh Lord. Yes. You know it’s like but you know, it’s it’s borderline laughable. Well it is laughable what you know, I’m watching that. I’m like, I’ll never, ever, ever.

00:17:06:14 – 00:17:07:15
Dan LeFebvre
He just kind of walks in.

00:17:07:15 – 00:17:12:21
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, yeah. He’s doing. Yeah, yeah. Why not? You know.

00:17:12:24 – 00:17:20:02
Dan LeFebvre
Well, they don’t want to go to the intricacies of the airport security for movies. Be a little more boring.

00:17:20:04 – 00:17:21:28
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. So it would be.

00:17:22:00 – 00:17:41:07
Dan LeFebvre
There is another form of collaboration that we see happening in Die Hard two, when, John McClane uses a connection that he made in the first movie. That’s original Val Johnson’s character, Al Powell. So in Die Hard two, we see McClane calling up Powell to get some information on the new villains outside of official channels. So the movie implies that there was this kind of ongoing connection between McClane and Powell.

00:17:41:12 – 00:17:52:16
Dan LeFebvre
And now law enforcement agencies work together a lot in official capacities. But is it normal for individual police officers to work with other police officers from other precincts that they met in the past, kind of like we see in the movie?

00:17:52:18 – 00:18:14:05
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes. You know, if you work together in the past. Yeah. And, you know, maybe they’re, you know, they text on the regular or they go out for drinks or whatever. You know, you can’t help that. But I will use a caveat. Whenever you run somebody on a computer, you know, like for warrants or their driver’s license or a criminal history, there’s a history of you doing that.

00:18:14:07 – 00:18:37:24
Patrick O’Donnell
You’re logged on as Patrick O’Donnell. You know, Sergeant Patrick O’Donnell was looking to see what, you know, Dan’s criminal history was done. You know, February 17th, you know, 1015 in the morning, everything is recorded. So, you know, you have to be able to explain why you’re doing what you’re doing.

00:18:37:26 – 00:18:39:21
Dan LeFebvre
Again, for good reason, I’m sure.

00:18:39:26 – 00:18:50:15
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s see what my ex wife is up to, all right. Yeah. Well, yeah yeah, yeah. You don’t want to abuse the power. So. Yes. Absolutely.

00:18:50:18 – 00:19:11:28
Dan LeFebvre
Makes make sense. Makes sense. But in Die Hard two, we see another returning character from the first movie. That’s Thornburg. He’s played by William Atherton. Thornburg is the pesky TV reporter who’s always trying to get in the way. So he’s he’s getting a scoop on the story, right? So he’s always getting in the way. So if we’re to believe the first two Die Hard movies, the media can get in the way of cops trying to do their jobs.

00:19:12:03 – 00:19:18:18
Dan LeFebvre
From your experience, have you ever heard of the media a hampering the ability for cops to do their jobs like we see in a movie?

00:19:18:20 – 00:19:39:18
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, we have a tenacious relationship with the press. Sometimes they can be your ally. You know, if you have like, say, a Silver Alert, you know, have some, you know, a senior citizen that has dementia or some cognitive issue. And, you know, right now, you know, I live in Wisconsin and we just got to zero. It’s been below zero.

00:19:39:19 – 00:19:59:05
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, all morning. So if you know, grandma’s out there and she’s just wearing like a windbreaker, you know, we could use the press. It’s like, you know, hey, you know what? Come on down. This is what she looks like. You know, this is the last place she was seen. So you know what? You could use the power of the press for that.

00:19:59:07 – 00:20:17:08
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, they can be your ally most of the time. They’re annoying, you know, most of the time, they’re trying to sneak through the they they go over the line both literally and metaphorically. And I it’s the yellow crime scene tape. They just want to get through it so badly. But if you’re.

00:20:17:09 – 00:20:19:05
Dan LeFebvre
It’s like a race running through break to tape.

00:20:19:12 – 00:20:50:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But if you’re in a big scene, what happens usually is we’ll corral the media into like a staging area. And most police departments have a Pio. It’s called a, the PIOs, the public information officer, and they are usually the ones that are going to talk to the press. If it’s a real big deal. Sometimes the chief may come out and talk to the press, etc. you know, it all depends on what’s going on.

00:20:50:14 – 00:21:13:29
Patrick O’Donnell
I mean, we had an officer that was shot. Thankfully he’s okay now, but you shot in the chest with a rifle and the mayor came out, the chief came out and they all talk to the press. Now dealing with. Yeah, elected officials of every street, you know, they love being behind the microphone. They love the camera in their face.

00:21:14:02 – 00:21:34:03
Patrick O’Donnell
Us absolutely not. We don’t want anything to do with, you know, a camera in our face, especially at a crime scene because we got stuff we got to do. So it’s. Yeah, it’s more of a pain in the butt than anything else. And one thing that really stood out to me, I was a rookie cop at a pretty high profile homicide.

00:21:34:06 – 00:21:58:00
Patrick O’Donnell
It was a cold Wisconsin night, and there’s this reporter out there and I recognize them from, you know, TV back then. You know, you watch the network TV shows, you know, I mean, the network TV stations for your news. And I’m like, oh my God, that’s, you know, Dan, whatever his last name was. And I come up to I look and I’m like, oh my God, you’re really ugly.

00:21:58:00 – 00:22:17:12
Patrick O’Donnell
Holly. He had like 20 pounds of makeup on his face. I mean, it was caked on thick. It was like Phyllis Diller, for God’s sakes. And I was just like, wow. And I’ve never seen a man before that that wore makeup, but, you know, and I was just like, well, this is an interesting night, all right.

00:22:17:14 – 00:22:20:12
Dan LeFebvre
Before 4K TVs where they could see every point.

00:22:20:13 – 00:22:32:21
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh, yeah. You want to see them on 4K? TV? Yeah. You’d want a tube TV for that guy. It was. It was bad news. Or he had a face for radio. Let’s just say that. Yeah.

00:22:32:23 – 00:22:36:22
Dan LeFebvre
That I was going to say I’ve heard that phrase. Yeah, I hate the face for radio.

00:22:36:25 – 00:22:44:06
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. You know, I had a couple more observations about this, this, diet, if you don’t mind.

00:22:44:08 – 00:22:44:22
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah.

00:22:44:22 – 00:22:53:13
Patrick O’Donnell
For sure. Okay. Starting out with the naked keto, like, the bad guy is doing this, like karate. Kind of like the they’re called. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:22:53:13 – 00:22:56:00
Dan LeFebvre
He’s all sweaty. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.

00:22:56:05 – 00:23:19:15
Patrick O’Donnell
Why is that there? I don’t understand it. And like, you know, this is kind of gross. What why is this here. You know, and I’m like, okay. And then John McLean is a lieutenant all of a sudden at LAPD, he’s like anointed. You know, if he was, if he would go to especially back then, you start out as a cop and you know, you’re going to go through all the selection stuff.

00:23:19:22 – 00:23:22:07
Patrick O’Donnell
He wouldn’t be a lieutenant. They don’t care.

00:23:22:08 – 00:23:24:08
Dan LeFebvre
Transfer from New York to LA. I think, you.

00:23:24:15 – 00:23:24:22
Patrick O’Donnell
Know, the.

00:23:24:22 – 00:23:28:17
Dan LeFebvre
Movie implies because his wife was in LA, so he wanted to move closer to be.

00:23:28:18 – 00:23:48:22
Patrick O’Donnell
Correct. There’s no such thing as lateral transfer back then from there. Okay. So he maybe he would be a cop. Maybe, you know, he with the time frame, you probably still be in the academy. You know he’d be nothing. So that was amusing to me then. You know there was a woman with a stun gun on the airplane.

00:23:48:22 – 00:23:52:11
Patrick O’Donnell
I’m like, how the hell did she get that? Through security? Yeah. Yeah.

00:23:52:11 – 00:24:00:17
Dan LeFebvre
Again, that was kind of one of those things of like this. This is before 9/11, right? I mean, things are different, but still, I feel like they still take in that.

00:24:00:19 – 00:24:21:07
Patrick O’Donnell
One thing from working as a baggage guy. We call ourselves baggage. It’s just really throwing the bags around. Yeah. There was an open golf bag on a conveyor belt and I’m like, oh, are you kidding me? Come on. Those golf clubs would be all over the place. I hated golf bags. Well, what? I’d see just a card for those coming at me.

00:24:21:07 – 00:24:42:11
Patrick O’Donnell
I’d be like, oh, they’re so awkward and just. They sucked. And then also, I noticed one of the bad guys in, like, one of the big, shooting scenes, and he starts out with a Glock, and then he ends the scene with a Beretta, and I’m like, how did he do that? Yeah. So my I caught that right away.

00:24:42:11 – 00:24:58:11
Patrick O’Donnell
And I’m like, no, that’s that’s not going to happen. And then probably the final thing with the Army coming in, there’s no way the Army is coming into that. The Army doesn’t the Army doesn’t respond to that. They’re not law enforcement. That’s a totally different thing.

00:24:58:14 – 00:25:13:21
Dan LeFebvre
That’s a really great point. I mean, in the first movie, it’s, I feel like with the second one, it was a lot of the first movie over again and then stepping it up. So like in the first movie, the people coming in were the feds. And then the second movie, it’s like, well, how do we go one step higher?

00:25:13:21 – 00:25:15:20
Dan LeFebvre
It’s the army, right?

00:25:15:22 – 00:25:24:21
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. I’m like, why are yeah, this is making zero sense to me right now. Like, what the hell? Yeah.

00:25:24:23 – 00:25:27:00
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, if you’re going to be fictional, might as well just go. All right.

00:25:27:02 – 00:25:30:19
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. You know what? You’re absolutely right. Absolutely.

00:25:30:21 – 00:25:48:01
Dan LeFebvre
Well, on the third movie, it’s Die Hard with a vengeance. At the beginning of this movie, John McClane is forced to go to Harlem wearing a sandwich board with some very racist phrase that I won’t repeat here, but the movie shows this. That’s it’s the first of a series of things that the bad guy is going to do in the movie.

00:25:48:01 – 00:26:09:22
Dan LeFebvre
It’s Jeremy Irons character, Simon, and he’s forcing McClane to do all of these things. And McClane doesn’t comply with Simon’s demands. Then Simon says he’s going to blow up a bomb in a very public place. Obviously, police officers risk their lives in the line of duty, but how realistic is it for a police officer to comply with the bad guys demands to avoid disaster, like we see John McClane doing in this movie?

00:26:09:25 – 00:26:15:12
Patrick O’Donnell
Almost not. Never. Not very, well, that’s it.

00:26:15:15 – 00:26:18:20
Dan LeFebvre
We don’t know. Go sheet with terrorists is one of the first things that kind of comes to mind.

00:26:18:20 – 00:26:46:03
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, well, and here’s the thing. They never negotiate it. You know, you would get we the police department has negotiators and that’s what would be used. You know, most police departments, y’all were trained in negotiating. And then there are negotiator orders. That’s there. That’s their forte. That’s what they train on and they train us up on that, etc., etc. but in a pinch, I guess, you know, if it was, I didn’t have any other choice.

00:26:46:03 – 00:26:59:22
Patrick O’Donnell
And I knew somebody was going to get blown up. You know, it’s like, yeah, I’ll, I’ll do whatever it takes to do that. And then John McClane was, suspended. He wasn’t even he was on an active duty. Well, you know, remember, that’s true.

00:26:59:24 – 00:27:02:15
Dan LeFebvre
They had to find him like he was all drunk and everything and hung over.

00:27:02:15 – 00:27:03:02
Patrick O’Donnell
And like.

00:27:03:07 – 00:27:04:05
Dan LeFebvre
A headache. Yeah.

00:27:04:07 – 00:27:21:20
Patrick O’Donnell
This is so stupid that they’re just like, okay, if guys. Yeah, in this inspector’s in this van with them before they. They put him out on the street. And, you know, his backup is like ten blocks away. That would not happen. They would have eyes on him. The entire time. They would not. Just like.

00:27:21:20 – 00:27:40:24
Dan LeFebvre
That was really weird. I like I think the movie, you know, the movie tries to explain away why they call McClane, you know, because Simon specifically asked for McClane to find out towards the end of the movie. Why? But, the backup being further away, it’s like that. That seemed really weird, especially in a major city like that.

00:27:40:24 – 00:27:45:09
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, you could be in buildings or there’s so many ways that you can be.

00:27:45:10 – 00:27:57:28
Patrick O’Donnell
There are all kinds of ways we could be close. And, you know, we wouldn’t just throw them to the wolves, you know, knowing that his ass is going to get kicked. You know, it’s like, no, that’s not going to happen.

00:27:58:00 – 00:28:05:12
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. And then hand him a gun to. So, he’s not like he’s going to, you know, get his ass kicked, but, they’re going to take the gun and.

00:28:05:17 – 00:28:05:27
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh, yeah.

00:28:06:01 – 00:28:07:11
Dan LeFebvre
Probably do something worse. Right?

00:28:07:11 – 00:28:27:22
Patrick O’Donnell
I mean, absolutely. Yeah. Know that’s that. I was looking at that and I’m like. And the chief inspector and I don’t think they have chief inspectors in New York, but whatever. And you know, he’s back to being a New York cop again. Yeah. You flip flops around from department to department. Yeah. What the greatest be is New York, you know, just welcomes them back.

00:28:27:22 – 00:28:36:03
Patrick O’Donnell
I was like, oh, we missed you. Come on back down and we’ll make you a detective again without doing anything. You know, it’s like no work. Like that.

00:28:36:05 – 00:28:39:28
Dan LeFebvre
So this will be the third time he’s going through training again, right?

00:28:39:28 – 00:28:55:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Exactly. That’s all. I mean, like, they have, like, this highest ranking person in this, like, surveillance van. That wouldn’t happen. They’d be in their office. We have people for that. You know, that’s that’s what it all boils down to.

00:28:55:16 – 00:29:18:08
Dan LeFebvre
What we find out at the end of Diablo the vengeance that Simon’s plan all along was to make John McClane do all of these things. Basically, it’s a distraction from his real goal robbing billions of dollars worth of gold from the Federal Reserve. And obviously, the movie’s storyline is fictional. But in your experience as a police officer, have you ever had criminals using distractions to try to keep you from noticing the true intentions?

00:29:18:10 – 00:29:39:08
Patrick O’Donnell
Not anything this big, you know, most, you know, yeah. Billions of dollars, right? Yeah, I, I find it humorous that, you know, it’s like you need a new plotline. I mean, come on, you know? Okay, they’re who they’re trying to rob this, you know, whatever. It was like, okay, but it’s been used a few times, but okay, you know, retread that baby.

00:29:39:10 – 00:30:05:17
Patrick O’Donnell
But yeah, of course, the main, bad guy has to have an accent. I don’t know why. Maybe it makes some more villainy or something, but I every other foreigner. Yeah, it has to be something like that. But as far as distractions go. No, I mean, the closest I came was we had, two kids, you know, they’re like 18, 19 years old, detained.

00:30:05:20 – 00:30:29:28
Patrick O’Donnell
It was like some kind of girlfriend calls on the boyfriend, blah, blah, blah, allegations of this. And the other thing. And two of my cops find this guy and his body by a, bus stop maybe about five blocks down. And it’s like we’re just talking to them, and I could tell something is weird. You. I’m like, this kid has ants in his pants.

00:30:30:00 – 00:30:49:24
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, it’s summertime. His eyes are darting all over the place, and he’s just real squirrely. So I’m like, stand up. So I put handcuffs on him and I’m like, you know what? These come off just as easy as, you know. They go on and said, I just don’t trust you right now. And he says, okay. And then, you know, he’d calm down.

00:30:49:26 – 00:31:19:23
Patrick O’Donnell
And my cop is in her squad car running him, you know, for warrants, etc., etc. and he’s like, we’re buy a car dealership visa. Oh man, look at that car over there. So I look like that. And I look back and he’s gone. He’s running like the fastest track star in the Olympics with handcuffs behind his back. And I’m just like, I mean, he’s wearing, like, athletic shorts and a t shirt and, you know, tennis shoes.

00:31:19:25 – 00:31:46:24
Patrick O’Donnell
I’m wearing combat boots and I’ve got about 30 pounds of gear. He’s 18, I’m 53, and I like, oh, yeah. And I weigh 220 without the gear. And this kid maybe weighs a buck 60, and he’s sprinting and I’m like, oh my God, I can’t let this I can’t let this happen. So, you know, the cop tries to chase him with her car, then she runs out of pavement.

00:31:46:24 – 00:32:07:13
Patrick O’Donnell
Then I’m going four wheeling with this guy running after him, and I finally get him. And the only reason I got him was he’s got asthma. And I’m like, oh, thank God for asshole. Yeah. Because he he probably would. I ran me and I’m like, that’d be embarrassing. But he distracted me enough to, you know, and it happened like in half a second.

00:32:07:15 – 00:32:27:18
Patrick O’Donnell
And I felt so stupid. And I’m the boss, you know, I’m just like, But, you know, we scooped him up, got him an ambulance, and he was fine. And it turns out he had a warrant for bank robbery. That’s why he was running. So. Yeah, the feds wanted them. He robbed a bank. So I’m just like, okay, that’s a good pinch.

00:32:27:18 – 00:32:34:19
Patrick O’Donnell
That’s a good arrest. You know? I’ll take it, but I’m just glad I’m just glad I got.

00:32:34:22 – 00:32:39:01
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I guess there’s there’s a little difference between what we see in the movie. And. Look over there.

00:32:39:03 – 00:33:02:18
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it wasn’t anything like, you know, pre-planned or anything and. Yeah, there’s clues, you know, when they start, like if you have somebody that’s like in like stopped on the street or something like that, that their eyes are darting around, they’re looking for an escape. They’re looking for the, the safest, fastest egress away from you.

00:33:02:21 – 00:33:12:08
Patrick O’Donnell
So I should have been smarter. I I’m a big car guy. I’m like, oh, really? I don’t like to like son of a biscuit. But, there he goes.

00:33:12:10 – 00:33:31:03
Dan LeFebvre
Well, we often see these things in action movies, where people are shooting each other, and this diet is no different from that. Obviously, there’s a ton of Hollywood fiction, but in this movie, there seems to be really no hesitation for him to just shoot off any gun and gets a hand on it really stood out to me.

00:33:31:03 – 00:33:50:15
Dan LeFebvre
There was one scene where John McClane just kind of walks up to one of the dump trucks. He knew the bad guys were in it, so he just starts shooting inside without even verifying that they’re actually who he thought was driving the truck. Of course, it’s a movie, and he was right. They were the bad guys. But can you share what it’s like for a police officer to discharge their weapon, compared to what we see happening in the movie?

00:33:50:18 – 00:34:13:09
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, if you’re shooting at a human, there has to be an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to yourself or others. That’s like the statue that the that’s the criminal statute. Because if I shoot and kill somebody, say you have a hostage, you know, you have the gun to the, poor person’s. Yeah. Like had that’s.

00:34:13:09 – 00:34:34:27
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. It was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’re you’re robbing the convenience store, and, you know, I just walk it, you know, kind of thing as a cop, you know? Will I shoot you? Probably depending, you know. But if there’s 2 or 3 innocent people behind, you know, I’m not you. There’s so many things to consider because it’s not just, you know, it’s like.

00:34:34:27 – 00:35:01:27
Patrick O’Donnell
Like I said before, there has to be an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to yourself or others and great bodily harm is some type of harm that is most likely to cause death. So doesn’t that that kind of thing. So you have to be really cognizant of, okay, do I meet the statute statutory requirements? Because if I shoot you one human being, killing another human being is homicide.

00:35:02:00 – 00:35:24:00
Patrick O’Donnell
Now, if it’s, you know, in the line of duty where you’re preventing, i.e. me getting killed, you know, in self-defense or somebody else that’s justifiable homicide, you’re not going to get criminally charged, but it’s still a homicide and that’s how it gets investigated. But you can’t. So you have things to think about is like, okay, is this statutorily okay?

00:35:24:02 – 00:35:51:21
Patrick O’Donnell
Then you think, okay, am I going to hurt somebody doing this or kill somebody else? You know, it’s, you know, that’s why people are like, why can’t you shoot the gun out of the bad guys hand? You know? ET cetera, etc.. In the most people aren’t that good of a shot. You go for, you know, that’s it’s so silly because, you know, it’s hard to that’s a skill and it’s a diminish some some cops are great shots.

00:35:51:21 – 00:36:12:29
Patrick O’Donnell
Some aren’t so great. We have to qualify every year. And I still do. I have a nature to 18. So I have to go through the same course and I can still I’m a good shot, but, nighttime, I’m chasing somebody. My heart rate and blood pressure are way up. There’s so many things to consider. And, you know, again, you have to consider the risk to civilians.

00:36:13:05 – 00:36:29:23
Patrick O’Donnell
And you have to consider the risk of, blue on blue shooting where you accidentally shoot another cop in, like, crossfire. So you have to be aware of a lot of different stuff before you pull that trigger. And what we would always say is like, you can’t put the you can’t put the bullet back in the gun.

00:36:29:25 – 00:36:34:12
Dan LeFebvre
Very different than what we see with John McClane in the movies, that’s for sure.

00:36:34:15 – 00:36:46:11
Patrick O’Donnell
Well, you’re fucking I’m a huge dirty Harry fan, and it’s like, man, that guy would. I don’t know how many guys you would kill in one episode. You’re in one movie. Excuse me? And I’m just like, oh, look out. Just. Yeah.

00:36:46:14 – 00:37:04:17
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, in the movie with John McClane, he’s. He obviously isn’t putting that much thought into anything. It’s, I mean, not anything, but, you know, when he when he’s shooting, you know, he shoots when he feels he wants to shoot, it’s not really. I’m going to, you know, think about who is driving in that scene. You know what?

00:37:04:17 – 00:37:19:10
Dan LeFebvre
The dump truck he’s not even really putting any thought into before. He just pulls out the gun and just shoots into the door and kills the driver. Right. It’s not I’m going to put this guy in handcuffs or whatever. It’s kill first. I ask questions later.

00:37:19:13 – 00:37:40:00
Patrick O’Donnell
It’s true. Yeah. And the couple of things, you know, to finish up with this, die Hard. Yeah. Samuel Jackson is working with the cop. No, they would use him for information, you know, they would interview him, and that would be the end of it. He wouldn’t be riding around with them. Is like his sidekick, the. That’s not going to happen.

00:37:40:02 – 00:37:40:23
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah.

00:37:40:25 – 00:37:47:06
Dan LeFebvre
I think this movie’s excuse for that was Simon forced them to do it right, which was kind of goes back to the whole doing whatever Simon says.

00:37:47:06 – 00:38:04:23
Patrick O’Donnell
That would not happen. No, because, you know, it’s like, okay, now we’re putting his life in jeopardy. Yeah. He’s, you know, he’s an innocent civilian, you know, that’s trying to help out. Yeah. It’s like, absolutely not. No way. You know? And then, you know, Bruce Willis is trying to get the fire department. So he calls him an officer down.

00:38:04:23 – 00:38:26:12
Patrick O’Donnell
That’s not necessary. And it’s really bad taste to tell you the truth. And then the subway cop, there was a, scene when the subway is drawn down. You know, he’s pointing a gun at a kid for hopping a turnstile and using his phone. And I’m like, well, this is just silly. You wouldn’t do that. I mean, unless you you thought he was armed or something like that.

00:38:26:14 – 00:38:49:25
Patrick O’Donnell
And then I don’t know who outfitted these guys, but like the extras that were cops, they’re wearing their police hats, but they don’t have a cap shield at it. That’s the. It’s like a little badge that goes on the hat. The police hat. We call them cap shields. And like, half of them had those. And I’m like you, they they wouldn’t let you walk out of the precinct house unless you were.

00:38:49:27 – 00:38:52:25
Patrick O’Donnell
You had that capsule that you go through an inspection.

00:38:52:25 – 00:39:01:00
Dan LeFebvre
So what is the I mean, is that, for what is the purpose of of that as to why they wouldn’t be allowed to walk out?

00:39:01:00 – 00:39:08:11
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh, because you have to be in full uniform if you don’t have the capsule on your hat. You’re looking for a uniform, you know? Okay, that’s like I wasn’t sure there was.

00:39:08:14 – 00:39:10:09
Dan LeFebvre
You know, a utilitarian purpose of it.

00:39:10:12 – 00:39:15:04
Patrick O’Donnell
Was more, you know, it’s it’s like having the badge on your outermost garment. If you’re in need, I.

00:39:15:04 – 00:39:15:27
Dan LeFebvre
Gotcha. Okay.

00:39:15:29 – 00:39:20:24
Patrick O’Donnell
That’s a that’s a part of the uniform. You have to have the entire uniform.

00:39:20:26 – 00:39:25:02
Dan LeFebvre
Makes sense, because otherwise you could be the bad guy that, gets shot by John McClane.

00:39:25:05 – 00:39:41:05
Patrick O’Donnell
And then there was the scene where there was a bunch of cops, and maybe half of them had their holsters empty. There were holding on guns. They just didn’t give them one. Not even a pretend one. And I’m just like, come on, guys. Yeah, yeah, I guess. Yeah. They ran out of like, you know, rubber.

00:39:41:10 – 00:40:04:05
Dan LeFebvre
We don’t have a big enough budget. McClane is stealing all the guns. So he’s going back to the movie franchise. Where up to Live Free or Die Hard. And that movie, when the FBI Cyber Security division in Washington, DC is hacked, they call in everybody to help track down some of their top suspects. And that brings John McClane into the picture as he’s tasked with picking up, just in character, Matthew Farrell.

00:40:04:07 – 00:40:15:11
Dan LeFebvre
Immediately when McClane shows up to Farrell’s apartment, he shows him his badge and Farrell thinks the badge is fake. Have you ever encountered a situation like that where someone you were there to help, didn’t think you were a real cop?

00:40:15:13 – 00:40:47:12
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, it’s kind of funny. You know, it’s I spent most of my career in uniform, but every now and then I was tasked with undercover assignments or plainclothes assignments. And it’s amazing how the world looks different to you and how people know. It’s like, oh, so this is how it really works. Because when people see a police car in person, you know, in an officer in uniform, you know, they act this specific way when you’re plainclothes, you know, it’s like, okay, I remember it was like 3:00 in the morning.

00:40:47:12 – 00:41:12:15
Patrick O’Donnell
I was on a plainclothes assignment, and I was monitoring the radio, and I heard a stalker, a call for a stalker outside this girl’s apartment window. And I’m like, oh, this could be fun. So I’m going to use I’m going to use C, which is an undercover car. There’s plainclothes. There’s unmarked cars and undercover cars. An undercover car is I mean, I think I was driving like, a Plymouth.

00:41:12:21 – 00:41:47:16
Patrick O’Donnell
What was this? Oh, Chrysler. Cordoba. I mean, it was old. It was just a jalopy. And y’all, we had, like, beans on the rearview mirror. You know, the. There’s no way anybody could tell that’s a cop car. They know that there’s a cop in there where an unmarked car is usually like a Crown Vic. And now they’re going to be like the explorers, and they don’t have decals on the outside or lights on the outside, but they do have lights and a siren, and they’re fully equipped, like a squad car.

00:41:47:19 – 00:41:54:29
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I’ve seen those. They they’re not cop car. They’re not painted a cop cars. But you can still tell, you know, that they’re cop cars.

00:41:55:01 – 00:42:13:00
Patrick O’Donnell
You could tell. Yeah, absolutely. And we’re not trying to be undercover with those. We’re just trying to be not as noticeable with those. And it’s amazing how, you know, right away when you see that light bar and you see the decals on the side, you’re like, oh, shit. You know, I was like, okay, you know, and cops would do that too.

00:42:13:00 – 00:42:28:03
Patrick O’Donnell
I, I can’t tell you how many times I’d be going to a call or something. I see red and blue lights behind me. I’m like, oh, what did I do wrong? There’s that incident. Even though I’m going to the same call, I’m like, oh wait, I am the cops. Okay, yeah, I’m okay now. I know, like, all right, yeah, it does happen.

00:42:28:06 – 00:42:55:15
Patrick O’Donnell
But anyways, so I get out, I’m wearing jeans and a t shirt and I’ve got a necklace badge and, you know, it’s just my badge is on, you know, like a necklace thing, a chain and one side is the badge and the other side is my ID, and I’ve got, I’ve got a gun and handcuffs and my radio, and I’m just walking up and this guy is just, like, leering into this girl’s apartment and on the.

00:42:55:15 – 00:43:15:01
Patrick O’Donnell
Hey, dude, what’s up? He said, oh, not much. I’m like, what you up to, dude? And he’s just like, who are you? And I pointed to the badge and he says, well, that ain’t real. I’m like, oh, okay. So then I pulled up my t shirt and you can see my gun in my, handcuffs. And he said, those do look real.

00:43:15:01 – 00:43:35:09
Patrick O’Donnell
I’m like, yeah, they are this, oh. That was kind of okay. Those are real. Yeah. And then at the same time, you know, like two uniform, coppers start walking up and he’s just like, all right, whatever you got me. You know, he he couldn’t let go of the you can’t stop love, I guess. But he just couldn’t let go.

00:43:35:12 – 00:43:46:10
Dan LeFebvre
I’m trying to remember. I think that’s basically what McLean had in this part, too, was that, you know, on the necklace, his badge to to show, very similar situation. It sounds like all the different purpose to be there, of course.

00:43:46:13 – 00:44:04:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Right, right. Yeah. If you know you’re going to be arresting people, you almost all if you’re plainclothes, you almost always have a uniform with you just in case something bells go south. You know, some defense attorneys like, hey, my client just thought it was just some random dude with a gun and a fake badge, you know, blah, blah, blah.

00:44:04:16 – 00:44:11:08
Patrick O’Donnell
So it’s always nice if it’s if you can, to have some guys in uniform.

00:44:11:11 – 00:44:28:15
Dan LeFebvre
That makes that makes a lot of sense. You mentioned earlier with the FBI. And so when we saw that, you know, in the first movie with some federal law enforcement, when this one too, we also see John McClane being called in to help federal law enforcement, is that a common thing for local law enforcement to be called to assist federal agents.

00:44:28:17 – 00:44:53:18
Patrick O’Donnell
All the time? You know, there the ratio of city cops or county cops compared to feds is, yeah, there’s probably like 100 to 1. There isn’t a lot of feds there. Just just numbers. You know, there aren’t many of them. If they are going to arrest somebody, usually they call us and they don’t do a lot of arresting, to tell you the truth.

00:44:53:21 – 00:45:21:00
Patrick O’Donnell
I remember one time I got a call from the dispatcher and she’s like, could you meet the Secret Service and bring a couple of your guys with you at blah blah, blah location? I’m like, oh, wow, this could be cool. So I’m like, yeah, sounds fun. So it’s like 8:00 at night. I meet this guy and he’s just wearing jeans and a t shirt, and he’s got a lot cooler gun than I do, a lot more expensive gun.

00:45:21:02 – 00:45:39:14
Patrick O’Donnell
And he’s got a little back then the next tall, cell phone that, like, shirked. He had a really. He had one of those and he had a BlackBerry. I’m showing my age, and he had a lot nicer equipment than we did. And he says there’s some counterfeiters in this apartment. I’m just. I’m just going to knock on the door.

00:45:39:17 – 00:45:56:18
Patrick O’Donnell
I have a warrant. He said it’s not high risks. They’re not supposed to be armed, but you never know, he said. I just want some uniforms. And I’m like, I totally get it. So we go in there, knocks on the door, Secret Service. And it’s like, no. First he had me do it. Know I’m like, yeah, Milwaukee police.

00:45:56:18 – 00:46:23:04
Patrick O’Donnell
And they open the door for the police. And sure enough, there this is an apartment. They had a computer and a printer and there were literally printing money. It was so bad. It was like. So just like a regular printer. Yeah. And they’re they’re printing money. And I’m just like, wow. Like this. You’re not even trying, man. This this is almost like monopoly money.

00:46:23:07 – 00:46:25:18
Dan LeFebvre
And they didn’t print it off I guess.

00:46:25:18 – 00:46:42:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. And they’re doing it in front of a Secret Service agent. I’m just like, oh, this is awesome. I absolutely love it. Yeah, it was very anticlimactic. I thought it was something really cool. And I’m just like, this is kind of boring. Really. And he said, yeah, it is. He said, you mind coughing them up and taking them downtown?

00:46:42:14 – 00:47:10:00
Patrick O’Donnell
He said, I’ll take it from there. And I’m like, yeah, no problem. So yeah, we know we do help, you know, FBI, Ice, ATF. Yeah. And DEA, they kind of keep to themselves. They do help us. Let’s see. So FBI. Yeah. The FBI is an interesting relationship. You know, we have or at least when I was still there.

00:47:10:00 – 00:47:34:29
Patrick O’Donnell
I’m sure they do. We had a human trafficking, like, task force, and we had 1 or 2 FBI agents assigned to that, and they were with our detectives and police officers from our Sensitive Crimes Division, and they were there more or less, because, again, Washington has a lot more money than we do. They had a lot more resources and they would help us out with stuff.

00:47:35:02 – 00:48:02:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. See, that was one example that bank robberies people think that the FBI responds to like every bank robbery. No they don’t, they don’t. And if you do get an agent, usually it’s like an hour after the fact and they’re taking down like notes about, okay, they’re interested to see, okay, is this like a robbery crew, you know, are they going from city to city or crossing state lines, you know, that kind of thing.

00:48:02:16 – 00:48:17:08
Patrick O’Donnell
So that’s that’s why the FBI is going to be there. Or if it’s a bank robbery and they start popping rounds off and somebody gets shot or God forbid, killed, then the FBI is going to respond. But it’s still our baby. It’s we’re still taking care of the investigation.

00:48:17:11 – 00:48:35:28
Dan LeFebvre
It sounds like, and a in a different situation, but as similar to what you talked about before where like, even when you were undercover, you wanted to have some uniformed cops there for the arrest itself. It sounds like it’s a similar sort of thing with except just, you know, federal agents and then you’re the uniform cop that’s there to, to help.

00:48:36:00 – 00:48:38:15
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

00:48:38:18 – 00:48:57:15
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if there is one scene from Live Free or Die Hard that really stands out to me. It’s that scene where John McClane takes his car and he drives it into the helicopter. Obviously a Hollywood stunt, right? But that scene, as they end the sequence where we see McClane doing some pretty masterful driving, and as moviegoers, we just assume he’s capable of doing this because of his training as a police officer.

00:48:57:18 – 00:49:01:09
Dan LeFebvre
And I’m sure your training did not have anything to do with driving cars into helicopters.

00:49:01:15 – 00:49:05:21
Patrick O’Donnell
But here, a little bit after intervention? No, there was none of that going on.

00:49:05:21 – 00:49:10:27
Dan LeFebvre
But what was, what kind of driving training do real police officers get?

00:49:10:29 – 00:49:48:00
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, when you’re in the academy, you go through what’s called evac emergency vehicle operations course, and you’re trained how to, you know, do high speed pursuits, how to do them safely, you know, and they actually took us out to a racetrack here in Milwaukee. And that was a lot of fun. We had mock chases where you would you’re in a squad car and you would chase the instructor and you’d, you’re, you know, you’re chasing, you’re talking on the radio at the same time, you know, and it’s not just like, I don’t know, like a free for all.

00:49:48:00 – 00:50:13:17
Patrick O’Donnell
There’s rules when it comes to chasing cars, you know, it’s like, okay, when you’re when you’re pursuing somebody, if you’re the squad, you have to go, okay, you give your squad name, you have to give your location. You know, it’s like, okay, squad five, I’m northbound on university Drive, the 5400 block, you know, pursuing a, red Toyota Corolla with blah, blah, blah license plate.

00:50:13:19 – 00:50:35:06
Patrick O’Donnell
And the reason, okay, he’s wanted for homicide, all right, as a boss would try was I would let that go a lot further than. Yeah, I’m pursuing him because he blew a stop sign. All right, risk reward. And it’s like, am I going to risk this cop’s life or other civilians, you know, this high speed pursuit for something?

00:50:35:08 – 00:50:56:19
Patrick O’Donnell
Not that, you know, big of a deal, but sometimes not in a lot of time. What I thought wasn’t a big deal all of a sudden, you know, there’s a lot of guns in the car, or they’re wanted for something pretty heinous. You don’t know what you’re chasing. So we get all trained up, you know, they’re behind the science and they will hammer, you know, the rules.

00:50:56:19 – 00:51:40:05
Patrick O’Donnell
You know the department every department has their own rules, and they’re a state statute. You have to you have to drive with due regard. You can’t just go out there, you know, and think you’re, you know, a NASCAR driver or anything like that, or drive and helicopters or whatever. But, you know, when I was new and for quite a chunk of my career, there were no cameras in the squads or body cameras, so it wasn’t critiqued like it was once those things, you know, got up, you know, it’s like I remember being going down city streets at over 100 miles an hour, where if you make one little mistake, you’re dead and you, who’s

00:51:40:05 – 00:51:54:11
Patrick O’Donnell
learn by it was on the job training. Let’s just say that you and some were really good at it, and some cops were really bad at it and shouldn’t be driving cars, I think. But hey, that’s how you get trained up.

00:51:54:13 – 00:52:06:27
Dan LeFebvre
Well, maybe, like you were talking about before, you know, with McClane going from New York and then to LA, back to New York, like he would have to go through the Academy multiple times. He’s just gone through so many times that now he knows how to drive into helicopters.

00:52:06:27 – 00:52:14:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Right? Yeah, it’s very true. Yeah. I guess maybe I was absent that day in the academy when we had to work after intervention training.

00:52:14:14 – 00:52:16:00
Dan LeFebvre
But that day.

00:52:16:02 – 00:52:24:06
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes, I, I must have missed it. Yeah. I didn’t go to that in-service. Whatever. My bad, my bad.

00:52:24:09 – 00:52:45:21
Dan LeFebvre
Well, the last film in the franchise is A Good Day to Die Hard. This time, the franchise pushes the stakes even higher as it brings John McClane into international affairs. The plotline in this movie revolves around his son Jack, who’s in trouble in Russia. But then it turns out Jack is a CIA operative. And so together we see this father son team trying to stop a nuclear weapons heist from this fictional storyline.

00:52:45:21 – 00:52:57:15
Dan LeFebvre
We kind of get the concept of there’s a parent and child who are both in law enforcement working together. How realistic is it for multiple generations and different branches of law enforcement to work together, like we see happening in the movie?

00:52:57:18 – 00:53:23:09
Patrick O’Donnell
There are legacy cops more, you know, like my first partner on the job, her dad was a cop in Milwaukee for years, but they never worked together. Like, especially on a case that’s almost unheard of maybe in small towns or something. That might be the case, but for the most part, no. And most places don’t have hard and fast rules.

00:53:23:09 – 00:53:51:05
Patrick O’Donnell
But I wouldn’t want to be in the same, district or on the same assignment as my kid because I would be overprotective. I would yeah, I, I wouldn’t be thinking of him as a cop. I would I’d be thinking of him, you know? And it’s only natural. I’m a dad, you know, it’s like that instinct is going to kick in first, and you may not do your job efficiently and effectively if you’re thinking like that.

00:53:51:09 – 00:54:01:09
Patrick O’Donnell
But yeah, there’s a ton of legacy cops. Yeah. It’s not unusual. It’s like, oh, you see the nameplate? And I’m like, hey, I know your dad. You know, that kind of thing. It’s like this kind of cool.

00:54:01:11 – 00:54:17:26
Dan LeFebvre
That makes a lot of sense. And I didn’t really think about it this way, but, I’m not sure. Like the Sullivan brothers is, is something that comes up in the military. But, you know, when when that ship sank and just like in World War two, all five brothers were lost. And so I could see it almost being a similar sort of concept, they wanted to separate.

00:54:17:26 – 00:54:40:18
Dan LeFebvre
Then from there on out, the military started separating siblings. I could see it almost being a similar thing to like if you’re there was with your kid. Not only are you not doing your job as well, which means that your life could be an even more danger. Not only your life then, but also your your child’s life. And it just makes everything that much worse, not only for who you’re trying to help, but yourselves as well.

00:54:40:21 – 00:54:48:22
Patrick O’Donnell
Right? Yeah. And your kid might be acting a little differently than they normally would if you’re there. I mean, it’s just human nature.

00:54:48:25 – 00:54:50:13
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it goes both ways, for sure.

00:54:50:15 – 00:54:51:17
Patrick O’Donnell
Absolutely.

00:54:51:19 – 00:55:11:14
Dan LeFebvre
Well, since the last movie takes place in Russia, we end up with a similar plot point that we saw in the first movie, except in the first, Die Hard. It was New York Cop going to LA when he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This time the wrong place is Russia. So I asked about police officers in different jurisdictions earlier, but now I need to ask about an international jurisdiction.

00:55:11:14 – 00:55:20:24
Dan LeFebvre
So as a police officer, if you’re traveling to another country like John McClane doing in the movie, what would really happen if you found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time outside of the US?

00:55:20:27 – 00:55:47:21
Patrick O’Donnell
Why? You are truly a fish out of water. You are just John Hughes citizen. You. You have no special powers. There’s no police friendship. There’s no, you know, whatever. You’re just another dude, you know, or another chick. That’s you. You got a whole lot of nothing. And if you’re in Russia, who isn’t exactly our ally, you know, and I’ve heard stories about Russian prisons.

00:55:47:21 – 00:56:10:12
Patrick O’Donnell
I know, like in China, the Chinese police can arrest you and not charge you for up to a year. So you could be rotting in a jail for a year without even getting charged with a crime. And, you know, just there’s no such thing as due process in Russia. You know, the lines between the military and the police in Russia are very, very blurred.

00:56:10:15 – 00:56:21:06
Patrick O’Donnell
It’s it’s, I would not want to be on the business end of an AK 47 with some Russian police officer. Hell, no. I you know, it has all the. You’re.

00:56:21:09 – 00:56:26:19
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, I wouldn’t want to be in the business end of anywhere, anywhere, whoever is holding it, but. Yes, definitely. Yeah.

00:56:26:21 – 00:56:49:25
Patrick O’Donnell
Right. Exactly. But yeah, I just think of gulag, you know, or, you know, something like that. And I’m like, no, thank you. You know, that’s something it’s it should be an international incident. You know, hopefully our embassy would get involved in this even if hopefully they would know, you know, this happened in the you know, the government can help you, that kind of thing.

00:56:49:25 – 00:57:02:24
Patrick O’Donnell
But you know, with all the stuff blowing up and people getting killed and all that, it’s hard to like cover that up. It’s like, okay, the police are going to be coming to this. And I never saw them.

00:57:02:27 – 00:57:12:14
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, that’s true. I was trying to think, if they ever showed up and I don’t. Yeah. Now. No, I mean, I guess that would be an extractor. Yes. MPP so maybe that was.

00:57:12:17 – 00:57:30:04
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, I think I saw a couple of Russian like, squad cars. Maybe they had like the little blue light on top. But other than that, I never saw like cops coming out and like, trying to do cop stuff. They were pretty much they had the run of the whole area there to do all their blowing up and shooting and all that cool stuff.

00:57:30:07 – 00:57:51:19
Dan LeFebvre
It’s almost a complete inverse of the first movie, where there were a lot of cops, and then just the feds came at the very end, but then at the end and movie, it’s like, you know, CIA and. Well, and then John McClane, and, you know, and then all these other, you know, high military or, you know, secret things and then, you know, oh, there’s some kind of cops in the background.

00:57:51:26 – 00:57:57:24
Patrick O’Donnell
Maybe you’re exac, you know, I you’re right. I didn’t think of that. Yeah. It’s like the polar opposite really.

00:57:57:27 – 00:58:10:06
Dan LeFebvre
Since you do offer your services to help screenwriters be more authentic with their stories, if they had hired you for the diehard franchise, what’s one of the primary things that you think needs to change to help the storyline be a little more accurate?

00:58:10:08 – 00:58:30:28
Patrick O’Donnell
Well, you know, I looked at that question. I’m like, it’s so far fetched. I think I would have took an A pass. I, I’m like, how can I, I can’t fix this. It’s so far off the rails that it’s I mean, we talked about, you know, just there’s so much stuff even with like my favorite was the first to die Hard.

00:58:30:28 – 00:58:51:20
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, yeah. He he’s got a gun on a plane. You know how it is. Even back then, even if we’re transporting prisoners, you still have to make all these notifications. And the captain of the airplane can say no, even if you get all these clearances and everything’s hunky dory, you know, you load, you know, you get, you get seated before anybody else in your own.

00:58:51:20 – 00:59:10:25
Patrick O’Donnell
You’re the last one to leave. Obviously, if you have a prisoner and if you’re just armed every 99.9% of the time, you know it has to be stowed in your luggage and there’s all kinds of hoops you have to jump around to have a gun in your luggage, and it’s not gonna be your carry on. It’s going to be in the belly of the plane.

00:59:10:27 – 00:59:29:06
Patrick O’Donnell
And it’s kind of a big deal. I mean, it’s to me, I think it’s a pain in the butt. I don’t even I could, but I don’t I don’t deal with it. It’s just like it’s one more pain in the button. What if my luggage gets lost? I don’t want my gun. Get lost. You know, it’s. No, thanks.

00:59:29:08 – 00:59:31:13
Dan LeFebvre
And think about that. That never happens in the movie.

00:59:31:15 – 00:59:40:08
Patrick O’Donnell
No. Hey. Yeah. Oh, shoot. They lost my luggage. Hey, like I said, I was a baggage handler. This stuff does happen. That’s real.

00:59:40:10 – 00:59:49:13
Dan LeFebvre
Diehard, too. Is just John McClane at the little kiosk waiting for his luggage. That’s. The entire movie’s just waiting.

00:59:49:15 – 00:59:51:15
Patrick O’Donnell
But be funny. I like that.

00:59:51:18 – 01:00:06:09
Dan LeFebvre
There are a lot of people I think are inspired by movies. And, you know, for example, I’ve heard stories of, like, Indiana Jones inspiring people to become archeologists. In your experience, have you ever seen a police officer like John McClane inspire people to become police officers in the real world?

01:00:06:11 – 01:00:10:04
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes. And I would not want to work with them or go on a plane with them.

01:00:10:06 – 01:00:14:06
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, because they want to be John McClane shooting. Yeah, that’s true for sure.

01:00:14:08 – 01:00:35:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Exactly. Yeah. We had some cowboys I worked with, but even the cowboys or cowgirls would have to play by the rules, or they get fired and criminally charged. I mean, there’s only so far you could push the boundaries and. Yeah, I mean, police work in a nutshell, a lot of it’s really boring. Until it is.

01:00:35:16 – 01:00:39:20
Dan LeFebvre
I wouldn’t want John McClane to be in my my district. Yeah.

01:00:39:22 – 01:00:44:18
Patrick O’Donnell
Is absolutely. Well.

01:00:44:21 – 01:01:02:17
Dan LeFebvre
One of the common movie tropes that we see happening in Die Hard in a lot of movies, too, is when the bad guy tells they’re playing just as they’re about to kill the good guy. And this one, for example, in the first movie, Hans tells John McClane the reason he started the fire in Nakatomi Towers, because they’ll keep looking for him unless they think he’s dead.

01:01:02:20 – 01:01:16:11
Dan LeFebvre
I’m guessing that whole idea of the bad guy revealing their plan is something that’s made up for the movies. But then again, sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Have you ever heard of the bad guys revealing their plan like we see happening time and time again in the movies now?

01:01:16:11 – 01:01:39:07
Patrick O’Donnell
Most criminals I was were really stupid and it was either. And most of this, the criminality that I dealt with was kind of spur of the moment. It wasn’t like a plan hit. It was in the air, like most of the homicides I went to was they started as a fight and they escalated. I mean, yeah, there were like revenge or jealousy.

01:01:39:07 – 01:02:00:22
Patrick O’Donnell
I’ll follow the money, follow the sex. Well, you know, whatever. But for the most part it was like, hey, we’re playing cards. You’re cheating. It gets into a fight, I’m losing. I’m going to grab that knife out of that butcher block, and I’m going to stab you, you know, that kind of thing. Whereas, yeah, I never met a criminal mastermind of any kind.

01:02:00:24 – 01:02:08:14
Patrick O’Donnell
I read that just. Yeah, yeah, there ain’t a whole lot of those running around, thank goodness.

01:02:08:16 – 01:02:11:12
Dan LeFebvre
And John McClane just happens to run into all of them. You know? Right.

01:02:11:18 – 01:02:17:18
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. Darn the luck. And they all have accents and they’re all really scary.

01:02:17:21 – 01:02:35:25
Dan LeFebvre
Well, from the first Die Hard movie is in 1988, and then the last one is in 2013. There’s like a 25 year span and something that we see John McClane seemingly struggling with in those 25 years is technology that, for example, in Die Hard two, McClane asks his wife how she’s calling him, and she’s like, it’s the 90s now.

01:02:35:25 – 01:02:59:28
Dan LeFebvre
So they have phones on the airplane. And 2007 Live Free or Die Hard is all about hackers, and the movie makes it seem like McClane just doesn’t get along with the new technology. And I know your career as a police officer was also 25 years different years from 95 to 2020. Correct me if I’m wrong on that, but, although it’s not the same years as the Die Hard franchise, it’s still 25 years of changing technology.

01:03:00:01 – 01:03:12:13
Dan LeFebvre
Can you share how cops have used or maybe as individual officers have struggled with technology, like we see McClane seeming to do over the course of the movies, and then your own 25 year career?

01:03:12:16 – 01:03:39:18
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes. When I started in 95, we handwrote all of our reports. The only computer in the whole district station was to run people, you know, in their license plates. And there was only one of those, and there was a couple of typewriters. And you handwrote your reports, you use carbon paper, you used white out, green out, pink out, depending on what the report was.

01:03:39:20 – 01:03:57:15
Patrick O’Donnell
So, you know, it was pretty medieval. And I remember I got like out there and I’m like, where the computers. And some day guy was like, what are you talking about, kid? We don’t need those damn computers. And I’m just like, there was two dictionaries in the assembly that most of the pages were, like, missing out of them and stuff.

01:03:57:15 – 01:04:18:09
Patrick O’Donnell
And I’m just like, oh, God, in my handwriting is terrible. So I’m like, oh, this is no bueno. But, you know, I started out with that and the squad cars had no computers, no cameras. There was no body cameras back then. We didn’t have tasers. You know, people didn’t use a Taser like we’re poor. Big cities don’t have big budgets.

01:04:18:11 – 01:04:51:00
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, we we don’t have the money, you know, so, you know, so we handwrote reports and like I said, there was no squad computers. And slowly that stuff, you know, started coming into fruition. And when we started getting all the computers, etc., I became a sergeant, I was boss. Now the cop on the streets relies on that computer quite a bit, and they have cameras in their squads that automatically turn on when you activate the lights and the siren, you know?

01:04:51:02 – 01:05:11:03
Patrick O’Donnell
And same thing with the body camera. Body cameras came about three years before I retired as a sergeant. I didn’t have to wear one. They didn’t require bosses to wear, so it was something new, etc. I mean, I had a computer in my squad and most of the time I was a beverage holder, you know, or an arborist.

01:05:11:03 – 01:05:28:16
Patrick O’Donnell
That’s the I’d have my arm up either on the computer, like if I was sitting around, you know, smoking a cigar or whatever, like art. I wonder if my cigar fits on that. All right, that’ll work. But but, you know, for the most part, no. And you know, the younger sergeants would make fun of me all the time.

01:05:28:21 – 01:05:55:08
Patrick O’Donnell
Like, you didn’t even turn that thing I did. It did do. I’m like, oh, sure. Didn’t like, I don’t need it. It makes you I mean, they’re they’re great tools, but they also make the cops lazy because you develop an ear for the radio. See, you’re in a district and it’s day shift that might be like 25, 30 cops somewhere in that ballpark.

01:05:55:10 – 01:06:25:27
Patrick O’Donnell
And you keep an ear out for the radio, whereas it’s like, okay, Dan just got sent to a battery, domestic violence actor still on the scene. They send you and your partner now I’m going to keep that in the back of my head because I was like, well, those can turn south pretty quick sometimes. And it sounds like, you know, and the dispatcher says, and there’s sounds of people fighting in the background, okay, initially they’re going to send two squads.

01:06:25:29 – 01:06:47:27
Patrick O’Donnell
I’m going to keep that in the back of my head. Then they’re going to send me to something else. Okay. Even though they sent me to something else, I’m going to keep in the back of my head where you are in case something bad happens. So you develop, in the ears for the radio. And the newer cops don’t have that as well because they’re constantly checking their screen like, we’re okay.

01:06:47:27 – 01:07:05:04
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, Dan is that blah blah, blah. You know, that fraction of a second or 2 or 3 seconds can be a big deal. So I, I was never a huge fan of them. Every now and then I’d power it up if I had to, but for the most part, I just ignored it.

01:07:05:06 – 01:07:24:17
Dan LeFebvre
Were you then being asked to do more and more, just assuming that you could rely on the technology to do some of that for you? I think of, you know, even today, just, you know, a lot of people are doing a lot more things are being asked to do a lot more things in their job because they’re like, oh, well, you can just kind of allow the technology to remember that for you.

01:07:24:19 – 01:07:35:12
Dan LeFebvre
But you’re saying, you know, remembering it in your head, which there’s definitely a benefit to that. But then also I’m wondering if are you being asked to do so much more? Then it becomes hard to remember things.

01:07:35:14 – 01:07:58:21
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, you know that that’s part of it. And, you know, when we did get squad computers, they didn’t have GPS. Now I do believe they have GPS, but I knew the neighborhood that I worked in like the back of my hand. And if I heard, you know, 1234 North Astro Street, I could vision I could visualize it or I’d have a pretty good idea of where it was.

01:07:58:24 – 01:08:21:06
Patrick O’Donnell
The newer kids, they’re not kids or adults, you know, they’re relying on GPS. It kind of makes you dumb, you know? It’s like, you know, they’re they’re looking at a computer screen, whatever. And then another thing, you know, they’re expecting more. It’s like, okay, well, you don’t have to go to the district station to do your reports. You have a squad computer, you can do them on your computer in the car.

01:08:21:09 – 01:08:37:25
Patrick O’Donnell
And it’s like, okay, because I want the cops on the street for visibility sake, too. You know, more cops out there instead of sitting in a district station. But the problem with that is, hey, it’s not safe at all, because where’s your face? Where’s your eyes start?

01:08:37:27 – 01:08:41:03
Dan LeFebvre
Because you’re not looking at. Yeah. You’re not focused on a computer screen.

01:08:41:03 – 01:09:03:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Yep. Absolutely. So I don’t think it’s very safe and it’s really awkward. If you ever try to type with your arms up like this, it’s nothing is. You know, they have all this equipment crammed in this little area and it’s just incredibly uncomfortable. And. Yeah, and nobody wants to sit in the same car for eight hours or 10 hours or 12 hours.

01:09:03:17 – 01:09:08:00
Patrick O’Donnell
You got to get out and stretch your legs. It’s nice to have a change of scenery every now on that.

01:09:08:03 – 01:09:27:03
Dan LeFebvre
I hadn’t thought about that of, you know, if you’re focused on your computer so much that, yeah, I mean, you don’t know what’s going on around you and you’re you always have to have situational. I think even being a citizen, you know, it’s good to have situational awareness, know what’s going on around you. Yeah. Especially when you’re in a car because you don’t know what other people are doing.

01:09:27:03 – 01:09:31:08
Dan LeFebvre
You might be parked, but there might be a crazy, reckless driver out there too. Who knows?

01:09:31:15 – 01:09:56:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You know, we call it head on a swivel where, you know, it’s like you’re constantly scanning for threats and you don’t have to be a cop for that. You know, I’ve dealt with a lot of victims of crimes, obviously, and a lot of them had zero situational awareness. I never saw them coming. Yeah, because your face was buried in your phone or you EarPods, you know, AirPods in, and you you didn’t hear them.

01:09:56:14 – 01:10:18:11
Patrick O’Donnell
You didn’t see them. You you’re in your own little world. You know, people are like, I get a kick out and people are literally walking into each other now because their faces are buried and it’s like, let alone some like, scary dude that’s going to rob you or do something worse. Do you? You you have no idea. And the same thing with cars, you know, like safety tips for cars.

01:10:18:13 – 01:10:41:11
Patrick O’Donnell
I exaggerate how much space I leave between me and the car in front of me. If I’m rolling up to a red light, I’m thinking of escape plans, you know, because I’ve been to so many carjackings and a lot of them happened up at red lights. You know, it’s like, okay, before you know it, you have some guy who’s shoving a gun in your face and, you know, trying to drag you out of your car.

01:10:41:13 – 01:11:02:04
Patrick O’Donnell
Well, first off, it is like, okay, see that sidewalk? I’m going up on the sidewalk. Yeah, I’m going to drive through somebody’s lawn to get out. But if I’m if I don’t leave any space in front of me, then I have nowhere to go. I’m trapped. I hate that feeling of being trapped. I always yeah, I always try to have some kind of escape route.

01:11:02:06 – 01:11:04:09
Dan LeFebvre
Probably not going through the helicopter like John McClane.

01:11:04:15 – 01:11:09:15
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, yeah, that’d be. That is frowned upon. Yeah.

01:11:09:16 – 01:11:11:00
Dan LeFebvre
Not a viable escape.

01:11:11:03 – 01:11:12:03
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes.

01:11:12:06 – 01:11:22:06
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask for your take on the one question that everyone always debates when it comes to this franchise in your mind, is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

01:11:22:08 – 01:11:38:17
Patrick O’Donnell
Hell, yes. It’s it’s the best Christmas movie. I love Die Hard as a Christmas movie. I play Die Hard every Christmas. And my kids, you know, they’re adults now and they, you know, they’ve got kids are like, you’re going to like, die. And I’m like, oh, hell yeah. I got to play that and it’s Christmas for God’s things.

01:11:38:20 – 01:11:44:12
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, we’re in agreement on that. Yes, I watch it every Christmas as well. Not the entire franchise, but at least one.

01:11:44:14 – 01:11:45:25
Patrick O’Donnell
No. Yeah, the first one for sure.

01:11:45:26 – 01:12:14:17
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat about the accuracy of a police officer like John McClane on screen. Before I let you go, I have a two part question for you because not only do you have a fantastic podcast called Cops and Writers, where you help authors and screenwriters write more accurate stories, you’ve also written multiple books yourself, including a brand new book called The Good Collar, and I’ll make sure to add a link to in the show notes for everyone to order right now, before I let you go, can you share a little bit more about your inspiration behind starting cops and writers, and maybe give my audience a sneak peek

01:12:14:17 – 01:12:15:17
Dan LeFebvre
into your new book?

01:12:15:19 – 01:12:22:11
Patrick O’Donnell
Sure. The podcast. I started the podcast almost four years ago, as of yesterday, has been four years.

01:12:22:14 – 01:12:23:22
Dan LeFebvre
And I congrats.

01:12:23:24 – 01:12:38:24
Patrick O’Donnell
Thank you. And as you know, it’s a lot of work sometimes for not a whole lot of reward. But you know, you get to meet cool people. I think that’s the best part of it. Some interesting people that you never would have if you didn’t have the podcast.

01:12:38:27 – 01:12:45:12
Dan LeFebvre
And exactly. We wouldn’t have a chance to talk about John McClane driving through helicopters. I keep going back to that one, but why wouldn’t?

01:12:45:13 – 01:13:16:22
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, I mean, yeah, the first. So I started the podcast to promote two books that I just wrote called Cops and Writers and those books were for writers to get their police facts straight, more or less. And I started a Facebook group and I started the podcast to promote my books. Well, before I know it, the Facebook group has 7500 people in it from all over the world, and the podcast grew legs and just took off.

01:13:16:24 – 01:13:29:02
Patrick O’Donnell
And I’m like, I didn’t. And I didn’t at first really mean to do that. You know, all of a sudden it’s like, oh, wow, look at that. People are listening, you know? I mean, you know what it’s like sometimes you think you’re just talking to a microphone and nobody’s listening.

01:13:29:04 – 01:13:36:09
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, for sure. It can be hard sometimes just talking to it, like like you’re talking about, you know, typing on the screen. You just talking to a screen, right? Yeah.

01:13:36:11 – 01:13:56:24
Patrick O’Donnell
Exactly. So you know, and then the as far as, you know, the podcast and everything else, I started out writing other books that had nothing to do with police work and I was going to writers conferences, and I bumped into people and made friendships with people that knew a lot more about this than I do. And they’re like, you should really write a book.

01:13:56:27 – 01:14:18:18
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, helping out, writers, you know, authors and screenwriters. And I’m like, okay, that sounds that sounds like a good idea. And when you go to these conferences, inevitably people are going to be like, oh, you’re that cop guy. And I’m like, I’m not advertising it. I don’t have a t shirt on saying I’m a cop guy or whatever, but and they’re always very respectful.

01:14:18:21 – 01:14:41:11
Patrick O’Donnell
They’re very nice. They’re like, hey, would you need a warrant for this? You know, would my character, would he really do this? Yeah, yeah, she’s a detective. And one would have, you know, blah, blah blah. And I’m like, yeah, I’d be more than happy to help you. So that’s kind of spawned another industry for me where I’ve. Yeah, I’ve, I’ve helped, you know, screenwriters, I’ve helped authors.

01:14:41:11 – 01:15:15:12
Patrick O’Donnell
So it’s been a lot of fun that way. And as far as my newest book, the, The Good Collar, it’s just imagine Dexter, Deathwish and John Wick got together and had a baby. That’s what I love. I love Dexter, I always liked Dexter, and I thought to myself, well, could you think of Dexter? But instead of being the serology, the blood spatter guy, you’d be the police chaplain.

01:15:15:14 – 01:15:43:17
Patrick O’Donnell
That everybody trusts, everybody loves. But he’s got that vigilante thing in them where, you know. Okay, Dan, just, you know, murdered a bunch of orphans. Yeah, and burned the school bus or whatever he did, and he got away on a technicality, and it’s like. So he writes the wrongs and actually the good car, we can circle back to Bruce Willis because he did a remake of Charles Bronson’s Death Wish.

01:15:43:19 – 01:15:45:00
Dan LeFebvre
That’s true. He did, didn’t he? Yeah.

01:15:45:01 – 01:16:01:02
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes. That was you. He played a Chicago E.R. doc and his wife and daughter. I think the wife got killed and the daughter was, like, brutalized in their own home. And he gets a gun and he turns into this, like, Doctor vigilante.

01:16:01:05 – 01:16:06:22
Dan LeFebvre
Well, that sounds like we have a lot of, potential future episodes to talk about, for sure.

01:16:06:25 – 01:16:10:01
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

01:16:10:04 – 01:16:12:12
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you again so much for your time, Patrick.

01:16:12:15 – 01:16:20:01
Patrick O’Donnell
Thank you. Dan.

00:02:26:21 – 00:02:42:11
Dan LeFebvre
Our chat today will be a little different than a usual episode of based on a true story, because we’re not looking at a single movie and we’re not even really looking at a real person from history. But what we are looking at is a very real job, how it’s portrayed onscreen by one of the most popular police officers in the movies.

00:02:42:13 – 00:02:52:16
Dan LeFebvre
So if you were to give the Die Hard franchise a letter, grade for how accurately John McClane shows us what a real police officer’s job is like, I wouldn’t get.

00:02:52:18 – 00:02:59:09
Patrick O’Donnell
I would go D plus to C minus. I think that would be my grade for for John. Yeah, honestly.

00:02:59:09 – 00:03:01:19
Dan LeFebvre
It’s a little higher than I was expecting.

00:03:01:22 – 00:03:03:17
Dan LeFebvre

00:03:03:19 – 00:03:16:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. I’m trying to be very charitable here. It’s. And I like Bruce Willis. I, I love the first Die Hard movie. The rest of them. Yeah, but, hey, that’s Hollywood right there.

00:03:16:16 – 00:03:24:03
Dan LeFebvre
That’s how it goes. And, you know, I guess as with many franchises, it it starts off and then it just kind of starts.

00:03:24:05 – 00:03:44:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. And I was thinking about that this morning, you know, it’s like one, one that pops into my head that was almost a little bit better was Terminator two. I thought I loved the first Terminator, but T2, you know, the way John Cameron filmed that and you know, the stunts and man, it was so over the top for that time period.

00:03:44:16 – 00:03:57:23
Dan LeFebvre
I think that’s one of those things that, it movies like that will stand out more because so many sequels in the franchises just do drop down that when you have one where actually this is better, it stands out that much more.

00:03:57:26 – 00:04:17:11
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes, exactly. Yeah. It’s like now I was thinking about Rocky and I was I loved the Rocky series and the first one, of course, was amazing. Second one was like, yeah, third one, I love Mr. T, so I mean, for comedic value. It was awesome. Yeah. I was like, what do you predict for yo the fight yo clubber.

00:04:17:11 – 00:04:27:00
Patrick O’Donnell
He’s like pain. I predict in the end I was like, oh, I wanted to follow the ground. I was laughing so hard. I’m like, I love this stuff.

00:04:27:02 – 00:04:28:25
Dan LeFebvre
It makes for great entertainment, that’s for sure.

00:04:29:01 – 00:04:30:06
Patrick O’Donnell
It does.

00:04:30:09 – 00:04:54:19
Dan LeFebvre
If we go back to the franchise of Die Hard, John McClane in the first movie is a cop from New York City visiting his estranged wife in Los Angeles. And of course, he happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time when all hell breaks loose. Throughout the movie, there are numerous lines of dialog about how McClane is out of his jurisdiction, but as a cop, McClane still takes it upon himself to do something about the situation unfolding around him.

00:04:54:21 – 00:05:12:04
Dan LeFebvre
Let’s say an off duty police officer is visiting a different city for personal reasons, like we see in the movie, and then they find themselves in the middle of the wrong place at the wrong time. Major crime happening in the movie. How realistic is it for the police officer to take it upon themselves to fight back against the criminals like we see John McClane doing in the movie?

00:05:12:07 – 00:05:29:10
Patrick O’Donnell
Most of the time you’re just going to be a good witness. Yeah, you you’re going to look at everything through cop eyes. You know, it’s like, okay, I’m going to look at you. You know, let’s say I’m in a situation where, like, something is getting robbed. You know, I’m in a grocery store or a bank or something like that.

00:05:29:12 – 00:05:56:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Nine out of ten times, nobody’s going to get shot. Nothing’s going to go too crazy, you know? And most of the time they don’t even have guns. They threaten like a gun or an explosive or whatever. So it’s like, I’m going to be aware of my surroundings. You know, and I’m going to be like, okay, the guy that’s doing all this is a white male about 40 years of age with a beard, mustache, you know, medium build, wearing a gray, not shirt.

00:05:56:16 – 00:06:16:07
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. And glasses. Yeah. That’s where my head is going. Then I’m just like, okay. Is he right or left handed? You know. What’s he holding? Like the bag. What’s he doing most of his stuff with. Is there any piercings tattoos. You know, anything that’s you know, so you’re going to be looking like a cop. You know, that’s what you’re going to be doing.

00:06:16:09 – 00:06:40:03
Patrick O’Donnell
But I will use a caveat. If you think somebody is in imminent danger of getting killed, you’re going to take action. You’re it’s the cop inside of you. Yeah. We can’t help ourselves, you know? So as far as jurisdiction goes, you know, if I’m out in LA, you know, I was out in LA. Oh, man. About 20 years ago, I couldn’t go around, like arresting people or anything like that.

00:06:40:03 – 00:07:00:19
Patrick O’Donnell
You could do a citizen’s arrest, quote unquote. But all you’re doing is opening yourself up to liability, and you know, you’re going to let anything short of an ax murderer get away because you don’t want to get sued later, and then you’re going to get into trouble with your department, etc.. So the chances are very, very, very slim, very slim.

00:07:00:21 – 00:07:14:18
Dan LeFebvre
They start off, if I remember right from that, from the movie, like the first thing that John McClane notices is something going wrong is there’s gunfire. So right away he’s like, okay, somebody’s life might be in danger. And so it kind of switches into that mode, it seems.

00:07:14:21 – 00:07:30:15
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. And, you know, and he’s talking to himself. That’s one thing I did like about that movie was the insurgents. I was like, why didn’t you go in there and try to stop him, John? And then he’s like, well, John, you would be dead right now, John, if you tried doing that, you know, and it’s like, absolutely. You know, that that makes total sense to me.

00:07:30:15 – 00:07:32:27
Patrick O’Donnell
It was like, yep.

00:07:33:00 – 00:07:36:08
Dan LeFebvre
The inner monologue that he speaks out loud so we can understand.

00:07:36:14 – 00:07:39:11
Patrick O’Donnell
So we can hear it. Right? Exactly. Yes.

00:07:39:13 – 00:08:00:00
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Another key plot point for John McClane in the first Die Hard movie is how he has to fight the local law enforcement, and I don’t mean physically fighting him like he does with the bad guys, but he can’t seem to get anyone to believe what’s happening. For example, when he first calls for help, the dispatch operator scolds him, saying that she’s going to report McClane for using a channel reserved for emergencies.

00:08:00:00 – 00:08:18:06
Dan LeFebvre
So it’s like, what do you think I’m calling for? And then later on, there’s cops that do arrive at Nakatomi Plaza, and the deputy chief of police doesn’t like John McClane because he’s a mouthy cop from New York City. And then, even after the federal agents arrive on the scene, they never seem to listen to any of John McClane warnings from the inside of the building.

00:08:18:12 – 00:08:33:00
Dan LeFebvre
And then that culminates at the end of the movie, when the federal agents actually in the helicopter shooting and they start shooting at McClane on the roof because they think he’s one of the criminals. How well does the movie do, showing the way local law enforcement would react to a crime being reported by an off duty police officer?

00:08:33:00 – 00:08:34:09
Dan LeFebvre
From another scene?

00:08:34:11 – 00:09:00:21
Patrick O’Donnell
That almost never happens. But obviously, you know, you know, like most of the time, is there an out of jurisdiction cop in our city if they’re official business, they’re going to check in hopefully. Yeah. It’s like, hey, you know what? I’m a Chicago cop. I’m coming up to Milwaukee to interview a witness for a homicide. So I’m going to let you know for two reasons.

00:09:00:21 – 00:09:21:21
Patrick O’Donnell
One, it’s the right thing to do. And two, if you go sideways, then at least you know somebody knows where I am and when. If I was like the acting lieutenant, I was a sergeant for 17 years. Once in a blue moon, I got pulled off the street and I’d have to sit behind a desk and run the shift if my boss wasn’t there.

00:09:21:23 – 00:09:41:13
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, I was. I started using whodunit, so I would get a phone call from, you know, hey, I’m from blah, blah, blah city. We’re going to be tracking for a suspect that we have a warrant on. And, you know, it’s not high risk. We’re just going to do a door knock. And my first the first things out of my mouth is like, you want some help?

00:09:41:15 – 00:10:09:11
Patrick O’Donnell
And I would try to get them some help. So there’s usually not always but usually good cooperation. The feds are really bad at that, especially the FBI. They don’t want anybody playing in their sandbox. So unless they need you, then all of a sudden they’re super cooperative. But that’s another story for another day. But yeah, you know, as far as, okay, I’m an out of jurisdiction cop, I’m in your city.

00:10:09:13 – 00:10:25:05
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. Mean in 25 years, I rarely had an off duty cop that was, like, on vacation or visiting their kid or whatever in Milwaukee. All of a sudden get involved in some high stakes arrest it. Almost. It it really doesn’t happen. Yeah.

00:10:25:07 – 00:10:26:20
Dan LeFebvre
That’s why it’s for the movies. Yeah.

00:10:26:20 – 00:10:28:02
Patrick O’Donnell
Sorry, John.

00:10:28:05 – 00:10:30:02
Dan LeFebvre
And.

00:10:30:05 – 00:10:49:10
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we move to the second movie, Die Hard two, this time, John McClane is an LA police officer who’s waiting for his wife’s plane to land at Washington’s Dulles Airport. And just like the last movie again, he finds himself the wrong place at the wrong time. And at first, now we have airport police involved, and they don’t believe McClane.

00:10:49:11 – 00:11:04:23
Dan LeFebvre
But then, as things start to go from bad to worse, we see McClane actually working with the local law enforcement at the airport. So not only do we have John McClane as an off duty police officer for a different city from a different city for there for personal reasons, but then it’s also happening at an airport where they have their own law enforcement.

00:11:04:23 – 00:11:22:13
Dan LeFebvre
And then on top of that, since Die Hard two came out in 1990, before the TSA was formed in 2001, I felt like things would probably be a little bit different now. But is it likely that a city police officer would collaborate with the TSA or airport police, like we see John McClane doing in the movie?

00:11:22:15 – 00:11:47:13
Patrick O’Donnell
Well, like TSA, you know, there are a branch of Homeland Security and they really aren’t cops. The way cops look at TSA is kind of we we look at them as, gee, I mean, there’s some fine, there’s some fine TSA agents and they do a thankless job, and it’s a very important job. But a lot of them, yeah, I shouldn’t say a lot.

00:11:47:15 – 00:12:07:27
Patrick O’Donnell
There are some that are that guy or that gal that has a little bit of power and you could tell, you know, they’re abusing it and, you know, they couldn’t get a job as a quote unquote real cop somewhere. I know I’m hurt some feelings out there. Sorry, but yeah, I mean, there’s a couple of people that I know that are TSA agents.

00:12:07:29 – 00:12:27:15
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, I have one friend that’s a TSA agent that did 30 years as a cop, and he didn’t have a pension where he worked. There was no pension. So he had to go work for the feds. You know, that’s a federal job. And they offered a pension and health insurance until he hits, you know, well, health insurance was the biggie.

00:12:27:19 – 00:12:47:10
Patrick O’Donnell
He had zero health insurance after he retired. And he was like 55. So he got ten years before he’s going to go on Medicare. So he kind of had to do something like that. You know. And he’s not a he’s not a, you know, idiot or anything like that. And then I knew some people that just wanted to do it because they thought it looked cool and, you know, whatever.

00:12:47:10 – 00:13:08:27
Patrick O’Donnell
And they’re doing it as a job and they treat it like that. And hey, yeah, you know, good on them. But cops aren’t going to be, you know, like the airport cuffs. Most of them. Well, all of them are, you know, sworn police officers that have full arrest powers. And if I’m out of jurisdiction. Yeah, I’m John McClane.

00:13:09:00 – 00:13:34:01
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, you’re with whatever is going on. If I was the airport police, I would use that cop as much as possible for Intel of what’s going on. I’d try and get some information and. But I wouldn’t include them in any, like, you know, like, takedowns or any action, because first off, he has no arrest power. So where he’s at, you know, you can’t arrest anyone.

00:13:34:01 – 00:14:02:16
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, he’s he’s drawn to you, citizen running around an airport with a gun. Yeah. It’s like, why are you doing that? Become a judge. You shouldn’t do that. So you know. Yeah, it silly to answer your question. Yeah. I mean, the TSA really wouldn’t be coordinating with that. It would be the cops from the airport. If there is a situation like that and if they have to call in help, they’ll call it help, you know, from other agencies they wouldn’t be relying on anybody.

00:14:02:16 – 00:14:05:08
Patrick O’Donnell
That’s the civilian job. It’s like.

00:14:05:11 – 00:14:34:27
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, you know what? I appreciate you clarifying that because, I mean, the movie did come out before TSA was even a thing. So I just know security has changed so much that when this movie takes place in in the airport, it’s like, well, there’s got to be maybe this extra layer to it, but it sounds like maybe there even wouldn’t be as much different other than, you know, setting aside all the fictional aspect of it, but just from the, you know, the airport security and police officer, it sounds like that that sort of relationship would still be pretty similar to the way it is now.

00:14:34:29 – 00:14:57:00
Patrick O’Donnell
Well, yeah, I did an internship when I was in college with the sheriff’s department in Milwaukee, and they had the airport. They still do. They’re in charge of security for the airport, and they have a little substation there. And you have sheriff’s deputies there, you know, walking around doing whatever. Some and some are plainclothes, some are uniformed, and they take care of business at the airport.

00:14:57:02 – 00:15:19:05
Patrick O’Donnell
And I had a real good, tour and, understanding of the airport when I was an intern. And one of the things that struck out was really stuck in my head with the movie was, you know, the tower is a sacred place. John McClane would not be in the tower, period. I mean, that is like super. Yeah, I mean, that is secure.

00:15:19:07 – 00:15:46:13
Patrick O’Donnell
And the air traffic controllers are in the basement. They’re not upstairs in the tower. They’re all in the basement looking at scopes, you know, looking at their computer screens, doing whatever. And you can’t even say a word. I mean, that is like, that’s hollow ground. They can’t have any distractions for obvious reasons. Yes, for very obvious reasons. And when I retired from being a cop, I got a job with Delta throwing bags.

00:15:46:13 – 00:16:11:06
Patrick O’Donnell
I was, I unloaded and loaded planes at the airport and Waukee, and that gave me a real good understanding to of the security, because almost everything is restricted and you have a badge, you know, it’s just like a ID, you know, either around your arm or a lanyard or whatever, and that gets you into certain areas that you have to get it to, you know, to do your job.

00:16:11:09 – 00:16:31:13
Patrick O’Donnell
But the thing about it is you only go in one person at a time. So you and I are in the concourse and we have to go unload a plane, and we’re by one of the gates, you know, you see the doors where the gate agent, like, enters like a keypad, you know, some numbers into a keypad. And then there’s two layers.

00:16:31:13 – 00:16:53:21
Patrick O’Donnell
You do the keypad and you flash the your little ID thing, and then the little green light goes on and unlocks the door. Well, I can’t just follow you. I have to go through the same ritual. Every person that goes through that restricted area has to do that. So there are layers. There’s so many layers of security when it comes to an airport.

00:16:53:21 – 00:16:55:17
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh my God. So it was which.

00:16:55:17 – 00:16:56:16
Dan LeFebvre
Is probably a good thing.

00:16:56:19 – 00:17:06:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh Lord. Yes. You know it’s like but you know, it’s it’s borderline laughable. Well it is laughable what you know, I’m watching that. I’m like, I’ll never, ever, ever.

00:17:06:14 – 00:17:07:15
Dan LeFebvre
He just kind of walks in.

00:17:07:15 – 00:17:12:21
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, yeah. He’s doing. Yeah, yeah. Why not? You know.

00:17:12:24 – 00:17:20:02
Dan LeFebvre
Well, they don’t want to go to the intricacies of the airport security for movies. Be a little more boring.

00:17:20:04 – 00:17:21:28
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. So it would be.

00:17:22:00 – 00:17:41:07
Dan LeFebvre
There is another form of collaboration that we see happening in Die Hard two, when, John McClane uses a connection that he made in the first movie. That’s original Val Johnson’s character, Al Powell. So in Die Hard two, we see McClane calling up Powell to get some information on the new villains outside of official channels. So the movie implies that there was this kind of ongoing connection between McClane and Powell.

00:17:41:12 – 00:17:52:16
Dan LeFebvre
And now law enforcement agencies work together a lot in official capacities. But is it normal for individual police officers to work with other police officers from other precincts that they met in the past, kind of like we see in the movie?

00:17:52:18 – 00:18:14:05
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes. You know, if you work together in the past. Yeah. And, you know, maybe they’re, you know, they text on the regular or they go out for drinks or whatever. You know, you can’t help that. But I will use a caveat. Whenever you run somebody on a computer, you know, like for warrants or their driver’s license or a criminal history, there’s a history of you doing that.

00:18:14:07 – 00:18:37:24
Patrick O’Donnell
You’re logged on as Patrick O’Donnell. You know, Sergeant Patrick O’Donnell was looking to see what, you know, Dan’s criminal history was done. You know, February 17th, you know, 1015 in the morning, everything is recorded. So, you know, you have to be able to explain why you’re doing what you’re doing.

00:18:37:26 – 00:18:39:21
Dan LeFebvre
Again, for good reason, I’m sure.

00:18:39:26 – 00:18:50:15
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s see what my ex wife is up to, all right. Yeah. Well, yeah yeah, yeah. You don’t want to abuse the power. So. Yes. Absolutely.

00:18:50:18 – 00:19:11:28
Dan LeFebvre
Makes make sense. Makes sense. But in Die Hard two, we see another returning character from the first movie. That’s Thornburg. He’s played by William Atherton. Thornburg is the pesky TV reporter who’s always trying to get in the way. So he’s he’s getting a scoop on the story, right? So he’s always getting in the way. So if we’re to believe the first two Die Hard movies, the media can get in the way of cops trying to do their jobs.

00:19:12:03 – 00:19:18:18
Dan LeFebvre
From your experience, have you ever heard of the media a hampering the ability for cops to do their jobs like we see in a movie?

00:19:18:20 – 00:19:39:18
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, we have a tenacious relationship with the press. Sometimes they can be your ally. You know, if you have like, say, a Silver Alert, you know, have some, you know, a senior citizen that has dementia or some cognitive issue. And, you know, right now, you know, I live in Wisconsin and we just got to zero. It’s been below zero.

00:19:39:19 – 00:19:59:05
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, all morning. So if you know, grandma’s out there and she’s just wearing like a windbreaker, you know, we could use the press. It’s like, you know, hey, you know what? Come on down. This is what she looks like. You know, this is the last place she was seen. So you know what? You could use the power of the press for that.

00:19:59:07 – 00:20:17:08
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, they can be your ally most of the time. They’re annoying, you know, most of the time, they’re trying to sneak through the they they go over the line both literally and metaphorically. And I it’s the yellow crime scene tape. They just want to get through it so badly. But if you’re.

00:20:17:09 – 00:20:19:05
Dan LeFebvre
It’s like a race running through break to tape.

00:20:19:12 – 00:20:50:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But if you’re in a big scene, what happens usually is we’ll corral the media into like a staging area. And most police departments have a Pio. It’s called a, the PIOs, the public information officer, and they are usually the ones that are going to talk to the press. If it’s a real big deal. Sometimes the chief may come out and talk to the press, etc. you know, it all depends on what’s going on.

00:20:50:14 – 00:21:13:29
Patrick O’Donnell
I mean, we had an officer that was shot. Thankfully he’s okay now, but you shot in the chest with a rifle and the mayor came out, the chief came out and they all talk to the press. Now dealing with. Yeah, elected officials of every street, you know, they love being behind the microphone. They love the camera in their face.

00:21:14:02 – 00:21:34:03
Patrick O’Donnell
Us absolutely not. We don’t want anything to do with, you know, a camera in our face, especially at a crime scene because we got stuff we got to do. So it’s. Yeah, it’s more of a pain in the butt than anything else. And one thing that really stood out to me, I was a rookie cop at a pretty high profile homicide.

00:21:34:06 – 00:21:58:00
Patrick O’Donnell
It was a cold Wisconsin night, and there’s this reporter out there and I recognize them from, you know, TV back then. You know, you watch the network TV shows, you know, I mean, the network TV stations for your news. And I’m like, oh my God, that’s, you know, Dan, whatever his last name was. And I come up to I look and I’m like, oh my God, you’re really ugly.

00:21:58:00 – 00:22:17:12
Patrick O’Donnell
Holly. He had like 20 pounds of makeup on his face. I mean, it was caked on thick. It was like Phyllis Diller, for God’s sakes. And I was just like, wow. And I’ve never seen a man before that that wore makeup, but, you know, and I was just like, well, this is an interesting night, all right.

00:22:17:14 – 00:22:20:12
Dan LeFebvre
Before 4K TVs where they could see every point.

00:22:20:13 – 00:22:32:21
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh, yeah. You want to see them on 4K? TV? Yeah. You’d want a tube TV for that guy. It was. It was bad news. Or he had a face for radio. Let’s just say that. Yeah.

00:22:32:23 – 00:22:36:22
Dan LeFebvre
That I was going to say I’ve heard that phrase. Yeah, I hate the face for radio.

00:22:36:25 – 00:22:44:06
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. You know, I had a couple more observations about this, this, diet, if you don’t mind.

00:22:44:08 – 00:22:44:22
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah.

00:22:44:22 – 00:22:53:13
Patrick O’Donnell
For sure. Okay. Starting out with the naked keto, like, the bad guy is doing this, like karate. Kind of like the they’re called. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:22:53:13 – 00:22:56:00
Dan LeFebvre
He’s all sweaty. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.

00:22:56:05 – 00:23:19:15
Patrick O’Donnell
Why is that there? I don’t understand it. And like, you know, this is kind of gross. What why is this here. You know, and I’m like, okay. And then John McLean is a lieutenant all of a sudden at LAPD, he’s like anointed. You know, if he was, if he would go to especially back then, you start out as a cop and you know, you’re going to go through all the selection stuff.

00:23:19:22 – 00:23:22:07
Patrick O’Donnell
He wouldn’t be a lieutenant. They don’t care.

00:23:22:08 – 00:23:24:08
Dan LeFebvre
Transfer from New York to LA. I think, you.

00:23:24:15 – 00:23:24:22
Patrick O’Donnell
Know, the.

00:23:24:22 – 00:23:28:17
Dan LeFebvre
Movie implies because his wife was in LA, so he wanted to move closer to be.

00:23:28:18 – 00:23:48:22
Patrick O’Donnell
Correct. There’s no such thing as lateral transfer back then from there. Okay. So he maybe he would be a cop. Maybe, you know, he with the time frame, you probably still be in the academy. You know he’d be nothing. So that was amusing to me then. You know there was a woman with a stun gun on the airplane.

00:23:48:22 – 00:23:52:11
Patrick O’Donnell
I’m like, how the hell did she get that? Through security? Yeah. Yeah.

00:23:52:11 – 00:24:00:17
Dan LeFebvre
Again, that was kind of one of those things of like this. This is before 9/11, right? I mean, things are different, but still, I feel like they still take in that.

00:24:00:19 – 00:24:21:07
Patrick O’Donnell
One thing from working as a baggage guy. We call ourselves baggage. It’s just really throwing the bags around. Yeah. There was an open golf bag on a conveyor belt and I’m like, oh, are you kidding me? Come on. Those golf clubs would be all over the place. I hated golf bags. Well, what? I’d see just a card for those coming at me.

00:24:21:07 – 00:24:42:11
Patrick O’Donnell
I’d be like, oh, they’re so awkward and just. They sucked. And then also, I noticed one of the bad guys in, like, one of the big, shooting scenes, and he starts out with a Glock, and then he ends the scene with a Beretta, and I’m like, how did he do that? Yeah. So my I caught that right away.

00:24:42:11 – 00:24:58:11
Patrick O’Donnell
And I’m like, no, that’s that’s not going to happen. And then probably the final thing with the Army coming in, there’s no way the Army is coming into that. The Army doesn’t the Army doesn’t respond to that. They’re not law enforcement. That’s a totally different thing.

00:24:58:14 – 00:25:13:21
Dan LeFebvre
That’s a really great point. I mean, in the first movie, it’s, I feel like with the second one, it was a lot of the first movie over again and then stepping it up. So like in the first movie, the people coming in were the feds. And then the second movie, it’s like, well, how do we go one step higher?

00:25:13:21 – 00:25:15:20
Dan LeFebvre
It’s the army, right?

00:25:15:22 – 00:25:24:21
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. I’m like, why are yeah, this is making zero sense to me right now. Like, what the hell? Yeah.

00:25:24:23 – 00:25:27:00
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, if you’re going to be fictional, might as well just go. All right.

00:25:27:02 – 00:25:30:19
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. You know what? You’re absolutely right. Absolutely.

00:25:30:21 – 00:25:48:01
Dan LeFebvre
Well, on the third movie, it’s Die Hard with a vengeance. At the beginning of this movie, John McClane is forced to go to Harlem wearing a sandwich board with some very racist phrase that I won’t repeat here, but the movie shows this. That’s it’s the first of a series of things that the bad guy is going to do in the movie.

00:25:48:01 – 00:26:09:22
Dan LeFebvre
It’s Jeremy Irons character, Simon, and he’s forcing McClane to do all of these things. And McClane doesn’t comply with Simon’s demands. Then Simon says he’s going to blow up a bomb in a very public place. Obviously, police officers risk their lives in the line of duty, but how realistic is it for a police officer to comply with the bad guys demands to avoid disaster, like we see John McClane doing in this movie?

00:26:09:25 – 00:26:15:12
Patrick O’Donnell
Almost not. Never. Not very, well, that’s it.

00:26:15:15 – 00:26:18:20
Dan LeFebvre
We don’t know. Go sheet with terrorists is one of the first things that kind of comes to mind.

00:26:18:20 – 00:26:46:03
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, well, and here’s the thing. They never negotiate it. You know, you would get we the police department has negotiators and that’s what would be used. You know, most police departments, y’all were trained in negotiating. And then there are negotiator orders. That’s there. That’s their forte. That’s what they train on and they train us up on that, etc., etc. but in a pinch, I guess, you know, if it was, I didn’t have any other choice.

00:26:46:03 – 00:26:59:22
Patrick O’Donnell
And I knew somebody was going to get blown up. You know, it’s like, yeah, I’ll, I’ll do whatever it takes to do that. And then John McClane was, suspended. He wasn’t even he was on an active duty. Well, you know, remember, that’s true.

00:26:59:24 – 00:27:02:15
Dan LeFebvre
They had to find him like he was all drunk and everything and hung over.

00:27:02:15 – 00:27:03:02
Patrick O’Donnell
And like.

00:27:03:07 – 00:27:04:05
Dan LeFebvre
A headache. Yeah.

00:27:04:07 – 00:27:21:20
Patrick O’Donnell
This is so stupid that they’re just like, okay, if guys. Yeah, in this inspector’s in this van with them before they. They put him out on the street. And, you know, his backup is like ten blocks away. That would not happen. They would have eyes on him. The entire time. They would not. Just like.

00:27:21:20 – 00:27:40:24
Dan LeFebvre
That was really weird. I like I think the movie, you know, the movie tries to explain away why they call McClane, you know, because Simon specifically asked for McClane to find out towards the end of the movie. Why? But, the backup being further away, it’s like that. That seemed really weird, especially in a major city like that.

00:27:40:24 – 00:27:45:09
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, you could be in buildings or there’s so many ways that you can be.

00:27:45:10 – 00:27:57:28
Patrick O’Donnell
There are all kinds of ways we could be close. And, you know, we wouldn’t just throw them to the wolves, you know, knowing that his ass is going to get kicked. You know, it’s like, no, that’s not going to happen.

00:27:58:00 – 00:28:05:12
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. And then hand him a gun to. So, he’s not like he’s going to, you know, get his ass kicked, but, they’re going to take the gun and.

00:28:05:17 – 00:28:05:27
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh, yeah.

00:28:06:01 – 00:28:07:11
Dan LeFebvre
Probably do something worse. Right?

00:28:07:11 – 00:28:27:22
Patrick O’Donnell
I mean, absolutely. Yeah. Know that’s that. I was looking at that and I’m like. And the chief inspector and I don’t think they have chief inspectors in New York, but whatever. And you know, he’s back to being a New York cop again. Yeah. You flip flops around from department to department. Yeah. What the greatest be is New York, you know, just welcomes them back.

00:28:27:22 – 00:28:36:03
Patrick O’Donnell
I was like, oh, we missed you. Come on back down and we’ll make you a detective again without doing anything. You know, it’s like no work. Like that.

00:28:36:05 – 00:28:39:28
Dan LeFebvre
So this will be the third time he’s going through training again, right?

00:28:39:28 – 00:28:55:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Exactly. That’s all. I mean, like, they have, like, this highest ranking person in this, like, surveillance van. That wouldn’t happen. They’d be in their office. We have people for that. You know, that’s that’s what it all boils down to.

00:28:55:16 – 00:29:18:08
Dan LeFebvre
What we find out at the end of Diablo the vengeance that Simon’s plan all along was to make John McClane do all of these things. Basically, it’s a distraction from his real goal robbing billions of dollars worth of gold from the Federal Reserve. And obviously, the movie’s storyline is fictional. But in your experience as a police officer, have you ever had criminals using distractions to try to keep you from noticing the true intentions?

00:29:18:10 – 00:29:39:08
Patrick O’Donnell
Not anything this big, you know, most, you know, yeah. Billions of dollars, right? Yeah, I, I find it humorous that, you know, it’s like you need a new plotline. I mean, come on, you know? Okay, they’re who they’re trying to rob this, you know, whatever. It was like, okay, but it’s been used a few times, but okay, you know, retread that baby.

00:29:39:10 – 00:30:05:17
Patrick O’Donnell
But yeah, of course, the main, bad guy has to have an accent. I don’t know why. Maybe it makes some more villainy or something, but I every other foreigner. Yeah, it has to be something like that. But as far as distractions go. No, I mean, the closest I came was we had, two kids, you know, they’re like 18, 19 years old, detained.

00:30:05:20 – 00:30:29:28
Patrick O’Donnell
It was like some kind of girlfriend calls on the boyfriend, blah, blah, blah, allegations of this. And the other thing. And two of my cops find this guy and his body by a, bus stop maybe about five blocks down. And it’s like we’re just talking to them, and I could tell something is weird. You. I’m like, this kid has ants in his pants.

00:30:30:00 – 00:30:49:24
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, it’s summertime. His eyes are darting all over the place, and he’s just real squirrely. So I’m like, stand up. So I put handcuffs on him and I’m like, you know what? These come off just as easy as, you know. They go on and said, I just don’t trust you right now. And he says, okay. And then, you know, he’d calm down.

00:30:49:26 – 00:31:19:23
Patrick O’Donnell
And my cop is in her squad car running him, you know, for warrants, etc., etc. and he’s like, we’re buy a car dealership visa. Oh man, look at that car over there. So I look like that. And I look back and he’s gone. He’s running like the fastest track star in the Olympics with handcuffs behind his back. And I’m just like, I mean, he’s wearing, like, athletic shorts and a t shirt and, you know, tennis shoes.

00:31:19:25 – 00:31:46:24
Patrick O’Donnell
I’m wearing combat boots and I’ve got about 30 pounds of gear. He’s 18, I’m 53, and I like, oh, yeah. And I weigh 220 without the gear. And this kid maybe weighs a buck 60, and he’s sprinting and I’m like, oh my God, I can’t let this I can’t let this happen. So, you know, the cop tries to chase him with her car, then she runs out of pavement.

00:31:46:24 – 00:32:07:13
Patrick O’Donnell
Then I’m going four wheeling with this guy running after him, and I finally get him. And the only reason I got him was he’s got asthma. And I’m like, oh, thank God for asshole. Yeah. Because he he probably would. I ran me and I’m like, that’d be embarrassing. But he distracted me enough to, you know, and it happened like in half a second.

00:32:07:15 – 00:32:27:18
Patrick O’Donnell
And I felt so stupid. And I’m the boss, you know, I’m just like, But, you know, we scooped him up, got him an ambulance, and he was fine. And it turns out he had a warrant for bank robbery. That’s why he was running. So. Yeah, the feds wanted them. He robbed a bank. So I’m just like, okay, that’s a good pinch.

00:32:27:18 – 00:32:34:19
Patrick O’Donnell
That’s a good arrest. You know? I’ll take it, but I’m just glad I’m just glad I got.

00:32:34:22 – 00:32:39:01
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I guess there’s there’s a little difference between what we see in the movie. And. Look over there.

00:32:39:03 – 00:33:02:18
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it wasn’t anything like, you know, pre-planned or anything and. Yeah, there’s clues, you know, when they start, like if you have somebody that’s like in like stopped on the street or something like that, that their eyes are darting around, they’re looking for an escape. They’re looking for the, the safest, fastest egress away from you.

00:33:02:21 – 00:33:12:08
Patrick O’Donnell
So I should have been smarter. I I’m a big car guy. I’m like, oh, really? I don’t like to like son of a biscuit. But, there he goes.

00:33:12:10 – 00:33:31:03
Dan LeFebvre
Well, we often see these things in action movies, where people are shooting each other, and this diet is no different from that. Obviously, there’s a ton of Hollywood fiction, but in this movie, there seems to be really no hesitation for him to just shoot off any gun and gets a hand on it really stood out to me.

00:33:31:03 – 00:33:50:15
Dan LeFebvre
There was one scene where John McClane just kind of walks up to one of the dump trucks. He knew the bad guys were in it, so he just starts shooting inside without even verifying that they’re actually who he thought was driving the truck. Of course, it’s a movie, and he was right. They were the bad guys. But can you share what it’s like for a police officer to discharge their weapon, compared to what we see happening in the movie?

00:33:50:18 – 00:34:13:09
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, if you’re shooting at a human, there has to be an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to yourself or others. That’s like the statue that the that’s the criminal statute. Because if I shoot and kill somebody, say you have a hostage, you know, you have the gun to the, poor person’s. Yeah. Like had that’s.

00:34:13:09 – 00:34:34:27
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. It was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’re you’re robbing the convenience store, and, you know, I just walk it, you know, kind of thing as a cop, you know? Will I shoot you? Probably depending, you know. But if there’s 2 or 3 innocent people behind, you know, I’m not you. There’s so many things to consider because it’s not just, you know, it’s like.

00:34:34:27 – 00:35:01:27
Patrick O’Donnell
Like I said before, there has to be an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to yourself or others and great bodily harm is some type of harm that is most likely to cause death. So doesn’t that that kind of thing. So you have to be really cognizant of, okay, do I meet the statute statutory requirements? Because if I shoot you one human being, killing another human being is homicide.

00:35:02:00 – 00:35:24:00
Patrick O’Donnell
Now, if it’s, you know, in the line of duty where you’re preventing, i.e. me getting killed, you know, in self-defense or somebody else that’s justifiable homicide, you’re not going to get criminally charged, but it’s still a homicide and that’s how it gets investigated. But you can’t. So you have things to think about is like, okay, is this statutorily okay?

00:35:24:02 – 00:35:51:21
Patrick O’Donnell
Then you think, okay, am I going to hurt somebody doing this or kill somebody else? You know, it’s, you know, that’s why people are like, why can’t you shoot the gun out of the bad guys hand? You know? ET cetera, etc.. In the most people aren’t that good of a shot. You go for, you know, that’s it’s so silly because, you know, it’s hard to that’s a skill and it’s a diminish some some cops are great shots.

00:35:51:21 – 00:36:12:29
Patrick O’Donnell
Some aren’t so great. We have to qualify every year. And I still do. I have a nature to 18. So I have to go through the same course and I can still I’m a good shot, but, nighttime, I’m chasing somebody. My heart rate and blood pressure are way up. There’s so many things to consider. And, you know, again, you have to consider the risk to civilians.

00:36:13:05 – 00:36:29:23
Patrick O’Donnell
And you have to consider the risk of, blue on blue shooting where you accidentally shoot another cop in, like, crossfire. So you have to be aware of a lot of different stuff before you pull that trigger. And what we would always say is like, you can’t put the you can’t put the bullet back in the gun.

00:36:29:25 – 00:36:34:12
Dan LeFebvre
Very different than what we see with John McClane in the movies, that’s for sure.

00:36:34:15 – 00:36:46:11
Patrick O’Donnell
Well, you’re fucking I’m a huge dirty Harry fan, and it’s like, man, that guy would. I don’t know how many guys you would kill in one episode. You’re in one movie. Excuse me? And I’m just like, oh, look out. Just. Yeah.

00:36:46:14 – 00:37:04:17
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, in the movie with John McClane, he’s. He obviously isn’t putting that much thought into anything. It’s, I mean, not anything, but, you know, when he when he’s shooting, you know, he shoots when he feels he wants to shoot, it’s not really. I’m going to, you know, think about who is driving in that scene. You know what?

00:37:04:17 – 00:37:19:10
Dan LeFebvre
The dump truck he’s not even really putting any thought into before. He just pulls out the gun and just shoots into the door and kills the driver. Right. It’s not I’m going to put this guy in handcuffs or whatever. It’s kill first. I ask questions later.

00:37:19:13 – 00:37:40:00
Patrick O’Donnell
It’s true. Yeah. And the couple of things, you know, to finish up with this, die Hard. Yeah. Samuel Jackson is working with the cop. No, they would use him for information, you know, they would interview him, and that would be the end of it. He wouldn’t be riding around with them. Is like his sidekick, the. That’s not going to happen.

00:37:40:02 – 00:37:40:23
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah.

00:37:40:25 – 00:37:47:06
Dan LeFebvre
I think this movie’s excuse for that was Simon forced them to do it right, which was kind of goes back to the whole doing whatever Simon says.

00:37:47:06 – 00:38:04:23
Patrick O’Donnell
That would not happen. No, because, you know, it’s like, okay, now we’re putting his life in jeopardy. Yeah. He’s, you know, he’s an innocent civilian, you know, that’s trying to help out. Yeah. It’s like, absolutely not. No way. You know? And then, you know, Bruce Willis is trying to get the fire department. So he calls him an officer down.

00:38:04:23 – 00:38:26:12
Patrick O’Donnell
That’s not necessary. And it’s really bad taste to tell you the truth. And then the subway cop, there was a, scene when the subway is drawn down. You know, he’s pointing a gun at a kid for hopping a turnstile and using his phone. And I’m like, well, this is just silly. You wouldn’t do that. I mean, unless you you thought he was armed or something like that.

00:38:26:14 – 00:38:49:25
Patrick O’Donnell
And then I don’t know who outfitted these guys, but like the extras that were cops, they’re wearing their police hats, but they don’t have a cap shield at it. That’s the. It’s like a little badge that goes on the hat. The police hat. We call them cap shields. And like, half of them had those. And I’m like you, they they wouldn’t let you walk out of the precinct house unless you were.

00:38:49:27 – 00:38:52:25
Patrick O’Donnell
You had that capsule that you go through an inspection.

00:38:52:25 – 00:39:01:00
Dan LeFebvre
So what is the I mean, is that, for what is the purpose of of that as to why they wouldn’t be allowed to walk out?

00:39:01:00 – 00:39:08:11
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh, because you have to be in full uniform if you don’t have the capsule on your hat. You’re looking for a uniform, you know? Okay, that’s like I wasn’t sure there was.

00:39:08:14 – 00:39:10:09
Dan LeFebvre
You know, a utilitarian purpose of it.

00:39:10:12 – 00:39:15:04
Patrick O’Donnell
Was more, you know, it’s it’s like having the badge on your outermost garment. If you’re in need, I.

00:39:15:04 – 00:39:15:27
Dan LeFebvre
Gotcha. Okay.

00:39:15:29 – 00:39:20:24
Patrick O’Donnell
That’s a that’s a part of the uniform. You have to have the entire uniform.

00:39:20:26 – 00:39:25:02
Dan LeFebvre
Makes sense, because otherwise you could be the bad guy that, gets shot by John McClane.

00:39:25:05 – 00:39:41:05
Patrick O’Donnell
And then there was the scene where there was a bunch of cops, and maybe half of them had their holsters empty. There were holding on guns. They just didn’t give them one. Not even a pretend one. And I’m just like, come on, guys. Yeah, yeah, I guess. Yeah. They ran out of like, you know, rubber.

00:39:41:10 – 00:40:04:05
Dan LeFebvre
We don’t have a big enough budget. McClane is stealing all the guns. So he’s going back to the movie franchise. Where up to Live Free or Die Hard. And that movie, when the FBI Cyber Security division in Washington, DC is hacked, they call in everybody to help track down some of their top suspects. And that brings John McClane into the picture as he’s tasked with picking up, just in character, Matthew Farrell.

00:40:04:07 – 00:40:15:11
Dan LeFebvre
Immediately when McClane shows up to Farrell’s apartment, he shows him his badge and Farrell thinks the badge is fake. Have you ever encountered a situation like that where someone you were there to help, didn’t think you were a real cop?

00:40:15:13 – 00:40:47:12
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, it’s kind of funny. You know, it’s I spent most of my career in uniform, but every now and then I was tasked with undercover assignments or plainclothes assignments. And it’s amazing how the world looks different to you and how people know. It’s like, oh, so this is how it really works. Because when people see a police car in person, you know, in an officer in uniform, you know, they act this specific way when you’re plainclothes, you know, it’s like, okay, I remember it was like 3:00 in the morning.

00:40:47:12 – 00:41:12:15
Patrick O’Donnell
I was on a plainclothes assignment, and I was monitoring the radio, and I heard a stalker, a call for a stalker outside this girl’s apartment window. And I’m like, oh, this could be fun. So I’m going to use I’m going to use C, which is an undercover car. There’s plainclothes. There’s unmarked cars and undercover cars. An undercover car is I mean, I think I was driving like, a Plymouth.

00:41:12:21 – 00:41:47:16
Patrick O’Donnell
What was this? Oh, Chrysler. Cordoba. I mean, it was old. It was just a jalopy. And y’all, we had, like, beans on the rearview mirror. You know, the. There’s no way anybody could tell that’s a cop car. They know that there’s a cop in there where an unmarked car is usually like a Crown Vic. And now they’re going to be like the explorers, and they don’t have decals on the outside or lights on the outside, but they do have lights and a siren, and they’re fully equipped, like a squad car.

00:41:47:19 – 00:41:54:29
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I’ve seen those. They they’re not cop car. They’re not painted a cop cars. But you can still tell, you know, that they’re cop cars.

00:41:55:01 – 00:42:13:00
Patrick O’Donnell
You could tell. Yeah, absolutely. And we’re not trying to be undercover with those. We’re just trying to be not as noticeable with those. And it’s amazing how, you know, right away when you see that light bar and you see the decals on the side, you’re like, oh, shit. You know, I was like, okay, you know, and cops would do that too.

00:42:13:00 – 00:42:28:03
Patrick O’Donnell
I, I can’t tell you how many times I’d be going to a call or something. I see red and blue lights behind me. I’m like, oh, what did I do wrong? There’s that incident. Even though I’m going to the same call, I’m like, oh wait, I am the cops. Okay, yeah, I’m okay now. I know, like, all right, yeah, it does happen.

00:42:28:06 – 00:42:55:15
Patrick O’Donnell
But anyways, so I get out, I’m wearing jeans and a t shirt and I’ve got a necklace badge and, you know, it’s just my badge is on, you know, like a necklace thing, a chain and one side is the badge and the other side is my ID, and I’ve got, I’ve got a gun and handcuffs and my radio, and I’m just walking up and this guy is just, like, leering into this girl’s apartment and on the.

00:42:55:15 – 00:43:15:01
Patrick O’Donnell
Hey, dude, what’s up? He said, oh, not much. I’m like, what you up to, dude? And he’s just like, who are you? And I pointed to the badge and he says, well, that ain’t real. I’m like, oh, okay. So then I pulled up my t shirt and you can see my gun in my, handcuffs. And he said, those do look real.

00:43:15:01 – 00:43:35:09
Patrick O’Donnell
I’m like, yeah, they are this, oh. That was kind of okay. Those are real. Yeah. And then at the same time, you know, like two uniform, coppers start walking up and he’s just like, all right, whatever you got me. You know, he he couldn’t let go of the you can’t stop love, I guess. But he just couldn’t let go.

00:43:35:12 – 00:43:46:10
Dan LeFebvre
I’m trying to remember. I think that’s basically what McLean had in this part, too, was that, you know, on the necklace, his badge to to show, very similar situation. It sounds like all the different purpose to be there, of course.

00:43:46:13 – 00:44:04:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Right, right. Yeah. If you know you’re going to be arresting people, you almost all if you’re plainclothes, you almost always have a uniform with you just in case something bells go south. You know, some defense attorneys like, hey, my client just thought it was just some random dude with a gun and a fake badge, you know, blah, blah, blah.

00:44:04:16 – 00:44:11:08
Patrick O’Donnell
So it’s always nice if it’s if you can, to have some guys in uniform.

00:44:11:11 – 00:44:28:15
Dan LeFebvre
That makes that makes a lot of sense. You mentioned earlier with the FBI. And so when we saw that, you know, in the first movie with some federal law enforcement, when this one too, we also see John McClane being called in to help federal law enforcement, is that a common thing for local law enforcement to be called to assist federal agents.

00:44:28:17 – 00:44:53:18
Patrick O’Donnell
All the time? You know, there the ratio of city cops or county cops compared to feds is, yeah, there’s probably like 100 to 1. There isn’t a lot of feds there. Just just numbers. You know, there aren’t many of them. If they are going to arrest somebody, usually they call us and they don’t do a lot of arresting, to tell you the truth.

00:44:53:21 – 00:45:21:00
Patrick O’Donnell
I remember one time I got a call from the dispatcher and she’s like, could you meet the Secret Service and bring a couple of your guys with you at blah blah, blah location? I’m like, oh, wow, this could be cool. So I’m like, yeah, sounds fun. So it’s like 8:00 at night. I meet this guy and he’s just wearing jeans and a t shirt, and he’s got a lot cooler gun than I do, a lot more expensive gun.

00:45:21:02 – 00:45:39:14
Patrick O’Donnell
And he’s got a little back then the next tall, cell phone that, like, shirked. He had a really. He had one of those and he had a BlackBerry. I’m showing my age, and he had a lot nicer equipment than we did. And he says there’s some counterfeiters in this apartment. I’m just. I’m just going to knock on the door.

00:45:39:17 – 00:45:56:18
Patrick O’Donnell
I have a warrant. He said it’s not high risks. They’re not supposed to be armed, but you never know, he said. I just want some uniforms. And I’m like, I totally get it. So we go in there, knocks on the door, Secret Service. And it’s like, no. First he had me do it. Know I’m like, yeah, Milwaukee police.

00:45:56:18 – 00:46:23:04
Patrick O’Donnell
And they open the door for the police. And sure enough, there this is an apartment. They had a computer and a printer and there were literally printing money. It was so bad. It was like. So just like a regular printer. Yeah. And they’re they’re printing money. And I’m just like, wow. Like this. You’re not even trying, man. This this is almost like monopoly money.

00:46:23:07 – 00:46:25:18
Dan LeFebvre
And they didn’t print it off I guess.

00:46:25:18 – 00:46:42:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. And they’re doing it in front of a Secret Service agent. I’m just like, oh, this is awesome. I absolutely love it. Yeah, it was very anticlimactic. I thought it was something really cool. And I’m just like, this is kind of boring. Really. And he said, yeah, it is. He said, you mind coughing them up and taking them downtown?

00:46:42:14 – 00:47:10:00
Patrick O’Donnell
He said, I’ll take it from there. And I’m like, yeah, no problem. So yeah, we know we do help, you know, FBI, Ice, ATF. Yeah. And DEA, they kind of keep to themselves. They do help us. Let’s see. So FBI. Yeah. The FBI is an interesting relationship. You know, we have or at least when I was still there.

00:47:10:00 – 00:47:34:29
Patrick O’Donnell
I’m sure they do. We had a human trafficking, like, task force, and we had 1 or 2 FBI agents assigned to that, and they were with our detectives and police officers from our Sensitive Crimes Division, and they were there more or less, because, again, Washington has a lot more money than we do. They had a lot more resources and they would help us out with stuff.

00:47:35:02 – 00:48:02:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. See, that was one example that bank robberies people think that the FBI responds to like every bank robbery. No they don’t, they don’t. And if you do get an agent, usually it’s like an hour after the fact and they’re taking down like notes about, okay, they’re interested to see, okay, is this like a robbery crew, you know, are they going from city to city or crossing state lines, you know, that kind of thing.

00:48:02:16 – 00:48:17:08
Patrick O’Donnell
So that’s that’s why the FBI is going to be there. Or if it’s a bank robbery and they start popping rounds off and somebody gets shot or God forbid, killed, then the FBI is going to respond. But it’s still our baby. It’s we’re still taking care of the investigation.

00:48:17:11 – 00:48:35:28
Dan LeFebvre
It sounds like, and a in a different situation, but as similar to what you talked about before where like, even when you were undercover, you wanted to have some uniformed cops there for the arrest itself. It sounds like it’s a similar sort of thing with except just, you know, federal agents and then you’re the uniform cop that’s there to, to help.

00:48:36:00 – 00:48:38:15
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

00:48:38:18 – 00:48:57:15
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if there is one scene from Live Free or Die Hard that really stands out to me. It’s that scene where John McClane takes his car and he drives it into the helicopter. Obviously a Hollywood stunt, right? But that scene, as they end the sequence where we see McClane doing some pretty masterful driving, and as moviegoers, we just assume he’s capable of doing this because of his training as a police officer.

00:48:57:18 – 00:49:01:09
Dan LeFebvre
And I’m sure your training did not have anything to do with driving cars into helicopters.

00:49:01:15 – 00:49:05:21
Patrick O’Donnell
But here, a little bit after intervention? No, there was none of that going on.

00:49:05:21 – 00:49:10:27
Dan LeFebvre
But what was, what kind of driving training do real police officers get?

00:49:10:29 – 00:49:48:00
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, when you’re in the academy, you go through what’s called evac emergency vehicle operations course, and you’re trained how to, you know, do high speed pursuits, how to do them safely, you know, and they actually took us out to a racetrack here in Milwaukee. And that was a lot of fun. We had mock chases where you would you’re in a squad car and you would chase the instructor and you’d, you’re, you know, you’re chasing, you’re talking on the radio at the same time, you know, and it’s not just like, I don’t know, like a free for all.

00:49:48:00 – 00:50:13:17
Patrick O’Donnell
There’s rules when it comes to chasing cars, you know, it’s like, okay, when you’re when you’re pursuing somebody, if you’re the squad, you have to go, okay, you give your squad name, you have to give your location. You know, it’s like, okay, squad five, I’m northbound on university Drive, the 5400 block, you know, pursuing a, red Toyota Corolla with blah, blah, blah license plate.

00:50:13:19 – 00:50:35:06
Patrick O’Donnell
And the reason, okay, he’s wanted for homicide, all right, as a boss would try was I would let that go a lot further than. Yeah, I’m pursuing him because he blew a stop sign. All right, risk reward. And it’s like, am I going to risk this cop’s life or other civilians, you know, this high speed pursuit for something?

00:50:35:08 – 00:50:56:19
Patrick O’Donnell
Not that, you know, big of a deal, but sometimes not in a lot of time. What I thought wasn’t a big deal all of a sudden, you know, there’s a lot of guns in the car, or they’re wanted for something pretty heinous. You don’t know what you’re chasing. So we get all trained up, you know, they’re behind the science and they will hammer, you know, the rules.

00:50:56:19 – 00:51:40:05
Patrick O’Donnell
You know the department every department has their own rules, and they’re a state statute. You have to you have to drive with due regard. You can’t just go out there, you know, and think you’re, you know, a NASCAR driver or anything like that, or drive and helicopters or whatever. But, you know, when I was new and for quite a chunk of my career, there were no cameras in the squads or body cameras, so it wasn’t critiqued like it was once those things, you know, got up, you know, it’s like I remember being going down city streets at over 100 miles an hour, where if you make one little mistake, you’re dead and you, who’s

00:51:40:05 – 00:51:54:11
Patrick O’Donnell
learn by it was on the job training. Let’s just say that you and some were really good at it, and some cops were really bad at it and shouldn’t be driving cars, I think. But hey, that’s how you get trained up.

00:51:54:13 – 00:52:06:27
Dan LeFebvre
Well, maybe, like you were talking about before, you know, with McClane going from New York and then to LA, back to New York, like he would have to go through the Academy multiple times. He’s just gone through so many times that now he knows how to drive into helicopters.

00:52:06:27 – 00:52:14:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Right? Yeah, it’s very true. Yeah. I guess maybe I was absent that day in the academy when we had to work after intervention training.

00:52:14:14 – 00:52:16:00
Dan LeFebvre
But that day.

00:52:16:02 – 00:52:24:06
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes, I, I must have missed it. Yeah. I didn’t go to that in-service. Whatever. My bad, my bad.

00:52:24:09 – 00:52:45:21
Dan LeFebvre
Well, the last film in the franchise is A Good Day to Die Hard. This time, the franchise pushes the stakes even higher as it brings John McClane into international affairs. The plotline in this movie revolves around his son Jack, who’s in trouble in Russia. But then it turns out Jack is a CIA operative. And so together we see this father son team trying to stop a nuclear weapons heist from this fictional storyline.

00:52:45:21 – 00:52:57:15
Dan LeFebvre
We kind of get the concept of there’s a parent and child who are both in law enforcement working together. How realistic is it for multiple generations and different branches of law enforcement to work together, like we see happening in the movie?

00:52:57:18 – 00:53:23:09
Patrick O’Donnell
There are legacy cops more, you know, like my first partner on the job, her dad was a cop in Milwaukee for years, but they never worked together. Like, especially on a case that’s almost unheard of maybe in small towns or something. That might be the case, but for the most part, no. And most places don’t have hard and fast rules.

00:53:23:09 – 00:53:51:05
Patrick O’Donnell
But I wouldn’t want to be in the same, district or on the same assignment as my kid because I would be overprotective. I would yeah, I, I wouldn’t be thinking of him as a cop. I would I’d be thinking of him, you know? And it’s only natural. I’m a dad, you know, it’s like that instinct is going to kick in first, and you may not do your job efficiently and effectively if you’re thinking like that.

00:53:51:09 – 00:54:01:09
Patrick O’Donnell
But yeah, there’s a ton of legacy cops. Yeah. It’s not unusual. It’s like, oh, you see the nameplate? And I’m like, hey, I know your dad. You know, that kind of thing. It’s like this kind of cool.

00:54:01:11 – 00:54:17:26
Dan LeFebvre
That makes a lot of sense. And I didn’t really think about it this way, but, I’m not sure. Like the Sullivan brothers is, is something that comes up in the military. But, you know, when when that ship sank and just like in World War two, all five brothers were lost. And so I could see it almost being a similar sort of concept, they wanted to separate.

00:54:17:26 – 00:54:40:18
Dan LeFebvre
Then from there on out, the military started separating siblings. I could see it almost being a similar thing to like if you’re there was with your kid. Not only are you not doing your job as well, which means that your life could be an even more danger. Not only your life then, but also your your child’s life. And it just makes everything that much worse, not only for who you’re trying to help, but yourselves as well.

00:54:40:21 – 00:54:48:22
Patrick O’Donnell
Right? Yeah. And your kid might be acting a little differently than they normally would if you’re there. I mean, it’s just human nature.

00:54:48:25 – 00:54:50:13
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it goes both ways, for sure.

00:54:50:15 – 00:54:51:17
Patrick O’Donnell
Absolutely.

00:54:51:19 – 00:55:11:14
Dan LeFebvre
Well, since the last movie takes place in Russia, we end up with a similar plot point that we saw in the first movie, except in the first, Die Hard. It was New York Cop going to LA when he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This time the wrong place is Russia. So I asked about police officers in different jurisdictions earlier, but now I need to ask about an international jurisdiction.

00:55:11:14 – 00:55:20:24
Dan LeFebvre
So as a police officer, if you’re traveling to another country like John McClane doing in the movie, what would really happen if you found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time outside of the US?

00:55:20:27 – 00:55:47:21
Patrick O’Donnell
Why? You are truly a fish out of water. You are just John Hughes citizen. You. You have no special powers. There’s no police friendship. There’s no, you know, whatever. You’re just another dude, you know, or another chick. That’s you. You got a whole lot of nothing. And if you’re in Russia, who isn’t exactly our ally, you know, and I’ve heard stories about Russian prisons.

00:55:47:21 – 00:56:10:12
Patrick O’Donnell
I know, like in China, the Chinese police can arrest you and not charge you for up to a year. So you could be rotting in a jail for a year without even getting charged with a crime. And, you know, just there’s no such thing as due process in Russia. You know, the lines between the military and the police in Russia are very, very blurred.

00:56:10:15 – 00:56:21:06
Patrick O’Donnell
It’s it’s, I would not want to be on the business end of an AK 47 with some Russian police officer. Hell, no. I you know, it has all the. You’re.

00:56:21:09 – 00:56:26:19
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, I wouldn’t want to be in the business end of anywhere, anywhere, whoever is holding it, but. Yes, definitely. Yeah.

00:56:26:21 – 00:56:49:25
Patrick O’Donnell
Right. Exactly. But yeah, I just think of gulag, you know, or, you know, something like that. And I’m like, no, thank you. You know, that’s something it’s it should be an international incident. You know, hopefully our embassy would get involved in this even if hopefully they would know, you know, this happened in the you know, the government can help you, that kind of thing.

00:56:49:25 – 00:57:02:24
Patrick O’Donnell
But you know, with all the stuff blowing up and people getting killed and all that, it’s hard to like cover that up. It’s like, okay, the police are going to be coming to this. And I never saw them.

00:57:02:27 – 00:57:12:14
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, that’s true. I was trying to think, if they ever showed up and I don’t. Yeah. Now. No, I mean, I guess that would be an extractor. Yes. MPP so maybe that was.

00:57:12:17 – 00:57:30:04
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, I think I saw a couple of Russian like, squad cars. Maybe they had like the little blue light on top. But other than that, I never saw like cops coming out and like, trying to do cop stuff. They were pretty much they had the run of the whole area there to do all their blowing up and shooting and all that cool stuff.

00:57:30:07 – 00:57:51:19
Dan LeFebvre
It’s almost a complete inverse of the first movie, where there were a lot of cops, and then just the feds came at the very end, but then at the end and movie, it’s like, you know, CIA and. Well, and then John McClane, and, you know, and then all these other, you know, high military or, you know, secret things and then, you know, oh, there’s some kind of cops in the background.

00:57:51:26 – 00:57:57:24
Patrick O’Donnell
Maybe you’re exac, you know, I you’re right. I didn’t think of that. Yeah. It’s like the polar opposite really.

00:57:57:27 – 00:58:10:06
Dan LeFebvre
Since you do offer your services to help screenwriters be more authentic with their stories, if they had hired you for the diehard franchise, what’s one of the primary things that you think needs to change to help the storyline be a little more accurate?

00:58:10:08 – 00:58:30:28
Patrick O’Donnell
Well, you know, I looked at that question. I’m like, it’s so far fetched. I think I would have took an A pass. I, I’m like, how can I, I can’t fix this. It’s so far off the rails that it’s I mean, we talked about, you know, just there’s so much stuff even with like my favorite was the first to die Hard.

00:58:30:28 – 00:58:51:20
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, yeah. He he’s got a gun on a plane. You know how it is. Even back then, even if we’re transporting prisoners, you still have to make all these notifications. And the captain of the airplane can say no, even if you get all these clearances and everything’s hunky dory, you know, you load, you know, you get, you get seated before anybody else in your own.

00:58:51:20 – 00:59:10:25
Patrick O’Donnell
You’re the last one to leave. Obviously, if you have a prisoner and if you’re just armed every 99.9% of the time, you know it has to be stowed in your luggage and there’s all kinds of hoops you have to jump around to have a gun in your luggage, and it’s not gonna be your carry on. It’s going to be in the belly of the plane.

00:59:10:27 – 00:59:29:06
Patrick O’Donnell
And it’s kind of a big deal. I mean, it’s to me, I think it’s a pain in the butt. I don’t even I could, but I don’t I don’t deal with it. It’s just like it’s one more pain in the button. What if my luggage gets lost? I don’t want my gun. Get lost. You know, it’s. No, thanks.

00:59:29:08 – 00:59:31:13
Dan LeFebvre
And think about that. That never happens in the movie.

00:59:31:15 – 00:59:40:08
Patrick O’Donnell
No. Hey. Yeah. Oh, shoot. They lost my luggage. Hey, like I said, I was a baggage handler. This stuff does happen. That’s real.

00:59:40:10 – 00:59:49:13
Dan LeFebvre
Diehard, too. Is just John McClane at the little kiosk waiting for his luggage. That’s. The entire movie’s just waiting.

00:59:49:15 – 00:59:51:15
Patrick O’Donnell
But be funny. I like that.

00:59:51:18 – 01:00:06:09
Dan LeFebvre
There are a lot of people I think are inspired by movies. And, you know, for example, I’ve heard stories of, like, Indiana Jones inspiring people to become archeologists. In your experience, have you ever seen a police officer like John McClane inspire people to become police officers in the real world?

01:00:06:11 – 01:00:10:04
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes. And I would not want to work with them or go on a plane with them.

01:00:10:06 – 01:00:14:06
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, because they want to be John McClane shooting. Yeah, that’s true for sure.

01:00:14:08 – 01:00:35:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Exactly. Yeah. We had some cowboys I worked with, but even the cowboys or cowgirls would have to play by the rules, or they get fired and criminally charged. I mean, there’s only so far you could push the boundaries and. Yeah, I mean, police work in a nutshell, a lot of it’s really boring. Until it is.

01:00:35:16 – 01:00:39:20
Dan LeFebvre
I wouldn’t want John McClane to be in my my district. Yeah.

01:00:39:22 – 01:00:44:18
Patrick O’Donnell
Is absolutely. Well.

01:00:44:21 – 01:01:02:17
Dan LeFebvre
One of the common movie tropes that we see happening in Die Hard in a lot of movies, too, is when the bad guy tells they’re playing just as they’re about to kill the good guy. And this one, for example, in the first movie, Hans tells John McClane the reason he started the fire in Nakatomi Towers, because they’ll keep looking for him unless they think he’s dead.

01:01:02:20 – 01:01:16:11
Dan LeFebvre
I’m guessing that whole idea of the bad guy revealing their plan is something that’s made up for the movies. But then again, sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Have you ever heard of the bad guys revealing their plan like we see happening time and time again in the movies now?

01:01:16:11 – 01:01:39:07
Patrick O’Donnell
Most criminals I was were really stupid and it was either. And most of this, the criminality that I dealt with was kind of spur of the moment. It wasn’t like a plan hit. It was in the air, like most of the homicides I went to was they started as a fight and they escalated. I mean, yeah, there were like revenge or jealousy.

01:01:39:07 – 01:02:00:22
Patrick O’Donnell
I’ll follow the money, follow the sex. Well, you know, whatever. But for the most part it was like, hey, we’re playing cards. You’re cheating. It gets into a fight, I’m losing. I’m going to grab that knife out of that butcher block, and I’m going to stab you, you know, that kind of thing. Whereas, yeah, I never met a criminal mastermind of any kind.

01:02:00:24 – 01:02:08:14
Patrick O’Donnell
I read that just. Yeah, yeah, there ain’t a whole lot of those running around, thank goodness.

01:02:08:16 – 01:02:11:12
Dan LeFebvre
And John McClane just happens to run into all of them. You know? Right.

01:02:11:18 – 01:02:17:18
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah. Darn the luck. And they all have accents and they’re all really scary.

01:02:17:21 – 01:02:35:25
Dan LeFebvre
Well, from the first Die Hard movie is in 1988, and then the last one is in 2013. There’s like a 25 year span and something that we see John McClane seemingly struggling with in those 25 years is technology that, for example, in Die Hard two, McClane asks his wife how she’s calling him, and she’s like, it’s the 90s now.

01:02:35:25 – 01:02:59:28
Dan LeFebvre
So they have phones on the airplane. And 2007 Live Free or Die Hard is all about hackers, and the movie makes it seem like McClane just doesn’t get along with the new technology. And I know your career as a police officer was also 25 years different years from 95 to 2020. Correct me if I’m wrong on that, but, although it’s not the same years as the Die Hard franchise, it’s still 25 years of changing technology.

01:03:00:01 – 01:03:12:13
Dan LeFebvre
Can you share how cops have used or maybe as individual officers have struggled with technology, like we see McClane seeming to do over the course of the movies, and then your own 25 year career?

01:03:12:16 – 01:03:39:18
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes. When I started in 95, we handwrote all of our reports. The only computer in the whole district station was to run people, you know, in their license plates. And there was only one of those, and there was a couple of typewriters. And you handwrote your reports, you use carbon paper, you used white out, green out, pink out, depending on what the report was.

01:03:39:20 – 01:03:57:15
Patrick O’Donnell
So, you know, it was pretty medieval. And I remember I got like out there and I’m like, where the computers. And some day guy was like, what are you talking about, kid? We don’t need those damn computers. And I’m just like, there was two dictionaries in the assembly that most of the pages were, like, missing out of them and stuff.

01:03:57:15 – 01:04:18:09
Patrick O’Donnell
And I’m just like, oh, God, in my handwriting is terrible. So I’m like, oh, this is no bueno. But, you know, I started out with that and the squad cars had no computers, no cameras. There was no body cameras back then. We didn’t have tasers. You know, people didn’t use a Taser like we’re poor. Big cities don’t have big budgets.

01:04:18:11 – 01:04:51:00
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, we we don’t have the money, you know, so, you know, so we handwrote reports and like I said, there was no squad computers. And slowly that stuff, you know, started coming into fruition. And when we started getting all the computers, etc., I became a sergeant, I was boss. Now the cop on the streets relies on that computer quite a bit, and they have cameras in their squads that automatically turn on when you activate the lights and the siren, you know?

01:04:51:02 – 01:05:11:03
Patrick O’Donnell
And same thing with the body camera. Body cameras came about three years before I retired as a sergeant. I didn’t have to wear one. They didn’t require bosses to wear, so it was something new, etc. I mean, I had a computer in my squad and most of the time I was a beverage holder, you know, or an arborist.

01:05:11:03 – 01:05:28:16
Patrick O’Donnell
That’s the I’d have my arm up either on the computer, like if I was sitting around, you know, smoking a cigar or whatever, like art. I wonder if my cigar fits on that. All right, that’ll work. But but, you know, for the most part, no. And you know, the younger sergeants would make fun of me all the time.

01:05:28:21 – 01:05:55:08
Patrick O’Donnell
Like, you didn’t even turn that thing I did. It did do. I’m like, oh, sure. Didn’t like, I don’t need it. It makes you I mean, they’re they’re great tools, but they also make the cops lazy because you develop an ear for the radio. See, you’re in a district and it’s day shift that might be like 25, 30 cops somewhere in that ballpark.

01:05:55:10 – 01:06:25:27
Patrick O’Donnell
And you keep an ear out for the radio, whereas it’s like, okay, Dan just got sent to a battery, domestic violence actor still on the scene. They send you and your partner now I’m going to keep that in the back of my head because I was like, well, those can turn south pretty quick sometimes. And it sounds like, you know, and the dispatcher says, and there’s sounds of people fighting in the background, okay, initially they’re going to send two squads.

01:06:25:29 – 01:06:47:27
Patrick O’Donnell
I’m going to keep that in the back of my head. Then they’re going to send me to something else. Okay. Even though they sent me to something else, I’m going to keep in the back of my head where you are in case something bad happens. So you develop, in the ears for the radio. And the newer cops don’t have that as well because they’re constantly checking their screen like, we’re okay.

01:06:47:27 – 01:07:05:04
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, Dan is that blah blah, blah. You know, that fraction of a second or 2 or 3 seconds can be a big deal. So I, I was never a huge fan of them. Every now and then I’d power it up if I had to, but for the most part, I just ignored it.

01:07:05:06 – 01:07:24:17
Dan LeFebvre
Were you then being asked to do more and more, just assuming that you could rely on the technology to do some of that for you? I think of, you know, even today, just, you know, a lot of people are doing a lot more things are being asked to do a lot more things in their job because they’re like, oh, well, you can just kind of allow the technology to remember that for you.

01:07:24:19 – 01:07:35:12
Dan LeFebvre
But you’re saying, you know, remembering it in your head, which there’s definitely a benefit to that. But then also I’m wondering if are you being asked to do so much more? Then it becomes hard to remember things.

01:07:35:14 – 01:07:58:21
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, you know that that’s part of it. And, you know, when we did get squad computers, they didn’t have GPS. Now I do believe they have GPS, but I knew the neighborhood that I worked in like the back of my hand. And if I heard, you know, 1234 North Astro Street, I could vision I could visualize it or I’d have a pretty good idea of where it was.

01:07:58:24 – 01:08:21:06
Patrick O’Donnell
The newer kids, they’re not kids or adults, you know, they’re relying on GPS. It kind of makes you dumb, you know? It’s like, you know, they’re they’re looking at a computer screen, whatever. And then another thing, you know, they’re expecting more. It’s like, okay, well, you don’t have to go to the district station to do your reports. You have a squad computer, you can do them on your computer in the car.

01:08:21:09 – 01:08:37:25
Patrick O’Donnell
And it’s like, okay, because I want the cops on the street for visibility sake, too. You know, more cops out there instead of sitting in a district station. But the problem with that is, hey, it’s not safe at all, because where’s your face? Where’s your eyes start?

01:08:37:27 – 01:08:41:03
Dan LeFebvre
Because you’re not looking at. Yeah. You’re not focused on a computer screen.

01:08:41:03 – 01:09:03:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Yep. Absolutely. So I don’t think it’s very safe and it’s really awkward. If you ever try to type with your arms up like this, it’s nothing is. You know, they have all this equipment crammed in this little area and it’s just incredibly uncomfortable. And. Yeah, and nobody wants to sit in the same car for eight hours or 10 hours or 12 hours.

01:09:03:17 – 01:09:08:00
Patrick O’Donnell
You got to get out and stretch your legs. It’s nice to have a change of scenery every now on that.

01:09:08:03 – 01:09:27:03
Dan LeFebvre
I hadn’t thought about that of, you know, if you’re focused on your computer so much that, yeah, I mean, you don’t know what’s going on around you and you’re you always have to have situational. I think even being a citizen, you know, it’s good to have situational awareness, know what’s going on around you. Yeah. Especially when you’re in a car because you don’t know what other people are doing.

01:09:27:03 – 01:09:31:08
Dan LeFebvre
You might be parked, but there might be a crazy, reckless driver out there too. Who knows?

01:09:31:15 – 01:09:56:14
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You know, we call it head on a swivel where, you know, it’s like you’re constantly scanning for threats and you don’t have to be a cop for that. You know, I’ve dealt with a lot of victims of crimes, obviously, and a lot of them had zero situational awareness. I never saw them coming. Yeah, because your face was buried in your phone or you EarPods, you know, AirPods in, and you you didn’t hear them.

01:09:56:14 – 01:10:18:11
Patrick O’Donnell
You didn’t see them. You you’re in your own little world. You know, people are like, I get a kick out and people are literally walking into each other now because their faces are buried and it’s like, let alone some like, scary dude that’s going to rob you or do something worse. Do you? You you have no idea. And the same thing with cars, you know, like safety tips for cars.

01:10:18:13 – 01:10:41:11
Patrick O’Donnell
I exaggerate how much space I leave between me and the car in front of me. If I’m rolling up to a red light, I’m thinking of escape plans, you know, because I’ve been to so many carjackings and a lot of them happened up at red lights. You know, it’s like, okay, before you know it, you have some guy who’s shoving a gun in your face and, you know, trying to drag you out of your car.

01:10:41:13 – 01:11:02:04
Patrick O’Donnell
Well, first off, it is like, okay, see that sidewalk? I’m going up on the sidewalk. Yeah, I’m going to drive through somebody’s lawn to get out. But if I’m if I don’t leave any space in front of me, then I have nowhere to go. I’m trapped. I hate that feeling of being trapped. I always yeah, I always try to have some kind of escape route.

01:11:02:06 – 01:11:04:09
Dan LeFebvre
Probably not going through the helicopter like John McClane.

01:11:04:15 – 01:11:09:15
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, yeah, that’d be. That is frowned upon. Yeah.

01:11:09:16 – 01:11:11:00
Dan LeFebvre
Not a viable escape.

01:11:11:03 – 01:11:12:03
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes.

01:11:12:06 – 01:11:22:06
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask for your take on the one question that everyone always debates when it comes to this franchise in your mind, is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

01:11:22:08 – 01:11:38:17
Patrick O’Donnell
Hell, yes. It’s it’s the best Christmas movie. I love Die Hard as a Christmas movie. I play Die Hard every Christmas. And my kids, you know, they’re adults now and they, you know, they’ve got kids are like, you’re going to like, die. And I’m like, oh, hell yeah. I got to play that and it’s Christmas for God’s things.

01:11:38:20 – 01:11:44:12
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, we’re in agreement on that. Yes, I watch it every Christmas as well. Not the entire franchise, but at least one.

01:11:44:14 – 01:11:45:25
Patrick O’Donnell
No. Yeah, the first one for sure.

01:11:45:26 – 01:12:14:17
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat about the accuracy of a police officer like John McClane on screen. Before I let you go, I have a two part question for you because not only do you have a fantastic podcast called Cops and Writers, where you help authors and screenwriters write more accurate stories, you’ve also written multiple books yourself, including a brand new book called The Good Collar, and I’ll make sure to add a link to in the show notes for everyone to order right now, before I let you go, can you share a little bit more about your inspiration behind starting cops and writers, and maybe give my audience a sneak peek

01:12:14:17 – 01:12:15:17
Dan LeFebvre
into your new book?

01:12:15:19 – 01:12:22:11
Patrick O’Donnell
Sure. The podcast. I started the podcast almost four years ago, as of yesterday, has been four years.

01:12:22:14 – 01:12:23:22
Dan LeFebvre
And I congrats.

01:12:23:24 – 01:12:38:24
Patrick O’Donnell
Thank you. And as you know, it’s a lot of work sometimes for not a whole lot of reward. But you know, you get to meet cool people. I think that’s the best part of it. Some interesting people that you never would have if you didn’t have the podcast.

01:12:38:27 – 01:12:45:12
Dan LeFebvre
And exactly. We wouldn’t have a chance to talk about John McClane driving through helicopters. I keep going back to that one, but why wouldn’t?

01:12:45:13 – 01:13:16:22
Patrick O’Donnell
Yeah, I mean, yeah, the first. So I started the podcast to promote two books that I just wrote called Cops and Writers and those books were for writers to get their police facts straight, more or less. And I started a Facebook group and I started the podcast to promote my books. Well, before I know it, the Facebook group has 7500 people in it from all over the world, and the podcast grew legs and just took off.

01:13:16:24 – 01:13:29:02
Patrick O’Donnell
And I’m like, I didn’t. And I didn’t at first really mean to do that. You know, all of a sudden it’s like, oh, wow, look at that. People are listening, you know? I mean, you know what it’s like sometimes you think you’re just talking to a microphone and nobody’s listening.

01:13:29:04 – 01:13:36:09
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, for sure. It can be hard sometimes just talking to it, like like you’re talking about, you know, typing on the screen. You just talking to a screen, right? Yeah.

01:13:36:11 – 01:13:56:24
Patrick O’Donnell
Exactly. So you know, and then the as far as, you know, the podcast and everything else, I started out writing other books that had nothing to do with police work and I was going to writers conferences, and I bumped into people and made friendships with people that knew a lot more about this than I do. And they’re like, you should really write a book.

01:13:56:27 – 01:14:18:18
Patrick O’Donnell
You know, helping out, writers, you know, authors and screenwriters. And I’m like, okay, that sounds that sounds like a good idea. And when you go to these conferences, inevitably people are going to be like, oh, you’re that cop guy. And I’m like, I’m not advertising it. I don’t have a t shirt on saying I’m a cop guy or whatever, but and they’re always very respectful.

01:14:18:21 – 01:14:41:11
Patrick O’Donnell
They’re very nice. They’re like, hey, would you need a warrant for this? You know, would my character, would he really do this? Yeah, yeah, she’s a detective. And one would have, you know, blah, blah blah. And I’m like, yeah, I’d be more than happy to help you. So that’s kind of spawned another industry for me where I’ve. Yeah, I’ve, I’ve helped, you know, screenwriters, I’ve helped authors.

01:14:41:11 – 01:15:15:12
Patrick O’Donnell
So it’s been a lot of fun that way. And as far as my newest book, the, The Good Collar, it’s just imagine Dexter, Deathwish and John Wick got together and had a baby. That’s what I love. I love Dexter, I always liked Dexter, and I thought to myself, well, could you think of Dexter? But instead of being the serology, the blood spatter guy, you’d be the police chaplain.

01:15:15:14 – 01:15:43:17
Patrick O’Donnell
That everybody trusts, everybody loves. But he’s got that vigilante thing in them where, you know. Okay, Dan, just, you know, murdered a bunch of orphans. Yeah, and burned the school bus or whatever he did, and he got away on a technicality, and it’s like. So he writes the wrongs and actually the good car, we can circle back to Bruce Willis because he did a remake of Charles Bronson’s Death Wish.

01:15:43:19 – 01:15:45:00
Dan LeFebvre
That’s true. He did, didn’t he? Yeah.

01:15:45:01 – 01:16:01:02
Patrick O’Donnell
Yes. That was you. He played a Chicago E.R. doc and his wife and daughter. I think the wife got killed and the daughter was, like, brutalized in their own home. And he gets a gun and he turns into this, like, Doctor vigilante.

01:16:01:05 – 01:16:06:22
Dan LeFebvre
Well, that sounds like we have a lot of, potential future episodes to talk about, for sure.

01:16:06:25 – 01:16:10:01
Patrick O’Donnell
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

01:16:10:04 – 01:16:12:12
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you again so much for your time, Patrick.

01:16:12:15 – 01:16:20:01
Patrick O’Donnell
Thank you. Dan.

October 8, 1967. Bolivia.

To kick off this week’s events from the movies, we’ll go back to the 1969 film called Che! to find an event that happened 57 years ago on Tuesday this week.

About an hour and 21 minutes into the movie, we’re inside a room with a shirtless man’s body lying on a table. A group of men, some in suits and others in military uniforms, are crowded around. One of them points to a bullet wound on body, saying this was the fatal shot less than 24 hours ago.

The camera pans over to the corner of the room where we can see the man in the three-star beret breaking the fourth wall as he talks to the camera. I guess we can give him a name…that’s Albert Paulsen’s character, Captain Vasquez. He explains that the raid on Alto Saco was the beginning of the end for Guevara. Vasquez says they ambushed his rear guard in La Higueras and encircled him in the Churro Ravine.

We’re no longer in the room with the dead body, now, as the scene shifts to what Vasquez is explaining. Rebel soldiers are being shot at by the Rangers in rocks surrounding the ravine. It’s not just rifles, but the Rangers have mortars as well. One of the rebels is killed. Then another. They’re firing back, and some of the Rangers are shot, too.

The intense fighting continues for a few more moments until we can see Omar Sharif’s version of Che Guevara climbing to get out of the ravine. The rebel machine gun is captured, silencing most of the firing. Che and another man seem to be the only two left, and Che is obviously in a lot of pain.

The Rangers close in as the two rebel soldiers fire back from the cover of rocks. The other man is shot and killed. Che, too, is shot, although he’s not killed. Wounded, he lies back and the shooting stops. The Rangers stand up, walking slowly to where Che is lying on the ground.

Che is still breathing as Captain Vasquez reaches him. Pulling out a photo, Vasquez looks at it and then back down at Che. Then, over the radio, Vasquez announces: Puma to Lancer. Puma to Lancer. We’ve got Papa. Alive. Repeat, we’ve got Papa.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Che!

Transitioning into our fact-check of the 1969 film Che!, I’ll first point out that we did a deep dive into the full movie that I’ll link to in the show notes. For this week’s historical event, though, it got the basic gist correct even if it did change a lot of the details from the true story.

For example, remember the guy leading the Rangers in the movie? We talked about him earlier; he’s the guy with the three stars on his beret. The actor playing him Albert Paulsen, and in the movie it’s a character named Captain Vasquez.

In the true story, the leader of the Bolivian Army’s 2^nd Ranger Battalion was Gary Prado Salmón, who was later promoted to General and a national hero in Bolivia for Che’s capture.

The 2^nd Ranger Battalion was trained especially to target the guerilla fighters. While we didn’t cover it in our movie segment this week, a bit earlier in the film Captain Vasquez tells the camera that the CIA was not involved in any way.

Well, most sources that I found say that even though the 2^nd Rangers were from the Bolivian Army, they did get help from the CIA, as well training from the 8^th Special Forces Group from the U.S. Army. I’ll add a link to the show notes for this episode with a fascinating article by Marco Margaritoff over on the website All That’s Interesting that gives a nice overview of a man named Félix Rodríguez, who was the CIA agent tasked with helping in the capture of Che Guevara.

Something else the movie changes from the real story is the number of soldiers involved. In the movie, it looks like Captain Vasquez has maybe a dozen or so Rangers with him. Granted, they’re often among the rocks and moving around the terrain so it’s hard to track down an exact number.

With that said, though, the 2^nd Ranger Battalion had 650 soldiers in it and about 180 to 200 of them were involved in the capture of Che Guevara on October 8^th, 1967. So, there were a lot more soldiers involved than we see in the movie.

In the true story, the Rangers received word during the early morning hours of October 8^th of a little over a dozen men who had walked through a local farmer’s field the night before. They were going toward a canyon area nearby, so that’s where the Rangers went.

The movie was right to show mortars being used, though, as they used mortars and machine guns along with sections, or platoons, of soldiers set up at different areas in the canyon to help seal off the entrances and exits to the canyon while other soldiers in the Battalion closed in on their targets.

It was a tactic that worked, as before long the Rangers pushed back the guerrillas to where they had nowhere else to go. As for Che Guevara himself, somehow his rifle was destroyed—or at least, rendered unusable, and he was shot in the leg. It was in his right calf, so not a mortal wound but between that and not having a weapon, he was forced to surrender when the Rangers came upon him.

Although this, too, seems to have happened differently than what we see in the movie. I say that because in the movie we see the Captain Vasquez character look down at Che and pull a photo out of his pocket to verify that’s who it is. In the true story, though, one of the Rangers, a Sergeant, later told Che’s biographer that Che was the one to identify himself to them.

Either way, Che Guevara was captured on October 8^th, 1967. The next day, the President of Bolivia ordered Che be put to death. And so, on October 9^th, 1967, the revolutionary Che Guevara was executed at the age of 39.

As a last little side note, when the movie shows Che’s body, we can see a bullet wound in his chest that one of the bystanders mentions as being the fatal shot. Even though Che was executed, that sort of shot would still be accurate because according to some sources, it was the CIA agent Félix Rodríguez who suggested they don’t shoot Che in the head to make it obvious he was executed, but rather to shoot him in a way that would look like he’d been a casualty of a run-in with the Bolivian Army.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, check out the 1969 movie called Che! That’s not to be confused with the 2008 two-part series from Steven Soderbergh that’s also called Che. While that’s another good one to watch this week, the movie we talked about today is the 1969 film with an exclamation point at the end: Che!

And don’t forget we’ve got a deep dive in the show notes that you can queue up right now to hear more about the true story of the entire movie!

 

October 9, 1919. Chicago, Illinois.

Our next historical event falls on Wednesday this week, and we’ll find a re-enactment of it at about an hour and 22 minutes into the movie called Eight Men Out.

Hitting play on the movie, and we’re at a baseball game.

The crowd seems to be getting ready for the game to start. On the mound for the Chicago White Sox is Lefty Williams. He’s played by James Read in the movie.

<whew> Williams exhales.

There’s text on the screen in the movie saying this is game #8.

Then, Williams winds and offers the first pitch. The batter swings, sending a fly ball into right field. We don’t see how far the ball goes, but what we can see is the reaction from many of the White Sox players who don’t seem happy. Williams returns to the mound with a stern look on his face. He looks into the batter’s box where another hitter steps to the plate.

The camera is just behind the catcher now. We can see Williams wind, and pitch. The batter swings, another hit.

Again, we don’t see where it goes, but we can see a baserunner make it to second base. That must be the guy who got the first hit. Two back-to-back hits, it seems.

In the crowd, Lefty Williams’ wife looks sad.

Back on the mound, Williams is ready for another hitter. He looks at the runner on second. The pitch. Way outside. The catcher has to reach to stop it, but he does. No runners advance. The next pitch.

The batter swings, and Williams’ head snaps around to watch what we can assume is a high fly ball to right field. Again, we can’t see how far it goes, but we can see the catcher throwing his mitt down as a runner crosses the plate to score. The crowd is jeering at Williams, who seems to be starting the game off on a rocky note.

But, the game goes on, and Williams settles in to face the next hitter.

The pitch.

Another high fly ball, this time to left field. It hits the outfield wall, and we can see another runner score as he crosses home plate. Again, the catcher throws his mitt to the ground in disgust. As he does, another runner crosses home plate. Three runs scored so far, and there’s a runner on second.

John Mahoney’s character, Kid Gleason, runs from the White Sox dugout. As he does, he yells, “James, you’re in!”

When he reaches the pitcher’s mound he takes the ball from Williams, ending his day.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Eight Men Out

That sequence comes from the 1988 movie directed by John Sayles called Eight Men Out. The event it’s depicting is the final game of the 16^th World Series, which happened this week in history on October 9^th, 1919.

The movie is historically accurate to show Lefty Williams starting that day for what was game eight of the Series. And it’s also correct to show him giving up a number of hits, but in the movie, it looks like all but one of the hits are going to right field—they weren’t all hit there, but then again, we don’t see where the ball goes in the movie. All we can see are the actor’s reactions to the hits, so maybe that’s nitpicking a little too much.

Here’s the true story.

The first hitter to face Lefty Williams in game eight of the 1919 World Series was the Cincinnati Reds’ second baseman, Morrie Rath. He popped out to start the game. The second hitter was the Reds first baseman Jake Daubert. He hit a single to center field. Next up was Heinie Groh, the third baseman. He smacked another single, this one to right field a lot like we see in the movie. It also allowed Daubert to advance from first to second, just like we see in the movie.

Next up for the Reds was their cleanup hitter, the center fielder Edd Roush. He smashed a double to right field, allowing Daubert to score and Groh moved to third base.

I couldn’t find anything in my research to suggest the White Sox catcher got so fed up by the pitcher Williams giving up these hits that he threw his mitt on the ground like we see happening in the movie. But the movie was correct to show that catcher for the White Sox being Ray Schalk. He’s played by Gordon Clapp in the movie.

The next batter for the Reds was their left fielder, Pat Duncan. He hit a double to left field, driving in Groh from third and Roush from second. At this point, the Reds were up 3-0 with one out in the first inning.

The White Sox manager had seen enough. Just like we see him doing in the movie, Kid Gleason took out his starter and put in the right-handed reliever Bill James.

To establish a bit of context that we don’t see in the movie, the 26-year-old Lefty Williams was the White Sox #2 starter. His real name, by the way, is Claude. “Lefty” was just a nickname. And yes, he was a left-handed pitcher.

In 1919, Lefty had a stellar record of 23 wins to 11 losses with an ERA of 2.64. That’s spread across 297 innings. In fact, Williams not only led the White Sox with 125 strikeouts, he led the majors that season with 40 games started and he tied the White Sox #1 starter, Eddie Cicotte, with five shutouts.

So, Williams had a fantastic season in 1919.

His playoff record wasn’t so great, as he went 0-3 giving up 12 earned runs across 16.1 innings pitched for an ERA of 6.61. And while we didn’t talk about what happened the night before the game, there are a lot of people who believe Lefty Williams was given an ultimatum.

What really happened is one of those moments behind closed doors that we’ll just never know for sure.

As the story goes, Williams was visited by an associate of the bookie and gambler who had offered cash to the White Sox players in exchange for them throwing games. That same story suggests this unnamed associate told Williams that either he purposely lose his next start or else his wife and child would pay the consequences.

And so, as we know from what happened publicly, Lefty Williams had a terrible game. He gave up three runs and couldn’t even get through the first inning before being pulled. The Reds would go on to win the game 10-5, and by extension, the World Series overall, five games to three.

The allegations of throwing the Series hit the White Sox almost immediately, earning the team the nickname “Black Sox” for the scandal. It also changed Major League Baseball as the owners gave over control to establish the position of the Commissioner of Baseball, a position that still exists today, in an attempt to give public trust in the sport again. It’d also end up with eight players from the White Sox being permanently banned from Major League Baseball—hence the title of the movie, Eight Men Out.

One of those players who was permanently banned was Lefty Williams.

So, if you’re feeling like a sports movie to watch this week, check out the 1988 film called Eight Men Out!

And if you want to learn more about the true story, after you watch the movie, we compared that with history back on episode #132 of Based on a True Story. Or, if you want to take a super deep dive, the entire second season of another fantastic podcast called Infamous America is dedicated to the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. You can find a link to that in the show notes for this episode.

 

October 12, 1492. The Bahamas.

From the baseball field in the last movie, to the Bahamas, our next movie is the 1992 movie called 1492: Conquest of Paradise. About 54 minutes into the movie, we’ll find this week’s event as we can see two large ships. There’s one in the foreground and another a little distance away, and they’re not moving at all. In fact, the night before in the movie, we saw the anchors land in the water.

Today, we’re seeing smaller boats departing the large ships and heading toward the land we can see in the distance. Lush, green trees and sandy beaches make this scene look like what you’d expect for sailors on ships in the 1400s to be making landfall on an island in the Caribbean.

Because of the camera angles in the movie, it’s hard to see exactly how many boats are leaving the larger ships but I counted at least five in a single frame. Each boat is filled with men, and each boat is carrying flags of orange, yellow, purple, and many bright colors.

The camera focuses on one of the men as he jumps off the boat into the water. The movie goes into slow motion, capturing the moment as he splashes into the waist-deep water. He continues to walk in slow motion, each footstep splashing into the water.

He falls to his knees just beyond the waves in a gesture of appreciation. The camera cuts to other men jumping off the boats now. Some are running onto the land, others are falling onto the sandy beach—overall, it’s a scene that makes it obvious they haven’t seen land for quite some time. Dry land is a welcome sight.

Then, the movie gives us the location and the date. Guanahani Island. 12^th of October 1492.

The man who was on his knees gets up now. He’s approached by a colorfully dressed man.

“Don Christopher,” he says, as he unravels a scroll. Christopher signs something on the scroll. Then he speaks, “By the grace of God, in the name of their gracious Majesties of Castilla and Aragon…”

He pauses for a moment to turn around to the men who are all lined up on the beach now.

“…by all the powers vested in me, I claim this island and name it San Salvador.”

Then, the camera backs up to show the line of men as they start walking inland.

The true story behind that scene in the movie 1942: Conquest of Paradise!

That is a sequence from the 1992 movie called 1492: Conquest of Paradise. The event it’s depicting is Christopher Columbus making his first landing after the long trip across the ocean from Europe.

That happened this week in history, on October 12^th, 1492, right away let’s clarify the ships themselves. In the sequence we talked about today, we could only see two ships at any one time in the movie. In the true story, Columbus sailed with three ships: Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria.

That we only saw two in the sequence we talked about today isn’t really a point against the movie for historical accuracy—we do see three ships at different points in the movie. It’s just the sequence for October 12^th doesn’t really show all three ships at one time.

With that said, there has been a lot of debate among historians about exactly where Columbus landed.

According to Columbus himself, it was on an island called Guanahani. That’s the name we see mentioned in the movie.

The name, Guanahani, is the Taino name for the island. Just like we see in the movie, Columbus named the island San Salvador upon his arrival. I’m not sure if he did it the moment he landed on the beach like we see in the movie, but then again, Columbus thought he landed in East Asia at first. He didn’t know he actually landed in a chain of islands we now know as the Bahamas.

The name he gave the island is derived from the Spanish “Isla San Salvador” or, in English, “Island of the Holy Savior.”

As a little side note, the name “Guanahani” means “Small Land in the Upper Waters” in the Taino language. The Taino language, in turn, used to be the most popular language in the Caribbean at the time of Columbus’ landing…but that language is extinct now. Also, in the 17^th century, the island was called Waitlings Island after an Englishman who landed there. In 1925, the island was officially renamed to San Salvador.

In 1971, Columbus Day became an officially recognized Federal holiday in the United States—but that recognition has changed in recent years. The observance of the holiday doesn’t always land on October 12^th, but at least now you know a little more about the history behind the event that happened this week in history.

If you want to dig further into the story, of course you can watch the movie called 1492: Conquest of Paradise.

Even that title is a bit controversial when you consider how Columbus landed on lands owned by people who already lived there and conquered them.

Remember when I mentioned the Taino language is extinct now? Well, that’s just one example of something lost to history since Columbus’ landing. There has been a lot of controversy over his and other colonists’ actions.

As a result, in 1992, Berkeley, California became the first city in the United States to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day. Cities like Austin, Seattle, and Philadelphia, or states like Maine, South Dakota, and Alaska, among many others have dropped Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Here in Oklahoma where I’m recording this from right now, many here celebrate Native American Day instead.

So, if you’re looking for something to watch this week, the movie we talked about in this segment is called 1492: Conquest of Paradise. The landing sequence happens at about 54 minutes into the movie. If you watch the movie, or even if you just want to dig deeper into the history, scroll back to episode #186 of Based on a True Story where we covered that movie and the true story behind it.

 

Historical birthdays from the movies

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 October 9^th, 1895, Eugene Bullard was born in Columbus, Georgia. He is considered to be the first African American military pilot to fly in combat. And even though he was born in the United States, he flew for the French during WWI—he was rejected by the U.S. military. He’s one of those historical figures that I wish there was a biopic about his life, but if you want to see a movie in his honor this week, then I’d recommend the 2012 movie called Red Tails. Now, right up front, I’ll let you know that movie is not about Eugene Bullard. It’s about the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, but the filmmakers honored Bullard’s memory by having the commander in the movie be named Col. A.J. Bullard. He’s played by Terrence Howard in the movie.

On October 11, 1884, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City, New York. She’s better known by her middle name: Eleanor Roosevelt, and as the First Lady of the United States during World War II while her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or just FDR as he’s called, was president. And yes, I did a double-check on that too…Eleanor Roosevelt’s maiden name was Roosevelt, and she married Franklin Roosevelt so both her maiden and married name was Roosevelt. Eleanor and Franklin were fifth cousins once removed. This week’s recommendation portraying Eleanor on screen is called The First Lady, the 2022 series from Showtime. Eleanor Roosevelt is played by Gillian Anderson.

On October 13^th, 1537, Jane Grey was born in Bradgate, England. At least, that’s the date often given for her birthdate—hers is one of those birthdays in history that we’re not 100% sure of. She’s often known as Lady Jane Grey, or sometimes as the Nine Days’ Queen, because she was Queen of England for only nine days. Her name earned more fame when Mark Twain used her as a character in his novel from 1882 called The Prince and the Pauper. So, most movie adaptations of that will have someone playing Lady Jane. My recommendation this week, though, is the 2022 series from Starz called Becoming Elizabeth. As you can tell from the title, it’s more about Queen Elizabeth I, but Lady Jane is played by Bella Ramsey in that series. So, if you’re a fan of The Last of Us, maybe you’ll enjoy seeing Bella star in another series.

 

‘Based on a True Story’ movie that released this week

This week’s movie premiere from history is the film directed by Paul Greengrass called Captain Phillips, which was released in the U.S. 11 years ago this week on October 11^th, 2013.

In the movie, Tom Hanks portrays the lead role of Captain Richard Phillips, who takes command of the cargo ship called the Maersk Alabama. Despite the name, the Maersk Alabama’s home port according to the movie is the Port of Salalah in Oman.

When he’s given orders to take the vessel to Mombasa, Kenya, that takes him past the Horn of Africa where there has been some known pirate activity. So, along with the help of the first officer, Michael Chernus’ version of Shane Murphy, as they get underway, they go through their security protocols.

That’s when they notice a couple small boats following their massive ship.

Fearing they’re pirates, Captain Phillips calls for aid from a nearby warship. Of course, there’s not really a warship, but the pirates don’t know that. And Captain Phillips knows the pirates don’t know that, but he also knows they’re listening to the radio, so he thinks maybe if they think the military is nearby that’ll scare them off.

And it sort of works. One of the two skiffs turns around, while the other loses power in the wake of the huge cargo ship.

But they’re not in the clear yet, because the next day, one of the skiffs filled with pirates returns to the chase. Since their boat is much smaller, it’s also faster, and before long the armed pirates manage to attach their ladder to the Maersk Alabama and climb aboard despite the best efforts of the cargo ship’s crew to stop them. Then, the pirates seize control of the ship at gunpoint, and very soon it becomes clear to Captain Phillips that the pirates intend to ransom off the crew and ship for the insurance money.

The leader of the pirates is a guy named Abduwali Muse, who is played by Barkhad Abdi in the movie.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t take long for the U.S. military to actually find out the Maersk Alabama has been taken over by the pirates. After all, they’re wanting the insurance money, so the pirates aren’t trying to hide the fact that they took over the ship. So, the U.S. Navy launches a destroyer called USS Bainbridge under the command of Frank Castellano. He’s played by Yul Vazquez in the movie.

Things descend into a fight between the mostly unarmed crew and very well-armed pirates aboard the cargo ship. I say “mostly” unarmed, because we do see things like the crew using a knife to try and hold Muse hostage and force all the pirates to leave in a lifeboat. But, they won’t do that unless Captain Phillips goes with them. Trying not to make matters worse, Phillips goes along with the pirates in exchange for them leaving the rest of the crew on the Maersk Alabama.

Meanwhile, on the lifeboat, the pirates beat and blindfold Captain Phillips in what has now become a kidnapping situation as well. We see Bainbridge enter the picture and try to get to a peaceful solution. As part of that process, they hook up the lifeboat to Bainbridge so it’s being towed by the destroyer while inviting the pirate leader, Muse, to Bainbridge to negotiate. He agrees, and in the movie, we also see SEAL Team Six from the U.S. Navy setting up snipers to try and take out the pirates.

Near the climax at the end of the movie, the U.S. Navy pulls off a perfectly timed maneuver that involves stopping their tow of the lifeboat to throw the pirates off balance just as three snipers from the destroyer take three simultaneous shots and kill three of the pirates at the exact same moment.

The movie ends with Muse being the only pirate left alive. He’s arrested and taken into custody as Captain Phillips is rescued from the lifeboat and treated for his injuries.

The true story behind Captain Phillips

Before we compare the true story with the movie, I do want to point out that we did a deep dive into the full movie back on episode #28 of Based on a True Story so I’ll link that in the show notes if you want to give that a listen as well.

For today’s purposes, though, let’s start with the overview of the people in the story.

The character Tom Hanks is playing in the movie, Captain Phillips, is a real person. As of this recording, he’s still alive. Actually, it’s his book that the movie is based on. That book is called A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea. I’ll throw a link to that in the show notes, too.

The pirate leader, Abduwali Muse, is also a real person who is also still alive as of this recording—he’s currently serving a 33-year prison sentence in Terre Haute, Indiana, which means unless something changes between now and then, Muse will be released in 2038, by which time he’ll be 48 years old.

That’s right, Muse was just 18 years old when all this happened in April of 2009. Or…maybe he was 19, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Some of the other characters in the movie are real people, too, like USS Bainbridge’s Commander Frank Castellano, and some other more background crew in the movie are based on real people but with some fictionalization thrown in to help tell the story.

But, of course, there’s always more to the true story that we don’t see in the movie.

So, let’s go back to April 8^th, 2009, because that’s when our true story starts.

Maersk Alabama really is the name of the ship that was hijacked by pirates that day. The name comes from the Danish shipping company headquartered out of Copenhagen called Maersk. They’re a massive company who has been around since 1928, although it’s worth mentioning that Maersk Alabama was registered under a U.S. flag.

That’s because technically Maersk Alabama in 2009 was run by Maersk Line, a division of Maersk that’s based out of Norfolk, Virginia, in the United States. As a little side note, after the timeline of the movie, Maersk Alabama was sold to another company and renamed to MV Tygra. As of this recording, she’s still in operation on the seas.

While I didn’t notice the movie mentioning this, in the true story when she was hijacked that marked the first time a ship bearing the U.S. flag was seized by pirates since the 1800s.

With that said, though, the movie is correct to show the crew on Maersk Alabama preparing for a possible pirate attack because Maersk Alabama was actually the sixth ship to be attacked by pirates just that week! The other ships just weren’t bearing a U.S. flag, but everyone was aware of how dangerous the waters were.

The movie is correct to show that she was heading from Salalah, Oman, to Mombasa, Kenya. On board, she was carrying 401 containers of primarily food aid for refugees in countries like Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Somalia, etc.

Any training the crew had done prior turned into reality when the true story behind the movie began on April 8^th, 2009. Just like we see in the movie, that’s when four pirates attacked the ship armed with AK-47s. We learned that Muse was just 18 or 19 years old at the time of the attack, and that actually became an issue in the subsequent trial because at first there were questions about whether or not he could even be tried as an adult.

According to Robert Gates, who was the U.S. Secretary of Defense at the time, the four pirates were between 17 and 19 years old, although Muse’s own mother said he was only 16 at the time. At the time, some suggested perhaps she said that so Muse wouldn’t be tried as an adult, but regardless, for our purposes today it’s safe to say all the pirates who boarded Maersk Alabama that day were teenagers.

The movie is also correct to show the purpose for the pirates was to get the insurance money for Maersk Alabama. As we just learned, there were a lot of other ships captured at the time—actually, even the fishing vessel the pirates used as their own “mother ship,” so to speak, was one they hijacked. That was the FV Win Far 161, which was a 700-tonnes Taiwanese ship that Somali pirates captured on April 6^th, 2009, and then used to launch the smaller skiffs to hijack even more ships.

We don’t see any of that in the movie since it’s mostly focused on Maersk Alabama, but FV Win Far 161 was eventually released by pirates in early 2010.

Back to the true story aboard Maersk Alabama, though, after being boarded by the pirates, the ship’s Chief Engineer and First Assistant Engineer, Mike Perry and Matt Fisher, respectively, worked to remove steering and engine control from the bridge, and shut down the ship’s systems. In other words, the ship went dead in the water.

Just like we see in the movie, the pirates boarded the ship and went right to the bridge. That’s where they captured Captain Phillips along with other crew, and they also found out they weren’t able to control the ship thanks to what Perry and Fisher did down below. And as we just learned, the pirates were very young and they were not highly trained engineers like Perry and Fisher so couldn’t really do anything about it themselves without help from Maersk Alabama’s crew—which, obviously, they weren’t inclined to do!

Of course, that doesn’t mean the pirates didn’t try to convince the ship’s crew to get it going again. While they held Captain Phillips in the bridge, Muse went in search of the rest of the cargo ship’s crew to do exactly that. And as you can probably guess, that was something the pirates intended to do at gunpoint.

But here’s where the movie shows the Maersk Alabama crew start fighting back, because for all they knew the pirates were going to sail the ship back to Somalia if they got it moving again…and that wouldn’t bode well for them.

Before I mentioned Mike Perry, the Chief Engineer; he’s played by David Warshofsky in the movie. While I didn’t mention this earlier, while the pirates were boarding the ship and trying to figure out why the controls didn’t work in the bridge, the rest of the Maersk Alabama’s crew hid in a secure hold in the ship. Remember, they had prepared for a possible pirate attack, so kind of like you have a plan for where you’ll go in case of emergency—so did they.

Mike Perry, though, hid himself outside of the secure room. His plan was to try and capture one of the pirates so he could trade the pirate for Captain Phillips. Basically, a prisoner exchange. So, when Muse walked by looking for crew, Perry jumped him with a knife and managed to subdue the teenager. Then, they offered the exchange to the pirates in the bridge. The movie gets that pretty accurate, too, because the offer was for the pirates to get their leader back, Muse, as well as all the cash they had on the ship—there was $30,000 in the ship’s safe, and then they also offered the pirates the use of the Maersk Alabama’s lifeboat for them to get off the ship.

Keeping in mind, again, that the pirates were teenagers who no doubt were feeling a little overwhelmed and unable to move the massive ship, they agreed to the deal. So, the crew released Muse with the cash and expected the pirates to hold up their end of the bargain.

But, things didn’t go according to plan. Instead, the pirates took Captain Phillips into the 28-foot lifeboat with them. So, now, the four pirates are off the Maersk Alabama, but now it’s also a hostage situation.

In the movie, we see the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Bainbridge get called into the picture around this time, and that is true. But, in the true story, the USS Bainbridge was not the only U.S. Navy ship involved—because, as we learned earlier—the Maersk Alabama was also not the only ship that had been hijacked by Somali pirates recently. So, there was a U.S. Navy presence in the area. There was another frigate, USS Halyburton, who was sent to deal with the hostage situation alongside Bainbridge.

And something else we don’t see in the movie is that the pirates’ ships also started to converge on the situation. Remember when we talked about the Taiwanese fishing vessel the pirates used as a “mother ship” of sorts? Well, as the Navy arrived on scene, so, too, did about four other ships all under pirate control. On those four ships were the crew held hostage by the pirates, so over 50 hostages from countries around the world.

Since Maersk Alabama was the only U.S. ship hijacked, though, and Captain Phillips was the captain of said ship…that’s why the movie’s story focuses more on the U.S.-centric version of the story. Also, because it’s based on Captain Phillips’ book, of course.

So, if you recall, the pirates boarded Maersk Alabama on April 8^th. On April 9^th, the Bainbridge and Halyburton arrived on scene and stayed just outside of the range of fire from the pirates. Instead, they used UAVs to get intelligence on the lifeboat and the situation as a whole.

By the way, the lifeboat is a covered lifeboat. The movie shows it pretty well, but if you’re like me and you think of the Titanic lifeboats—well, this happened in 2009 and not 1912, so obviously the lifeboat is a little different haha! Before long, the Navy made contact with the lifeboat and started to try negotiating with the pirates for Captain Phillips’ release—as well as the 54 other hostages on the other pirate-held boats.

On April 10^th, another Navy ship, the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer arrived at the scene, and negotiations continued with the pirates. The next day, everything changed when the pirates fired on USS Halyburton. No one was hurt, and Halyburton didn’t shoot back—no doubt not wanting to make things worse. I mean, Halyburton isn’t the world’s largest military ship, but it’s still a 453-foot-long battle-ready military ship with an array of armaments that could easily take out the 28-foot lifeboat if they really wanted to.

With Captain Phillips still held hostage on the lifeboat, though, Halyburton held their fire.

We don’t really see this in the movie, but in the true story’s timeline, April 11^th was also when Maersk Alabama finally arrived in Mombasa, Kenya, with the rest of the ship’s crew who had gotten it back underway after the pirates made their escape in the lifeboat. The U.S. Navy was involved in that, too, and escorted Maersk Alabama the rest of the way to ensure no other pirates would try to capture her again.

Meanwhile, back in the hostage situation, when the pirates fired on Halyburton, the U.S. Navy’s position changed from attempting to negotiate a release, to arranging a rescue. To help with that, they managed to convince Muse to come aboard Bainbridge for the negotiations the following day, April 12^th.

And so, the end of the movie is quite accurate to the end of the true story.

With Muse aboard Bainbridge, three SEAL Team Six snipers coordinated to simultaneously shoot the remaining three pirates on the lifeboat at the same time. Then, the Navy swooped in to rescue Captain Phillips, and with no more hostage to negotiate, Muse was arrested aboard Bainbridge. They never did find the $30,000, although some conspiracies have arisen that perhaps members of the SEAL Team Six took it before anyone else noticed—that’s never been proven one way or the other, though.

After the situation was handled at sea, Muse was taken back to the United States where he stood trial. Despite what his mother said about him being 16, Muse himself said he was 18, so he was tried as an adult. A few weeks later, in May of 2009, Captain Phillips sold his story to be told in what would become both the 2010 memoir from Phillips as well as the 2013 Paul Greengrass-directed movie we’ve learned about today.

September 30th, 331 BCE. Persia.

We’ll start this week by going back into ancient history from the 2004 Alexander movie.

Just a few minutes into the beginning of the movie we’ll find an event from this week in history as the camera pans across the desert. There are a few clouds in the sky, but it’s hardly a blue sky—more of a hazy mix of gray and an orange that, along with the sand in front of us, makes for a very one-colored landscape.

There’s some text on the screen telling us we’re in Gaugamela, Persia. That’s in modern-day Iraqi Kurdistan.

As we see a man on a horse, another man’s voice is narrating the story. He says it was mad. 40,000 of us against hundreds of thousands of them under Darius. East and West had come together to decide the fate of the known world.

That night, the soldiers camp in the desert. Collin Ferrell’s version of Alexander the Great looks at the moon along with Jared Leto’s character, Hephaestion. He says the moon is a bad omen, to which Alexander says it’s a bad omen for Darius.

They go on, talking a bit more about the battle to come before Alexander goes to his tent while Hephaestion walks off.

The next day, the sun is bright in the sky. We see scores of soldiers marching. The camera cuts between Alexander offering up a cow as a sacrifice and the feet of scores of marching soldiers. Dust gets kicked up as they’re marching. Immediately above the soldiers, the sky is darkened with the lines of long spears carried by the soldiers.

After the sacrifice is made, Alexander jumps on his horse and the camera flies into the sky for an overhead view. Among the sand in the desert, the soldiers are too many to count. The lines of soldiers we can see quickly fade into the dust and sand being kicked up as the men are marching. The battle is about to begin.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Alexander

In the show notes I’ll have a link to the deep dive that we did back on episode #157 of Based on a True Story for the entire movie, but for this week’s event, I actually backed up a day to September 30^th because what we just watched in the movie are the events leading up to the Battle of Gaugamela that happened on October 1^st, 331 BCE when Alexander the Great defeated Darius III of Persia.

The movie’s mention of 40,000 men against hundreds of thousands is a generalization, but it’s close enough. In the true story, Alexander had 47,000 soldiers under his command while Darius had anywhere from 50,000 to over a million soldiers.

As you can imagine, that’s a huge discrepancy in the numbers. But I guess that’s something that can happen about an event that took place thousands of years ago.

And to be fair, most historians today dispute there being over a million soldiers—that comes from some ancient sources. For example, a Greek historian who lived at the time, Arrian, estimated 40,000 cavalry and 1,000,000 infantry for the Persians. Another ancient historian estimated 800,000 infantry and 200,000 cavalry. Another estimated just 1,000,000 troops without breaking them down into cavalry and infantry. Yet another said 45,000 cavalry and only 200,000 infantry.

Only.

200,000 is still a huge army for a battle. But, you get the point of how conflicting accounts make it difficult to know exactly how many were there. Generally, modern estimates range between 50,000 and 120,000 soldiers altogether for the Persians.

On the Greek side, most historians agree the army under the command of Alexander the Great was about 47,000. There seems to be less dispute about that, but anyway you look at it, the Greeks were outnumbered.

Perhaps that’s one reason why the battle is something we still talk about to this day.

Times were different in 331 BCE, and both Darius and Alexander themselves led the attack with their soldiers. After some intense fighting, the decisive blow took place when Alexander charged with a giant wedge of soldiers against the Persian infantry. They managed to weaken the Persian center where Darius was located.

Remember the name Arrian that I mentioned a moment ago? Arrian was a Greek historian who lived from around 86 to around 160 CE, so he wasn’t alive during 331 BCE when the battle was—but, of course, he was still closer to the events than we are today. Arrian’s book called The Anabasis of Alexander is one of the best sources we have about Alexander the Great.

Here’s a quote from Arrian about the turning point in the Battle of Gaugamela:

For a short time there ensued a hand-to-hand fight; but when the Macedonian cavalry, commanded by Alexander himself, pressed on vigorously, thrusting themselves against the Persians and striking their faces with their spears, and when the Macedonian phalanx in dense array and bristling with long pikes had also made an attack upon them, all things together appeared full of terror to Darius, who had already long been in a state of fear, so that he was the first to turn and flee.

By the end of October 1^st, Alexander won what many consider one of his finest and most decisive victories in the face of overwhelming odds. On the other side, the Persian King Darius III did manage to escape on horseback, but it was considered to be the beginning of the end for the First Persian Empire, which later fell completely to the Greeks and Alexander the Great.

 

October 1st, 1961. New York.

Our next event happened on Tuesday this week, and we’ll find it about an hour and 52 minutes into the made-for-TV movie called 61*.

We’re on a baseball field. The camera dollies down just behind home plate, so we can see a perfect angle of the batter, catcher, and umpire on the right side of the camera frame. On the left side, the pitcher stands on the mound. In the distance behind them is the crowd in the stands.

At the plate is number 9, and we can see from the uniform he’s on the New York Yankees. After a few moments, he gets into position in the batter’s box. The pitcher, wearing a Boston Red Sox away uniform, nods to the catcher the approval of the next pitch. Then, he winds, and throws.

The batter swings. We can hear the crack of the bat as the ball goes soaring into right field. The announcer is excited. It’s going back, back…the camera cuts to the crowd in the outfield looking up. The outfielder races to the fence, tracking the ball. He gets to the wall just in time to see the ball land a few rows into the stands.

And the crowd goes wild!

The true story behind that scene in the movie 61*

That short sequence in the movie is a depiction of Roger Maris hitting his 61^st home run of the 1961 season, breaking Babe Ruth’s record that he had set in 1927. We’ll learn more about that and the movie’s title in a moment, but before we do that, let’s do our fact-check of the movie because it is correct to show Maris hitting his 61^st homer off the Red Sox, but there’s more to the story that we don’t see there.

It was the final game of the 1961 season when the New York Yankees were playing their rivals, the Boston Red Sox. On the mound for the Red Sox was a rookie starter by the name of Tracy Stallard. Technically, Stallard had his major league debut the year prior in 1960, but he only had four appearances that year, so he qualified as a rookie in 1961.

That day, Stallard managed to get Roger Maris to pop out to left field during his first at bat. That was in the first inning. Maris came to bat again in the fourth. On a 2-0 pitch, Maris hit a fastball into the right field stands for his 61^st home run.

Oh, I mentioned the asterisk in the movie’s title of 61*. The reason for that is because in 1961, the American League expanded with the Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators joining the league—the previous Washington Senators moved to Minneapolis after the 1960 season to become the Minnesota Twins. With more teams in the league, they decided to change the number of games played from 154 to 162. 1961 was the first year the American League did that, the National League didn’t follow with the 162-game season until the following year, 1962.

So, when Roger Maris was on his record-setting season in 1961, baseball was in the midst of a lot of changes. Not only the expanded number of games, but with new teams in the league that meant there were a lot of players in the majors who had just been called up from the minors.

In other words, a lot of people felt the teams were not quite as good as they had been just a year prior with 50 more players added to the league in the two brand-new expansion teams.

And, in a nutshell, that’s why the asterisk is on Maris’ record. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in 154 games. In 154 games of the 1961 season, Roger Maris had 59 home runs. It wasn’t until the final game of the 162-game season for Roger Maris to hit his 61^st home run. Since it took Maris more games to break the record, a lot of people questioned whether or not the record was a legitimate record.

More specifically, it was a New York sportswriter named Dick Young who suggested the asterisk. Officially, the Commissioner of Baseball removed any asterisk from Maris’ record in 1991, but whether or not there’s an asterisk is still something many people debate today, due in large part to the 1998 season. That’s when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both broke Maris’ record with Sosa hitting 66 home runs and McGwire hitting 70 home runs. That record would then be broken three years later when Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in the 2001 season. None of those three players, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds, have been inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame because of their alleged use of PEDs.

So, that started to bring up Maris’ record again because if he had the asterisk in his, should Sosa, McGwire and/or Bonds have one? For some baseball fans, the debate continues to this day.

As a little side note, it’s worth pointing out that Maris’ record of 61 home runs was still the most by a New York Yankee until Aaron Judge hit 62 in 2022.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, though, check out the 2001 movie called 61*. Roger Maris’ at-bat with the 61^st home run starts at about an hour and 52 minutes into the movie.

Oh, and since I mentioned Babe Ruth, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that it was also this week in history when Babe Ruth’s called shot took place. That was on October 1^st, 1932.

The New York Yankees were playing the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field for game three of the World Series when things got to be pretty chippy on the field with players on both sides doing their fair share of name-calling. When Babe Ruth came to bat in the fifth inning, he made a gesture that looks like he was pointing to the center field bleachers. Then, sure enough, he hit a home run right to those center field bleachers.

Was he calling his shot? This is another thing that’s up for debate. Some people say that’s exactly what he was doing. Footage of the event that you can find online certainly looks like that could be what he’s doing. But, again, it’s footage from 1932 so not quite the high-definition footage we have today. Some say he wasn’t calling his shot but simply gesturing his bat toward fans or other players or something else.

Regardless of what you believe, no one can deny that Babe Ruth calling his shot is an event that has gone down in sports history, and it happened this week.

Oh, and to bring it back to movies, there is a scene about 11 minutes into the 1984 movie The Natural where a nicknamed “The Whammer” that’s supposed to be kind of like Babe Ruth called his shot in a contest between himself and the star of the movie, Robert Redford’s character, Roy Hobbs.

Of course, that happens in a contest at a fair and not the World Series. “The Whammer” may have been based on Babe Ruth, but he’s a fictional character. Just like Roy Hobbs is a fictional character. So, that scene may only be inspired by a true story, but it’s enough of a reason to watch The Natural if you’re looking for more baseball movies to watch this week!

The last baseball movie I’d recommend is a documentary, not a fictional movie. It’s called Say Hey, Willie Mays! from HBO and as you can probably guess it’s all about Willie Mays. I’m throwing that into the baseball recommendation this week because it was actually last week in history when Willie Mays made what we now know simply as “The Catch.”

That happened during game one of the World Series on September 29^th, 1954. With the score tied 2-2 in the 8^th inning, Vic Wertz of the Cleveland Indians hit a fly ball to deep center field. It traveled some 420 feet or so, that’s about 130 meters, before Willie Mays made an over-the-shoulder catch while sprinting from where he had been positioned in shallow center field. In a single motion, he caught the ball, spun around and threw the ball back to the infield preventing any runners from advancing. It was such an amazing play that it’s been regarded as one of the greatest plays in sports.

So, hop in the show notes for lots of great baseball movies from this week in history!

 

October 3, 1993. Mogadishu, Somalia.

Our third event falls on Thursday this week, and we’ll find it about 43 minutes into the movie called Black Hawk Down as we find ourselves in the middle of Mogadishu, Somalia. There’s dirt street lined with buildings on either side. Driving down the street is a line of American Humvees, each vehicle is equipped with a machine gun at the top and manned by a soldier in full uniform. As they move forward, people in the streets start running the opposite direction as the Humvees. Whatever is about to go down, these civilians don’t want to get involved and I don’t blame them.

The camera changes angles now and we’re transported to the helicopters flying over the city, offering air support to the Humvees below. It looks like there are four helicopters, each of them loaded full of American soldiers so much so they we can see them sitting partially hanging out the open doors on either side of the helicopters.

Down on the ground, we’re inside a local resident’s car now. He watches as the four helicopters touch down in a line on the street. As the helicopters touch down, the soldiers jump out with their weapons ready. Another helicopter touches down on the top of a nearby building, the soldiers inside hopping out to get an overhead view of the street.

Almost immediately, these soldiers open fire on armed men across the way on another building. The four helicopters lift back off, leaving the soldiers on the ground. Or, well, some on the rooftops, as I just mentioned, but you know what I mean—they’re not on the helicopters anymore.

The camera angle shows us the helicopters leaving and then behind them we can see three more larger helicopters arriving.

But we don’t see much more of that yet as the camera changes again, following some of the soldiers who are entering one of the buildings. Weapons hot, they open fire on people inside. We can’t even see who they are before the soldiers shoot them, although it looks like they’re carrying weapons.

Back outside, the three larger military helicopters are taking up a triangle sort of positioning around a single building. On that building is the word “Olympic.”

These helicopters don’t touch down, but instead, they’re hovering low to the ground as ropes are thrown out either side. By this point, the blades on the helicopters have kicked up so much dirt and dust from the streets below that the normally blue sky has a tint of orange to it as we see from ground level the American soldiers rappel from the ropes.

Back with the Humvees, that line stops now. It’s hard to tell where they’re located from what we’re seeing in the movie. Quickly the movie cuts to another scene of American soldiers kicking in a door. Inside, a bunch of men put their hands up at the sight of the soldiers pointing their rifles at them.

There is someone firing at the Americans, forcing them to take cover.

One of the soldiers from the Humvees looks around the corner to see a helicopter hovering in the street with more American soldiers rappelling down the ropes. So, I guess the Humvees must be just around the corner from the helicopters by the “Olympic” building.

The four smaller helicopters from earlier aren’t anywhere to be seen, and now the three larger helicopters are flying away, too. Except they’re not going far. We can hear what must be the pilots talking to each other, talking about how chalk’s on the ground, so now they’re going to go into a holding pattern to provide sniper cover from the air.

Down below, things are getting more intense as a truck filled with armed men shows up and begins firing back at the American soldiers on the ground. Among the machine gun and rifles, we can see some of the men running up the stairs to a rooftop carrying rocket-propelled grenades: RPGs.

Back inside one of the helicopters, a soldier sees the RPG coming right at them. The pilot manages to move the helicopter out of the way just in time. A soldier on the ropes who was rappelling to the ground loses his grip and falls to the ground—we can’t see him hit because there’s so much dirt being kicked up by the helicopters that he just falls into the abyss.

Another soldier hops out to help his fallen comrade. The soldier who fell isn’t moving. The Americans and Somalis continue shooting at each other. After a while, the action shifts and we can hear the soldiers talking about as it’s time for extraction. We can see some men who seem to be prisoners from one of the rooms the soldiers burst into being guarded as they walk back to where the helicopters pick them up.

The armed resistance is increasing, though, and we can see an armed man leading a couple others with RPGs. Finding a view from below, he instructs them to shoot at one of the helicopters. The Americans inside see the RPG, but not before the tail is hit. A burst of flame and smoke pours out of the tail as the helicopter starts spinning around. Inside, alarms are beeping. Back at the command post, we can see the man in charge of the American’s mission stand up as he watches a screen with the smoking helicopter.

“Wolcott’s bird is hit,” we can hear someone saying.

Down below the American soldiers look up in disbelief as the helicopter continues to spin out of control.

“Super six-one is going down,” we can hear one of the soldiers saying.

Inside the helicopter, the pilot yells at the other men to hold on. Alarms continue beeping as he tries to control the ‘copter. The spinning helicopter manages to make it to a clearing between buildings before it crashes in a huge plume of smoke and dirt.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Black Hawk Down

That sequence comes from the 2001 film directed by Ridley Scott called Black Hawk Down, and it depicts an event that really did happen this week in history when not one, but two Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were shot down on October 3^rd, 1993, in what we now know as the Battle of Mogadishu.

Or, I guess, because of the movie and the book it’s based on it’s also often referred to simply as the “Black Hawk Down Incident.”

What we didn’t get to hear in the brief description leading up to the events of October 3^rd was the reason the American soldiers were there that day.

In a nutshell, Somalia had just had a military coup by a group called the Somali National Alliance, or SNA, led by a man named Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Soon after, the United Nations launched an operation to offer food and relief supplies to the country’s affected citizens. So, from an overall perspective, that’s why the American soldiers were there as a part of the United Nations’ mission.

The mission for that particular day, October 3^rd, 1993, was to try and capture some of the SNA’s senior leadership. If you recall, the movie shows a building with the word “Olympic” on it. That would be a point for the movie’s historical accuracy, because it is true that intel had placed some of Aidid’s leadership in a building near the Olympic Hotel.

The movie also got the timing right.

By 3:40 PM, the four helicopters we see at first in the movie arrived. The movie doesn’t say exactly what they are, but they’re Boeing MH-6 Little Bird light helicopters. Their purpose that day was to carry rockets and ammo while authorized to kill any SNA soldiers who shot at them.

Down below, the noise of the helicopters had alerted Somalis in the city of their presence. The Americans’ mission was all about speed and by 4:00 PM, the Delta Force commandos had completed their mission and successfully captured 24 of Aidid’s senior leadership.

“Laurie” was the code word given to let everyone know the prisoners were secured and it was time to go home.

And just like we see in the movie, that’s when everything went wrong for the Americans when an RPG hit one of the Black Hawk helicopters. That was at 4:20 PM, so not long after the prisoners were secured.

In the movie, we hear them talking about Super Six-One, which is true because that was the designation for the MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that was shot down.

All of a sudden, the mission wasn’t just about getting out of there with the prisoners anymore. They had to rescue the soldiers in the downed helicopter. While most didn’t know it yet, both pilots had already been killed in the crash and a couple other soldiers were badly wounded. The remaining two soldiers inside set up to defend their ground until help came.

Oh, and one of those pilots was who we heard mentioned in the movie when they’re referring to “Wolcott’s bird.” That would be Chief Warrant Officer 3 Clifton Wolcott, one of the pilots of Super Six-One who was killed in the crash.

The line of Humvees we see in the movie were tasked with making their way to Super Six-One, while one of the smaller helicopters we saw in the movie, an MH-6 Little Bird, went to cover the crash site until the ground forces could get there.

But that posed a logistical problem because even though the helicopter crashed about 300 yards from the target building, the forces on the ground couldn’t see that. So, they asked for help from the helicopters still in the air and slowly made their way in the direction of the crash site.

Another Black Hawk designated Super Six-Eight was sent to the crash site. While the rescue team was rappelling from Super Six-Eight, that helicopter was also hit by an RPG. It didn’t crash, thankfully, but it was forced to return to base.

Another Black Hawk, Super Six-Four, went to the crash site to help both support the soldiers on the ground while also giving a visual indicator to the troops trying to find the crash site from below.

Things went from bad to worse when, at 4:40 PM, Super Six-Four was hit by an RPG, sending it crashing down into some buildings below.

There were now two crashed Black Hawk helicopters. It was the start of what would be a 15-hour rescue mission that would leave 80 American soldiers wounded, 18 American soldiers dead and an estimated 1,000 or more Somali fighters killed.

As you can tell, there’s a lot more to the story of what happened on October 3^rd and 4^th, so if you want to take a deep dive into the true story, scroll back to episode #105 of Based on a True Story where we covered the movie Black Hawk Down.

If you just want to watch the movie, of course, we started our segment about 43 minutes into the movie, but really, pretty much the entire movie takes place this week in history.

 

Historical birthdays from the movies

This week there are two historical birthdays on Wednesday!

Starting with Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, who was born on October 2^nd, 1847, in the city of Posen in the Kingdom of Prussia—today that’s in Poland.

Paul von Hindenburg was remembered in history as the man who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and then became the President of Germany who proposed Adolf Hitler become the chancellor. Hindenburg remained the President until his death when Hitler dissolved the office of the president so that he could take those powers, too. Because of his association with World War I and Hitler, Von Hindenburg has been portrayed in a lot of movies and TV shows, but if you haven’t seen it yet then I’d recommend the two-part TV miniseries called Hitler: The Rise of Evil. In that series, Von Hindenburg is played by the great actor Peter O’Toole.

Or if you want something more focused on entertainment and not quite as historically accurate, Hindenburg is played by Rainer Bock in the 2017 Wonder Woman movie.

Also on October 2^nd but in the year 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Porbandar, India. Better known as Mahatma Ghandi, he was born in British-controlled India and was a lawyer and activist who was influential in leading India toward a peaceful independence from British rule. Probably the most popular movie portraying Ghandi’s life is the 1982 film from Richard Attenborough simply called Ghandi where he was played by Ben Kingsley.

On October 5^th, 1902, Ray Kroc was born in Oak Park, Illinois. Ray was best known as the businessman who bought a fast-food company from the McDonald brothers in 1961 and turned it into the McDonald’s brand we all know today. That story was told in the 2016 movie called The Founder where Ray Kroc is played by Michael Keaton. We compared that movie with history back on episode #90 of Based on a True Story.

 

‘Based on a True Story’ movie that released this week

Tuesday this week marks the 14^th anniversary of David Fincher’s biographical drama about the founding of Facebook. In The Social Network, we follow Jesse Eisenberg’s character of Mark Zuckerberg as he’s a Harvard University student back in 2003.

According to the movie, he’s dumped by his girlfriend Erica Albright, played by Rooney Mara, and in response to the breakup he creates a website called “FaceMash.” That website basically lets Harvard students compare and rank the attractiveness of female students, and it’s an instant hit—so much so that it lands Zuckerberg in trouble with the university administration.

Inspired by the success of “FaceMash,” Zuckerberg decides to create a social networking site for Harvard students, which he calls “The Facebook.”

Meanwhile, we meet two other students named Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The identical twins are both played by Armie Hammer in the movie, and they approach Zuckerberg with an idea for their social networking site, “Harvard Connection.” Zuckerberg agrees to help them but instead uses their concept as a foundation for his own project.

“The Facebook” quickly expands to other Ivy League schools and eventually spreads to universities across the country. Eduardo Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield, is Zuckerberg’s best friend and co-founder of Facebook. He serves as the company’s CFO, providing the initial funding for the venture. However, tensions arise between the two as the platform grows in popularity.

Sean Parker, portrayed by Justin Timberlake, enters the picture as the co-founder of Napster and becomes involved with Facebook. Parker convinces Zuckerberg to relocate the company to Silicon Valley and pursue aggressive expansion, leading to a rift between Zuckerberg and Saverin. Eventually, Saverin’s shares in the company are diluted, and he is effectively pushed out of the business.

The film is framed by two lawsuits filed against Zuckerberg. The first is from the Winklevoss twins, who claim that Zuckerberg stole their idea. The second is from Saverin, who sues Zuckerberg for diluting his shares in the company. These legal proceedings are interspersed with flashbacks to the creation and rise of Facebook.

As the lawsuits are settled, the film concludes with Zuckerberg alone, refreshing his Facebook page while awaiting a friend request acceptance from his ex-girlfriend Erica. The movie ends with text stating the outcomes of the lawsuits: the Winklevoss twins received a settlement of $65 million, and Saverin’s name was restored to the list of Facebook’s founders.

The true story behind The Social Network

So, that’s all from the movie’s version of events.

Shifting from the fiction and into the fact-checking, I’m sure you already know who Mark Zuckerberg is, and maybe you’ve heard of the Winklevoss twins. Erica Albright, Eduardo Saverin, Sean Parker…those are all real people, too, and the movie does a pretty good job of setting up who they are in the true story.

The movie is also correct to show Mark Zuckerberg setting up a website called “FaceMash” that was basically comparing two women side-by-side and letting users vote on which one was more attractive. While the movie doesn’t really focus on this, in the true story Mark Zuckerberg based his “FaceMash” website that he built in 2003 on a website from 2000 called “Hot or Not” that, well, is pretty self-explanatory on what it did.

While Tinder didn’t come around until 2012, a lot of people have compared that style of swiping left or right as the same as concept. Except, of course, Zuckerberg’s “FaceMash” website only included voting for women.

To get photos of students for his own website, Zuckerberg hacked into the Harvard student directories. Those directories were called “facebooks” – so you can get a sense of where the name came from. You can also get an idea for how happy students were when they found out their photos were on FaceMash without their permission. He launched FaceMash on October 28^th, 2003, and the movie is correct to show that almost immediately it was both very popular—and also something that Zuckerberg got into huge trouble over.

After all, he had used photos without permission and used them to objectify women without their consent. People considered it both a violation legal copyright infringement, as well as just being ethically immoral.

Zuckerberg managed to avoid getting expelled, and shut down FaceMash after just three days.

In the movie, we see the lesson Zuckerberg learned from this was to find a way to get people to give their photos and information for free. That’s where, according to the movie, the Winklevoss twins’ idea of “The Harvard Connection” comes in.

And that’s basically correct, because as Zuckerberg was facing the repercussions of FaceMash, enter the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, along with another student named Divya Narendra. He’s played by Max Minghella in the movie.

And it is true that those three worked on a new networking website they called “The Harvard Connection” back in late 2002, and into 2003. When Zuckerberg’s whole FaceMash debacle made him a name on campus, Narendra and the Winklevoss twins asked Zuckerberg if he’d join their project as the lead developer for “The Harvard Connection.”

The idea they had for “The Harvard Connection” was basically to be a social networking platform online for Harvard students—with an eventual plan to grow beyond Harvard—it was eventually renamed “ConnectU.”

So, that’s how Mark Zuckerberg got involved in what was then The Harvard Connection. At the same time as he was helping them, he also recognized the idea of a social networking platform was the perfect way to get people to upload their information into his own platform—the next “FaceMash,” so to speak.

And so it was that, on February 4^th, 2004, Zuckerberg launched a new website he called “The Facebook” after Harvard’s internal directories. This time, though, he wasn’t hacking the directories to get information. He allowed users to upload their information to share with others. And so, the concept of what we know as Facebook now was born.

The Facebook started getting popular fast—and the movie is also correct to show that the Winklevoss twins and Narendra were not happy when they found out about Zuckerberg’s new website. After all, it was basically what they were wanting to do! On top of that, they also felt like Zuckerberg was slacking on developing their platform while working on his own competitor.

We see that in the movie, but to get a better understanding, it’s helpful to know the timeline of it all.

So, if you recall, it was at the end of October in 2003 that FaceMash was shut down. In November of 2003, Narendra and the Winklevoss twins asked Zuckerberg to help with their project. He agreed. Then, on February 4^th, 2004, Zuckerberg launched The Facebook on his own while still developing The Harvard Connection. It took a few months, but as The Facebook got more popular, around May of 2004, the rest of The Harvard Connection team found out about The Facebook.

Well, I guess technically by then they had rebranded from The Harvard Connection to ConnectU in the hopes of expanding beyond Harvard.

In September of 2004, ConnectU officially filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg claiming he stole their ideas to start Facebook. In return, Facebook filed a lawsuit against ConnectU in 2005 claiming they stole Facebook’s web design for ConnectU.

As you can imagine, the lawsuits didn’t make either side happy for quite some time…until, in 2008, they finally agreed on a settlement that saw Facebook handing over about $20 million in cash as well as over a million Facebook shares—another $45 million or so in valuation at the time.

At the time of the settlement in 2008, Facebook was worth about $15 billion dollars, thanks in no small part to an October 2007 investment from Microsoft of about $240 million for 1.6% of Facebook.

Oh! And I didn’t even mention Justin Timberlake’s character, Sean Parker.

It is true that Sean Parker was the very first president of Facebook.

It’s also true that he’s the same guy who founded Napster, although the movie focuses more on Facebook so it doesn’t really tell that part of the story.

In a nutshell, the true story for Sean Parker’s involvement started years earlier back around the turn of the century in 1999 when Parker and his partner Shawn Fanning launched the file-sharing service they called Napster—named after Fanning’s high-school nickname. Both Parker and Fanning were still teenagers when they launched Napster, after all. And that gives you a little insight into Sean Parker, because he didn’t go to Harvard like Mark Zuckerberg did.

In fact, Sean Parker never went to any college. At 16, he won a tech fair by developing a web browser. That was back in 1995, and Netscape Navigator launched in 1994, so the idea of a web browser was still new at the time—and that win earned him an internship at a company called FreeLoader. That was the first company started by Mark Pincus, who you might know as the guy who started Zynga. You remember FarmVille and Words with Friends?

So, that’s who Sean Parker worked for throughout high school. As Sean said in an interview for Forbes, “I wasn’t going to school. I was technically in a co-op program but in truth was just going to work.”

He also said he made about $80,000 that year which, adjusted for inflation, is about the same as $150,000 today. So, his parents were okay with him not going to college.

And that’s what he was doing when he met Shawn Fanning on a dial-up bulletin board. Together, the two built and launched Napster in June of 1999. It gained popularity to help infuse them with some investment money, but they also started to run into legal troubles. That part of the story comes from the band Metallica. They had a song called “I Disappear” on the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack that showed up on Napster before it was officially released.

In April of 2000, they officially filed a lawsuit against Napster, followed soon by other musicians like Dr. Dre as well as the RIAA overall.

The tricky part to all this, though, is the way Napster worked isn’t by hosting the files themselves. If you’re familiar with BitTorrent, that’s a technology that came out in the wake of Napster and works basically the same way. When you installed Napster, it’d scan your hard drive for any MP3 files—technically you could do more than just MP3s as Napster’s software evolved, but MP3s and music was its focus. So, it’d scan for MP3s and create an index of the files you had on your computer. Then, someone else could request that file and Napster would transfer it from your computer to theirs.

The concept is called peer-to-peer, and what that meant is that Napster didn’t actually store the files themselves. So, when they were hit with lawsuits to remove all the copyrighted files—they couldn’t really do that. Napster was forced to cease operations in 2001 and filed for bankruptcy in 2002.

Of course, as is often the case for tech companies, other companies buy up their assets and branding. So, as a little side note, if you look up Napster today—it still exists, or maybe it’s better to say it exists again, because it’s a completely legal streaming service now.

So, in 2002, Parker started up a new company called Plaxo. It was basically a souped-up address book in Microsoft Outlook, but at the time it was also a precursor to social networking. Parker was forced out of Plaxo by investors in 2004, so when he saw “The Facebook” as it was called then on his girlfriend’s computer while she was a student at Stanford and immediately saw the potential.

Thanks to Sean’s past with Napster, he had connections with investors and helped bring on Peter Thiel as one of the first outside investors for Facebook. If that name rings a bell, it’s because he co-founded PayPal alongside Elon Musk, which he was also the CEO of until they sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.

So, around 2004, Thiel was flush with cash and invested $500,000 for about 10.2% of the company. He sold all those shares in 2012 for about $1 billion, although he’s still on the board—actually, there’s a Wall Street Journal article from 2019 that I’ll link to in the show notes if you want to read about some of the controversy swirling around him and his pressuring of Facebook not to fact-check political ads.

And I’m sure you’ve seen the aftermath of those decisions as Mark Zuckerberg was called to testify before Congress in April of 2018 about Facebook’s role in the election.

September 24^th, 1780. New York.

At 36 minutes into the third season, episode 9 of AMC’s Turn: Washington’s Spies, we’ll find an event that happened exactly 244 years ago today during the American Revolutionary War.

Hitting play on the series, we’re in a wooded encampment of American soldiers. In the foreground is a cannon, with horses and a tent in the background. On the right side, everything is gathered around a rustic, wooden building. Off in the distance, behind the building, a uniformed officer in blue and white can be seen riding a horse into the encampment. Taking off his helmet, he tells one of the soldiers he’s looking for Colonel Jameson. They point him to the building. Handing the soldier his helmet, he walks to the building and enters.

Once inside, we can see another uniformed man sitting behind a desk. That must be Colonel Jameson, although there’s no one with that name cast in the series. But we can tell the man walking into the building who just entered the encampment is Seth Numrich’s character, Benjamin Tallmadge.

Tallmadge addresses Jameson inside the building, and we can see another man there playing a game of checkers across from the Colonel. The other man isn’t wearing a uniform at all, and when Tallmadge introduces himself as Major Benjamin Tallmadge from General Washington’s staff, the other man seems to noticeably shy away a bit.

Tallmadge tells the Colonel he was sent to find out what happened last night.

Now the three men are all facing each other, and Tallmadge makes no indication of recognizing the non-uniformed man. Colonel Jameson goes on, saying an enemy ship got a little rowdy, but she turned tail after a few shots. Oh, and this man was caught by some Skinners a few hours ago. They said he’s a spy, but he has a letter of pass from General Arnold that they couldn’t read.

Tallmadge looks directly at the other man, who we know from the actor is JJ Feild’s character, Major John Andre. He smiles at Tallmadge saying it was a simple misunderstanding. Tallmadge makes no indication of recognizing Andre.

“Yes, of course,” he says. Then, he asks Jameson for a word between just the two men, and they leave the building together. Once outside, Tallmadge asks Jameson to confirm Andre’s story. Then, Tallmadge asks Jameson if he had any shoes on. Jameson pauses for a moment.

No, he didn’t have any.

You didn’t think that was odd?

Then, turning to look at one of the Skinners standing there, Tallmadge continues to talk to Jameson.

“Or, you didn’t think it was odd that one of the Skinners is wearing a pair of royal officer’s boots?”

We can see one of the men standing there is wearing a nice pair of boots. Tallmadge asks what the man’s name is inside. Jameson thinks for a moment, then he says, “John Anderson.”

Tallmadge thinks for a moment, seemingly racking his brain for that name.

Then, Colonel Jameson continues to speak, saying that he should add that he did have plans for West Point on his person. But we didn’t think anything of it because they were in General Arnold’s handwriting. Tallmadge is in disbelief, “Wait a minute, what? And you just thought to tell me this now?”

Jameson stands a little taller now, “Of course not. It’s all in my report to General Arnold.”

Tallmadge pauses for a moment, as the realization starts to set in across his face before rushing away.

The true story behind this week’s event in the movie Turn: Washington’s Spies

Let’s start our fact-checking of this week’s event by clarifying the timeline, because the series doesn’t give us any indication of dates or anything. But, if I had to guess, I’d say this segment from the movie happened on September 24^th, 1780, because of a line in the series where Colonel Jameson talks about “John Anderson” being caught the night before.

And we know from history that the real Major John Andre was captured on September 23^rd, 1780—so, the night before the meeting we see in the series.

The TV show is correct to mention the name John Anderson, too, because that was the name John Andre used undercover. And it’s also correct to suggest Benjamin Tallmadge was involved as part of Washington’s Spies—as to borrow from the title of the series.

So, in the true story, Major General Benedict Arnold was in the inner circle for the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, General George Washington. But, Arnold grew disillusioned with his position in the Army because, quite simply, he was going broke and the Continental Army wasn’t paying him what he felt he deserved. So, he offered to turn over the fort at West Point in exchange for about £20,000 and a position in the British Army. While it’s hard to convert British pounds of 1780 to today’s U.S. dollars, a rough ballpark would be about $42 million today.

After nearly a year of communicating in secret, Major Andre took a British ship called Vulture to meet face-to-face with General Arnold of the Continental Army. They met in the evening hours of September 21^st, 1780, and talked all night until the sun started to come up on September 22^nd. Even as the sun came up, Major Andre decided to keep the conversation with Arnold going, so instead of going back to Vulture, he and Arnold decided to go to a nearby house. It was owned by a man named Joshua Hett Smith at the time—he’s not in the TV series at all. Today, though, Smith’s house has another name: The Treason House. That’s thanks to the meeting between Andre and Arnold that took place there. At least, that was a nickname it had before it was demolished. I’ll throw a link in the show notes of a photo of what the house looked like in case you want to see.

So, at Smith’s house on September 22^nd is where Andre and Arnold continued their conversations. Meanwhile, though, the presence of a British ship on the river drew the gunfire of some Continental soldiers. That’s what the TV series is talking about when we hear Colonel Jameson telling Tallmadge about a ship that turned tail after a few shots.

They couldn’t have known it at the time, but that’s a nice little historical level of detail there because the ship they’re talking about is Vulture, which had delivered Andre to the meeting with Arnold and then once it shot at, Vulture was forced to retreat, leaving Andre stranded.

When it was finally time to leave, Arnold convinced Andre that he’d be safer going undercover on land instead of trying to sneak back to the British ship that was long gone by now.

So, that’s why we see Major John Andre in the series without a British uniform on—because he took it off to try and sneak past the American lines. He tried to do that in the early morning hours of September 23^rd, and I say “tried” for a reason. He was not successful.

If you remember from the TV series, Colonel Jameson tells Tallmadge that Andre had a passport from General Arnold that the Skinners couldn’t read.

The term “Skinners” we hear in the series are referring to slang term used in American-held territory for fighters loyal to the British Crown. That was a real term, but it’s how Colonel Jameson says the Skinners couldn’t read the pass that’s a change from what really happened.

In the true story, the men who captured John Andre were named John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart. Those were the three Americans who stopped Andre on the morning of September 23^rd, 1780. They didn’t have to read any passport from Andre, because he told them exactly who he was. You see, one of those men, John Paulding, just happened to be wearing a captured Hessian uniform.

Hessians were Germans who were serving in the British army.

So, Hessians were loyal to the British Crown. When Andre saw the Hessian uniform, he assumed the three men were British soldiers. He asked if they belonged to the “lower party” referring to the British camp to the south of them. They said they do, so John Andre told them he was a British officer who was on important business. It must’ve been quite a shock to Andre when the three men replied with, “We’re Americans” and arrested him.

Only then did Andre change his story, telling the men he was actually an American. That’s when he showed them the passport that General Arnold gave him, but again the men didn’t even need to read it like we see in the series because at that point they already were suspicious of this man.

Just like we see in the series, it is true that John Andre was taken to a nearby camp run by Lt. Colonel John Jameson. And Jameson had no idea of Andre’s true intentions, but he was aware of the passport from General Arnold. Of course, Jameson also had no idea of Arnold’s true intentions, either, so Jameson was going to send Andre directly to Arnold!

Very very similar to what we see happening in the TV show, Major Benjamin Tallmadge arrived at Jameson’s camp while Andre was there. He was suspicious of Andre, and instead of sending Andre to General Arnold, he convinced Jameson to send Andre and the letters from Arnold that Andre was carrying to General Washington.

As fate would have it, though, Jameson knew what all this implied. But he still wasn’t sure about Arnold’s guilt. And remember, as far as he’s concerned, General Arnold is still Colonel Jameson’s superior officer at this point—because, technically, he still was. If for any reason General Arnold was found not guilty, you can bet General Arnold’s retaliation would fall on Colonel Jameson.

So, Col. Jameson sent Andre to General Washington, and also sent a letter to General Arnold telling him of Andre’s arrest. That gave Arnold enough time to escape, which he did—also this week in history—on September 25^th, 1780.

And while John Andre’s capture and Benedict Arnold’s betrayal was a major moment during the American Revolution, of course, it’s just one small part of the overall story of the spy ring that’s told in AMC’s Turn: Washington’s Spies.

So, if you want to learn more about the true story, I’ve got a deep-dive episode all about Turn linked in the show notes—that’s episode #139 of Based on a True Story.

 

September 25^th, 1944. Arnhem, Netherlands.

Our next event happened on the 25^th, so Wednesday this week, and back during World War II. To see how it’s shown in the movies, we’re at about two hours and 42 minutes into the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far.

Picking up a piece of paper, Sean Connery’s character, Maj. Gen. Urquhart, reads it with an air of disgust in his voice. “Withdraw!?”

He turns around, speaking to no one in particular, although we can see some other soldiers in the background.

“Two days, they said, and we’ve been here nine,” he mutters under his breath as he paces across the floor. Again, in disgust, he mutters something about how you’d think we could accomplish one bloody mile. Then, General Urquhart’s demeanor seems to change slightly as he turns to another man in the room. As if finally accepting the piece of paper, he says they have their marching orders.

In the next shot, we see General Urquhart addressing his men. Referring to George Innes’ character, he says MacDonald will stay behind with the radio to give the Germans something to listen to while the rest of the men sneak away. On top of that, some of the medical staff have volunteered to stay behind with the wounded who are too bad to move. Those wounded will replace the men firing, to allow them to escape.

By the time the Germans find out what’s happening, we should all be safely across the river.

And then, under the cover of a rainy night, we see what looks like General Urquhart’s British soldiers making their escape. It’s so dark and the rain is heavy enough that it’s very difficult to see just how many there are, but we can see a line of soldiers all walking along a rope, using it like a guiding line. They stop when they can hear the sound of German voices over the rain.

After a moment, the voices seem to die down, and the line starts moving again. One of the soldiers turns to Urquhart and says something to the effect of how he’s finally starting to believe they’ll make it. And, in the next few scenes, there are more and more soldiers in the cover of night who are walking the same direction toward a large river. General Urquhart watches for a moment before getting into a small boat with a few other soldiers and making his way across the river, too.

The true story behind this week’s event in the movie A Bridge Too Far

That event we’re seeing is the end of the military operation known as Market Garden—a disastrous failure for the Allies during World War II that many historians believe prolonged the war instead of ending it early.

So, let’s start our fact-check with Sean Connery’s character, Major General Urquhart.

He was a real person, and he really was the man in charge of the 1^st Airborne Division for the Battle of Arnhem. That battle was just part of the overall Operation Market Garden, but the movie is correct to show Arnhem as being the last major part of the overall Market Garden that ended in the retreat of Allied forces.

In a nutshell, the way Operation Market Garden worked was the Allies dropped paratroopers at strategic locations just a few miles away from the bridges they were tasked with taking out. That’s why Sean Connery’s version of General Urquhart says something to the effect of going a “bloody mile” or something.

The airborne part of the operation commenced on September 17^th, 1944, and the plan was for the troops to hold the bridges until the land forces could meet them. That’s where the name comes from, because the “Market” part of the plan were the paratroopers, to be relieved by the “Garden” part of the operation—the ground troops.

If you remember, in the movie we hear Sean Connery’s version of General Urquhart mention how it was supposed to be two days, and it’s been nine.

Well, it is true that they were supposed to be relieved within 48 hours.

It’s also true that didn’t really go according to plan, though, because there were a lot more Germans in the area than the Allies anticipated. Somewhere around 100,000 Germans were in the area, compared to a little over 41,000 Allied troops. Of course, that’s for the overall operation, for the part of the true story we’re seeing in the movie with General Urquhart, there were about 10,000 of the British 1^st Airborne Division.

But, it’s still important to know the overall military operation, because all that fighting slowed down the reinforcements that were supposed to make it to them. The British paratroopers who had managed to make it to the bridge, there were only about 800 or so that made it to the bridge at Arnhem only to find themselves surrounded and alone. Despite that, and in spite of constant artillery bombardments and ground assaults from the Germans, the British held their positions for four days.

By the time the 21^st of September rolled around, the British at the bridge were being forced to surrender. The Germans continued their heavy assaults on the Allied troops. Still, they held out for a few more days. Finally, it was this week in history during the late-night hours of the 25^th or early morning hours of the 26^th that General Urquhart ordered a withdrawal.

So, that’s the scene in the movie A Bridge Too Far—the Battle of Arnhem, and also the bridge at Arnhem proved to be too much for the Allied troops. And although the scene from the movie we watched today made it hard to see how many soldiers managed to escape, only 2,000 of the 10,000 troops who were dropped managed to get out.

Oh, and just to clarify about the name of the movie. The name “A Bridge Too Far” comes from the book by Cornelius Ryan about Operation Market Garden. That’s the book the movie is based on, and the term “a bridge too far” is referring to the bridge at Arnhem where General Urquhart’s men were at, since it overstretched the Allies and led to the eventual withdrawal.

Would Operation Market Garden have been successful had they not tried to capture the one bridge at Arnhem? Despite that being something the book and movie title implies, in the true story, Operation Market Garden is debated among military historians to this day because as you might imagine, the true story is a lot more complicated.

But, if you want to watch the disastrous end of the operation that happened this week in history, hop in the show notes for where you can watch the movie A Bridge Too Far!

 

September 28^th, 1978. The Vatican.

At about two and a half hours into the film Godfather 3, we’ll find our next event from Saturday this week as two men dressed in black clergy robes walk down a dimly-lit hallway. The walls are a dark red color, with a huge painting in an ornate frame hanging on the wall, as well as fancy, old chairs and wooden furniture set along the wall. One of the two men is carrying a small tray with a saucer and cup.

As the movie plays, they walk down the marble-floored hallway and around the corner. After a pause, there’s a slight knock at the door. As the door opens, we can only hear someone saying, “Tea, Your Holiness? It will help you sleep” and the man with the steaming hot cup of tea on the saucer walks into the room.

The door closes behind him as the movie shifts to another scene of what looks like a mob hit as the character on the bed is smothered by two other men holding a pillow. Another cut in the movie, and we can see a sequence of even more dead men—apparently others taken out by the mob.

In the luxury box of a play, someone comes up to Al Pacino’s character, Michale Corleone, and whispers something in his ear. It must be something important, because he gets up and leaves with the man. In the dark hallway of the theater, we can hear what sounds like Andy Garcia’s version of Vincent Mancini telling Michael that their man inside the Vatican says something will happen to the Pope.

He’ll have a heart attack?

This is serious.

Michael says this Pope has powerful enemies, we might not be in time to save him. Then, they decide to go back into the play so no one notices them missing.

Back in the room we saw the man enter with the tea cup earlier, now it’s a nun knocking on the same door. She doesn’t wait very long for an answer before she opens the door herself, saying something as she walks into the room. There’s no reply, so she walks further into the room. On the nightstand, she picks up the saucer with what seems to be a now-empty teacup.

The nun is still trying to get the attention of whomever is lying on the bed.

The camera cuts to the man, smiling as if calmly sleeping in the bed. She nudges him. He doesn’t move. She nudges a little harder, making the reading glasses fall off his nose. He still doesn’t get up. The nun gasps, and rushes out of the room. We can hear the sound of the teacup shattering on the ground as she runs out of the room screaming, “The Holy Father is dead!”

The true story behind this week’s event in the movie Godfather III

Let’s kick off our fact-checking segment by stating the obvious: This is an example of a movie using a very real historical event as part of its fictional story. That real event is the death of Pope John Paul I.

And you guessed it, this week in history is when the real Pope John Paul I died.

Was he poisoned by a cup of tea like we see in the movie?

Well, that’s where the fictional part of the story comes into play…and not necessarily because the movie is wrong, but more that we just don’t know everything about the true story.

And here’s where this part of the story ventures into the land of conspiracies, because if you’ve ever done any research into the Catholic Church, you’ll know they’re not really known for being forthcoming with all the intricate details about how a Pope dies. Oh, sure, there’s the official version…but is that what really happened to Pope John Paul I?

Like any good conspiracy theory, let’s just lay out what we do know about the true story so you can decide what you believe.

We didn’t talk about this part of the movie, but if you’ve seen Godfather III, then you’ll know that earlier in the movie we see Pope John Paul I being elected to the papacy.

In the true story, that happened on August 26^th, 1978, and if you got the impression from the movie that perhaps he wasn’t 100% on board with the papacy, you’d be correct. We know this because of an interview that Father Diego Lorenzi did to honor the former pope. Lorenzi had worked with Pope John Paul I before he was Pope John Paul I, back when he was the Patriarch of Venice.

As a side note, his name before being Pope John Paul I was Albino Luciani. He picked Pope John Paul I because Pope Paul VI was his papal predecessor who had named him a cardinal, and the pope before that was Pope John XXIII, who had named him a bishop. So, that’s how he got the name.

So, anyway, as the true story goes, Luciani had said before going to the College of Cardinals where they vote for the pope, that if they voted for him—he would turn them down. But, in the end, he must’ve changed his mind…because when he was voted in, he said “yes” just like we see in the movie.

Well, I guess in the movie he says, “I accept,” but you know what I mean.

Pope John Paul I was only the Pope for 33 days, though.

He died on September 26^th, 1978. That falls on Thursday this week.

To say his death was a surprise is an understatement. He was the shortest-reigning pope since Pope Leo XI died of a cold just 27 days after being elected—back in the year 1605.

According to the official version of the story, Pope John Paul I died very similar to the way we see in the movie: Peacefully and in bed. The bedside lamp was still lit…and while the movie shows him smiling as if he’s just sleeping with a happy dream, we don’t really know if he had a smile on his face when he was found.

With that said, though, it is a little nod of the hat from the filmmakers to the real history because Pope John Paul I had the nickname “The Smiling Pope” because, well, he smiled a lot.

The official version of the true story is that Pope John Paul I most likely had a heart attack at some point during the night.

As you can imagine from such a short papacy, there are a lot of conspiracy theories surrounding his death. And one of them is very much in line with what we see in the Godfather III that it surrounded something to do with the Vatican Bank and maybe even the Mafia. Check out the show notes for a link to David Yallop’s 1984 book called In God’s Name where he lays out that conspiracy in more detail.

 

Historical birthdays from the movies

Time now for some birthdays from historical figures in the movies that were born this week in history.

On September 25^th, 1764, Fletcher Christian was born in Cumberland, England. He’s best known as the master’s mate on the Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty under the command of Lieutenant William Bligh. It was Christian who led the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789. That story has been told in multiple movies, including the 1962 movie simply called Mutiny on the Bounty where Fletcher Christian is played by Marlon Brando. And we did a deep dive into the historical accuracy of that movie back on episode #156 of Based on a True Story.

On September 26^th, 1888, Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He was better known as T.S. Eliot, who is now considered one of the 20^th century’s greatest poets. He was played by Willem Dafoe in the 1994 biopic about his early life called Tom & Viv.

On September 27^th, 1389, Cosimo di Giovanni de’ Medici was born in the Republic of Florence, in modern-day Italy. Cosimo was best known as the Italian banker whose immense riches allowed him to establish his family as one of the most powerful families during the Italian Renaissance. He was played by Richard Madden in the Netflix series simply called Medici.

 

‘Based on a True Story’ movie that released this week

This Sunday is the anniversary of the Denzel Washington movie called Remember the Titans! The movie was directed by Boaz Yakin and when it opened 24-years ago this week, it earned back almost everything it took to make the movie. With a budget of $30 million, Remember the Titans opened with about $21 million on its way to over $130 million worldwide.

Released in 2000 and set mostly in 1971, Remember the Titans gives us the “Based on a True Story” text about 45 seconds into the movie as it goes on to tell the tale of the T.C. Williams High School football team from Alexandria, Virginia. That football team goes by the Titans—hence the name of the movie.

According to the movie, T.C. Williams High School are newly integrating Black and white players, as well as coaches. That’s where Denzel Washington’s character, Herman Boone, comes into the movie as he’s appointed the head coach of the football team, replacing the former head coach Bill Yoast—he’s played by Will Patton in the movie.

And that’s where the first racial tensions arise in the movie, because Coach Yoast doesn’t appreciate being replaced. Then again, in the movie, Coach Boone doesn’t like that he’s been appointed the new head coach despite Coach Yoast having a fantastic career. He almost doesn’t accept the position, but he eventually does, and similarly Coach Yoast decides to stick around as Coach Boone’s defensive coordinator.

In the movie, we see Coach Boone taking the team to a rather rigorous training camp in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in an attempt to unite the team. Using the history of the Battle of Gettysburg to emphasize the importance of unity and overcoming racial divides, the team gradually begins to bond. The movie really focuses on two key players and team captains, Gerry Bertier, who is white, and Julius Campbell, who is Black, and as those two start to develop a close friendship so, too, does the rest of the team.

Gerry is played by Ryan Hurst while Wood Harris plays Julius Campbell in the movie.

When the team returns to Alexandria, there’s still the societal pressures and ongoing racial tensions they have to face. But the Titans go on to have an extraordinary season, remaining undefeated and eventually making it to the state championship—no thanks to a scheme by the school board to have Coach Yoast reinstated by having the refs make bad calls against the Titans. But, Coach Yoast is onto the scheme and calls out the ref in the middle of the game, so things go back to the Titan’s way once the refs go back to making fair calls.

As they’re celebrating their trip to the state championship, tragedy strikes when Gerry Bertier is driving his car when a truck side-swipes him, leaving him in the hospital for the big game. Despite this, the Titans still manage to win the state championship…and then, we find out at the very end that Gerry died ten years later, bringing everyone back together for his funeral.

The true story behind Remember the Titans

Shifting to the fact-checking segment, and let’s start with what is probably the biggest historical inaccuracy: Gerry Bertier was not in a car accident that left him handicapped before the state championship game.

With that said, though, it is true that he was in a car crash…but, it wasn’t like what we see in the movie.

In the true story, this was after Titans’ 1971 season when they had a banquet to honor Gerry. Afterward, he was driving some of his friends home in his mother’s new Camero when he lost control of the car, it crashed and resulted in Gerry being paralyzed.

Speaking of their 1971 season, the rest of the key plot points in the movie are basically correct.

T.C. Williams High School in the movie was a real place. That name comes from Thomas Chambliss Williams, who was a former superintendent of the school system from the 1930s to the 1960s. Today, it’s the Alexandria City High School.

During the movie’s timeline, though, T.C. Williams High School was pretty new, having first opened its doors in 1965. That same year, the city of Alexandria integrated all their schools, and T.C. Williams High School received all the 11^th and 12^th graders in the city.

So, the movie is correct to show the racial tensions and prejudices throughout the team, and the school overall. On the football field, though, the Titans had an amazing year. Earlier I mentioned Gerry Bertier, so he was a real person. So, too, was Julius Campbell.

In the true story, they were both team captains whose friendship helped bond the team despite the racial tensions outside. And on top of that, helped the Titans become simply a great team as well. After all, they had players from three different schools coming together at T.C. Williams for the first time that year.

And they ended up going 13-0, and not by a close margin. Gerry Bertier alone had 142 tackles and 42 sacks! What about Julius Campbell? He had 34 sacks of his own. That’s 76 sacks for just two players—in 13 games! So, it’s no wonder the Titans outscored their opponents 338-38.

Then, as we talked about before, Bertier’s car crash left him paralyzed. Oh, to give you a better idea of how the movie’s timeline compressed that part, the Titans’ final game in 1971 was on December 4^th. The car crash that left Bertier paralyzed was on December 11^th.

The movie skipping ahead to 1981 for his death is, sadly, also true.

Gerry Bertier was on his way home in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a car going the opposite way on the highway crossed the center lane and smashed into him. He died at the hospital later. Gerry Bertier was 27 years old.

September 17th, 1925. Mexico City, Mexico.

To find our first event this week, we’ll skip to about eight and a half minutes into the 2002 movie called Frida.

The streets are crowded with people, but the movie is focusing on a young man and woman in the crowd. She gets sidetracked by one of the vendors on the street. He calls to her, “Frida, come on!” Putting his arm around her, the two continue making their way through the crowd on the street. They’re both dressed nicely in what appears to be some sort of a school uniform.

In the next shot, young Frida is running along the sidewalk. “It’s the bus!” She yells as she runs. We can see a bus—but in the 1920s, this bus looks more like a modified truck with room for people to sit in the back—driving along the road. The boy, Alejandro, assures her they’ll catch the next one.

She keeps running, “No, no!” He runs after her as the two run through the street, almost getting hit by a car, running down the bus. A moment later, and it works. They catch up to the bus and climb aboard.

Once on the bus, the two continue the conversation they were having. Frida sits down on a bench. Then, a lady with a baby is there and Frida gives up her seat for them. Alejandro and Frida continue their conversation, talking about something political or apolitical—Alejandro talks about Marx and Hegel, so maybe they’re referring to Karl Marx and Georg Hegel. They both are standing along with others on the bus, holding onto a bar for stability like you’d expect on a bus even today.

Frida doesn’t seem interested in the conversation about Marx and Hegel and gets sidetracked by someone else on the bus and the theater props they’re carrying.

Just then, the bus driver tries to swerve. Through the window of the bus, we can see what looks like a trolley ramming into the side of the bus. The trolley seems to continue pushing the bus until it hits a wall, throwing glass and everyone inside the bus all over the place. The camera fades to black before coming back to show Frida lying there, bloody and obviously badly hurt from the accident.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Frida

What we’re seeing in the movie happened 99 years ago this Tuesday, on September 17^th, 1925. That’s when Frida Kahlo’s life was forever changed in a bus accident that left her severely injured.

Of course, today, we know of Frida as an artist. At the time of the accident, Frida was only 18 years old and art wasn’t what she was wanting to do with her life.

One of the reasons we see the Frida and Alejandro wearing what looks like a school uniform is because the real reason the two schoolmates and friends were in Mexico City that day was because that’s where they went to school. But they lived about an hour away in Coyoacan, so that’s why they were taking the bus each way.

That day seemed like nothing out of the ordinary for the two.

And the movie was also correct to show the crash being the result of a trolley car. It was traveling full speed when the bus turned around the corner and there wasn’t enough time to get out of the way. The trolley slammed into the bus, crushing it and anyone inside against the street corner.

While we don’t really see this happening in the movie, there was a metal rod that ripped through Frida during the crash. Afterward, a nearby pedestrian trying to help people in the crash saw the rod sticking out of Frida and tried to remove it only to cries so loud that Alejandro would later recall no one could hear the ambulance siren because of Frida’s cries.

For months, Frida Kahlo was confined to bed while her body healed. During that timeframe, she turned to art. Her parents put a mirror on her bed so she could paint herself. She started painting more and more, something that helped her cope with the loneliness of being, well, alone in a bed for months on end.

By the time she was able to leave the bed, her life had changed. She was on the path to become an artist known for putting her own personal trauma and pain into her art. That openness was one of the key characteristics of Frida’s artwork, something that was unique at the time as most women artists in the early 20^th century didn’t put their own hardships into their art. Frida’s artwork was the opposite of that. She didn’t hide what was difficult or painful as many women were forced to do. Instead, she put herself on display through her paintings in a very real way, in a way that was groundbreaking at the time and something we remember her for today.

 

September 19th, 1952. Washington, D.C.

For our next event this week, we’ll jump to about two hours into the 1992 biopic starring Robert Downey, Jr. simply called Chaplin.

We’re in an office with elegant wood furnishings. A United States flag stands in the corner. Behind the desk in the middle of the room is a black, leather chair. It’s empty. There’s a man in a suit carrying a manilla folder who has just entered the office. He notices the chair is empty, so he turns his head to look off camera.

He carefully sets the folder down on the desk before sneaking over to the other side of the office. As he does, we can see the U.S. Capitol building through the windows.

The camera pans over as the man quietly makes his way to the fireplace. Now we can tell why he was sneaking. He’s trying not to wake the man sleeping in his chair by the fireplace. He touches the sleeping man’s hand trying to wake him.

“Sir”, he whispers quietly.

It didn’t work.

The camera cuts to the man’s face now and we can see this is Kevin Dunn’s character, J. Edgar Hoover. The man shakes Hoover’s shoulder now in a slightly more firm attempt to wake him.

“Sir,” he says a little louder than the whisper before.

Hoover’s eyes open slightly.

“Sir,” the man continues, “we just got word. Chaplin’s off to London on vacation.”

Hoover doesn’t move as he ponders this for a moment. Then, slowly, his mouth curls into a smile.

The next scene in the movie is the one that happens this week in history as we can see text on the screen saying it’s New York Harbor, September 1952.

A massive ocean liner is in the harbor. If you imagine what the Titanic looked like with its iconic four funnels, or smokestacks, well this ship looks a lot like that but with three. So, a similar style ocean liner, albeit not as large as Titanic—but still a good-sized ship. Imagine that in front of the New York skyline in 1952, and that’s what this scene looks like.

After a moment, the movie cuts to aboard the ship, though, as Moira Kelly’s version of Oona O’Neill Chaplin rushes down the stairs to find her husband, Charlie Chaplin. She finds him as he’s at the stern of the ship, overlooking the New York skyline, the Statue of Liberty. On the ship a blue flag with the British Union Jack in the corner is flying.

Oona rushes to Charlie. When she gets there, she has a concerned look on her face. He recognizes this immediately and asks what’s wrong. Then, she tells him the news: They’ve thrown you out.

Charlie is confused at first, as she hands him a piece of paper with the news. She explains it to him: They’ve thrown you out of the United States.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Chaplin

Transitioning to our fact-checking segment, and right away I’ll admit the first part that happened in Washington D.C. probably didn’t happen this week in history. But it’s an important part to set up what did happen this week in history when Charlie Chaplin was refused his entry into the United States.

Granted, the way it happened in the movie was dramatized, but the gist is there.

In the movie, the agent telling Hoover that Chaplin has gone to London mentions it as being a vacation. In the true story, Charlie Chaplin went to London to hold the world premiere of his latest movie called Limelight, which was an autobiographical movie in which the character in the movie is an ex-star dealing with the loss of his popularity. Since Charlie was originally from London, that’s where the story in Limelight was set, so that’s where he decided to hold the world premiere for the film.

And, I guess, it is true that Chaplin took his family to London with him so I could definitely see how it could’ve been considered a vacation, so maybe we can give the movie a break on that.

He boarded the RMS Queen Elizabeth on September 18^th, 1952. On September 19^th, the U.S. Attorney General James P. McGranery revoked Charlie’s permit for re-entry into the U.S.

This is my own speculation, but the speed which that happened the day after tells me there were people in the government just waiting for him to leave so they could revoke the permit.

In the years since, it’s been suggested the U.S. government didn’t have much of a case against Chaplin and he probably could’ve been allowed back into the U.S. had he applied. But, when Charlie Chaplin got the news, he decided not to return to the U.S. He himself wrote about the event in his autobiography, and while I can’t offer a direct quote here, you can read exactly what he said on page 455 of his autobiography if you’d like. To paraphrase, basically, Chaplin was fed up with the insults and hatred he’d received in America.

The catch was that most of Charlie’s wealth—his film studio, his home, etc. was in the United States. So, it was Oona who returned to the U.S. to settle his affairs. They moved to Switzerland and she renounced her own U.S. citizenship in 1953.

As you can imagine, there’s a lot more to this story…which is why I had a chat with Pulitzer Prize finalist author Scott Eyeman, who has written a number of excellent biographies on film history—including his book called Charlie Chaplin Vs America that digs into the true story of Charlie Chaplin—and of course you’ll find a link to it in the show notes.

 

September 21st, 1937. England.

Our third event from this week in history can be found in the 2019 biopic called Tolkien, and we’re starting about an hour and 43 minutes into the movie, we’re outside with trees in the background and dead leaves covering the ground. A man and woman are walking together with some kids. The man asks the kids if they’ll do something for him. He asks them to listen to a story.

“Is it a good story?” One of the kids asks in a blunt way that kids do so well.

“I hope so,” he says.

“Is it long?”

“Extremely long.”

They go on to ask more questions about his story. Has it been started? What’s it about?

He says it’s been started in his mind. It’s about journeys, adventures, magic, treasure, and love. All things, really. All the kids are looking at him now.

He says the story is about the journeys we take to prove ourselves. It’s about fellowship. He points to one of the little boys and says it’s about little people just like you. The child retorts that he’s not little, and the man quickly corrects himself. No. Little in stature, not little in spirit.

The movie cuts away from the outdoors and we’re not in the woods anymore. We’re inside in a room. The same man from before is sitting, reading some papers. He’s deep in thought.

Then, he turns the paper to a fresh page. Pen in hand, he pauses to think for one more moment before he starts to write. The camera angle doesn’t let us see what he’s writing at first, but after a few seconds, it cuts to a more overhead view of the page. Now, we can see the words he’s written to start the story: “In a hole in the ground, there lived” … he stops writing for a bit and the camera cuts away from the paper to the man’s face. He speaks the word: “Hobbit.”

The true story behind that scene in the movie Tolkien

Okay, so right away I’ll admit that this is another scene that didn’t really happen this week in history. But that’s because the movie doesn’t show the real event that did happen this week, and that scene in the movie is talking about the start of something that ended this week in history…the movie just doesn’t show the ending.

I’m sure you already know by now the man with the story is J.R.R. Tolkien and the story itself is The Hobbit. That scene comes from the 2019 biopic that is simply called Tolkien.

And it shows Tolkien starting to write The Hobbit. What happened this week in history was that The Hobbit was published.

What we don’t see in that sequence in the movie is that J.R.R. Tolkien had been writing stories about the world he created—Middle Earth—for many years at this point, but The Hobbit was his first published work.

There was a BBC documentary in 1968 where Tolkien himself described writing that opening line. I’ll include a link to it in the show notes for this episode if you want to watch it, but basically Tolkien recounts that he was grading his student’s papers in his house at 20 Northmoor Road. He had a pile of exam papers to go through, something he admitted was a boring task.

He picked up one of the papers to review and the student had left one page blank. So, he just grabbed the blank page and wrote down: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

That was then published this week in history on September 21^st, 1937, as The Hobbit. Of course, he’d go on to write The Lord of the Rings and other books, making Tolkien one of the most popular authors of all time. And covering the Tolkien movie as one of the first interviews for Based on a True Story is no mistake, because I’m such a fan of Tolkien’s work…it was one of my great honors to chat with legendary Tolkien scholar John Garth about the Tolkien movie.

Hop in the show notes to find a link for that episode now!

 

Historical birthdays from the movies

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 September 18^th, 1905, Greta Gustafsson was born in Stockholm, Sweden. She’s better known by her stage name, Greta Garbo, and is regarded by many as one of the greatest screen actresses of all time. Her story was portrayed in the 1980 movie called The Silent Lovers where she’s played by Kristina Wayborn.

Oh, and as another bonus, Greta Garbo was the actress who played Mata Hari in the classic 1931 film of the same name that we covered on episode #74 of Based on a True Story—so I’ll link that in the show notes.

On September 20^th, 1884, Maxwell Perkins was born in New York City. He was an editor and publisher at Scribner where he oversaw works by esteemed authors like Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway, to name a few. His story is told in the 2016 movie called Genius where Max is played by Colin Firth. We covered that movie in more depth back on episode #65 of Based on a True Story.

Also on September 20^th, but in 1917, Arnold Jacob Auerbach was born in Brooklyn, New York. He’s best known by his nickname, “Red,” and as the head coach of the Washington Capitols, Tri-Cities Blackhawks, and Boston Celtics, where he set NBA records was one of the most successful coaches in the history of professional sports. He was played by Michael Chiklis in the 2022 TV series from Max called Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.

 

 

‘Based on a True Story’ movie that released this week

Time now for our segment about ‘based on a true story’ movies released this week in history, and this week’s movie has the BOATS text less than a minute into the movie. The very first thing after the opening credits in the movie Goodfellas is text that says, “This film is based on a true story.”

This Wednesday marks the 34^th anniversary of Goodfellas, which hit theaters in the U.S. on September 18^th, 1990.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, Goodfellas is adapted from a book by Nicholas Pileggi called Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family. The IMDb description for Goodfellas says it is, “The story of Henry Hill and his life in the mafia, covering his relationship with his wife Karen and his mob partners Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito.”

Henry Hill is played by Ray Liotta, while his wife Karen is played by Lorraine Bracco. Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito are played by Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, respectively.

It starts in the 1950s, as a young child, Henry’s mother happened to grow up in the same Italian city as Paulie Cicero, so now that Paulie is a big wig in the Mafia, that’s how Henry grew up around “the life,” as they call it in the movie. So, it’s not a big surprise that Henry starts working for Paulie Cicero when he’s old enough. Paulie is played by Paul Sorvino in the movie.

Also growing up with Henry is Tommy Devito, who is played by Joe Pesci. When Henry and Tommy start helping the Mafia with jobs—they can’t be more than teenagers at the time—the two boys are mentored by Robert De Niro’s character, Jimmy Conway.

As they continue to rise in the Mafia’s ranks, so, too, does their violence. Tommy, in particular, has a short fuse leading to a lot of rage. That rage is on full display in the 1970s when a guy named Billy Batts enters their nightclub. Billy Batts is played by Frank Vincent in the movie.

And according to the movie, Billy Batts is not just any guy, but he’s a made man in the Gambino crime family. He says the wrong thing to Tommy, who starts stabbing Billy Batts.

Killing a made guy without approval from the Mafia’s leadership then, basically, you’re the next to get whacked. To try and avoid that fate, the three associates try to cover up their crime by burying Billy’s body in upstate New York…and then re-bury the body a few months later when they find out the place they buried it was going to have something built on it.

A tip to the FBI ends up sending Henry to prison for about four years, so we see some of his prison time in the movie as well. While he’s in there, he has Karen sneak drugs into the prison so Henry can sell them to another inmate.

When he gets out, Henry joins Tommy for a heist that Jimmy is planning. The target is the Lufthansa vault at JFK International Airport in New York City. And, according to the movie, it’s successful! Ray Liotta’s version of Henry Hill says they got away with $6 million in cash.

But…some of the robbers get a little too excited about their new money and they ignore Jimmy’s order not to make any large purchases. So, after that leads police to find the getaway car they used, Jimmy has everyone killed, except Tommy and Henry.

Violence finally comes to the trio a few years later when Tommy is tricked into thinking he’s going to a ceremony for his becoming a made man. Instead, he’s murdered for his part in killing Billy Batts. That’s in 1979, and no doubt it doesn’t help Henry’s cocaine habit that just continues to get worse—leading to his arrest in 1980 when he tried to buy some drugs from undercover agents.

He gets bailed out by Karen, but the drugs go against Paulie’s orders—he had told Henry not to get into the drug world. So, after he’s bailed out, Paulie gives Henry some cash and then officially cuts ties with Henry.

Henry turns to Jimmy for help, but Jimmy is still in the Mafia and we start to get the sense from the movie that Jimmy is probably going to take out Henry. So, Henry decides to become an informant for the feds. He gives them enough information to take down Jimmy and Paulie, and in exchange the feds put Henry and his family into the Witness Protection Program.

And, according to the text at the end of the movie, that’s where Henry Hill is still at—in the Witness Protection Program, after his arrest in 1987. Paulie died in Fort Worth Federal Prison of a respiratory illness in 1988 at the age of 73. Henry and Karen separated in 1989.

And Jimmy Conway, Robert De Niro’s character, is currently serving a 20-years-to-life sentence for murder and won’t be eligible for parole until 2004.

The true story behind Goodfellas

Well, obviously, it’s after 2004, and now in 2024, those three men are all dead now. But, remember, the movie came out in 1990, and back then two of the three were still alive.

So, that gives us the perfect place to start our fact-checking: The people.

Henry Hill was based on a real person; we’ll learn more about him in a moment. The real Henry Hill died on June 12^th, 2012.

And Lorraine Bracco’s character, Karen, really was Henry Hill’s wife. Karen Hill née Friedman is still alive as of this recording—she’s 76, and the movie is correct that she and Henry divorced in 1989, although it was legally finalized in 2002.

For the other mobsters, the names changed some.

Robert De Niro’s character of Jimmy Conway is based on a real gangster named Jimmy Burke. The real Jimmy Burke died on April 13^th, 1996—so, after the movie was released.

Joe Pesci’s character, Tommy DeVito, is based on another real gangster named Tommy DeSimone. And in the movie, we see Tommy’s death. We don’t really know what happened to the real Tommy DeSimone. He just simply disappeared on January 14^th, 1979.

And Paul Sorvino’s character, Paulie Cicero, is based on Paul Vario, who really was a powerful caporegime in the Lucchese crime family. The movie was correct to say he died in a Fort Worth prison of a respiratory failure as a result of lung cancer on May 3^rd, 1988.

The movie does a pretty good job of capturing how the real Henry Hill got into the Mafia. His dad was an Irish-American, and his mother was of Sicilian descent. The family moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn when Henry was just seven years old, and coincidentally Paul Vario had a son about the same age. So, they played together often, and Henry started idolizing the mobsters he saw.

Just like we see in the movie, Henry started working for the mobsters as a teenager. One of them was Jimmy Burke, the guy that Robert De Niro’s character is based on.

So, that’s how Jimmy started to take Henry under his wing, very much like we see in the movie. As for the real Tommy DeSimone, that’s the guy Joe Pesci’s character is based on, he grew up in the same neighborhood as Henry so they became close friends as they rose in the Mafia’s ranks.

That brings us to the event in the movie that changes it all: The murder of Billy Batts. Billy was a real gangster, who really went by the nickname Billy Batts. His real name was William Bentvena.

The movie doesn’t show anything about Billy Batts being in prison, it just shows him getting out and implies he was in there for a while. And in the true story, William Bentvena was in prison for narcotics trafficking—he was caught by undercover police in a drug deal on Valentine’s Day in 1959. Then, three years later, he was convicted and received a sentence of 15 years. He was released in 1970, though, which is why we’re seeing him for the first time in the movie.

And while the way Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito acted out the scene of killing Billy Batts is sped up a little bit, the basic gist gets across with the movie’s version.

This all comes from the book the movie is based on, and according to that book, Henry Hill’s version of the events are just like what we see in the movie. The whole reason for them being at the nightclub owned by Jimmy that night was because of a welcome home party of sorts for Billy. That’s why we see the balloons and streamers decorating the bar in the movie, and I think someone even comes up to Billy to say “Welcome home, Billy,” in the movie too.

At one point in the night, Billy joked to Tommy something about asking if he still shined shoes. Tommy took it as an insult and threatened to kill Billy. Here’s where the movie changed it, though, because in the movie’s version it seems to be later that night when Tommy attacks Billy from behind, before Jimmy joins in.

The true story behind that event might’ve started with an insult about shining shoes that led to Tommy’s threats against Billy Batts, but it was actually two weeks later when Tommy snuck up behind Billy and pistol-whipped him, yelling, “Shine these fucking shoes!”

And the movie shows Jimmy start kicking Billy pretty fast, too, but I couldn’t find anything about it happening that fast in the true story. Henry Hill’s version of the event did see Tommy beat Billy to the point of him being dead…at least, they thought he was. Just like we see in the movie, Billy wasn’t really dead. They started hearing noises from the trunk of the car.

And he was in the trunk of the car because Jimmy Burke was driving his body up to a friend’s dog kennel in upstate New York where he knew he could hide the body. Because the movie is also correct to show that the real Billy Batts was a made man in the Gambino crime family.

Oh, and the movie is also correct to show them having to move the body later. Jimmy’s friend who owned the dog kennel sold it about three months later. So, Jimmy ordered Tommy and Henry to go move the body. We don’t see this happening in the movie, but in the book Henry says they took the body to be crushed in a compactor at a New Jersey junkyard owned by a mob associate.

The real Henry Hill also gave commentary for the movie, which I’d recommend watching, and for that he contradicted his previous statement, though, and said Billy was buried in Jimmy’s nightclub, a place called Robert’s Lounge, until it could be put in the compactor later.

Regardless of which version is true, that was the beginning of the end for the real Tommy DeSimone who was killed in retaliation just like we see in the movie. Although the movie mentions it was only partially for the murder of Billy Batts—and that’s true, because he also killed someone else the movie doesn’t even show.

That’s a guy named Ronald Jerothe. Tommy dated Ronald’s sister and beat her up, which made Ronald understandably angry and he said he was going to kill Tommy. But, Tommy overheard this, and killed Ronald first.

Here’s the connection: Both Billy Batts and Ronald Jerothe reported to the same guy in the Gambino crime family: A man named John Gotti, maybe you’ve heard of him. He turned out to be quite infamous as well.

So, Tommy committed the murder of Ronald Jerothe, and on top of that it came out that Tommy had committed another unsanctioned murder of Billy Batts?

You see where this is headed. Thomas DeSimone was reported missing on January 14^th, 1979, by his wife, Angela. So, if you see that as the date of Tommy’s death, that’s why…but we don’t really know if he died that day because when Angela reported him missing, she said she last saw him a couple weeks earlier.

At least, that’s how the story goes…but the true story? Well, as you can imagine, when we’re talking about the world of organized crime, we just don’t know a lot of things.

So, for a lot of these events —for a lot of things, that’s all we have to rely on: The word of someone who was there.

Even the things I’ve talked about today, we know most of that thanks to the book the movie is based on as well as a book Henry Hill wrote himself later called Gangsters and Goodfellas.

Actually…do you want to hear more Mafia stories from someone who was there?

On episode #286, I had a chat with Scott Hoffman, whose dad was a part of the Chicago Outfit and actually worked for the real Henry Hill as a kid himself! We talked about how the Mafia is portrayed in movies like Goodfellas, and other gangster movies like Casino, Donnie Brasco, and The Sopranos!

September 2nd, 31 BCE. Mediterranean Sea.

Our first event comes from the HBO miniseries about ancient Rome that is simply called Rome, and to find the event from this week in history we’ll have to skip to the start of the very end—almost of the whole series. In other words, the very beginning of episode 10 in season two, which is the series finale.

You’ll know you’re at the right spot when there’s no land as far as the eye can see. There’s only water. In the foreground, a single rowboat is floating on the choppy waters. I counted ten people inside, although the camera is too far away to see any faces. The focus of the scene, though, is in the distance on the horizon.

That’s where we can see scores of ships, some closer, some further away—and almost all of them are ablaze. Huge plumes of smoke are rising into the sky, casting almost an orange glow above the waters. A ball of flame shoots through the smoke and explodes on one of the ships.

The camera then cuts to the rowboat, where we can see James Purefoy’s version of Mark Antony looking down at the water with a defeated look on his face.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the TV series Rome

That was a very quick scene, because the series goes on to wrap up the storyline in the aftermath of the battle in the final episode of the series, but the event it’s showing there is the Battle of Actium.

The show is correct to show Mark Antony looking rather defeated because he was on the losing end of what would be a decisive victory for Octavian.

Octavian and Mark Antony had been at odds with each other…well, pretty much since the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE. We learned more about that back in episode #308 during the Ides of March. For a while after that, Octavian and Antony were allied as they tracked down Caesar’s assassins along with some other well-known historical figures such as Cleopatra.

Once they took care of the assassins, the rivalry between Octavian and Antony grew into a resentment that culminated in the Battle of Actium. Antony and Cleopatra had about 500 ships and 70,000 infantry while Octavian had 400 ships and 80,000 infantry. Despite large numbers of troops, the battle took place in the sea. After some intense fighting, Cleopatra fled with her Egyptian ships and Antony broke off the attack to follow her. The rest of Antony’s ships surrendered to Octavian. About a week later, Antony’s troops on land surrendered as well.

It was a decisive win for Octavian, who would later be known as Caesar Augustus, and cement him as the undisputed master of the Roman world.

If you want to watch the brief segment we talked about today, check out the HBO miniseries called Rome and we see the ships and Antony’s defeat happening at the beginning of the final episode in the whole series.

 

September 4th, 1886. Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.

Our next historical event comes from Geronimo: An American Legend, and we’ll have to fast forward to about an hour and 40 minutes into the movie to reveal a beautiful landscape of a desert canyon. Not a single person can be seen, but it doesn’t take long for Matt Damon’s voiceover to tell us the date of September 4^th, 1886, as well as the significance of the date.

Damon’s character in the movie, 2^nd Lt. Britton Davis, says that’s the date that Geronimo and 34 Chiricahua men, women, and children surrendered to General Nelson Miles.

The scene in the movie changes to Kevin Tighe’s character, Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles, riding a horse in front of those men, women, and children walking by foot along the canyon.

We can see some other U.S. soldiers in uniform riding horses in the background, too, but the camera’s focus is on Miles.

The voiceover continues, saying that as Geronimo handed over his weapons, he simply said, “Once I moved about like the wind. Now I surrender, and that is all.”

One of the soldiers there is 2^nd Lt. Davis—a very young Matt Damon.

The camera cuts to another scene of this whole column of men, women, and children walking by foot alongside the soldiers on horseback.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Geronimo: An American Legend

Another quick segment as far as the movie is concerned, but the movie is correct to give us the date of September 4^th, 1886, as being when Geronimo surrendered for the final time—he had actually surrendered multiple times before, but life on a reservation wasn’t kind to those who were used to a nomadic lifestyle like the Apache people were.

That quote is something often attributed to Geronimo, too:

“Once I moved about like the wind. Now I surrender to you and that is all.”

What’s tricky about verifying the quote, or really many things about the nature of Geronimo’s actual surrender is that his story of what happened and the story of what happened from the U.S. soldiers who accepted his surrender are different.

According to the U.S. Army’s account, Geronimo’s surrender was unconditional. Not so, according to Geronimo’s own memoirs. He insisted to his dying day that he and his people had been misled and the surrender was conditional.

Maybe that’s why the movie doesn’t show the actual surrender itself but describe it through voiceover.

But, the movie was also correct to mention Geronimo’s weapons in that voiceover. He had three weapons on him at the time of surrender: A Winchester rifle, a Colt pistol, and a Bowie knife.

Today, the rifle is on display at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, while the pistol and knife are at a museum in Fort Sill, Oklahoma—where Geronimo died in 1909, decades after his surrender.

If you want to watch the scene from the movie we talked about this week, you’ll find where it’s currently streaming in the show notes.

 

September 7th, 1876. Northfield, Minnesota.

For our third event this week, we’ll go to the heist movie from 1972 called The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid. About an hour and two minutes into the movie, we can see a water trough in the foreground of the shot is filled almost to the top. There’s a carriage just on the other side of it, and in the background, we can see buildings along the road.

Picture if you will: A typical Western town from a 1970s movie—and this is basically what that looks like.

Except when I think of towns in Western movies, I think of a dirt road being all dusty in the heat of the sun. This one is muddy because it’s raining out. Someone carrying an umbrella races along the road as they try to keep from getting wet.

A couple women rush along the sidewalk, too, seemingly trying to stay dry. Not everyone cares about the rain, though, as we can see a man on a horse meandering slowly along the road. The camera focuses in on him as he continues along the road and now we can start to see some of the signs for buildings along the way.

The signs for the stores are very self-explanatory: That one just says “Furniture” and next to it is “Manning’s Stoves & Hardware.”

There’s not much of a surprise about what you’ll be able to get there.

The camera shifts focus now and instead of following the lone rider on the horse, it cuts to three men on horses coming the other direction. Oh, there’s more than three—there’s another guy who seems to be a part of the same crew.

It looks like it’s raining harder now, too, as the camera angle changes. The four men get off their horses and as they’re moving, we can see at least one of them has a rifle. They walk up to the sidewalk, looking around as if they’re seeing who is noticing them arrive. No one else seems to notice…or, at least, if they do it’s not apparent from the movie.

Inside one of the buildings, there’s a man writing something down. There’s a noise behind him, and he turns around just in time to get hit over the head with a shovel. He slumps over, unconscious. The window blinds are closed so no one from the outside can see what’s about to happen inside.

The other guys in the crew who were still outside in the rain calmly walk inside, and we can see there’s a sign on the outside that says this is a bank. More violence ensues as the men force the workers inside to, as one of the men says, “make a withdrawal.”

Except…I don’t think this is a legitimate withdrawal since it’s happening at gunpoint.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid

Time for the fact-check!

What we just saw in the movie…or, rather, what I just described to you as I’m watching the movie, is an event from this week in history when the James-Younger Gang participated in what many have called one of their most infamous holdups.

As the name of the movie says straight up, this raid really did happen in the town of Northfield, Minnesota. Well, the movie calls it a raid. It was a bank robbery. For a bit of geographical context, Northfield, Minnesota is about 36 miles, or 58 kilometers, to the south of Minneapolis.

And the First National Bank of Northfield had about $15,000 in its safe at the time. In 1876, that’s about the same as $423,000 today.

And while the segment of the movie we just heard described doesn’t give any indication about who is who, in the true story, one of the reasons why the robbery at the Northfield bank has gone down in history is because it was the beginning of the end for the notorious outlaw Jesse James.

The James-Younger Gang got their name from two sets of brothers: Frank and Jesse James as well as Cole and Bob Younger. They weren’t the only ones in the gang, of course, but they were the leaders and generally considered the most notorious of the outlaws.

Around 2 o’clock in the afternoon on September 7^th, 1876, the James-Younger gang rode into Northfield, Minnesota with a plan to rob the bank. I couldn’t find anything to suggest it was raining like we see in the movie, but the weather didn’t really matter for the plans.

Three members of the gang took up position down the street near a bridge as lookouts. Two more stayed outside the bank. Frank James, Bob Younger, and another of the gang, Charlie Pitts, were the members of the gang to enter the bank. While it didn’t necessarily happen exactly like we see in the movie with the shovel knocking one of the men unconscious, the robbers did demand the bank employees open the safe.

One thing the movie got wrong was how the town was alerted to the bank being robbed. We didn’t talk about this in the scene of the film we covered, but a little bit later there’s someone outside the bank who gets shot by someone in the gang. That is what makes everyone get alerted to what’s going on.

In the true story, it should have been included in the segment we talked about earlier because there was someone leaving the bank right as some of the gang went in to rob it. That person, a man named J.S. Allen, recognized the bank was being robbed almost immediately. He didn’t know who the robbers were, but he knew what was happening and he called out for help. Some townspeople nearby heard the call for help and grabbed their guns to investigate the bank.

The robbers outside the bank guarding the door didn’t help with the curiosity of the armed townspeople investigating.

A shootout started.

In the chaos, two of the James-Younger Gang were killed and left behind as they fled with only about $26.70 instead of the $15,000 in the safe.

A militia was formed to find the gang that had just tried to rob the bank. When they caught up to them, Charlie Pitts was killed by the militia in a shootout that saw the Younger Brothers captured. The only ones to get away from the attempted robbery at the Northfield bank was Jesse and Frank James, who had split off from the rest of the gang to flee back home to Missouri.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history as it’s depicted on screen, check out the 1972 film called The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid.

The gang rides into town to start the bank robbery sequence at about an hour and two minutes into the film.

And while we don’t have an episode covering that movie, if you want to learn more about the true story I’ll include a link in the show notes for this episode to a fantastic article from the Minnesota Digital Library that includes photographs of the places and people involved.