00:00:00:15 – 00:00:20:09
Dan LeFebvre
Since every movie takes different creative liberties portraying historical events. Let’s start today by getting an overall bar park idea of how accurate today’s movie is. So if you were to give Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, letter grade for its historical accuracy, what would it get?

00:00:20:12 – 00:00:39:05
John Barker
Well, I would give it a C. I think, not a great score. It sounds like. But that’s not a criticism, really. And I might say that’s even intentional. And to the film’s credit, because while I think Tarantino is doing isn’t really a history lesson, I mean, the clues, they’re kind of in the title. It’s called Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

00:00:39:09 – 00:00:58:06
John Barker
He tells us from the very start that this is a fairy tale. It’s set in real time and the real place with some real people. Those characters. But it’s very much a re-imagining, like an alternate history built on top of real events, which are the Hollywood of the late 60s, the counterculture of that time, the cultural shift. The Manson Family enchanted the course.

00:00:58:11 – 00:01:19:25
John Barker
All that’s real, and lots of it is depicted by Tarantino with lots of care. But the big dramatic moments, things like the mansons going to the wrong house and the movie star frying one of them with a flamethrower at the end, but didn’t happen as far as the right way. So yes, absolutely. But I think Tarantino might even take that as a compliment with what he’s kind of going for in the film.

00:01:19:27 – 00:01:36:21
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. I mean, it’s I got that impression from it just watching it. Okay. This is probably an alternative again. You know, another Quentin Tarantino movie we’re not talking about today, but, you know, like, Inglorious Bastard. I think he kind of did a similar sort of concept where obviously World War Two was a real thing.

00:01:36:24 – 00:01:40:23
Dan LeFebvre
But then layering this story, that is kind of an alternative type history, like you mentioned.

00:01:40:23 – 00:01:56:28
John Barker
But has very much a fantastical ending as well. I think personally, it works a lot better in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood than it does in Inglourious Basterds. I think maybe in Inglourious Basterds, what he’s doing with kind of World War Two, the Nazis. I think that might just be too big to kind of play with reality a bit.

00:01:57:00 – 00:01:59:09
John Barker
I watch how I feel about it.

00:01:59:12 – 00:02:14:20
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I can’t see that. I think one of the one of the reasons I use that example, I think, is because it’s it’s obviously fantastical, because people are familiar with how World War Two ended, a lot more so than I think. I mean, obviously, a lot of people know about, Sharon Tate and the murders and all that happened.

00:02:14:20 – 00:02:20:21
Dan LeFebvre
But maybe not on the same scale as World War Two. In my mind, at least, maybe that’s just me.

00:02:20:23 – 00:02:35:21
John Barker
No. Certainly not. It’s just about everyone knows World War Two. It’s it’s one of the biggest events of the last 150 years. And you can’t you can’t still, you can’t really escape it. It feels like maybe being a little bit flippant, if that’s the right word. When it doesn’t just fit, it doesn’t just sit right. I think with a lot of people.

00:02:35:23 – 00:03:00:28
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. Well, let’s get back into Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And one of the more common creative liberties that we see in historical movies are when the filmmakers, well, change names or just create composite characters, or sometimes just make up entirely fictional characters. And for today’s movie, there are three main characters I think. Feel free to add more if you want, but I think the the main characters are the actor Rick Dalton, who’s played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

00:03:01:00 – 00:03:21:06
Dan LeFebvre
Then his stunt double, I should say Rick Dalton’s stunt double and assistant in the movie named Cliff Booth. He’s played by Brad Pitt. And then the actress named Sharon Tate, who’s played by another actress, Margot Robbie. And while he is a smaller character, Tate is married to Roman Polanski. When the couple become Dalton and Bruce neighbors. Are any of those based on real people?

00:03:21:09 – 00:03:39:24
John Barker
Yes. So I agree. Those are the three main characters for sure. Of those three, only Sharon Tate is the real person. She was a real actress. She was married to Roman Polanski, who was a director and was killed by members of the Manson family in 1969. I think Tarantino did take two with a lot of warmth in respect.

00:03:39:27 – 00:03:58:29
John Barker
I think he’s quite deliberately saying, kind of look at what we lost in Sharon Tate and Margot Robbie plays a brilliantly. I think I know that out of respect for the family, Tarantino got in touch with Sharon’s younger sister Deborah before filming, and Deborah Tate ended up on set quite a lot, and she even lent them sort of Sharon’s jewelry for, like, the Playboy Mansion scene where we see Sharon dancing.

00:03:59:02 – 00:04:24:12
John Barker
Margot Robbie’s wearing some of Sharon Tate real jewelry. I forget that to Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth. They are fictional, but even they’re not made up totally from scratch because Tarantino drew pretty heavily on Steve McQueen for Rick. Rick’s arc mirrors McQueen’s own career quite a bit, because Steve McQueen goes brick on a 50s TV western about a bounty hunter called Wanted Dead or Alive, which becomes Bounty Law in the film that Rick’s in.

00:04:24:12 – 00:04:45:11
John Barker
And the first time we see Rick in Bounty Law, you’re actually tearing down a poster that says Wanted Dead or Alive, which is obviously a little nod back to that and that whole dynamic between Rick and Cliff, the stunt man best friend dynamic that comes from real relationships as well. Steve McQueen had that with his own stunt man, but Deakins, and Burt Reynolds, he had a very similar relationship with his stunt man, Hal Needham.

00:04:45:11 – 00:04:57:22
John Barker
So that’s kind of where Cliff comes from. He’s not a real person, but he’s rooted in reality. So, yeah, so one real person of the three and two fictional characters who are kind of built from real foundations, if you like.

00:04:57:25 – 00:05:14:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. It sounds like, with Tarantino, you expect a lot of those little details anyway, but it sounds like. Yeah, for sure. He’s got these little details in there, based on Steve McQueen, which we’ll get to you a little bit later, too, because there is a scene in the movie I want to talk to you about with Steve McQueen, for sure.

00:05:14:27 – 00:05:43:11
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we go back to the movie’s timeline, it is 1969, and Rick Dalton’s career doesn’t really seem to be going well in the movie. So he and Cliff Booth head to Italy for six months to make some spaghetti Westerns. And this just kind of seems like one of those moments where maybe they’re they’re looking at moviemaking from the current day, you know, as a moviegoer, we’re looking at this from a current day because right now we think of movies, let me call it, you know, Hollywood and such, but it’s not necessarily just one city.

00:05:43:11 – 00:06:05:06
Dan LeFebvre
Movies these days are made everywhere. And so when you see, you know, in the movie and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the impression I got in the movie there was that going to Europe to make movies is going to be a death sentence for Dalton’s already declining career. So can you kind of take us back to Hollywood in the late 1960s, when this is taking place in this movie?

00:06:05:06 – 00:06:09:04
Dan LeFebvre
And how common was it for actors to go to Europe to make movies?

00:06:09:07 – 00:06:29:12
John Barker
Yeah, well, I mean, you’re right with the modern day globalization, the world’s a smaller place, isn’t it’s always a big idea for somebody to go to Europe from America to carry on whatever career was. But what we’re talking about was the actors going there in the late 60s, it was pretty common at the time. I think the film captures why it did feel like a step down really well, because obviously Tarantino knows his film history inside out.

00:06:29:14 – 00:06:51:02
John Barker
So in late 60s in America, New Hollywood was arriving. The old Hollywood system studio system was kind of crumbling. This new generation of filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola, others were all coming through, and they were making much more grounded, more raw films. And the one that younger actors, people like Robert De Niro or Dustin Hoffman, had just done, The Graduate.

00:06:51:06 – 00:07:18:13
John Barker
So the game was changing in Hollywood, and actors like Rick, these TV western guys like your classic square jawed leading men types. They were suddenly a bit old hat, a bit yesterday’s news, and then tied in with that is that spaghetti Western boom of the films it touches on as well, that had been going on since the mid 60s, where things like Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy like The Good, the Bad and the ugly with Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and a lot of American actors will go to Europe to kind of cash in on that chick.

00:07:18:16 – 00:07:39:21
John Barker
And Tarantino, actually talking of Lee Van Cleef, took a lot of inspiration from him for Rick’s house in the film because when he was scouting locations, he visited one police widow and said that her house was still like a 1960s time capsule because Van Cleef had a huge painting of his own face in the garage. So that is why Rick has a huge picture of his own face on his driveway, which is a nice detail.

00:07:39:23 – 00:07:59:10
John Barker
But yeah, like like see in Europe was a real option for actors, especially Italy, and it was the kind of movie that a lot of people saw as a sort of admission that you couldn’t have in Hollywood anymore, which is exactly how Rick feels about it. So again, that’s not a real story. Ron McDonald. And it’s very much based in the reality of some actors careers at the time.

00:07:59:12 – 00:07:59:24
John Barker
Yeah.

00:07:59:27 – 00:08:21:17
Dan LeFebvre
When you were I mean, you mentioned that the the shift he’s going from TV to movies. I didn’t think about this when I was watching it, but, that back then I’m thinking of, you know, like in the golden age of Hollywood, there was this, correct me if I’m wrong, but the impression I get is that, there was this stigma around going from film to TV.

00:08:21:18 – 00:08:42:05
Dan LeFebvre
Once, you know, TV started to become a thing. Like there was movie stars didn’t want to do TV was during this. The timeline of what we’re seeing in the movie in the late 1960s, was there a stigma of TV stars like Rick Dalton making a shift to the movies? Like maybe it was tough for him to break into movies?

00:08:42:08 – 00:08:56:23
John Barker
I think back then there was definitely much more of a line between TV and film than what there is now, because now with Netflix and all of that, they can pay big, big bucks. So you see the biggest stars in the world getting their own TV shows. Gabe. Okay, winter’s on the and lots of them have done it.

00:08:56:25 – 00:09:15:25
John Barker
Back then it wasn’t such a big thing. It was much more of a line, I think, between TV star and film star. Some of them did make that crossover, like Steve McQueen. You mentioned Jodie Foster. She started on Gunsmoke, the TV western, when she was 12 years old. She that’s actually why, Julia character here, the girl who talks to DiCaprio’s character.

00:09:15:25 – 00:09:35:00
John Barker
Who why she’s in the film. She’s a nod back to Jodie Foster. It’s not only the 12 year old, so lots of them were making the crossover. We got to be, I think, got out the talent and probably do the right look as well. And some people like Rick Dalton in this who were kind of mid 40s pushing on beyond that Hollywood, you didn’t really, really know them, so they didn’t really have a chance.

00:09:35:00 – 00:09:43:05
John Barker
But they’re always trying to push for it. So the end up I want to make a movie I love you. So let’s let’s head off over there.

00:09:43:08 – 00:09:48:15
Dan LeFebvre
And it’s a nice little, additional touch. Again, it goes back to Quentin Tarantino knowing the hits.

00:09:48:15 – 00:09:52:16
John Barker
There’s so many of them. Yeah, so many. You know.

00:09:52:18 – 00:09:54:29
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned Steve McQueen. Sorry. Go ahead.

00:09:55:01 – 00:10:11:05
John Barker
So I was going to say yeah. Because with this film as well, it’s not just happened to you writing about this time and place. He’s writing about a time and place that not only does he love, he grew up in, so he knows it inside out. It’s very much a love letter to Hollywood, specifically the Hollywood that he grew up with, I think, and he knows it inside out.

00:10:11:05 – 00:10:17:29
John Barker
So that that kind of is in every single frame of the film. I think you guys, I think this is the most personal film he’s ever done.

00:10:18:01 – 00:10:24:18
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. No, that’s a that’s a good take on that. I hadn’t, hadn’t considered that before. Yeah. It’s you know a love letter to Hollywood almost. And.

00:10:24:22 – 00:10:27:11
John Barker
Yeah it is. Yeah. Nice.

00:10:27:13 – 00:10:52:05
Dan LeFebvre
Well you did mention Steve McQueen and I want to ask about this part because in the movie we see an alternate version of another movie where Rick Dalton, he’s talking about, the time that he’s almost got cast is Steve McQueen’s part as the American pilot, Captain Virgil Hilts. In 1963, the great Escape was the role of Captain Hilts, almost given to someone other than Steve McQueen?

00:10:52:07 – 00:11:06:15
John Barker
Well, I mean, the casting of The Great Escape, that’s kind of a story of its own. We’ve actually done an episode on that one as well, because it was full of big stars, and there was a lot of conflict going on behind the scenes with egos and that kind of thing. But no, it doesn’t seem that anyone else was really in contention to play Captain Hilts.

00:11:06:18 – 00:11:26:14
John Barker
I know that The Great Escape director John Sturges, because he had a British cast, it was very much a British story. You wanted a way to kind of Americanize that for the American audience. And he saw Steve McQueen, Mr. America kind of as a perfect person to do it. So I think he kind of always wanted him. But what you might be interested in is that I know that hilts was kind of based on a real person as well.

00:11:26:16 – 00:11:45:27
John Barker
So there was an R.A.F. World War Two pilot called William Ash. He was shot down over France in 1942, and he attempted to escape prisoner of war camps like 13 times or something. And he ended up being put in solitary. So that’s where the idea of the cooler King in solitary came from. But no, nobody else was nearly cast as hilts, and certainly not Rick Dalton.

00:11:45:27 – 00:11:47:13
John Barker
Obviously.

00:11:47:15 – 00:12:07:19
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, well, he’s fictional anyway, so yeah, exactly. But I love what they did in the movie. I thought it was a nice take that you actually get to see Leonardo DiCaprio edited into actual scenes from The Great Escape, which it was. I looked it up and, it was the Great Escape was released like 11 years before DiCaprio was even born.

00:12:07:22 – 00:12:31:26
Dan LeFebvre
But that made me wonder, let’s just random. Okay, let’s say you could recast any role from a classic film with a current actor or actress, similar to the way that we see Leonardo DiCaprio from 2019, when Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was released, playing Steve McQueen’s role from 1963, Great Escape, who would it be and what role would they play?

00:12:31:28 – 00:12:50:25
John Barker
It’s a good question, and I’ve thought about it. And the film I go for is a Bonnie and Clyde from 1967, so that I think, is ripe for a remake. It’s based on a true story, obviously, so wouldn’t even be a remake really more of a different version of those real events, the kind of folk anti-heroes they’ve become.

00:12:51:01 – 00:12:58:06
John Barker
I mean, I find the real Bonnie and Clyde a pretty fascinating story. I think a lot of people do, which is why they kind of prevail. Have you done that? One of you covered that one?

00:12:58:08 – 00:13:06:23
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah, I have. I’ve actually talked to the, historical consultant on The Highwaymen. I don’t know if you saw that, the Netflix movie.

00:13:06:26 – 00:13:07:03
John Barker
Yeah.

00:13:07:11 – 00:13:12:03
Dan LeFebvre
And they took him down. Yeah, yeah, it’s on new Phillips was the consultant on that, so. Yeah.

00:13:12:06 – 00:13:29:12
John Barker
I’ll check that one out. But obviously in 1967 they were played by Faye Dunaway. And Warren Beatty. And for another one I would go with Austin Butler as Clyde, and Margaret Qualley as Bonnie. I think Austin Butler is great. I think he’s a great actor. He’s charismatic, he’s got a bit of intensity, so that would work well.

00:13:29:12 – 00:13:47:14
John Barker
As Clyde Barrow on Margaret Qualley. I see her be electric in films, and she’s got a bit of, like, unpredictability about, what you like on this movie star quality. That would work really well as Bonnie Parker. So I think they’d be great on the tie or back together. Both Austin Butler and Margaret Qualley are in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is Butler.

00:13:47:14 – 00:13:56:13
John Barker
Please tell us what’s in one of the Manson killers. And Margaret Qualley is Pussycat, one of the Manson girls. But yeah, I’d love to see them two in those two roles. That’d be great.

00:13:56:15 – 00:14:01:19
Dan LeFebvre
That would be, that would be fantastic to see a Quentin Tarantino version of that, too.

00:14:01:19 – 00:14:13:23
John Barker
Oh, I would, yeah, yeah. Oh, that film came out, which was the diary by author Penn in the final scene where the get kind of killed was really controversial of how graphic it was. So I think we’ve run that’ll be even more probably.

00:14:13:25 – 00:14:19:06
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. He would you think.

00:14:19:08 – 00:14:24:02
Dan LeFebvre
He’d find a way to do that. You did shoot the car it explode or something like that. Yeah, yeah. No reason.

00:14:24:08 – 00:14:28:07
John Barker
Yeah. People eating burgers, drinking milkshakes. Yeah.

00:14:28:09 – 00:14:46:05
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. If we go back to it, once upon a time in Hollywood, there is a scene that we see with another famous actor, Bruce Lee. Cliff Booth gets into a fight with him while he is shooting The Green Hornet. And in the movie, Booth has no trouble beating Lee. And I’m just I’m assuming that particular fight didn’t happen again.

00:14:46:05 – 00:14:52:12
Dan LeFebvre
Correct me if I’m wrong, but do we know if Bruce Lee got into any fights with other actors during his time in Hollywood?

00:14:52:15 – 00:15:11:04
John Barker
Well, there’s no official action now about where of of Bruce Lee actually getting into a proper fight with the doctor on set. I know that Shannon Lee Bruce’s daughter, she was massively critical of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood when it came out, because she said that her dad would always avoid confrontation in real life. But again, it does seem like Tarantino was not totally pulled this thing out within a either.

00:15:11:06 – 00:15:40:11
John Barker
So in the film, Cliff fight with Bruce Lee is on the set of The Green Hornet, the TV series that Bruce Lee started on on that show. Apparently, Lee had a bit of a reputation for not pulling his punches with stunt performers, which didn’t go down well with the stunt team, obviously. And there’s a story about the stunt coordinator on The Green Hornet called Benny Dobbins bringing in another stunt man called Gene LaBelle to kind of bring Lee down a peg or two, because Gina Ballard was a judo expert, and apparently he scooped Lee up on the set and ran around with him in a fireman’s lift.

00:15:40:14 – 00:15:56:16
John Barker
I mean, that story when I came across it, it was told by Gene LaBelle himself. So make of it what you will. But I think it sounds like it’s almost certainly the seed for what Tarantino was doing with Cliff and Bruce Lee. So yet again, it’s a fictional scene, but based in something real. That’s kind of what he’s doing all the way through.

00:15:56:16 – 00:15:57:27
John Barker
I think.

00:15:57:29 – 00:16:16:03
Dan LeFebvre
Wow, wow. Yeah, yeah. I mean, in the movie you’re watching, I’m like, okay, there’s no way he’s going to be Bruce Lee. I mean, come on. But he makes he does it like like there’s nothing. And so I could see that almost, again coming from him, you know, putting it on his shoulders. So who knows if that’s actually true?

00:16:16:03 – 00:16:29:22
John Barker
I think it’s one of the I think one of the main reasons it gets criticized is because people don’t like the fact that the cliff seems to be able to beat Bruce Lee. And when the novelization of the book came out of the film came out, was written by Tarantino, maybe a few months a few years later in not.

00:16:29:22 – 00:16:40:28
John Barker
Apparently I’m not ready to, but apparently does make very clear in that scene that Bruce Lee is better than Cliff in the in the novelization version, whereas in the film it looks like Cliff get in the bedroom, doesn’t it?

00:16:41:01 – 00:16:46:04
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. No. Yeah it does. Yeah. Speaking of alternative histories, I guess.

00:16:46:10 – 00:16:49:03
John Barker
Yeah, yeah, let’s know the history of the old in the history.

00:16:49:06 – 00:17:13:15
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, speaking of actors, Margot Robbie, as we talk about her, her version of Sharon Tate is an actress in the movie. And at one point in the movie, we actually see her going to the Berman movie theater in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles to watch her own movie. That movie’s called The Wrecking Crew, and she really seems to just enjoy the audiences reaction to it.

00:17:13:17 – 00:17:18:02
Dan LeFebvre
Do we know if the real Sharon Tate went to go see her own movies like that?

00:17:18:04 – 00:17:35:19
John Barker
Again? There’s no definite records around Sharon doing exactly what we’re seeing. The film go into a cinema to watch yourself. So this is a scene where the film definitely isn’t like some documentary. It’s definitely a it’s definitely a reconstruction. It’s basically, I think, a nice day in the life of Sharon Tate. I think that’s what it’s meant to be, and I think it’s the nicest moment in the film.

00:17:35:19 – 00:17:53:27
John Barker
I really like it, but I know that Tarantino and Margot Robbie have both talked about how proud Sharon Tate was of her performance in that film, The Wrecking Crew. So it does come from that. I think, the Wrecking Crew footage on the screen, rather than replacing Sharon Tate with Robbie like you does. Oh yeah. In The Great Escape, Tarantino shows us the actual Wrecking Crew footage, the film.

00:17:53:27 – 00:18:13:27
John Barker
So I think that’s quite a classy touch to kind of see Sharon doing a thing. But something else interesting in that scene, actually based on reality, is when Sharon’s watching herself, she takes her shoes off and puts her feet up on the chair in front of her. The soles of the feet are really dirty. So Deborah Teach, Sharon’s sister that I mentioned, she said that the real Sharon would go barefoot everywhere she could.

00:18:14:00 – 00:18:33:29
John Barker
Like she never wore shoes at home and she go to restaurants barefoot as well. So her dirty feet in the film, that kind of comes from not in real life. Sharon Tate’s feet are probably washed quite a lot, so I think it’s a really subtle nod to that. I mean, as well, Tarantino has a bit of a reputation for liking the sure women in his films as well, so that might have been a bonus as far as he was concerned.

00:18:34:01 – 00:19:02:08
Dan LeFebvre
Well, again, because of the level of detail, a little things like that, like I would have never have known that without knowing that little detail about the real Sharon Tate and throwing that in or even, you know, using that, that footage in the film. I think when you’re mentioning that, you know, just a nice day in the life of Sharon Tate, I think that’s it’s a great way from you think of from a filmmaker’s perspective to you want to have this person be somebody that to foreshadow the coming events.

00:19:02:08 – 00:19:23:15
Dan LeFebvre
We know what’s going to happen to her. And so there’s got to be some sort of connection to her as a human being. And she’s also not one of the main characters, like we’re talking about Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth and movies, you know, focused on their story a lot. And so I can definitely see that this is a great, great way for Quentin Tarantino to humanize Sharon Tate on, on screen, give her her own.

00:19:23:18 – 00:19:36:23
John Barker
And that’s a big part of what he’s doing. Yeah. I mean, like, you see, with the events happening as it did in real life, when you first watch the film, you think you know what’s going to happen at the end. You think you know what’s coming all the way through, and you know, if it does happen, it’s going to be horrific.

00:19:36:26 – 00:19:52:15
John Barker
And that kind of dread is kind of vague with you all the time. I think Tarantino fully aware of that, and he plays with that all the way through. So when it comes at the end, he flips the expectation on its head. It’s really effective, and one of the ways he does that is to make us like Sharon a lot in this scene does that perfectly, I think.

00:19:52:17 – 00:20:10:07
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah. Well, well we’ll talk about some of that way. The movie ends here in a little bit. But if we go back to the movie’s timeline, Cliff Booth knows a guy named George Spawn from when he works as Rick Dalton stunt double on the TV show we talked about a little bit ago called Bounty Law. They shot that TV show at Spawns Ranch course.

00:20:10:12 – 00:20:31:18
Dan LeFebvre
This is all according to the movie. And. But that was before the timeline of the movie. We don’t actually see much of that actually happening. But then in the movie, we see members of the Manson family living at Spahn Ranch, and spawn himself doesn’t really seem to remember Cliff Booth. It’s really kind of a funny scene there.

00:20:31:20 – 00:20:50:01
Dan LeFebvre
But then still, Booth thinks that spawn is being taken advantage of with the Manson Family members there. He doesn’t really know them as the Manson Family, but that’s what I’m referring them to. And maybe he is, but also, spawn seems to be blind. He’s an older man, and he kind of seems to be okay with the company.

00:20:50:03 – 00:21:05:24
Dan LeFebvre
We see. We hear names like, squeaky, Sadie, Tex, and of course, Charlie referring to Charles Manson. But then the movie just kind of assumes that you know who the real people were. So can you unravel this connection between the Manson Family and the Spahn Ranch?

00:21:05:26 – 00:21:24:14
John Barker
Yeah. So Spahn Ranch was a real place. It was a working ranch that had been used as a movie set for Westerns in the 40s, in the 50s, and it was owned by George Osborne. And by the late 60s, films weren’t being shot there anymore. And it was pretty rundown. And from what we know, Charles Manson arranged for the family to move in around 1968.

00:21:24:21 – 00:21:46:07
John Barker
So basically, in exchange for labor on the ranch and from George’s perspective, some companionship. I mean, how far that went, we don’t know. The one thing I want to know, to be honest, because George, he was about 80, he was going blindly with seeing the film as well. But yes, the Mansons did use Spahn Ranch as a base, basically on the name you mentioned there that we hear in the film, they are all real people, so squeaky.

00:21:46:09 – 00:22:07:09
John Barker
But the net from who in real life later attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford as well. So there’s there’s a spin off. She’s played by Dakota Fanning, Texas Charles Watson, played by Austin Butler. Sadie. Her real name was Susan Atkins. She’s played by Mickey Madsen. Pussycats. But Margaret Qualley is kind of you mentioned she’s based on two people called Ruthanne Moorehouse and Catherine, lead singer Catherine.

00:22:07:09 – 00:22:29:02
John Barker
Shooting. I was nicknamed Kitty cats, and that became Pussycats. Leslie Van Houten is played by Victoria Pedretti. Lena Dunham plays Catherine Scheer, known as Gypsy, and Sydney Sweeney is in there as Diane Lake. She was the youngest Manson to 2014 when she joined, and they’re not in this scene. But later on we see Patricia Krenwinkel, played by Madison Beatty, and Linda Kasabian, played by Maya Hawke.

00:22:29:08 – 00:22:53:08
John Barker
The daughter of Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke. And then, yeah, you mentioned Charlie, of course, as Charles Manson self. He’s played by Damon Herriman. He’d already played it. Charles Manson actually in Mindhunter. If you’ve seen that the TV series. Yeah, he played him in that. So of all the rules he got typecast in Charles Manson. I think what’s crazy, looking back at it now, is that most of these actors at the time were pretty much unknown, but now Lloyd’s I’m a Big Star is like Austin Butler.

00:22:53:08 – 00:23:16:28
John Barker
Mikey Madison is one of Oscar Margaret Qualley, Sydney Sweeney, Victoria Pedretti as well. I mean the casting director, Victoria Thomas. I think she had a bit of an eye for talent. But in terms of Spahn Ranch, by the time Tarantino came to me, the film, the real Spahn Ranch was gone. A fire destroyed it in like 1970, so the production designer was Barbara Ling, and she found the location about 20 minutes away from where the real ranch had been.

00:23:17:01 – 00:23:25:22
John Barker
And she and her team, like, reconstructed the whole thing from all four. The graphs. So it’s very accurate, apparently. I mean, it’s an incredible set.

00:23:25:24 – 00:23:48:12
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. That’s fascinating. It’s it’s it’s always crazy to me the extent that they’ll go like, here’s, a ranch, like, it’s it’s another movie, inception. It’s like it’s like movie ception, right? I mean, it’s, make, you know, this scene in this, TV show was on this ranch that then burned down, and now they’re making a movie about recreating the shit.

00:23:48:18 – 00:23:51:14
Dan LeFebvre
It’s just. Yeah, it’s just crazy. It’s. Yeah.

00:23:51:17 – 00:24:07:17
John Barker
It’s very media and all the time to about it quite heavily into The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when he was creating this, the whole set, just because he wanted to have that like wooden, ramshackle, eerie kind of feel that you get in Texas Chainsaw, which I think it very much does, because when Cliff, they’re looking for George, it’s very tense, isn’t it?

00:24:07:17 – 00:24:10:29
John Barker
And you can see the house in the distance and that kind of thing. It’s great.

00:24:11:02 – 00:24:22:00
Dan LeFebvre
Well, like you’re, you’re talking about, you know, Tarantino knows what we know about the history of this. And he’s using and playing with that because you know that okay. There’s something tense. There’s something off.

00:24:22:03 – 00:24:38:23
John Barker
But yeah. Exactly. It’s the first thing. Where would you say the mansons as soon as he gets to Spahn Ranch, you know, that’s where the mansons are. Straight away. The hairs in the in that go up because we know what they are. I’m gonna know what’s going to happen. So it’s like, what’s going to happen? Yeah. You I think when I first watched it, I’m assuming something’s going to happen here that leads the Mansons back to Cielo Drive.

00:24:38:23 – 00:24:45:04
John Barker
It doesn’t, but it’s it’s just got that ominous dread all the way into the film because you think you know what’s coming.

00:24:45:07 – 00:24:49:15
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. You just. Yeah. You’re just waiting for it to jump out at you. But you don’t know when it’s going to be.

00:24:49:22 – 00:24:51:20
John Barker
Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

00:24:51:22 – 00:25:10:16
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Well, if there is a point in the movie where I think it was specifically shifting away from historical events, it would be when, as the movie puts it, Charles Manson told his followers to quote, Go to Terry’s old house and kill everybody in there. And the house that they’re referring to in the movie is now owned by Sharon Tate and her husband, Roman Polanski.

00:25:10:18 – 00:25:30:15
Dan LeFebvre
But here’s where I think it changed from history, because once the Manson family members get there, Rick Dalton gets annoyed at their car being too loud. Is just idling on a private road. He comes out, start yelling at them to get out and leave. They recognize Dalton as an actor on Bounty Law, and then they decide to kill the actor who taught them how to kill.

00:25:30:18 – 00:25:42:24
Dan LeFebvre
So they end up going next door to kill Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth instead. And we’ll get to that scene next door in a moment. But in the true story was Polanski and Tate’s house the target for the Manson Family’s murders plans?

00:25:42:27 – 00:26:08:09
John Barker
Yes. It was 10050. Cielo drive was the address and that was the targets. So not Sharon Tate specifically. So Charles Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian, then the Kasabian, by the way, that’s where the band got their name from Kasabian. So they drove it on that nice 8th of August 1969. And the reason that specific address was chosen, according to many accounts, goes back to Terry Melcher, who had previously lived there.

00:26:08:16 – 00:26:23:28
John Barker
So Terry Melcher was a music producer who would consider signing Charles Manson as a musician. Because Manson finds himself at a bit of a fork singer songwriter. We actually had one of his songs in the film. It’s sung by the Manson girls in the first act, when they’re walking down the street. But Terry Melcher eventually passed on him and said no.

00:26:24:00 – 00:26:45:03
John Barker
And that rejection, some people say, was one of the things that kind of tipped Manson over the edge. And even stranger, Terry Melcher was the son of Doris Day, of all people. So that’s why, though, when Manson tend to beat Sharon’s, he says, Does Terry live here? He’s talking about Terry Melcher, and there’s other links as well, because one of the bands, Terry Melcher produced was Paul Revere and the Raiders, like 60s rock band.

00:26:45:06 – 00:27:03:00
John Barker
So that’s why Sharon mentions them in the film. And they also on the soundtrack, like five times. They’re all over it. And but yeah, the film has the mansons redirected to Rick’s house after they recognize him like the sea, but in reality they just went to Sharon’s and did what they did. Although they weren’t targeting Sharon Tate specifically, it was the house very much.

00:27:03:02 – 00:27:19:01
Dan LeFebvre
It was the okay, so it was that. So that kind of alludes to that in the movie when he talks about going to Terry’s old house. You talking about Terry Melcher? And that sounds like, again, another little detail that if you don’t know the history of it, you know, I mean, you might know the grand scale, but, you know, the details of like, who is Terry?

00:27:19:04 – 00:27:32:06
John Barker
Yeah. Well, exactly. You just mentioned Terry. But then when you look into that, it opens up this whole kind of, kind of worms of what Charles Manson relationship with Terry Melcher was and how there was this sort of contentions between them. Going back to the fact he didn’t sign he was a record producer. That’s what was all about.

00:27:32:06 – 00:27:35:26
John Barker
But I mentioned to all in the film, well, that’s kind of the reality of it.

00:27:35:29 – 00:27:54:00
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. So that was the the motive, because in the movie it makes it kind of sound like the motive for the murders. Again, they’re going next door and we’ll talk about that. But, you know, being next door, they recognize Rick as somebody who taught them how to kill. So there’s almost seems like this violence and these murders are kind of a form of retribution against the violence in TV.

00:27:54:00 – 00:28:02:05
Dan LeFebvre
So but it sounds like the motive then was more just Charles Manson not liking that he didn’t get signed by a record producer.

00:28:02:07 – 00:28:24:03
John Barker
Yeah, well, Manson’s motives are still very much debated because he never revealed them. He died in 2017, I think, and never actually said what the whole point of it all was. The most commonly believe version is that he wanted to create what he referred to as Helter Skelter, which was a race war that he believed to bring around the end of society in America with the Manson family surviving it and kind of taking power to an extent and the mood as a Cielo drive.

00:28:24:06 – 00:28:35:23
John Barker
The plan was they were going to blame those on black militants and kind of spark that race war and that conflict. So that was the overall motive for the murders. The reason they chose that house was Terry Melcher.

00:28:35:25 – 00:28:40:18
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Okay. So the motive was something completely different than it was just, oh, this is,

00:28:40:20 – 00:28:42:07
John Barker
Yeah. Basically the more an.

00:28:42:07 – 00:28:43:11
Dan LeFebvre
Excuse to kick started.

00:28:43:16 – 00:28:59:22
John Barker
The wanted to cause chaos and murder people, like, on a killing spree. He had no one to kill. So we thought, well, let’s go to tumultuous house and Sharon and her friends were the people who were kind of there. They didn’t they didn’t know them at all. There was no connection whatsoever between Sharon Tate and the people there and the people who turned up that night.

00:28:59:24 – 00:29:01:08
John Barker
It was strangers.

00:29:01:10 – 00:29:04:26
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. That’s it. I mean, just horrific. And it.

00:29:04:26 – 00:29:10:28
John Barker
Is. It’s horrendous. Yeah. It’s true. I mean, I’m, I imagine just a shock of like, who are you? Who are you? What you’re doing here? It’s crazy.

00:29:11:03 – 00:29:33:19
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s there’s no connection there. And thinking of again we we get a lot from movies and TV shows and things like that. But we think of, you know, one of the in every movie or TV show, every detective, they’re always trying to piece together to find the motive. They’re trying to find, you know, what reason would somebody have to to kill this person?

00:29:33:19 – 00:29:42:09
Dan LeFebvre
And for people like Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, who correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m assuming they were pretty successful, kind of at the height of their careers.

00:29:42:12 – 00:29:43:18
John Barker
Oh yeah. Yeah.

00:29:43:21 – 00:29:46:25
Dan LeFebvre
So they would have a lot of motive, I would assume.

00:29:46:29 – 00:30:00:23
John Barker
Yeah. Well, what the motive was so thin and so sketchy that if not for some of the things that happened in which I think we might talk about a little bit, that would never have been caught because there was no reason. I mean, the different Morton’s and motive, the motive the Charles Manson had, he just didn’t seem to have one other witness head.

00:30:00:23 – 00:30:08:06
John Barker
He did, because he wasn’t quite a normal person. But there was nothing at all that would connect them to to Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski.

00:30:08:08 – 00:30:18:18
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Which makes it seem like, you know, from a detective’s point of view, that just has to be. It’s trying to wrap your head, trying to wrap your head around it when there’s no logical thing to wrap your head around it.

00:30:18:18 – 00:30:28:26
John Barker
Yeah, yeah. Well, when we we did when we did this episode a few months ago, I was in that position for about six months. Just like, what? What’s going on? How this all happened. It’s just crazy.

00:30:28:28 – 00:30:47:13
Dan LeFebvre
Speaking of crazy, before we go back to the movie, when the Manson family does attack, they attack Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth at their home, and there’s almost a comedic level of ultra violence. We get, Brad Pitt’s version of Booth again. He he had no problem handling Bruce Lee. He had no problem handling these. The home invaders.

00:30:47:15 – 00:31:08:10
Dan LeFebvre
Dalton’s in his pool listening music so he doesn’t hear the fighting going on until one of the women breaks through the glass, falls into the pool. Fortunately, Dalton just happens to have a fully functioning flamethrower that he used in the movie, so he uses that as you do. So he uses that against the attacker. Again, correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like I see that a lot.

00:31:08:17 – 00:31:15:22
Dan LeFebvre
But I’m just assuming that none of this happened like what we see in the movie. So can you share what really happened when the Manson family attacked?

00:31:15:25 – 00:31:35:20
John Barker
Yeah. Well, yeah. No flamethrowers. Unfortunately. No acid cigarets or Brandy Cliff’s dog. But you know what really happened that night? I mean, it is genuinely horrifying. After we did our episode and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, certain things in my head for weeks afterwards, that stuff’s out there. If people want to go and look for it. But maybe we shouldn’t go into that in detail because it is that bad.

00:31:35:22 – 00:31:55:25
John Barker
But there are some less graphic details based on the reality of that night I can talk about. So the people in Sharon’s house that night were Sharon. She was eight and a half months pregnant. Gina Sebring, who was a celebrity hairdresser. Abigail Folger. She was heiress of the Folger Coffee Company, and Voytek Frykowski. It was Abigail’s boyfriend, so they were all in the film.

00:31:55:27 – 00:32:14:06
John Barker
But there was also a fifth victim, so an 18 year old called Steven Parent was sitting outside Sharon’s house in his car when the Mansons arrived, and Charles Watson shot him dead. But Steven Parent, he’s not in the film at all. And the film threw on the film. No, that didn’t happen. I think that’s very much Tarantino living out the fairytale that he kind of wishes would go out.

00:32:14:10 – 00:32:16:12
John Barker
And maybe we all do to an extent.

00:32:16:15 – 00:32:31:08
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. It’s again, it reminds me of, Inglourious Basterds with the way that ended, just like this is when I. When I watch both of those Tarantino movies, I’m like, okay, this is what Tarantino wanted to happen. This is his alternative version of of how.

00:32:31:08 – 00:32:43:21
John Barker
This is exactly what it is. Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. I mean, a very clever thing that he called a Once Upon a Time in Hollywood because he’s telling us before you even see the film, this is a fairy tale if I’m going to be real. But you would. So you’re telling your friend that the flips are going to come.

00:32:43:21 – 00:32:49:01
John Barker
But like I said earlier, I think it works a lot better here than it does in Inglorious Bastards.

00:32:49:04 – 00:33:11:09
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. Well, you you mentioned some of the names and, something that we see near the end of the movie is it follows a very pregnant Sharon Tate kind of follows her routine. On the evening of August 8th, 1969, her husband, Roman Polanski, is preparing movie in London. So he’s not in the picture, but, she’s with, one of his old friends from Poland, Voytek Rakowski.

00:33:11:09 – 00:33:29:14
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned, along with his girlfriend Abigail Folger and Jay Sebring, and the movie’s showing his time. So at 7 p.m., the group goes to a Mexican restaurant called El Coyote. At 10:16 p.m., they leave the restaurant to go back home to where they hang out at home until a little after midnight, when the Manson Family members attack Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth next door.

00:33:29:16 – 00:33:49:06
Dan LeFebvre
We already talked about that, but the way the movie outlines this with Sharon Tate’s evening, it’s showing a specific time. Jul ten, 16 p.m.. It makes me think that perhaps you’re following what really happened with Sharon Tate and her friends on August 8th, 1969. How closely did the movie follow the actual timeline for Tate and her friends?

00:33:49:08 – 00:34:06:12
John Barker
Yeah, you’re right, it’s very, very close. The group she was with, or you mentioned they’re the people she was with that night. El coyote was a real restaurant in L.A. that they went to for dinner that evening. It’s still there, actually. And the times in the film, 7 p.m. dinner, leaving just after ten. They’re taken from accounts from the time.

00:34:06:14 – 00:34:22:25
John Barker
And then also in the film, we see Abigail Folger at the piano and Sharon singing Straight Shooter by the Mamas and the Papas. That’s in there because when the police arrived the next day, they found the sheet music to that song on the piano like it had just been used. And also in the film we see Voytek Frykowski go to sleep on the couch.

00:34:23:02 – 00:34:40:01
John Barker
Creer also mentions that in the narration, that did really happen because he was woken up by Charles Watson pointing a gun in his face, and Watson said to him, I’m the devil and I’m here to do the devil’s business. And that lines in the film as well. But Tex says it to Cliff instead. So yeah, lots of things in there based on reality catering to you.

00:34:40:04 – 00:34:46:15
John Barker
I’d done the history, not the research from not just the film history, but the whole murder side of it as well.

00:34:46:17 – 00:34:47:15
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:47:17 – 00:35:03:04
John Barker
Yeah. But that whole sequence that you’re talking about, where that kind of montage sequence where Claire whistles, narrating the events and you’ve got, baby, you’re out of Time by the Rolling Stones playing in the background. Baby, you’re out of time with pictures of Sharon on the screen. And with that narration. This happened at 6 p.m.. This happened at 7 p.m..

00:35:03:04 – 00:35:13:03
John Barker
You sitting there thinking, oh my God, it’s coming, it’s coming. Yeah. So that’s how you feel first time you see it and but now obviously doesn’t. And talking to you another he’s like he’s like oh you’re in the palm of his hand. He’s great.

00:35:13:05 – 00:35:24:03
Dan LeFebvre
What was there anything in the movie that we haven’t talked about yet that suits you is either being historically inaccurate or maybe the exact opposite. Was there anything that stood out to you is accurate the way they depicted it in the movie?

00:35:24:10 – 00:35:42:23
John Barker
Yeah, a couple of things. There’s a few things around Sharon we haven’t talked about. There’s a scene where she goes to a bookstore and buys Tess of the d’Urbervilles. That’s in there, because the last interaction in real life that Sharon ever had with a Roman Polanski was she gave him Tess of the d’Urbervilles as a gift. So that’s a nice little nod to their kind of relationship.

00:35:42:26 – 00:35:58:07
John Barker
There’s another ones in the first, like their own showing as well. The first thing would probably say her in the film. She’s on the way to that party, the Playboy Mansion with Roman Polanski, and she’s wearing a snakeskin coat that’s based on a cord that the real Sharon wore to the premiere of Rosemary’s Baby. What a Polanski’s most famous films.

00:35:58:09 – 00:36:15:18
John Barker
Pictures from that. On the inaccurate side in that scene, actually, the Playboy Mansion. Hugh Hefner didn’t actually buy that place until 1971, so two years after the film says so, the timing doesn’t work. But yeah, it’s there for the atmosphere. So. And it’s cool. So kind of a good kind of find to forgive it. And we mentioned Spahn Ranch as well earlier on.

00:36:15:24 – 00:36:40:19
John Barker
But there’s more great production design as well, because Barbara Ling and her team basically recreated Hollywood Boulevard as it was in 1969. We see a wedding cliff drives down in the first ox, and then Sharon walks down the later on the way to the theater. So what they did was it. Tarantino’s production team approached businesses based on Hollywood Boulevard at the time, and asked if they would let them change their facades to show how they would have looked in 1969 for free.

00:36:40:22 – 00:36:51:12
John Barker
And after filming, most of the stores apparently said, no, just keep it as it is. I don’t want change it back because I prefer the oh look. So like a free Hollywood makeover for your shop. That’s not a bad deal.

00:36:51:14 – 00:36:55:04
Dan LeFebvre
Probably have a lot of tourists coming to and expecting to see it the way it is in the movie, right?

00:36:55:05 – 00:37:00:11
John Barker
Exactly. I’d much prefer that. Yeah, it looks great. It was shot some incredible.

00:37:00:13 – 00:37:02:17
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Free. Yeah. Free makeover.

00:37:02:20 – 00:37:04:07
John Barker
Exactly.

00:37:04:09 – 00:37:29:16
Dan LeFebvre
Well, as we wrap up our discussion today for my audience that loves to learn about the true story behind movies, your podcast is perfect place for them to learn more of the true story from the movie making side of thing. I’ve got a link to your show called All the Right Movies in the show notes. I encourage anyone listening to this to cue it up right next, before I let you go, can you share a bit more about your podcast and do you have an episode that you would recommend someone check out first?

00:37:29:19 – 00:37:44:02
John Barker
Yeah, thanks. On the episode, like you say, the show is called All the Right Movies. We have an episode of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. If anyone wants to dive deeper on that, it’s not just me on the show, it’s the four of us in total. And our tagline is the story of Hollywood, one film at a time.

00:37:44:02 – 00:38:03:09
John Barker
So the idea behind it is that every episode we take one like significant film until the complete story of it. So like how it was made, whether it works as a piece of filmmaking and why it matters in the overall story of Hollywood. I mean, we go really deep. I might have a laugh or two as we go as well, so hopefully it’s entertaining, but it’s typically around 2.5 hours per episode.

00:38:03:09 – 00:38:19:17
John Barker
So like real long form stuff and we put about a hundred of hours working between us as a team as well. So it’s a big old task making an episode. So yeah, we’ve done Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a popular one recently with Lord of the rings, the first roll of the rings film that was like three hours in length because the production of it is so massive.

00:38:19:17 – 00:38:36:20
John Barker
So. And that’s a very popular film, might be a good place to start. We’re also in process of writing a book, actually. That’s called All the Right Movies and Tell the Making of Stories Behind 25 Classic Films of Joe in September, and it will be on preorder very soon. So if anyone’s interested, keep an eye on this for us.

00:38:36:22 – 00:38:51:29
John Barker
And I mean, yeah, we’d love for your audience to check us out. You can find us wherever you get podcasts or the normal places Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or websites with all the why movies.com, and we’re across all the social channels as well. We’re very big on next. So yeah, we’d love to see people coming along and joining in with the community.

00:38:51:29 – 00:38:53:24
John Barker
We’re growing.

00:38:53:26 – 00:38:56:27
Dan LeFebvre
I’ll have all those links in the show notes. So yeah, nice for people to check it out.

00:38:57:00 – 00:38:57:09
John Barker
Thank you.

00:38:57:09 – 00:38:58:15
Dan LeFebvre
Thanks again so much for your time, John.

00:38:58:22 – 00:39:00:10
John Barker
No problem. Thanks, Dunn. Nice speaking to you.

 

00:00:02:01 – 00:00:23:27
Dan LeFebvre
Hello and welcome to Based on a True Story, the podcast that compares your favorite Hollywood movies with history. Today, we’ll be learning about the 2013 movie directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Tom Hanks, that simply called Captain Phillips. I’m sure you’ve seen it, but the movie did come out a while ago, so let’s refresh our memory with a quick synopsis.

00:00:24:00 – 00:00:50:02
Dan LeFebvre
The movie is named after Captain Richard Phillips, who was the commander of a container ship called the Maersk Alabama. It was on a typical route along the coast of Africa in 2009. The catch, though, was that route also included traveling through pirate infested waters near the country of Somalia. Despite receiving warnings of heightened pirate activity, Captain Phillips decides to take a shortcut closer to the Somali coast to save time and fuel.

00:00:50:04 – 00:01:15:26
Dan LeFebvre
This decision proves fateful. Two skiffs carrying Somali pirates attack the Maersk Alabama, and the crew executes security protocols by attempting to repel the attackers using fire hoses and evasive maneuvers. And at first it works, but then the pirates return in a stronger boat and they manage to successfully board the vessel. Phillips remains on the bridge and is captured while the crew retreats to the engine room.

00:01:15:28 – 00:01:41:25
Dan LeFebvre
Eventually, the pirates evacuate to a small lifeboat and take Captain Phillips hostage, along with $30,000 in ransom money. The U.S. Navy intercedes with multiple warships, including USS Bainbridge and Navy Seal teams. After intense negotiations and tactical positioning, Navy Seals execute a precise rescue operation, convincing one of the pirates to board their ship and then eliminating the three remaining pirates and freeing Captain Phillips.

00:01:41:28 – 00:02:02:24
Dan LeFebvre
The movie ends with Phillips being rescued and receiving medical treatment aboard the Navy destroyer. How much of that really happened? Today we’ll be joined by none other than Bryan Beckham, the trial lawyer who represented the crew of the Maersk Alabama. In the wake of the events that we see in the movie. So through his work on the trial, he knows the ins and outs of exactly what happened.

00:02:02:28 – 00:02:25:28
Dan LeFebvre
And he’s here today to help us separate fact from fiction in the movie. Bryan is also a podcaster whose wonderful podcast shares insights from a wide range of inspiring leaders. So just do a search for Brian’s podcast called lessons from Leaders with Bryan Beckham, or hop in the show notes for a direct link. Before we get started with Bryan’s breakdown of Captain Phillips, though, let’s set up our game for today’s episode.

00:02:26:01 – 00:02:41:13
Dan LeFebvre
Now, if you’re new to the show since based on a true story, it’s all about separating fact from fiction in the movies, you’ll get to practice your skills at separating fact from fiction in this podcast episode with a game of two truths and a lie. So I’m about to give you three things that we’re going to talk about in this episode.

00:02:41:15 – 00:03:09:12
Dan LeFebvre
Two of those are true, and that means one of them is just an all out lie. Are you ready? Okay, here they are. Number one, Maersk Alabama sailed within the range of known Somali pirates. Number two, the $30,000 on Maersk Alabama was intended as ransom money. Number three, Captain Phillips tried to escape from the pirates at the first chance he got.

00:03:09:15 – 00:03:23:07
Dan LeFebvre
Got him. Okay, now, as you’re listening to our story today, see if you can figure out which one of those is a lie. And if you’re watching the video version of this, you’ll see I’m holding up now. This has the answer inside. We’re going to open this up at the end to see if you got the answer right.

00:03:23:10 – 00:03:38:05
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Now it’s time to connect with Bryan Beckham about the true story behind Captain Phillips.

00:03:38:07 – 00:03:55:13
Dan LeFebvre
Even though no one expects movies to be entirely accurate, each movie takes different creative liberties to tell the story. So before we dig into some of the details, if you were to take a step back and give Captain Phillips an overall letter grade for its historical accuracy, what would it get?

00:03:55:15 – 00:03:56:14
Brian Beckcom
C minus.

00:03:56:14 – 00:03:59:14
Dan LeFebvre
C minus.

00:03:59:16 – 00:04:18:16
Brian Beckcom
You know, it’s funny Dan here people. When the movie premiered, people were asking me like, what did you think of the movie? What did you think of the movie? I mean, I went I was there opening night. I mean, it was packed. And I said, just like Forrest Gump, it’s a fantastic movie starring Tom Hanks. But none of it’s true.

00:04:18:18 – 00:04:36:14
Brian Beckcom
It is actually so. And in reality, here’s what’s true about the movie. There was an American ship called the Maersk Alabama. It was attacked by Somali pirates. The captain’s name was Captain Phillips. And everything after that is basically made up.

00:04:36:17 – 00:04:59:26
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, well, we’re going to dig into some of the details. According to the movie, at least, and at the beginning of the movie, we’re introduced to Tom Hanks version of Captain Richard Phillips as he takes command of a container ship named Maersk Alabama. And in the movie, his job is to sail it from Oman to Mombasa, Kenya. And for some geographical context, that path takes it around the east coast of Africa, past Yemen and Somalia before reaching Kenya.

00:04:59:29 – 00:05:19:21
Dan LeFebvre
And even though Captain Phillips receives warning of pirate activity in the waters off Somalia, he decides to save time by going like 350. I’m sorry, 250 or 300 miles instead of the recommended 600 miles. This is all according to the movie. How well does the movie do? Setting up the situation with Captain Phillips and the Marshall, Alabama.

00:05:19:24 – 00:05:45:13
Brian Beckcom
Fairly good. Fairly good job of that. And you know what? The movie. What I wish the movie did a little better job of at the beginning in terms of the setup, is putting in context how dangerous these waters were at the time. I mean, we’re talking about I don’t know the exact number, but I want to say like tens and tens, if not hundreds of pirate attacks on both commercial and noncommercial vessels.

00:05:45:13 – 00:06:02:27
Brian Beckcom
In fact, I think there was a naval vessel from Yemen or something that was attacked by pirates. And, you know, the other thing is we got to I don’t know if the movie does a good job of this or not, but this is at the at the time we’re dealing with Somalia or off the east coast of Africa.

00:06:03:03 – 00:06:30:28
Brian Beckcom
Somalia, for all intents and purposes, is a failed country. They have no economy that, you know, they have no really functioning government, and they have a bunch of people there have to eat. And so the people that were, going out and taking these people off of these, ships, either taking them, for ransom, taking them back to Somalia or a lot of these ships carried cash specifically to pay off, quote, pirates.

00:06:31:00 – 00:07:10:21
Brian Beckcom
What what we got to keep in mind is these are not, like, highly trained military style pirates. These are fishermen. I mean, these are Somali fishermen that some of whom are teenagers, who realized that if these commercial ships got within a certain range of the Somalian coast, they had no self-defense and they were easy pickings. And so if you were in that situation, I mean, I don’t blame these Somalians in many respects, like if you are in a failed country and you had to feed your family and you have the choice of going out catching fish all day long and selling them for nothing, or you could go out and make a quick score off

00:07:10:21 – 00:07:34:28
Brian Beckcom
an unprotected American vessel where they basically carry money specifically to pay you. I mean, what would you do? So and that was what, in my opinion, kind of made it worse is not only did they know that at the time this these were literally the most dangerous waters in the world. I mean, maybe 1 or 2 other areas you could compare two, but certainly top 2 or 3.

00:07:35:01 – 00:07:54:03
Brian Beckcom
And everybody knew nobody had any weapons. Right? Nobody had, you know, nobody had any self-defense and everybody knew it. So it’s kind of like, you know, you walk into a really crappy part of town and you hold up your $20,000 Rolex and you start waving at everybody. I mean, what do you expect going to happen? Right?

00:07:54:05 – 00:08:18:00
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, knowing that the movie focuses more on the ship itself, it doesn’t really talk much about what’s going on in Somalia at the time. But I like that context that you gave because it’s it makes a lot more sense why it was happening. But also like even in the beginning of the movie when before the pirates go out, it almost looks I mean, there’s a bunch of them around, almost like, you know, they’re looking for a job for that day.

00:08:18:06 – 00:08:23:01
Dan LeFebvre
And, you know, they’re they’re wanting to feed their families.

00:08:23:03 – 00:08:46:10
Brian Beckcom
Absolutely. Like it’s like in America, sometimes you go to Home Depot and there’s a bunch people outside waiting to get hired, like, do you blame them? Do you blame, where do you fall politically on the immigration issue? If you lived in Mexico and your family was getting threatened by drug cartels, if you were in that violent circumstance, what would you do?

00:08:46:13 – 00:09:12:18
Brian Beckcom
Like, you know, so so in a way, it’s really hard to blame these poor fishermen from Somalia for doing what they do, for doing what they did, especially when we were just basically kind of you know, attempting them, just tempting them to do it, just saying, here’s a bunch of money, here’s a ship with that carries $30,000 in petty cash for every one of these trips that they’ll just give to you.

00:09:12:21 – 00:09:38:12
Brian Beckcom
What do you expect? And by the way, after this case, one of the things that I’m most proud about this case is there hasn’t been a single successful pirate attack on an American, commercial vessel since my case. And there’s a good reason for that. All of the ships are armed. Now, I don’t know if you’re curious to know why they weren’t armed before, and they’re arm now, but there’s a there’s actually a pretty simple explanation for this.

00:09:38:14 – 00:09:45:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. I mean, I am curious because there was going to be one of my question too, because they, there’s they don’t have any weapons on the ship.

00:09:45:24 – 00:10:16:22
Brian Beckcom
None. Zero. Like no, no weapons at all. And now they do by the way. But the so when I filed this case, one of the things I said was, if you are going to require these sailors to go into these pirate infested waters, you should let them defend themselves with weapons. All these ships, for the most part, are insured by, London based insurance companies or insurance syndicates or similar type of insurance syndicates.

00:10:16:24 – 00:10:45:23
Brian Beckcom
And they went the insurance syndicates went crazy when I filed this case and said, you need to arm these guys because what they’re worried about, guess what? Big surprise. They worried about sailors. They’re worried about what’s on the ships making the money. Right. And what they were saying was they were saying, look, if we provide seamen with pistols or other sorts of weapons to protect, to protect themselves, they might kill each other or they might blow up our cargo.

00:10:45:26 – 00:11:07:20
Brian Beckcom
That was their excuse. Okay, I know it’s hard to believe and I was like, I just don’t think that’s true. And have you seen a single report of a U.S. ship blowing up because they had pistols on the ship? Or have you seen any of those reports? Of course you haven’t. And because it was a bad it was a really bad idea.

00:11:07:20 – 00:11:32:27
Brian Beckcom
So anyway, it was a it was interesting to see because at the time, again, remember the context. I mean, we’re talking about pirate attack after pirate attack. I mean, we’re talking about almost on a weekly basis. And so it was super dangerous. And we also knew by the way, you know, these nautical miles staying a certain number of nautical miles off the coast of Somalia, that was extremely specific.

00:11:32:27 – 00:12:09:27
Brian Beckcom
There’s a very specific reason for that. And that is, by and large, these fishermen are fishing boats, and they cannot go out past a certain, distance. And so, like there’s it would be impossible for any of these ships to have gotten attacked past a certain distance by these fishing vessels because they can’t get out that far. What Phillips decided to do, literally, in the face of countless international security warnings, was he basically decided to take a shortcut and go twice as close as he was told to go to save fuel.

00:12:10:04 – 00:12:12:14
Brian Beckcom
That was basically what happened.

00:12:12:17 – 00:12:17:09
Dan LeFebvre
So it was to save time. And money basically was the reason for it, despite the obvious risks.

00:12:17:12 – 00:12:42:26
Brian Beckcom
That’s exactly what it was. That’s, absolutely, exactly what it was. And, you know, people often ask me, how do you get this case back? I’m like, like, how does a lawyer even get this case? And there’s real specific reason for that, too. So this is long before anybody this was international news when it happened. But at the at the beginning, nobody had any idea there was going to be a movie starring Tom Hanks.

00:12:42:28 – 00:13:09:03
Brian Beckcom
So Phillips basically causes the problem. He’s the captain. He’s in charge. He makes the decisions that lead to his crew getting captured. And then what happens afterwards? They all come back to America. The crew gets together with Phillips and says, we want to write a book and maybe do a story about our experience. And Captain Phillips tells tells them, I don’t want to have anything to do with you.

00:13:09:03 – 00:13:28:10
Brian Beckcom
I’m going to write my own book. And they were like, well, hold on a second. You were the one that caught your it was your fault that we did this. So they were like, if he’s going to write a book trying to whitewash all the screw ups that he made, we need to make sure people really know about it.

00:13:28:13 – 00:13:50:22
Brian Beckcom
And so that’s what generated initially, at least the desire of the crew to make sure the true story got out. And, you know, I’ll give you an idea. I can give you an example after example. But there were four pirates. Three of them got killed by Navy Seals. One of them was captured. That pirate is now Fort Wayne, Indiana federal prison.

00:13:50:24 – 00:14:16:17
Brian Beckcom
As the only prisoner in the United States that’s been convicted of piracy in the last 100 years, there’s a question about whether, when he was convicted, whether he was even an adult, because, not surprisingly, the birth records in Somalia are horrible. So it was really hard to figure out his age. But some of your listeners may remember the perp walk when the prisoner was walking down the stairs of federal courthouse.

00:14:16:17 – 00:14:44:04
Brian Beckcom
He had a big eyepatch on like a medical eyepatch, and that was because my unarmed crew took utensils out of the kitchen, and one of my clients stabbed one of that pirate in the eye with a spoon. And so it really, truly was, the crew that was heroic. And the Catholic captain that was the numskull that kind of led these guys into this situation to begin with.

00:14:44:06 – 00:14:55:24
Dan LeFebvre
I can understand, I guess, from his perspective, from the captain’s perspective, then why he would want to write the book that told his version of, you know, to kind of make himself seem better.

00:14:55:26 – 00:15:13:16
Brian Beckcom
Yeah. I, you know, that’s human nature. I think we’ve seen that so many, you know, throughout history, we see that again and again. You know, Winston Churchill, one of my heroes, has a great saying. They said one time they said, what do you think history’s going to say about you, Mr. Churchill? He said, history is going to treat me well because I’m going to write it.

00:15:13:23 – 00:15:15:17
Brian Beckcom
Yeah.

00:15:15:19 – 00:15:17:14
Dan LeFebvre
And I’ll say whatever I want it to say.

00:15:17:16 – 00:15:25:18
Brian Beckcom
Right. History, like history is a story of the victors perspective. Yeah. Pretty much. Right. Yeah.

00:15:25:20 – 00:15:45:11
Dan LeFebvre
So one thing we see in the movie, after Captain Phillips gets the warnings of pirate activity, he runs the crew through some security drills that include exercises for what to do if they encounter pirates. That drills like attaching fire hoses to shoot high pressure water, the attackers making sure cages and doors to sensitive areas are locked, things like that.

00:15:45:13 – 00:16:03:18
Dan LeFebvre
But then, while they’re running through the drills, Tom Hanks version of Captain Phillips notices something approaching on the radar. And they’re actually two small boats approaching not to get too far ahead of the movie’s timeline, but we all know what happens in the movie. So obviously those security drills didn’t seem to work. Can you unravel the security drills on Maersk Alabama?

00:16:03:18 – 00:16:08:02
Dan LeFebvre
What were they supposed to be, and did the movie accurately show it to us?

00:16:08:04 – 00:16:44:16
Brian Beckcom
Yeah. So every single ship that sails internationally like that is supposed to have something called a VSP. VSP Victor, I forget what SS VSP stands for Vessel Security Protocol, and in fact they have to file that with certain international agencies. And those are top secret. And I’m not going to get into the details of any of those, because when I have cases with vessel security plans, I usually have an agreement with the vessel owner that we’re going to keep this confidential because it’s important for the safety of the sailors.

00:16:44:19 – 00:17:08:14
Brian Beckcom
We wouldn’t want that information getting that public. But every single I can talk about it in general terms, every single vessel then and now has a VSP, and they have to execute and practice that VSP on a regular basis. The problem was at the time the security protocols were basically worthless. I mean, like those water cannons you saw on the movie, not they didn’t exist.

00:17:08:16 – 00:17:29:29
Brian Beckcom
There was. And there are a lot of different. I mean, again, think about what we’re talking about. These are these are fishermen, okay? They’re not highly trained pirates. I did a pirate case off the coast of West Africa, where an American marine who was retired, but he was captaining a bow, got got kidnaped by mercenaries from Boko Haram.

00:17:30:06 – 00:17:57:28
Brian Beckcom
Those guys are dead. Those guys are bad news. Like you could be armed and the Boko Haram guys could still get you one weapon. One pistol against these fishermen is enough to make them go to the next vessel because they’re they’re looking at they’re looking for targets of opportunity. They’re looking for the softest targets. But they certainly, in every vessel, including this one, had security practices, security protocols.

00:17:57:28 – 00:18:07:29
Brian Beckcom
They have security drills. The problem is, when you’re drilling something that doesn’t stop anybody, you’re just wasting your time, if that makes sense.

00:18:08:02 – 00:18:15:17
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. No, that that makes a lot of sense. And it goes back to would really help if they were armed.

00:18:15:19 – 00:18:37:15
Brian Beckcom
Yeah. Well they are now like I said like I said they are now. And it’s really made a dramatic difference. I mean have you seen any story you remember back then there were Italian ships, you know, ships from all these different kind of German cruise ships, all these ships getting attacked and boarded, and that just doesn’t happen anymore, at least off the coast of East Africa.

00:18:37:17 – 00:18:57:20
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we go back to the movies version of events, the security drills turn into real world. When the crew on Maersk Alabama see those boats approaching, and they know there’s no way that a huge container ship can outrun the two smaller pirates skiffs. So Captain Phillips tries a few tactics to try to discourage the pirates. At first he tries the US maritime emergency line, but there’s no answer there.

00:18:57:27 – 00:19:15:16
Dan LeFebvre
He reaches out to the UK maritime trade operations to let them know what’s going on. They think, yeah, it’s probably just some fishermen so they’re not really much help. So then Captain Phillips pretends like he’s talking to the US Navy on the radio, requesting air support, knowing that the pirates are close enough to be listening to their radio traffic.

00:19:15:18 – 00:19:34:02
Dan LeFebvre
And that seems to work according to the movie. It movie shows one of the two boats turning around because of the radio communications, but then the other boat keeps coming and so Captain Phillips orders the limit on the engine was removed, and the huge ship starts kind of zigzagging so that they can make big waves for the tiny pirate boat to try to overcome.

00:19:34:05 – 00:19:42:00
Dan LeFebvre
And then after a while, that seems to work too, because the single engine on the tiny pirate skiff just loses power and dies. How much of that actually happened?

00:19:42:02 – 00:20:10:25
Brian Beckcom
Not much. Not much. I mean, it is. It is. That movie is highly dramatized. And, you know, to be clear, I’m not complaining about that. Like, that’s what Hollywood does. I mean, they tell stories and sometimes actually all the time they dramatize those stories. So, most of that stuff is either never happened in real life or it happened, but it’s but it’s highly, highly dramatized.

00:20:10:25 – 00:20:33:14
Brian Beckcom
Like, I don’t know if you remember that scene in the movie where Captain Phillips basically gives himself up to the kidnapers that didn’t happen. That. I mean, you like like he he basically went kicking and screaming, like in the movie, they make it sound like he’s heroic and he’s like, I’m giving myself up for the crew. It was actually the opposite.

00:20:33:14 – 00:20:52:11
Brian Beckcom
The crew was the one who was fighting back. He was hiding, trying to figure out a way to get out of this and save his skin. And the pirates just took him. And I tell you something else, it’s really strange about this. And if any of your listeners know the answer to this, please call me, because I still haven’t figured this out.

00:20:52:14 – 00:20:58:05
Brian Beckcom
The $30,000 in bounty money that was on that ship has never been found.

00:20:58:07 – 00:21:06:27
Dan LeFebvre
Did they? I mean, in the movie, I think they give it to the pirates. Did they not do that or do we not know what happened to it? Just kind of disappeared.

00:21:06:29 – 00:21:25:18
Brian Beckcom
We don’t know that there were theories that the Navy Seals took it. There were there were theories that, the pirates got it. There were theories. Maybe Captain Phillips knows what happens to it, but I don’t know. That’s the point. Like nobody ever figured that out. Quite frankly, if the Navy Seals took it, I’m like, I don’t care.

00:21:25:18 – 00:21:45:12
Brian Beckcom
I hope those guys spend it on fun stuff because of what I mean, what they did was, was remarkable. The, the scene where they show, like, as I recall the movie, it’s like boom, boom, boom and the pirates are dead kind of thing. It was more like.

00:21:45:15 – 00:21:46:17
Brian Beckcom
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:21:46:19 – 00:22:10:06
Brian Beckcom
You mean it was more like there was a lot more? It wasn’t quite as precise as it’s depicted in the movie, but but again, you’re not going to the movie, to learn history. You going to movie to be entertained. So I’m not faulting Hollywood or Tom Hanks or anybody for dramatizing a dramatic movie. But when you’re in the courthouse, in fact, I’ll tell you a good story about that stand.

00:22:10:06 – 00:22:31:00
Brian Beckcom
Once I found out there was a movie, then Tom Hanks was going to play. Captain Phillips immediately went to the court. I went to the judge. I said, hey, judge, this is a real problem. Everybody loves Tom Hanks. Like, and it’s going to prejudice my clients because truly, the person that made the most mistakes in this case was Phillips.

00:22:31:02 – 00:22:51:00
Brian Beckcom
Everybody’s going to associate him with Tom Hanks and it’s going to really hurt my client. So would it be okay, judge, if we went to trial before the movie came out? So Maersk lawyers come up. Oh no, no, no, we can be told we can make sure that we get fair jurors and they won’t let any of that stuff influence their decision.

00:22:51:00 – 00:23:14:28
Brian Beckcom
And we need a lot of time. So anyway, the point is that the judge listened to the defense lawyers and not me, and he didn’t let me go to trial early. And then the movie comes out and all of a sudden I got 5 to $10 million of free marketing publicity. And I still get it. I mean, even today I’m on a podcast 15 plus years later talking about this case.

00:23:15:00 – 00:23:38:06
Brian Beckcom
I get something like 16,000 website views a month, 15 years after the fact. And I tell people I’m like, sometimes it’s good not to get what you want, because the fact that I lost that request ended up being way better for my clients and my firm.

00:23:38:09 – 00:23:53:08
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I mean, everybody loves Tom Hanks, though, so I understand that that I mean, I don’t know how you not be have some a little bit of bias, I guess, if you never even saw it. But I mean, it’s a Tom Hanks movie. He’s he’s not going to want to see that.

00:23:53:11 – 00:23:54:05
Brian Beckcom
He doesn’t like Tom.

00:23:54:05 – 00:23:55:08
Brian Beckcom
Hanks.

00:23:55:10 – 00:24:10:00
Brian Beckcom
And I and I by the way, I took Captain Phillips deposition for two days and up in the northeast, that’s it’s confidential, sealed and stuff like that. But let me just let me just put it this way. He ain’t Tom Hanks.

00:24:10:02 – 00:24:10:27
Brian Beckcom
Well.

00:24:11:00 – 00:24:14:01
Dan LeFebvre
To be fair, none of us are. There’s only one Tom Hanks.

00:24:14:03 – 00:24:25:04
Brian Beckcom
That’s true, that’s true. But but but again, I don’t think any of us are comparing our. So if true Tom Hanks maybe playing me in a movie. He ain’t playing you in a movie.

00:24:25:06 – 00:24:43:27
Dan LeFebvre
Fair point, fair point. Well, if we go back to the movie, speaking of, despite failing the first time around, the next day the Pirates try again and the leader of Douala, Musa, returns with a more powerful boat. This time the crew on Maersk Alabama. They try basically the same thing. They try increasing the engine power, doing the hard turns.

00:24:43:27 – 00:25:01:05
Dan LeFebvre
That seemed to work last time, but this time it doesn’t because the Pirates have a slightly bigger boat the movie focuses on. It has two engines instead of one, and then the only other manner of defense are the fire hoses that we talked about earlier, that the crew on Alabama run around the whole ship, making it hard for the pirates to get close.

00:25:01:05 – 00:25:21:08
Dan LeFebvre
You have the water shooting out, but then one of the hoses slips. So we see, I think his name was Shane Murphy. Going to fix it. One of the crew and the Pirates start shooting at him. So then Phillips orders him to get to safety. And that’s how the Pirates managed to attach a ladder to the side of the ship, climb up, and then take over the boat.

00:25:21:10 – 00:25:36:24
Dan LeFebvre
And from Captain Phillips perspective, according to the movie, he knows that his men don’t have the firepower to defend against the pirates. Again, no guns on the ship, so he orders Shane to go down to the engine room with most of the crew to hide where they can lock themselves in, and then cut the power to the ship so the pirates can’t move it.

00:25:36:27 – 00:25:47:14
Dan LeFebvre
And then Captain Phillips and two other crew members stay on the bridge, where they’re captured by the four Somali pirates. Was that ultimately how the pirates were able to take control of Maersk Alabama?

00:25:47:16 – 00:25:50:29
Brian Beckcom
No. No. And,

00:25:51:02 – 00:25:52:24
Dan LeFebvre
I had a feeling it would be something like that.

00:25:53:00 – 00:26:06:12
Brian Beckcom
Yeah, yeah, unfortunately, that’s not really what happened. Although I will say this, one of the ways that the Pirates figured out how to get some more distance from the coast is to use kind of a bigger mothership.

00:26:06:15 – 00:26:07:26
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. We see that in the movie. Yeah.

00:26:07:28 – 00:26:34:21
Brian Beckcom
Right. Yeah. They would have these, they would have these larger fishing vessels that could actually get out farther and then they would deploy smaller vessels once they got out to where they wanted to go. So that part of it’s true. And again, it’s, it’s like I don’t know how to put this, but it’s like there’s enough truth in the movie for it not to be like a completely fictional story, but everything is.

00:26:34:21 – 00:27:08:22
Brian Beckcom
So, I keep saying the word dramatized, exaggerated as to as to basically be not true, if that makes sense. Like the idea they were, you know, they’re doing. So I mean, it reminds me of Star Wars when like, Luke Skywalker is being chased and an X-Wing fighter and he’s doing all these crazy dodges and he’s, you know, the idea that they were around, they had this giant fishing or this giant commercial vessel in the middle of the ocean doing these, crazy evasive maneuvers while they’re shooting water cannons out the back.

00:27:08:22 – 00:27:44:03
Brian Beckcom
And Captain Phillips is standing there like George Washington crossing the, what was the river? He crossed the Brandywine or whatever on the front of the boat is. I mean, it’s just it’s Hollywood. That’s what it is. And, enough of that happened to where you can say, well, they didn’t totally make it up. But the timing, the sequence, the substance, the procedure is, is, is, by and large, so, so overly exaggerated and overly dramatized as you could, it is to say that that that’s not the way it happened.

00:27:44:07 – 00:27:47:19
Brian Beckcom
I mean, you could probably confidently say that.

00:27:47:21 – 00:27:57:06
Dan LeFebvre
Did they end up, splitting like the movie shows where there were some in the bridge and then some of the crew in the engine room kind of separated like that?

00:27:57:09 – 00:28:20:21
Brian Beckcom
Yeah. You know, that’s an interesting piece of the case. So the crew actually, evacuated as, as they were supposed to to it’s essentially a safe room and, and bolted themselves. And that was one of the, and this didn’t apply just to Maersk Alabama. But generally speaking, in the maritime world, there are rooms that you can seal.

00:28:20:21 – 00:28:53:11
Brian Beckcom
And like if you’re getting attacked, you can use them as safe rooms. In fact, that’s what happened in my marine west coast of Africa case. He went into a room with his crew, bolted themselves. And the problem is that those pirates had, saws that could, like, literally cut through the steel. And then once they made a little hole, they stuck their machine guns through the hole and said, we’re going to start firing this thing into this room, and bullets are going, I mean, everybody’s going to be dead within 10s, right?

00:28:53:13 – 00:29:11:09
Brian Beckcom
Well, so my crew ended up evacuating and they, they they stayed in that room. The pirates locked them in this room for like 18 hours. I think it was 120 degrees the whole time. They had no water and food. So it was it was a it was a pretty bad situation.

00:29:11:12 – 00:29:12:27
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. Wow. Yeah.

00:29:12:27 – 00:29:36:17
Brian Beckcom
That’s they do have safe rooms is the point though. Like on these boats, one of the things I’ll often do is say everybody because think about it. On these boats you’ve seen these like they have doors that they can and seal shed. Like if you’re in super bad weather and you need to make the ship at least parts of the parts of the ship watertight, you can go into these rooms that you can you can really, really seal tight.

00:29:36:17 – 00:30:02:24
Brian Beckcom
So that that is a pretty common, defense mechanism. And then what you do is the idea is you get in there and you buy enough time to where the posse can come get you, right? Like you don’t have to stay in there for a week. You just get in there, you send out a distress signal, you get in that room, you seal yourself in, and you hope that the posse will be there within two, three, 4 or 5 hours, something like that.

00:30:02:27 – 00:30:18:21
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we go back to the movie, the pirates start searching the ship to try to find the rest of the crew, and Captain Phillips is trying to get the pirates to look in the cargo deck. But the Pirates leader, Musa knows that there’s a problem with the ship’s power, so he wants to go to the engine room.

00:30:18:24 – 00:30:37:09
Dan LeFebvre
Meanwhile, the crew’s hiding away in the engine room and they devise a plan to fight back against the pirates. As Phillips is leading the pirates around the ship, he’s kind of giving little hints here and there. He’d say things like, well, we better hope the emergency power stays on, because if it won’t, then we’re not gonna be able to see anything if it goes off.

00:30:37:11 – 00:30:54:03
Dan LeFebvre
And things like be careful in here with bare feet because you can climb on almost anything. And then over the radio, the crew kind of picks up on some of these. They break some glass to lay a trap for the barefooted pirates. And that works when one of the pirates, a guy named Bilal, I believe it gets badly cut.

00:30:54:05 – 00:30:58:22
Dan LeFebvre
Did the Maersk Alabama crew try to fight back against the pirates like the movie shows?

00:30:58:24 – 00:31:24:19
Brian Beckcom
Absolutely they did. In fact, what I was mentioning earlier is they grabbed utensils and were using those as weapons. And in fact, the one pirate that survived got stabbed in the eye with a spoon. And that’s why he had an eyepatch on. That was one of my clients that did that. I would actually, the way I would say, if you want to be as close to the truth as possible, once the pirates got on the ship, the crew pretty much did exactly what they were trained to do.

00:31:24:21 – 00:31:47:19
Brian Beckcom
Captain Phillips, on the other hand, did not get to where he was supposed to get to, and what ended up happening? It ended up causing the entire security protocol to get thrown off kilter, because now all of a sudden, the Pirates have access to Phillips and all his knowledge, plus the money, and they can use that to leverage what they want to leverage against the crew.

00:31:47:20 – 00:32:10:15
Brian Beckcom
Had the captain come in there like he was supposed to and executed a security plan. You don’t have all these other, outstanding issues that the Pirates can basically use a captain as a as a negotiating, piece. Like, you don’t want to do that like my cam and my, like, again, my, it’s funny because in this case, not funny how it funny ironic.

00:32:10:15 – 00:32:41:10
Brian Beckcom
It’s funny because in this case, the the the person that screwed up was the captain like Phillips, there is no question at all that the reason that these men got kidnaped and taken hostage and put in a room there was 120 plus degrees for more than 18 hours, no food and water. The reason is Captain Phillips and then also the company for letting him deviate so, so wildly from the recommendations.

00:32:41:12 – 00:33:04:28
Brian Beckcom
But in my in my West Coast pirate case, I represented the captain like the captain did everything he was supposed to do. Like, you know, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom made the distress call that Boko Haram pirates coming, highly trained, highly armed, gets all his crew into the safe room, locks it up, does everything precisely right. And, and he’s.

00:33:05:00 – 00:33:29:23
Brian Beckcom
And by the way, like I said, they drilled a hole to the steel door, put the gun in there and so that he basically he had to say, look, I’m coming out, leave my crew alone, I’ll come out. And so he actually came out, gave himself up to the pirates and was taken into the jungles of West Africa for 18 days and then ultimately released after some really bad stuff happened to them.

00:33:29:25 – 00:33:40:21
Brian Beckcom
But my point is, he did everything right. He still got taken, but he did everything he was supposed to do. Captain Phillips basically didn’t do anything he was supposed to do.

00:33:40:24 – 00:33:52:15
Dan LeFebvre
If he had followed protocol, if Phillips had followed protocol instead of staying up on the bridge, he should have gone down in the room, basically with the rest of the crucial. The entire crew was in there after sending out the signal. Is that right?

00:33:52:17 – 00:34:02:03
Brian Beckcom
Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, and there was multiple different areas on the ship where you could use as a secure location. He should have been in one of those.

00:34:02:11 – 00:34:05:08
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. So not necessarily with the crew depending on what he could get to.

00:34:05:08 – 00:34:10:10
Brian Beckcom
But yeah, depending on where he was at the time. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay okay.

00:34:10:13 – 00:34:29:03
Dan LeFebvre
Well in the movie Musa gets captured by the crew down below. And in particular the movie focuses on, I think it’s the chief engineer, Mike Perry, who subdues him with a pocket knife. So the movie kind of sets up this tension of the pirates holding crew hostage on the bridge, including Captain Phillips. And then they have their own injured leader held hostage down below.

00:34:29:05 – 00:34:52:05
Dan LeFebvre
And that’s when we see Tom Hanks version of Captain Phillips offer the Pirates $30,000 in the ship’s chief in exchange for them leaving on one of the Maersk Alabama lifeboats. And ultimately, that’s what they agree on. So the plan is for the crew to get Captain Phillips back while the Pirates get their leader back. Musa. So then they can leave with the money, and we’ll talk about what happens with that deal in a moment.

00:34:52:05 – 00:34:58:09
Dan LeFebvre
But was the movie correct to show that there was this deal between the Pirates and the crew.

00:34:58:12 – 00:35:20:13
Brian Beckcom
Now and again? Like I said, nobody knows what happened to that money. Like like nobody knows. I mean, I’d love for somebody to call me up and say, I figured out what happened. In fact, there was something really strange that happened a few years afterwards. Two Navy Seals were on, as I recall, was the same vessel and died of a drug overdose.

00:35:20:13 – 00:35:39:13
Brian Beckcom
And there was all sorts of questions about, first of all, why were there two Navy Seals on that vessel? Why was there heroin on that? There was some really weird stuff going on. Where was the where was the ransom money? My period, a name I haven’t heard in quite some time. So he was one of the few crew members that decided not to join the case.

00:35:39:13 – 00:35:46:10
Brian Beckcom
So he was aligned with Captain Phillips. He is, as I recall, was he the first mate?

00:35:46:13 – 00:35:50:00
Dan LeFebvre
I think they mentioned him being the, word chief engineer.

00:35:50:00 – 00:36:07:04
Brian Beckcom
Yeah. So chief engineer is a is a high ranking position on those ships that would put you, you know, depending on how it staff that would that that was certainly put you in that chain of command at least. I mean you’re probably the number one guy on most ships in the engine room. Plus you’re usually an officer.

00:36:07:04 – 00:36:21:27
Brian Beckcom
So he was a real high ranking person. What I found then, and I think most of your listeners that this won’t surprise him is when when company management screws up, company management circles the wagons.

00:36:21:27 – 00:36:26:15
Brian Beckcom
Yeah, you know what I mean? So, yeah, I mean.

00:36:26:17 – 00:36:44:10
Brian Beckcom
What I, when I like when I want to know the truth about what happened. I’m not asking the CEO or the CEO like I want to ask the line level workers. Hey, guys. What happened there? So Perry Perry was one of the he was very vocal in not wanting to join the case. Totally his decision. And totally, totally fine with that.

00:36:44:10 – 00:37:13:09
Brian Beckcom
But not surprising considering he was he was at the at the level, the managerial level where where you might be able to start saying, well, what were you doing, Mike? Like I what why, why, why did he why didn’t you stop, captain? I mean, again, a lot of this stuff is confidential, but there’s internal communications from Phillips and other people that talk about the decision to go to to go more than twice as close as was recommended.

00:37:13:11 – 00:37:19:20
Brian Beckcom
And I’ll just I’ll just put it this way. There’s a reason that Mercer doesn’t want this released.

00:37:19:23 – 00:37:21:11
Brian Beckcom
I mean, that’s fair.

00:37:21:13 – 00:37:22:08
Brian Beckcom
Yeah.

00:37:22:10 – 00:37:33:08
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you talked about the the 30,000. Was that something that they had as specifically for pirates like you were talking about earlier on Alabama? That was specifically for pirates?

00:37:33:11 – 00:38:12:28
Brian Beckcom
Yeah, absolutely. And that, that that is that is and I actually I don’t know if that’s true or not, I, I have a strong suspicion that they carry that kind of money on ships. Now, the back at the time, it was why that was a widespread practice. And, you know, it’s it’s interesting because it’s really there’s something called a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in America which prohibits, among other things, American companies from negotiating, ransoms like or paying bribes or, you know, things like that.

00:38:12:28 – 00:38:41:24
Brian Beckcom
So it’s really close to the line when you’re talking about and of course, the idea is, you know, the whole we don’t negotiate with terrorists idea like, because that’ll encourage more terrorism. That’s the idea. Like, we don’t want companies paying bribes because encourage more bribery. We don’t want ransoms because paying ransoms is going to encourage more kidnapings. And so it’s you got to be super careful as an American company about how you deal with those situations.

00:38:41:24 – 00:39:17:27
Brian Beckcom
In fact, like in my West Coast case, you date the the captain was ransomed from the pirates, but he was not ransom by the American company like, they go through, intermediaries usually located in the UK in places like that, that then go through intermediaries that then take care of what they need to take care of. There’s in fact, there was a movie, I think, called Proof of Life or something like that, which kind of depicts some of these specialist kidnaping, a ransom, companies that will go in and take care.

00:39:18:00 – 00:39:41:18
Brian Beckcom
But the problem is, is like Exxon, let’s say they have an employee off the coast of, West Africa that gets kidnaped. Exxon can’t they’re it’s illegal for them to pay ransoms. It’s a legal for them to negotiate with terrorists like that. That is explicitly illegal under United States also. So they got to be real careful about how they do it, you know?

00:39:41:21 – 00:39:56:09
Brian Beckcom
But on the other hand, they want take care of their employees if they can like and good for that. I hope they figure out a way to do that. I mean, if you got billions of dollars, you should you should spend some of that on your on your people.

00:39:56:12 – 00:40:13:10
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. I mean, in, in that context, you know, you know, in this particular case, you know, like $30,000 for the Alabama and the crew, I mean, it’s it’s worth 30,000. Like, I mean, to for their safety.

00:40:13:13 – 00:40:14:23
Brian Beckcom
Yeah.

00:40:14:25 – 00:40:35:01
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you mentioned the ransom. And if we head back into the movie, the exchange of, Captain Phillips and Mousa doesn’t go as well. It doesn’t go as planned. I should say. And instead, as the pirates are leaving the ship, they don’t let Phillips leave the lifeboat. He was in there kind of showing them how it works. And then the lifeboat is launched from Maersk Alabama with all the pirates inside and Captain Phillips as their hostage.

00:40:35:03 – 00:40:44:10
Dan LeFebvre
And the movie suggests that the pirates weren’t happy with the $30,000 from the safe, so they wanted to ransom Phillips for even more money. Did that happen the way the movie shows it?

00:40:44:12 – 00:41:10:02
Brian Beckcom
Not really. And again, there was some really strange questions about. So the money, far as everybody knows, that the cash went on to that, lifeboat with Phillips and with the, with the pirates. Now the pirate that didn’t get killed wasn’t on the lifeboat. He stayed on board. But that money was on that lifeboat and was has never been found.

00:41:10:02 – 00:41:40:11
Brian Beckcom
There’s there’s theories that the Navy Seals did something with it. The precision of the operation that’s depicted in the movie was not how quite as precise as that in real life. Like there was a lot more stuff going on, but but look, I mean, again, Phillips was taken out alive, but he didn’t give himself up. He was taken against his will, basically kicking and screaming for all practical purposes.

00:41:40:14 – 00:42:01:29
Brian Beckcom
And the Navy Seals did come in there and the Navy Seals did it. Badass job getting them back. So all that stuff is true. But again, the details are. So I’m just kind of like, what’s the movie? Saving Private Ryan? Remember, the beginning scene is Saving Private Ryan. Like, how intense that was. That is so highly dramatized.

00:42:01:29 – 00:42:22:24
Brian Beckcom
It’s ridiculous. All that stuff. Like, there were men that stormed the beaches that were men. They got killed. All that stuff happened, but they have to compress like that event into something that you can digest on a movie screen in about five minutes, or however long that scene took, ten minutes or whatever it was in the Maersk Alabama.

00:42:22:24 – 00:42:47:24
Brian Beckcom
I think that scene takes five minutes, and then you’ve got Tom Hanks afterwards doing the Tom Hanks thing where he’s breaking down all that stuff. But I’m talking about the actual operation of rescuing him was significantly longer, and they got to compress the time and they got to make it interesting and stuff like that. So, the basically the details of the movie are, are all made up.

00:42:47:29 – 00:43:00:02
Brian Beckcom
That large picture of what happened is true, but the details are just and I’m not again, I’m not criticizing Hollywood or anybody like that, that that’s what they have to do.

00:43:00:04 – 00:43:22:00
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. Again, movies are for entertainment. Well, you talked about the the Navy, and we’re at the point in the movie’s timeline where the Navy starts to, come into the picture after all of this escalation. We see the US Navy getting involved. They send multiple ships to deal with the hostage situation with Captain Phillips. The primary ship in the movie is a destroyer called USS Bainbridge.

00:43:22:03 – 00:43:41:06
Dan LeFebvre
In the movie, the US Navy has identified the Somali mothership that we talked about briefly earlier. It’s a they say it’s a Taiwanese fishing ship that was hijacked by pirates a year earlier under a Somali warlord named Garrard. And then we kind of get a little bit of a little, almost a little backstory that captain, the captain of Bainbridge, recognizes Garrett’s name.

00:43:41:12 – 00:43:59:29
Dan LeFebvre
He’s somebody who apparently just wants money. So they think they can negotiate for Captain Phillips. But the clock is ticking because the Pirates are trying to reach the Somali coast. There’s two more Navy ships that are coming, USS boxer and USS Halliburton. They’re sent with the Navy Seals. And the way the movie sets this up, basically, Bainbridge is their first.

00:44:00:04 – 00:44:10:09
Dan LeFebvre
And if they can’t resolve the situation before the Seals get there, the Navy Seals are going to take care of it. Can you share what the situation was like as the Navy entered the picture?

00:44:10:12 – 00:44:46:08
Brian Beckcom
Yeah, that the the Maersk Alabama was actually lucky in a way. I mean, I had to I had to say lucky given what happened. But they were lucky that there were American naval ships that were so close by. That’s that’s almost never the case. And so at that point, there really is nobody and I mean, Captain Phillips, at some point loses command of the vessel, like the most famous saying, you know, maybe if I’m the captain now, I mean, how many times that there’s basically a that’s a, that’s a meme now.

00:44:46:08 – 00:45:10:21
Brian Beckcom
And by the way, I’ll tell you a cool story about that. That was completely ad libbed. And that actor, it was not a professionally trained actor. Like he’s Somalian, but they, they they did a casting call in Milwaukee where there was a huge Somali community, and they picked those four guys and they’re not actors. They had no training at all.

00:45:10:21 – 00:45:32:04
Brian Beckcom
When he comes up there and he says, I’m the captain now, that’s completely ad libbed. And that’s the most famous line in the movie, and probably the most famous line of any movie, or at least top five over the last 15 years. Right. I’m the captain now. But in any event, once the. So there are and I got to be a little bit cautious about.

00:45:32:05 – 00:46:00:11
Brian Beckcom
I don’t want to give up any confidentiality, but there are people in Africa who, serve as conduits between commercial and governmental interest. And these pirates or terrorists or whatever you want to call them. And it’s like, I like we were talking about just a few minutes ago, there’s a foreign corrupt practices that got me super duper careful about running afoul of that.

00:46:00:13 – 00:46:28:22
Brian Beckcom
But like, there are local, warlords and chieftains, there are people like Russell Crowe on the movie Proof of Life who specialize in dealing with those people. There are back channels that oftentimes you can utilize to get stuff done. But on the flip side, the more you do this, the more you encourage more attacks. I mean, the more to, the more ransoms that are paid, the more kidnaping.

00:46:28:22 – 00:46:51:14
Brian Beckcom
And so it’s a really, really tough problem. I mean, if it was your family or a family member that was kidnaped, you would God wouldn’t care how much you pay him or whatever they want. I want my family member back. But the policymakers have to look beyond just the one individual events. They have to look at, kind of a broader.

00:46:51:17 – 00:47:09:19
Brian Beckcom
And so, boy, it’s a it’s a tough call. But then once you’ve once you’ve got once you’ve engaged the United States military, they’re in charge like that, that at that point you’ve lost, you’ve lost control. Like once you send them in, they’re going to they’re going to do what they’re going to do. And there’s not anything anybody can do to stop it.

00:47:09:19 – 00:47:11:07
Brian Beckcom
Quite frankly.

00:47:11:10 – 00:47:13:00
Dan LeFebvre
They’re the captain now okay.

00:47:13:02 – 00:47:16:15
Brian Beckcom
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

00:47:16:17 – 00:47:17:20
Brian Beckcom
And perfect.

00:47:17:20 – 00:47:40:27
Dan LeFebvre
Love it. Well, the movie kind of it focuses then kind of shifts to talking about, you know, with Captain Phillips and that hostage situation. But we do see a brief scene where the Navy, there’s some Navy who go on the Alabama, and there’s there to escort it to Mombasa. Did they actually did that happen? Did they get a Navy escort basically to make sure they made it there safely the rest of the way?

00:47:40:27 – 00:47:41:12
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah.

00:47:41:12 – 00:48:05:24
Brian Beckcom
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. And again, it was kind of luck as I recall. And you can fact ship me on this. The reason that we were able to, use Navy Seals to rescue these guys is because they were in close proximity. And the reason they were in close proximity is I think we were doing some aggressive military exercises over there, and they were able to divert some assets and take care of this pretty quickly.

00:48:05:28 – 00:48:25:06
Brian Beckcom
So people criticize Obama all the time for not going to war with Syria and a lot of other things he did. But I’ll tell you what, he made some tough calls like that Navy Seal thing could have gone sideways. And I like they could captain Phillips could have been killed. The crew could have been killed. That thing could have gone sideways in a heartbeat.

00:48:25:08 – 00:48:43:11
Brian Beckcom
He made the call. Well, let’s go in there and get him that. You know, that stuff is the way that all that Special Forces stuff is depicted in movies is super clean and almost antiseptic, that it is not like that in real life, like it’s nasty. I mean, when they went in, got bin laden and one of the Black Hawk helicopters crashed, right?

00:48:43:11 – 00:49:02:24
Brian Beckcom
It was a mess like it was did did not go the way they planned at all. But but it was fortunate as I recall again, people can fact check me. The military was doing some sort of exercise, some sort of joint exercises over there, and so they were able to get over there quickly where that’s that’s usually not the case, unfortunately.

00:49:02:27 – 00:49:26:23
Dan LeFebvre
That. Yeah, that makes sense. And in the movie they show the the other ship start arriving with, with Bainbridge. But we see Captain Phillips, he tells his captors that he has to pee, and they let him go outside and then Phillips pushes that one of the pirates is watching him below. He pushes him into the water, and then he jumps into trying to escape, and he starts swimming towards the Navy ships.

00:49:26:23 – 00:49:44:06
Dan LeFebvre
But then the pirates turn around the lifeboat. They start shooting at him in the water, and so they bring him back and bring Captain Phillips back into the lifeboat, and they start beating him pretty severely. Pretty much at that point you get the impression from the movie that he tried to escape, and because they beat him so badly, he’s not going to try to escape again.

00:49:44:08 – 00:49:47:15
Dan LeFebvre
Is it true that Captain Phillips tried to escape like we see in the movie?

00:49:47:18 – 00:50:07:28
Brian Beckcom
No, that is complete. That is this. So again, that that’s that was it. And that was part of the I was that was what that’s the kind of stuff that worried me the most because it basically inverted the real story. The real story was Captain Phillips screwed up, Mer screwed up, and the crew made the best of it.

00:50:08:03 – 00:50:32:08
Brian Beckcom
I mean, that’s really what the crew was heroic, and I could tell story after story. But we already told you about Spann against AK 47. That was not Phillips. That was the crew. And and the way the the part of the movie that you’re talking about is the part that I think bothered my clients the most because it really was the opposite of what actually happened.

00:50:32:15 – 00:50:55:21
Brian Beckcom
Phillips he wasn’t beat up. He didn’t jump in the water and try to escape. None of that happened. I mean, that is completely and totally not what happened. And it makes it look like the crew was a bunch of idiots and Captain Phillips is some sort of heroic figure, and it was like it was the complete opposite, like I said.

00:50:55:21 – 00:51:00:23
Brian Beckcom
And so that that part is definitively not true.

00:51:00:26 – 00:51:13:07
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah, it definitely does make him seem more heroic when, you know, he’s trying to escape. He’s doing doing these things and taking this. But I guess that’s Tom. You have Tom Hanks in a movie. You gotta be Tom Hanks sometimes. Yeah, yeah.

00:51:13:07 – 00:51:34:01
Brian Beckcom
Well yeah, that that’s exactly right. And again, they’re not trying to win a lawsuit in this movie. They’re trying to entertain people who have come to sit in a seat for two hours and be entertained. And so I don’t blame Hollywood for doing any of this stuff. What I had to be careful about and what my job was and still is, is to protect my client’s interests.

00:51:34:01 – 00:52:01:12
Brian Beckcom
And so what I was concerned about, and I’m very proud, quite frankly, the fact we’re able to do this, I’m normally not taken on $1 billion, international corporation with multiple billion dollar insurance companies behind them. I do that all the time. But then what I don’t do is have Hollywood and the Hollywood publicity machine on top of that talent, a narrative that hurts my case.

00:52:01:12 – 00:52:37:29
Brian Beckcom
That was the hard part of it. Right? So I had to I mean, going against these big insurance companies, these big corporations. That’s a Tuesday for me. Going against Hollywood in their publicity machine was a completely new experience. Fortunately, I was we did a fantastic job of like, everybody basically knows, I think that that movie was a good movie, but there’s questions about the accuracy of it, and that was because we were able to go on, you know, nowadays you can get on social media, you can go websites, you can put up videos, you can put up all this information even 15 years ago.

00:52:38:02 – 00:52:59:23
Brian Beckcom
You know, I have a degree in computer science. I’m a technically pretty competent. I was able to use that to get our news out there to get on Nightline, Dateline, London’s Daily Telegraph, you know, New York Times, when you looked up Captain Phillips The Movie to two lengths below, it would say the truth about Captain phillips.com. That would take you to my website.

00:52:59:23 – 00:53:23:06
Brian Beckcom
So that was really the the most difficult, part of the case. I mean, like proving what happened. That’s right. In my wheelhouse. I do that on a daily basis, proving what happened without letting Hollywood and all the publicity completely hijack the narrative. That was that was a little bit more challenging.

00:53:23:08 – 00:53:49:28
Dan LeFebvre
While the movie ends with a whirlwind of events, the Seal team arrives. They take over command and communication with the pirates, and immediately they confuse the Pirates by listing off all of their names and where they’re from. They go on to say that they’ve spoken to their tribal elders, and the elders are being flown in to negotiate and exchange Captain Phillips for the money, and while that happens, they need someone to go aboard Bainbridge to negotiate the deal with the elders, and they’re going to tow the lifeboat to the exchange spot.

00:53:50:01 – 00:54:12:20
Dan LeFebvre
Moussaoui agrees to do this. The tow line is attached and to attach the lifeboat, I should say. And then Musa goes to Bainbridge for the meeting with the elders. And that leaves the other three pirates with Captain Phillips on the boat. Meanwhile, the Navy ship turns on these really bright lights because I think it was like, oh, 400 so early in the morning, dark out, and they tell the pirates that’s just for towing them to the exchange spot.

00:54:12:20 – 00:54:30:04
Dan LeFebvre
But really what they’re doing is they’re getting the snipers into position. We see Phillips start fighting against his captors. They subdue him, tie him up, blindfold him, and then that moment that you talked about before, you see the three Navy Seals, just perfectly timed shot, you know, three shots to kill the remaining pirates at the exact same time.

00:54:30:07 – 00:54:50:28
Dan LeFebvre
And then back on Bainbridge. Moussaoui is taken into custody. There’s no elders, no negotiation. And then, as the only pirate left alive, he’s going to face trial for piracy in America. Captain Phillips returned safely in Bainbridge. And that’s where the movie ends as he’s getting medical treatment. How well does the movie do showing the way the whole situation came to an end.

00:54:51:00 – 00:55:24:12
Brian Beckcom
It does a decent job of that. I mean, the way Tom Hanks depicts Captain Phillips breaking down is all Tom Hanks. That is nothing at all like captain. I mean, that is Tom Hanks at his best. Okay, the Navy Seals would never allow Hollywood to show their trade secrets. So some of the stuff that they basically it was like a bait and switch is what’s depicted in the movie.

00:55:24:12 – 00:55:48:18
Brian Beckcom
We’re going to put the pirates are going to be looking this way, and we’re going to be doing stuff over here. They do that kind of stuff all the time. The actual operational details, are not same because again, there’s all sorts of different security issues involved in this. I mean, people probably don’t appreciate. I went on an inspection at Los Angeles Harbor two weeks ago.

00:55:48:18 – 00:56:13:06
Brian Beckcom
I brought a friend of mine, and she could not believe how dangerous we were on huge commercial cargo ship doing an inspection with 18 wheelers trains. It was raining. We have these cargos, you know, going over. I couldn’t believe how dangerous it was. What what people don’t realize is how every time one of these huge ship comes into a port, it’s like an enormous bomb.

00:56:13:06 – 00:56:42:03
Brian Beckcom
Like those things are so, tempting. These big commercial ships for bad actors that the security plans and the security protocols are, like, extra critical. And we don’t want people knowing about them publicly. So a lot of the stuff that the military does or that the companies do, they won’t talk about publicly, but she can talk about it on or on the edges.

00:56:42:03 – 00:57:10:14
Brian Beckcom
So, yes, the Navy Seals did a fantastic job. Yes, they ended up rescuing Captain Phillips. But the surgical nature of this depicted in the movie is nothing. Nothing like it actually happened. In the movie, there’s three shots, right? But they did a, they did a, naval investigation afterwards. And that there was at least 20 rounds fired.

00:57:10:16 – 00:57:30:28
Dan LeFebvre
A little more, a little not as a surgical precision as you know. Yes. As a VC in the movie. Yeah. No. Wow. Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat about the movie Captain Phillips. Aside from being a trial lawyer who represented some of the Maersk Alabama crew, after the events we see in the movie, you’ve got a fascinating podcast of your own called lessons from Leaders with Bryan Beckham.

00:57:31:00 – 00:57:40:27
Dan LeFebvre
Now, if you’re listening to this, check the show notes for a link to Brian’s podcast so you can cued up after we’re done here. And while they do that, and before I let you go, Brian, can you give us an overview of your podcast and where they can learn more about you?

00:57:41:00 – 00:58:07:05
Brian Beckcom
Yeah, lessons from later started and started in middle quarantine features. People that are positive leaders that maybe, a lot of people don’t know about, mainly military sports. That’s so New York Times bestselling authors, and it’s a focus on people that are doing really, really cool things that maybe not, maybe don’t get quite the publicity that they deserve.

00:58:07:05 – 00:58:26:20
Brian Beckcom
So, it’s a great show, and I think you’re you’re it kind of ties in a little bit with this. Like, you’re getting a true story of, like, leadership on the ground. So, you know, we have all these leaders on TV or so-called leaders on the we see all these all the time. But my theory is the real leaders, you don’t really hear much about them.

00:58:26:20 – 00:58:29:09
Brian Beckcom
And those are kind of people I try to feature on my show.

00:58:29:12 – 00:58:31:27
Dan LeFebvre
Fantastic. Well, thanks again so much for your time, Brian.

00:58:32:00 – 00:58:43:26
Brian Beckcom
Thank you. It’s been a it’s been a real, real joy. A lot of fun.

00:58:43:28 – 00:59:03:18
Dan LeFebvre
This episode of based On a True Story was produced by me, Dan the Fan. Thank you once again to Bryan Beckham for sharing his time and expertise to help us separate fact from fiction in the movie Captain Phillips. As you’ve seen from Brian today, he has a ton of knowledge that he’s happy to share, and beyond that, he’s also a podcaster who’s great at harnessing the knowledge of his guests.

00:59:03:23 – 00:59:20:17
Dan LeFebvre
So go subscribe to Brian’s podcast called lessons from leaders. I’ve got a link to that in the show notes as well as on the shows home on the web at based on a True Story podcast.com/380. Okay, now it’s time for the answer to our two tours and a live game from the beginning of the episode. And there’s a quick refresher.

00:59:20:19 – 00:59:45:08
Dan LeFebvre
Here are the two truths and one lie again. Number one, Maersk Alabama sailed within the range of known Somali pirates. Number two the $30,000 on Maersk Alabama was intended as ransom money. Number three, Captain Phillips tried to escape from the pirates at the first chance he got. Did you figure out which one is a lie? Got the answer right here in the envelope.

00:59:45:08 – 01:00:05:13
Dan LeFebvre
So let’s open that up. And the lie is number three. Brian, explain how the scene in the movie where we see Tom Hanks version of Captain Phillips jumping to the water, trying to escape from the pirates was completely fictional. Thank you so much for sticking around to the end. If you’re watching the video version here, in a moment, you’ll see the credits roll.

01:00:05:20 – 01:00:25:26
Dan LeFebvre
If you want to get your name in the credits for the next video and on the website at. Based on a True Story podcast.com/credits, you can learn how to become a based on a true story producer using the link in the description or at based on a true Story podcast.com/support. Once again, that’s based on a true story podcast.com/support.

01:00:25:28 – 01:00:31:18
Dan LeFebvre
Until next time. Thanks so much for spending your time with Brian and I today, and I’ll chat with you again really soon.

 

00:00:02:06 – 00:00:28:21
Dan LeFebvre
Hello and welcome to Based on a True Story, the podcast that compares your favorite Hollywood movies with history. Today we’ll be learning about the new movie called Nuremberg, directed by James Vanderbilt. Nuremberg is set during the Nuremberg trials in the wake of World War Two. In the movie, we see Michael Shannon’s version of justice Robert Jackson as a main driver behind the trial in an attempt to force the Nazi leadership to answer for their crimes during the war.

00:00:28:24 – 00:00:47:17
Dan LeFebvre
The movie focuses mostly on Russell Crowe’s version of Hermann Goering, who was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party. And that brings us to one of the other main characters in the movie. Rami Malik’s version of Doctor Douglas Kelly. In the movie, Doctor Kelly is tasked with assessing the mental competence of Goering and other Nazis to stand trial.

00:00:47:20 – 00:01:04:20
Dan LeFebvre
To help us unravel the true story behind the movie today we’ll be talking with none other than Jack ally. Jack is the author of the book that they used as a basis for the movie. That book is called The Nazi and the psychiatrist. And you can find a link in the show notes to pick up your own copy right now.

00:01:04:23 – 00:01:23:11
Dan LeFebvre
But before we dive in, just a quick heads up. As of this recording, Nuremberg is still playing in the theaters and if you’ve listened to any based on a true story episodes before, you know that we can’t really dig into the historical accuracy without getting into the movie’s plot. So consider this your spoiler alert. Okay, now let’s set up our game for this episode.

00:01:23:12 – 00:01:39:12
Dan LeFebvre
Now, if you are new to the show, since based on a true story is all about separating fact from fiction in the movies, you’ll get to practice your skills at separating fact from fiction in this podcast episode with a game of two truths and a lie. So I’m about to give you three things that we’re going to talk about at some point throughout this episode.

00:01:39:14 – 00:02:00:12
Dan LeFebvre
Two of those are true, and one of them is just a lie. And your task is to see if you can figure out which one is the lie. Are you ready? Okay, here they are. Number one, Doctor Kelly was fired for talking to a newspaper reporter in Nuremberg. Number two, Doctor Kelly delivered letters from Hermann Goering to his family.

00:02:00:12 – 00:02:18:23
Dan LeFebvre
Like we see in the movie. Number three Doctor Kelly talked to growing more than any of the other Nazi prisoners in Nuremberg. Got them. Okay. Now, if you’re watching the video version of this, you can see I’m holding up an envelope. And this envelope has the answer inside. So we’ll open this up at the end of the episode to see if you got it right.

00:02:18:26 – 00:02:34:22
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Now it’s time to connect with Jack ally about the historical accuracy of Nuremberg.

00:02:34:24 – 00:02:57:10
Dan LeFebvre
My audience knows movies aren’t expected to be 100% factual, but some movies do better at adhering to history than others for a wide range of reasons. So I always like to start off by getting an overall sense for how well, movie does from a historical perspective. So with that in mind, what letter grade would you give the movie Nuremberg for its historical accuracy?

00:02:57:12 – 00:03:00:05
Jack El-Hai
I would give it an A minus eight.

00:03:00:12 – 00:03:01:24
Dan LeFebvre
That’s very good.

00:03:01:26 – 00:03:31:04
Jack El-Hai
It is very good, I think. I feel good about recommending Nuremberg to my friends because it is mostly historically accurate. There are a few variations from fact, but they’re mostly, unimportant points. The the main way in which Nuremberg differs from my book, The Nazi and the psychiatrist is in its focus. The movie Nuremberg covers about one year of time.

00:03:31:05 – 00:03:35:09
Jack El-Hai
My book covers about 45 years.

00:03:35:12 – 00:03:45:11
Dan LeFebvre
Well, that makes sense. I mean, especially, you know, in a movie, it just being a different format, different medium. There’s only so much you can do before really confusing the audience.

00:03:45:13 – 00:03:47:24
Jack El-Hai
Exactly, exactly.

00:03:47:26 – 00:04:09:01
Dan LeFebvre
Well, at the beginning of the movie, it it sets up the situation. It says it’s May 7th, 1945, the last day of war in Europe. Adolf Hitler is dead. The Nazi high command is in disarray. 70 million people are died across the globe. And then in the opening sequence of the movie, we see, black Mercedes with Nazi flags honking to get what appear to be refugees along the road to move out of the way.

00:04:09:03 – 00:04:33:21
Dan LeFebvre
And then some American soldiers nearby immediately jump to high alert when they see the car. They have their guns pointed at the car and it just stops. And the movie is very careful to not show the face of the people inside. Quite. Yet he just. The man in the back of the car tears off a white piece of cloth from a woman’s dress next to him, hands it to the driver, shows it to the soldiers, and then as he gets out from the backseat, the American soldiers recognize who it is.

00:04:33:22 – 00:04:43:27
Dan LeFebvre
Russell Crowe’s version of Hermann Goering, and he seems to just kind of drive up and surrender himself and his family to the Americans. Is that really how Goering was captured by the allies?

00:04:43:29 – 00:05:12:18
Jack El-Hai
Yes. That’s almost exactly how he was captured. He surrendered to American troops. And that very scene is in my book, although it’s not at the beginning of my book. And, I was really happy to see that scene in the book because it even includes, a joke. When Goering asks the American soldiers to unload his luggage, that did actually happen as well.

00:05:12:18 – 00:05:16:26
Jack El-Hai
And that was kept in the in the screenplay.

00:05:16:28 – 00:05:38:13
Dan LeFebvre
What would the soldiers have known him? I mean, assuming that I mean, just the car itself kind of lends itself to being an officer or something like that. But the soldiers immediately recognized him in the movie. I’m assuming then Goering was well known enough among just. I’m assuming those are just average soldiers.

00:05:38:15 – 00:06:01:01
Jack El-Hai
One of the soldiers recognizes him in the movie, and I, my impression from watching that scene in the film is that the others didn’t necessarily know who he was, so one, one was enough. And but I think that Goering was quite recognizable to people who, had been, following the ups and downs of the war.

00:06:01:01 – 00:06:09:05
Jack El-Hai
But that doesn’t mean, perhaps all U.S. soldiers were that aware of who the German leadership was.

00:06:09:08 – 00:06:33:12
Dan LeFebvre
Soon after, during his capture in the movie, were introduced to Justice Robert Jackson. He’s played by Michael Shannon, and according to the movie, Jackson is pushing for putting the Nazis on trial for their war crimes. But the problem with that, according to the movie, is that would require an international tribunal requiring judges from the four main allies the United States, France, Great Britain and the USSR.

00:06:33:14 – 00:06:51:24
Dan LeFebvre
And that’s never been done before. Looking back on the events of World War two through a historical lens, I think we can all agree that it’s pretty obvious the Nazis committed countless crimes against humanity. And so it would seem obvious that if the Nazis were put on trial, they’d be found guilty at least looking at it through a historical lens.

00:06:51:29 – 00:07:09:11
Dan LeFebvre
But the impression that I got while I was watching the movie was that a lot of the evidence that we know about now is only because it was made public during the trials. So before the trials began, it seems like nobody really knew which way they would go. There seem that could be a chance the Nazis might actually be set free.

00:07:09:13 – 00:07:23:00
Dan LeFebvre
Goring himself in the movie, he suggested that in years to come, people would look back on the trial as a farce. Can you give a little more historical context around what people thought of the authenticity of the trial at Nuremberg at that time?

00:07:23:03 – 00:07:58:12
Jack El-Hai
This kind of trial had never been attempted before. So it was an international tribunal. The four largest Allied powers, U.S., USSR, France and Great Britain, got together to to hold these men accountable and responsible for their crimes. Not all of those countries, as he suggested, were, initially on board. Winston Churchill in particular, thought that the German leaders should be lined up and shot without a trial.

00:07:58:19 – 00:08:33:21
Jack El-Hai
But interestingly, it was FDR and Joseph Stalin who convinced him otherwise, and they wanted a trial that would present all of the evidence. So that, they feared that if the German leaders were simply shot without a trial, no one would really know the extent of their crimes and their legacy could live on. And that goering’s dream that there would be statues of them all over Germany in 15 or 20 years would come true.

00:08:33:23 – 00:09:03:24
Jack El-Hai
So, and, in the course of, developing this trial, the prosecution team, which was very large, unearthed in a very short amount of time, huge masses of evidence, the as much as the, German government tried to cover its tracks and destroy, paper materials. They couldn’t there was so much they could not get at all or even come close.

00:09:03:27 – 00:09:58:08
Jack El-Hai
So there was, a gigantic amount of evidence against them. And, this part of the film, Nuremberg is where there is a deviation from my book, The Nazi in the psychiatrist’s. It’s not that this part giving the background to the trial is not factual. It it is largely. But, I didn’t cover it as extensively as other parts, other areas of the story that I was more interested in and in in particular, I did not follow the adventures of Justice Robert Jackson because, in my book, because his big moments, came after Douglas Kelly, a psychiatrist, had actually left Nuremberg, even though in the film he’s shown to be there.

00:09:58:10 – 00:10:16:28
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, that sounds like that could be a whole book by itself. Just talking about Jackson and that the way the trial is all set up and everything like that. But it sounds like they wanted to get a lot of it was to get the evidence out there was one of the big drivers for for doing the trial.

00:10:17:01 – 00:10:45:21
Jack El-Hai
Get it out there, not just among the people who would be attending the trial or listening to it on the radio or watching in newsreels, but, into the wider world for years and years so that the, the real legacy of the Nazi regime would not be mistaken and, and nullified. So that was a big part of the purpose of the trial.

00:10:45:23 – 00:11:03:25
Dan LeFebvre
That makes sense. And I would say that it work that we definitely got to learn what they were actually about. You mentioned his name. If we go back to the movie, Remy Malik’s version of Doctor Douglas Kelly enters the picture. Around this time, he’s tasked with inspecting the mental health of the Nazi prisoners in anticipation of the trial.

00:11:03:27 – 00:11:29:06
Dan LeFebvre
But according to the movie, it’s not just Goering, but the movie really kind of focuses on Goering and then three others doctor Robert Ley, he’s the chief of the German Labor Front, who spearheaded the Nazi slave labor program. Great Admiral Carl Donitz, the German Navy commander in chief, architect of the U-boat attacks. And then Julia Streicher, the, movie, says he’s Hitler’s director of propaganda and publisher of the national anti-Semitic paper called Der Sturmer.

00:11:29:09 – 00:11:49:23
Dan LeFebvre
Not to get too far ahead of the timeline in the movie, but then later on, the movie does mention, I think, 22 Nazis going on trial. So it seems like there’s more that the movie just doesn’t show. And the true story. Did Kelly focus on the main characters, those four main characters that the movie shows us, or was he tasked with inspecting all the Nazis going on trial at Nuremberg?

00:11:49:25 – 00:12:19:29
Jack El-Hai
Well, yes and no. Kelly examined and interviewed the entire group. So that was 22 members of the Nazi high command, and, he found Hermann Goering to be the most intriguing of the bunch. And so he spent more time with Goering then with any of the others. And in fact, he spent more time with Goering than with several of the others combined.

00:12:20:02 – 00:12:48:11
Jack El-Hai
So, the three that, you mentioned that are also shown in the movie, and there’s another one, too, Rudolf Hess, is given some playtime in the movie. These were important figures in the trial, but there were many other important figures that Kelly dealt with and maybe here, it might be a good time for me to mention that because you addressed his role, Kelly’s role there.

00:12:48:13 – 00:13:17:20
Jack El-Hai
He was, brought in by the tribunal to ensure that the defendants were mentally fit to stand trial in. This is a very low bar of fitness, mental fitness. So it means can they understand the charges? Do they know the difference between right and wrong? Can they participate in their own defense? And in Kelly’s opinion, all of them satisfied that requirement.

00:13:17:22 – 00:13:47:15
Jack El-Hai
But he was there among these men who were considered the arch criminals of the 20th century, all in one place together. And he saw it as a wonderful opportunity to do more. So he set up for himself a more ambitious project to determine whether they shared a common psychiatric disorder or what Kelly like to call a Nazi virus that, could account for their behavior.

00:13:47:17 – 00:13:54:21
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah. So he’s going above and beyond to take advantage of all of them being in one location. It sounds like.

00:13:54:23 – 00:13:56:04
Jack El-Hai
That’s right.

00:13:56:06 – 00:14:13:21
Dan LeFebvre
What? You mentioned his name, and Rudolf Hess does end up coming in. He I think he arrived at the prison a little bit later, but the movie briefly mentioned his story. It talks about how he flew a plane to Scotland in 1941, tried to negotiate a truce with Britain and Germany so they could both team up to defeat the Soviet Union.

00:14:13:24 – 00:14:41:12
Dan LeFebvre
That doesn’t work. Hess was then in prison and then conveniently got hit with amnesia, where he couldn’t remember anything for years. Then, in February of 1945, he said that he was faking his amnesia the whole time. Then after I think the movie mentioned in July of 1945, after Germany collapsed, the amnesia returned. So now in the movie, Kelly tries to get Goring to help, to get Hess to talk, and Goering agrees to do this in exchange for Kelly getting letters to his wife and daughter.

00:14:41:12 – 00:14:49:12
Dan LeFebvre
And we’ll talk about those letters in a moment. But is the movie correct to set up this scenario of Goering helping Doctor Kelly to try to get has to talk?

00:14:49:15 – 00:15:19:01
Jack El-Hai
Absolutely. Goering was offended by Hess’s behavior because Hess, he probably was not suffering from amnesia. So Hess was pretending not to recognize Goering. And, during found this offensive. And during did assist with Kelly’s efforts to determine whether has really had amnesia or not, I think.

00:15:19:03 – 00:15:32:11
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I think in the movie, when they first he first sees him, Hess does the Nazi salute and then later, Russell Crowe’s version of Goering points that out and he’s like, yeah, he’s faking because he recognized me the moment that he saw me.

00:15:32:13 – 00:15:37:15
Jack El-Hai
That’s right. And I believe that event also. Did that truly occur?

00:15:37:17 – 00:15:42:00
Dan LeFebvre
Wow, wow. Even little details like that. That’s it. Yeah. Makes for the A minus.

00:15:42:03 – 00:15:42:28
Jack El-Hai

00:15:43:00 – 00:16:03:12
Dan LeFebvre
Well I’m assuming that the Nazis who were helping Doctor Kelley with other Nazis like with Hess were only doing that to get something out of it themselves. Kind of like we see with, you know, Goering getting Kelly’s help with the personal letters. Were there any other scenarios of the other Nazis helping the allies interrogate other Nazis, or was Goring the only one?

00:16:03:15 – 00:16:37:24
Jack El-Hai
Not that I can recall. Goering was the only one who who provided substantive help, in that way. And there were some, like you mentioned, Admiral Donuts, who resisted, being of any help at all. So, enduring was amenable at least to doing this one thing to, try and figure out what was going on with Hess, because during wanted something in return.

00:16:37:26 – 00:17:00:25
Jack El-Hai
And, maybe we’re jumping the gun here a little bit, but, it would Goring wanted was a closer connection with his, family, his wife and daughter, who were outside of the prison, living on their own for a while. And then there was a time when Mrs. Goering was imprisoned and her daughter, was being kept in a convent.

00:17:00:25 – 00:17:09:17
Jack El-Hai
And during was very upset about all of this and wanted to open a line of communication with them.

00:17:09:19 – 00:17:27:17
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. No, that makes sense. So that’s what the movie shows. I was actually going to be my next question about those letters because, we see in the movie, Doctor Kelly is delivering letters from going to his wife, Emmy Goring, and their young daughter Edda. And throughout the movie, we see Kelly taking multiple trips to the Goering household.

00:17:27:17 – 00:17:48:28
Dan LeFebvre
He’s even invited into the home to watch Edda play the piano, which then he recounts back to Hermann when they get back to prison, and as this happens, it seems, according to the movie, that that Kelly is forming a bond with the Goring family. And then later in the movie you mentioned, getting arrested. We see or we don’t really see it happen necessarily, but we see the aftermath of Emmy and Eddie getting arrested.

00:17:49:03 – 00:18:03:11
Dan LeFebvre
And then Colonel Andrews asks Kelly how he knew where they’re hiding out. And that, to me, implies that these were not really sanctioned trips. So is it true that one of the ways Kelly got through to Hermann Goering was by secretly delivering these letters to his family?

00:18:03:13 – 00:18:34:15
Jack El-Hai
Yes, he he several times delivered letters to Emmy and Edda, and they they were not sanctioned. And the prison administration did not know that he was doing this. And the reason why I know these these letters were passed along is that copies of them exist, and they were among the trove of Douglas Kelly papers that I found.

00:18:34:17 – 00:18:42:14
Jack El-Hai
About 15 boxes of stuff that that led to me being interested in writing about this story.

00:18:42:17 – 00:18:55:26
Dan LeFebvre
Do we know if that was something that, I mean, I’m assuming Goehring kind of initiated that and then Doctor Kelly going along with it. I mean, I assume he would get in trouble if he was found out.

00:18:55:28 – 00:19:19:09
Jack El-Hai
Goering definitely initiated it. It didn’t occur to Kelly to try something like that. And if he had been caught doing it, he probably would have gotten into trouble. How serious a trouble? I’m not sure. He certainly would have been scolded, but I don’t think it would have been a huge blot on his military record.

00:19:19:12 – 00:19:42:06
Dan LeFebvre
Well, that speaks to the trust, I guess, would be that the word between Goering and Kelly. Because at least according to the movie, it seems like the allies don’t know where his family is. And once they find out, that’s when they arrest them. So I’m assuming then Goering knew that they would be in trouble or have potentially be arrested.

00:19:42:06 – 00:19:46:28
Dan LeFebvre
If Kelly gave up that information and trusted that he wouldn’t.

00:19:47:01 – 00:20:10:18
Jack El-Hai
Yes it would. Goring was preoccupied by the worry that his family was vulnerable to all kinds of hazards and dangers. And, Goring was a man of action, and for him to be confined in prison and unable to do anything to help was immensely frustrating to him.

00:20:10:21 – 00:20:27:01
Dan LeFebvre
That makes me wonder, because he he surrendered himself, did he assume that his position would be that he would be able to keep in contact with them and everything? And then all of a sudden he’s put in prison and obviously not able to.

00:20:27:03 – 00:21:07:28
Jack El-Hai
When Goering surrendered, he had a vision of how things would go after that. He was the, last living very top dog among the German leaders. Hitler, Himmler and gerbils had committed suicide and, during envisioned a time when he would, he saw himself as the statesman. So he would, resume the leadership of the German government and negotiate with the allies and lead Germany through this very difficult postwar time.

00:21:08:01 – 00:21:31:26
Jack El-Hai
But that plan, was nothing like what the allies were expecting to happen. And when, General Eisenhower, who was in charge in Europe in that time, heard about Goering’s expectation that he would be treated like a statesman, he said no way. And Goering was summarily shipped to prison.

00:21:31:28 – 00:21:52:11
Dan LeFebvre
Well, throughout the movie, we see numerous mentions of Remy Malik’s version of Doctor Kelly, saying that he believes Hermann Goering is an extreme narcissist. For example, there’s one scene when he’s talking to Justice Jackson and a JAG lawyer, Colonel John. Amen. I believe. And Kelly tells him that, above all things, the only thing that Hermann Goering cares about is Hermann Goering.

00:21:52:14 – 00:22:13:01
Dan LeFebvre
He doesn’t care about the Jews. He also doesn’t care if they die as Russell Crowe’s version of Goering says in the movie, the anti-Semitism helped gather followers, focus their emotions and give them someone to blame. So as I was watching that, the way I interpreted the movie was that basically during was willing to do anything and everything to rise to power himself.

00:22:13:07 – 00:22:23:24
Dan LeFebvre
You know, if that meant lying about his beliefs about Jews and murdering millions of people in the process. How old do you think the movie does showing Doctor Kelly’s analysis of growing?

00:22:23:26 – 00:22:56:24
Jack El-Hai
I think it does a great job of showing the ambiguity of Kelly’s position regarding Goering. You know, anything Goering said had to be taken with a huge block of salt because he was in prison. He was. He knew his life was at risk. But the film does accurately show what Goering told Kelly. How much Kelly believed it all.

00:22:56:27 – 00:23:27:12
Jack El-Hai
It is open to question. So I don’t think in in the evidence presented later at the trial shows that Goring was much more involved in the very harsh, overt anti-Semitic acts of the Nazi regime. And, it would be hard, after looking at that evidence, to say, well, this is just something that Hermann played along with so that he could take the opportunity to grasp power.

00:23:27:14 – 00:23:47:02
Jack El-Hai
So I don’t accept Hermann Goering’s explanation in that sense. And I have a feeling that Douglas Kelly didn’t either. So I guess that’s a long way of saying that. What’s shown in the movie is a simplified version of of what Goering said. But there is more behind it.

00:23:47:04 – 00:24:15:12
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Which speaks to how difficult of a job it must have been for, for Kelly to unravel these things of what somebody is telling you may not be the truth, and probably likely is not the truth. I mean, I mean, beyond just, you know, being politicians or things like that, but, you know, these people in a position where their life is at stake and they’re not really used to that.

00:24:15:15 – 00:24:17:12
Jack El-Hai
Absolutely.

00:24:17:14 – 00:24:36:27
Dan LeFebvre
There’s another story I wanted to ask you about from the movie that it comes from a discussion with Doctor Kelly alone in his cell with going I’m sorry in Goering cell not, not in, in doctor Kelly’s. No. But they’re alone together and and going tells the story from his childhood and the Jewish man that he was named after Hermann von Stein.

00:24:36:29 – 00:25:11:13
Dan LeFebvre
And according to the movie, Epstein was was Goering’s father’s best friend. And then Epstein was also extremely rich and let the growing family move in with him at the castle that he own goes to lend itself to how rich he was. He owns a castle, and he goes on to tell Doctor Kelly that living in the castle, the child, he started to realize just how rich, quote unquote, Uncle Herman was, so rich that he could move the Goering family into his castle, so rich that he could make Goering’s father live in a bedroom on the ground floor, while his mother lived in a bedroom just down the hall from Epstein’s own bedroom, and so rich

00:25:11:13 – 00:25:27:29
Dan LeFebvre
that whenever he wanted, he could walk down the hall and enjoy. Goering’s mother in the movie going, uses that story to tell Doctor Kelly that just because someone is your ally doesn’t mean they’re on your side. But how much of that story from Hermann Goering’s childhood really happened?

00:25:28:01 – 00:25:42:12
Jack El-Hai
I think all of it. I think that story is factually correct. And Goring did tell Kelly about it during their in the prison interviews.

00:25:42:14 – 00:25:46:15
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. Wow. I mean, that’s really.

00:25:46:17 – 00:25:53:05
Dan LeFebvre
It’s a peek into Goering’s mind, you know, childhood and.

00:25:53:07 – 00:26:09:27
Dan LeFebvre
How he I guess the way that it was still on his mind. But then using that manipulation. It sounds like he’s trying to manipulate Kelly in the movie using, you know, this, using this nugget of truth and using it to manipulate. I mean, that’s in there.

00:26:09:27 – 00:26:53:11
Jack El-Hai
That’s an important thing to remember about both of these men. They were master manipulators. Both of them. One of my big sources when I was researching the book was I had tracked down Doctor Kelly’s son, Doug. And, so he had all of his memories of his families. Plus he provided me with those boxes of documents. And when I have talked with Doug about this meeting of Goehring and Kelly, we always refer to them as King Kong versus Godzilla because they were both highly intelligent, both, the Egotists, both absolutely sure of their own opinions, stubborn.

00:26:53:13 – 00:27:29:04
Jack El-Hai
And so that were those similarities were part of the basis of their affinity. I won’t call it a friendship. Because Kelly, the entire time was very aware of Hermann Goering’s dark side. The his ruthlessness, lack of conscience, lack of empathy, all of that and would never, considered during a friend. But they did develop a bond just from spending all of those hours together and and sharing so much about their, their pasts.

00:27:29:06 – 00:27:32:29
Jack El-Hai
So that that is a big part of this story.

00:27:33:01 – 00:28:04:06
Dan LeFebvre
Well, that leads right into my next question, because if we go back to the movie’s timeline, the trial is beginning. And something that the movie focuses on is film of the Nazi concentration camps that they play at the trial. Those are just horrible images from the Holocaust, and I’m sure many of us have seen by now. But afterwards, when Kelly talks to Goering in his cell, Kelly is understandably shaken by what he just saw, and he flat out asks Goering how he could be the second in command in Nazi Germany and not know about this.

00:28:04:08 – 00:28:23:14
Dan LeFebvre
And Granger says, oh, Himmler was in charge of the camps. And then Kelly points out that it wasn’t Himmler who was second in command behind Hitler. It was Goering. And then Goering says, oh, well, the films were faked and, you know, comes up with more excuses. And then Goering uses another excuse. He says, you know, Americans bombed Japan, killing 150,000 Japanese.

00:28:23:14 – 00:28:52:08
Dan LeFebvre
That included civilians. And that’s when in the movie, Kelly just blows up at Goering and says, there’s a difference between bombing war factories and civilians dying as collateral damage, and Goering’s Nazi Party building 1200 camps designed to exterminate an entire race. So if were to believe the movie’s version of events, this kind of seems to be a turning point between Kelly and Goering, where I won’t call it a friendship, but they have this this connection going on.

00:28:52:08 – 00:29:06:03
Dan LeFebvre
And then once Kelly sees the films of the concentration camps in the trial and the reality of what the Nazis did, he kind of snaps back to reality. Was that a turning point in how Doctor Kelly interacted with Goering? Like the movie suggests?

00:29:06:06 – 00:29:50:23
Jack El-Hai
Yes, the movie presents, I would say, a concentrated version of that conversation all happening in one scene. In, in actuality, it happened over several days. And so it happened not exactly as shown in the movie. I think, one thing in the, in this scene that Goering is trying to do and something they actually did struggle with during his imprisonment is, was how is he going to present himself when it is his turn to testify in the forthcoming trial?

00:29:50:25 – 00:30:16:27
Jack El-Hai
And so he was strategizing different ways. And so, I’ve always thought that this denial that he makes at the beginning, you know, he had nothing to do with the camps. And then the films were fakes. These were trial balloons that he was sending up to see how Kelly would receive them. And then maybe Goering could make a determination whether to really use that based on Kelly’s reaction.

00:30:17:00 – 00:30:33:20
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, okay. Yeah. So using Kelly as, a guinea pig, almost of his use of his defense. Wow. Okay. Yeah, that that makes sense. Now that you mention that, I didn’t even think about that. There is a character that we see pop up here and there throughout the movie. We haven’t talked about much yet. And her name is Lila.

00:30:33:21 – 00:30:58:27
Dan LeFebvre
She meets Doctor Kelly on the train before he arrives at Nuremberg. Then, after blowing up at Goering and seeing the footage of the concentration camp, we see Doctor Kelly drinking at the bar, and then she shows up again. And that’s when we find out she’s a reporter. The movie seems to imply his drinking played a part, but in the next scene after that, we see a newspaper article with the headline that says Prison Doc Tells All, and that’s Colonel Andrus is not happy with Doctor Kelly talking to a reporter.

00:30:58:27 – 00:31:05:08
Dan LeFebvre
So he orders Kelly back to the States where he’s going to be discharged. Was that really how Doctor Kelly was effectively fired from the job?

00:31:05:11 – 00:31:37:27
Jack El-Hai
No, there’s that’s one place where the story in the film deviates from fact. The reporter character you mentioned is, as far as I know, the only completely made up person in the in the screenplay and in the film, Doctor Kelly did talk with a reporter and said some things that were probably imprudent for him to say, and it was reported in Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper.

00:31:37:29 – 00:32:08:13
Jack El-Hai
But, again, Kelly only got a scolding for that. He did not get him fired. In fact, Kelly was never fired. He left on his own initiative here and then was honorably discharged from the Army. And so, if if the movie gives the impression that Kelly left under some kind of cloud, then that is inaccurate. And in probably there for drama’s sake.

00:32:08:15 – 00:32:31:13
Dan LeFebvre
I know that. Yeah, that makes sense. Again, it is a movie. There’s a there’s another character that we see throughout the movie that we haven’t talked about much yet, and that’s Leo Whittle’s character, Sergeant Howie Triste. He’s the translator, has been working with Doctor Kelly this whole time. So after Kelly is fired in the movie and he’s about to leave, she stops him at the train station and tells him his own story.

00:32:31:16 – 00:32:50:23
Dan LeFebvre
According the movie, he is a German Jew born in Munich. His family was trying to get out of Germany with the rise of the Nazis and they managed to get exit visas in 1940. But only had enough money for one ticket to the United States. His sister was too young to go alone, so she stayed behind with the parents, and that left Howie alone in America, and he tried to enlist.

00:32:50:23 – 00:33:11:03
Dan LeFebvre
After Pearl Harbor, but he was refused because he wasn’t an American citizen. Then, two years later, he was drafted into service and ended up landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944. I loved the line in the movie where Treece looks at Kelly and says, four years earlier, I left this country scared and alone in the middle of the night, and I came back with the goddamn army.

00:33:11:05 – 00:33:28:20
Dan LeFebvre
And that’s when he comes back as he finds out, according to the movie, that his sister ended up in Switzerland with relatives, and the records show that his parents arrived in Auschwitz in 1942 and then camp was liberated 1945. And there’s no record of them. All of that ends up being the story after after Kelly is fired, he’s about to leave.

00:33:28:23 – 00:33:42:03
Dan LeFebvre
He hears this story, and he hears the importance of what he’s doing and how he can still help with this case against the Nazis. How well do you think the movie did, recounting the story of Sergeant Harry Treece?

00:33:42:05 – 00:34:16:24
Jack El-Hai
How he traced was a real person. He was one of several translators who worked with Doctor Kelly and others in having conversations with the German defendants. I interviewed him, and, I think the way the movie presents his life story is essentially correct. I, don’t have a record of this myself, but I do recall my phone interview with Howie that he did have a slight German accent when I spoke with him.

00:34:17:01 – 00:34:52:16
Jack El-Hai
And, as, Leo Woodall speaks in the movie, it’s completely, non accented, American English. So there there is maybe one, liberty taken there, but his story is, is as it happened pretty much. And and and he, how he Trieste did write a book of his own experiences, before my book was written.

00:34:52:18 – 00:35:06:27
Jack El-Hai
And I use that as a resource. And that line you mentioned, I came back with the U.S. Army. It sounds familiar to me, and I think it may be from how his own book. I may have used it in my own book. I don’t recall.

00:35:06:29 – 00:35:29:17
Dan LeFebvre
It’s a great line now. Well, after hearing this story, Kelly decides not to leave yet. Instead, we see in the movie, we see him giving all of his research on going to Justice Jackson and fight for justice from Great Britain. He gives him all his private files off the book conversations, everything that he’s gathered to put into his own book that he wanted to write after the war.

00:35:29:17 – 00:35:38:19
Dan LeFebvre
He hands over to the prosecutors to help them build their case. Did Doctor Kelly hand over everything he had on going to the Allied prosecutors the way the movie shows?

00:35:38:21 – 00:36:16:04
Jack El-Hai
No. He took it home with him. And and it ended up in those 15 boxes that that I had a chance to look at. So here, here, events do get a little factually murky here because by the time, Goering was going to appear at the trial and give testimony, Kelly was already long gone from Nuremberg. He left in January 1946, and I believe during made his first appearance on the witness stand in March or April of 1946.

00:36:16:06 – 00:36:52:04
Jack El-Hai
So Kelly did not present this stash of, valuable info to the prosecution and to to Justice Jackson. He did, however, during the months that he was in Nuremberg, provide a stream of information to the prosecution team and this was in the form of memos, that he sent periodically, mainly from his conversations with Goering and a lot of that information was about how Goering planned to conduct his own defense at the trial.

00:36:52:04 – 00:36:57:04
Jack El-Hai
So it’s partly factual part, partly not.

00:36:57:07 – 00:37:31:14
Dan LeFebvre
It sounds like a simplified and condensed for the movie. Did Kelly have a lot of off off the record tape conversations with Goering or and with the manner of his work? Because he was, as you mentioned before, kind of going above and beyond and and not just doing the bare minimum. But he was doing extra. Was that still officially documented or recorded, or is that something that he just kept in his own own stuff and never made it to anybody else?

00:37:31:14 – 00:37:32:02
Dan LeFebvre
Basically.

00:37:32:04 – 00:38:07:17
Jack El-Hai
This was his personal project. The court was not interested in it. And, even had they known it was going on, they wouldn’t have been interested in it. And the prosecution, same thing. Kelly was doing this for his own to satisfy his own professional curiosity and to, enable his own later personal glory, as he imagined it when he published his book in 1947, the book was called 22 Cells in Nuremberg.

00:38:07:17 – 00:38:17:17
Jack El-Hai
It’s really hard to find now, and that’s because it sold poorly at the time, and there were just not that many copies out there.

00:38:17:20 – 00:38:40:09
Dan LeFebvre
Well, that’s fascinating that they wouldn’t have been interested, but I guess they had plenty of other evidence to sift through and the whatever current things that they’re saying, you know, we’re talking about earlier, they might not be truthful anyway, whatever Goering is saying. So stick to the evidence, stick to the facts for the trial. It sounds like it’s basically what they were, right.

00:38:40:09 – 00:39:21:26
Jack El-Hai
And whether or not the, defendants, you know, shared a psychic common psychiatric disorder that really was of no import to the prosecution. They just wanted to know, are these men sane? And is it, you know, are they fit to be tried? This, what Kelly was after was really a of importance to, you know, to history or to he and his fellow psychiatrists and, what he, his what he learned from it all is important, because it affected him for the rest of his life.

00:39:21:28 – 00:40:04:11
Jack El-Hai
And it was that if there was no Nazi virus, that these men did not share a psychiatric disorder. In fact, they were not psychiatrically disordered at all in any way that their personalities fell within the normal range. Meaning not that everyone’s capable of doing what they did, but that there are, in every country, every era, all around us, people like that who, lack conscience, lack empathy, have no concept of public service in or out for their own power and glory, and will trample, many, many other people to get there.

00:40:04:14 – 00:40:25:12
Dan LeFebvre
What? You might have already answered my my next question, but if you go back to the movie’s timeline, it’s there’s another day of trial. And Justice Jackson from the US and five from Great Britain managed to get going to admit something that ends up being his ultimate demise, at least according to the movie. Throughout the whole case, he’d been denying knowledge of what was going on in the concentration camp.

00:40:25:15 – 00:40:45:27
Dan LeFebvre
But then, thanks to Kelly’s tip that Göring would never turn on Adolf Hitler, asks him point blank while Göring is on the stand, even if he didn’t know what was going on in the concentration camps. Now that he does, with the evidence presented to him in court, would he still follow Hitler? And Goering says yes, he would, at least according to the movie, I’m assuming.

00:40:45:29 – 00:40:47:25
Dan LeFebvre
Did that actually happen.

00:40:47:28 – 00:41:20:13
Jack El-Hai
That those, scenes are, were, are a little bit outside of the scope of my book because Kelly was already gone. And, and so, my impression, though, is that it wasn’t just five who helped Jackson out. It was the large prosecution team. It was a team effort. It is true that when Jackson was questioning Goering, Goering was scoring some very good points and making Jackson look bad and making himself look good.

00:41:20:15 – 00:41:44:16
Jack El-Hai
And so it did require, something of a rescue effort by the rest of the prosecution team, but that I think that mainly came in the form of an avalanche of evidence against Goering, contradicting, some of the claims he had made earlier that he didn’t know about the Holocaust. He had nothing to do with death camps, etc..

00:41:44:16 – 00:41:47:24
Jack El-Hai
And the evidence showed that that wasn’t true.

00:41:47:26 – 00:42:07:03
Dan LeFebvre
What after Goering’s fate is sealed along with the other Nazis in the trial, the movie shows Colonel Andrus addressing the men that the executions are scheduled for midnight, but to maintain discipline, the prisoners aren’t going to be told about it until 11:45 p.m., when they’re offered last rites. And while he’s telling his men this, he gets notification that Goring took a cyanide pill.

00:42:07:06 – 00:42:21:12
Dan LeFebvre
So the impression that I got watching the movie was Goering didn’t know that was the night of the execution, because he didn’t tell anybody. But he knew it would be soon. And somehow he managed to get this cyanide pill. Was that what really happened?

00:42:21:14 – 00:42:52:10
Jack El-Hai
Yes, more or less. When Goehring surrendered to the Allied authorities, he had cyanide capsules with him hidden in his luggage and maybe other places. And these were the capsules that, that Himmler and gerbils had used to to take their own lives earlier. And so nobody really knows how Göring got a hold of one of those capsules in his cell.

00:42:52:13 – 00:43:26:18
Jack El-Hai
But the most convincing theory I know, and this isn’t gotten into in the film, is that he made an arrangement with an American guard, and in exchange for the guard receiving some valuables, the during had, jewelry and rings and things like that. The guard provided Goering with access to the most hidden cyanide capsules. I think, aside from the one that Goering did take, to commit suicide, there was another one found in his cell at the same time.

00:43:26:21 – 00:43:46:02
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, wow. Wow. Well, I guess kind of what you’re talking about before, you know, King Kong versus Godzilla. But, you know, a guard is not King Kong or Godzilla or anywhere in that scheme. So I could see how somebody like Goering would be able to manipulate people to kind of do what he wanted.

00:43:46:05 – 00:43:57:26
Jack El-Hai
Absolutely. He was a charmer, and he could turn on the charm when he wanted it. And everybody was bored in prison. And charm could go a long way.

00:43:57:28 – 00:44:15:16
Dan LeFebvre
At the end of the movie, there’s a scene with Doctor Kelly being interviewed by a radio host back in the United States. And when the host mentions the Nazis are a unique people, I want to quote what Raymie Maltz version of Doctor Kelly replies with, because I think the dialog here was extremely well-written. He says, quote, they are not unique people.

00:44:15:16 – 00:44:42:22
Dan LeFebvre
There are people like the Nazis in every country in the world today. And then the host button interrupts them and says, Not in America. And then Doctor Kelly continues, quote, yes, in America, your personality patterns are not obscure. They are people who want to be in power. And while you say they don’t exist here, I would say I’m quite certain there are people in America who would willingly climb over the corpses of half the American public if they knew they could gain control of the other half.

00:44:42:25 – 00:45:05:15
Dan LeFebvre
They stoke hatred. It’s what Hitler and Goring did, and it is textbook. And if you think the next time it happens, we’re going to recognize it because they’re wearing scary uniforms. You’re out of your damn mind. And that’s the end of the quote. Now, even though this is not a political podcast, I do think that’s an important thing to keep in mind, because it seems like these days there’s a lot of hatred being stoked to try and gain control.

00:45:05:18 – 00:45:15:11
Dan LeFebvre
So my final question for you, what lessons do you think we can learn from the true story of Doctor Kelly’s work in the Nuremberg trials?

00:45:15:13 – 00:46:00:13
Jack El-Hai
Those words that that you repeated, that Doctor Kelly says in the movie were absolutely Douglas Kelly’s words. I don’t know if he actually spoke to them in a radio interview, but they’re in his book. And, I think there are two strands of, of contemporary resonance that this story has today. And one is how important it is for people in in positions of leadership, positions of responsibility to be held accountable by the international community, as happened at Nuremberg for crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, genocide, all of it.

00:46:00:16 – 00:46:29:24
Jack El-Hai
And then the other is the threat that we face, in our country, the threat to our democracy from these extremist ideologies. Kelly came back to the US and his perspective had been changed from, spending so much time with these defendants. And he saw, things very close to Nazi ism all around him. So this was in 1946.

00:46:29:26 – 00:47:05:07
Jack El-Hai
It was expressed, mainly in the form of the power grabs made by southern politicians, the racial segregationists who had very high state offices at the time, governors, senator, senators. And, but he made it clear and Kelly made it clear that this did not only apply to those people and that it applied to anyone who would use emotion, try and fight off, critical thinking as a way to make decisions.

00:47:05:10 – 00:47:36:25
Jack El-Hai
People who use, degrading terms. For of other of their opponents based on race, religion, where they’re from, all of that. Kelly saw it around him and was against it, and he even laid out a plan for fighting it. So it’s it’s a message. He was prescient, and it’s a message that I think we need to pay attention, especially now.

00:47:36:27 – 00:47:55:00
Dan LeFebvre
I agree. Thank you so much for coming on to chat about the movie Nuremberg. The movie is based on your fantastic book Nazi and the psychiatrist, which goes into a lot more depth than we ever could on a single podcast episode. So for everyone wanting to learn more about the true story behind the movie, I have a link in the show notes where you can get your own copy of Jack’s book right now while they do that.

00:47:55:00 – 00:48:03:12
Dan LeFebvre
And before I let you go, Jack, can you share one of your favorite stories from the process of making the movie?

00:48:03:15 – 00:48:46:14
Jack El-Hai
Sure. I, was was fortunate to be invited by the film’s director and screenwriter, James Vanderbilt, to come to Hungary. This was the last year in 2024 to, visit this the set. It was actually a gigantic soundstage on the outskirts of Budapest and, see some of the filming. So I got there, and on the first day of shooting that I was witness to the scene that they were shooting that day was a set built to look like a big transport plane, the inside of a big transport plane.

00:48:46:16 – 00:49:20:02
Jack El-Hai
And, this was used in a scene where all of the German defendants are being transported from Luxembourg, where many of them were initially held, to Nuremberg, where the trial would be held. And, I had written this scene in my book and had imagined it a particular way. And when I saw the cast and it was almost everybody crammed into this small space representing the inside of the transport plane.

00:49:20:04 – 00:49:45:13
Jack El-Hai
When I saw that, coming to life before my eyes, I was just dumbfounded because it played out exactly as I imagined it. And, you know, even to the point of the interactions between the defendants and Doctor Kelly, who was also aboard. So that was the first thing I saw. And it has really stayed with me all this time.

00:49:45:16 – 00:49:59:05
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, that’s that’s high praise that they nailed it what you had in your head. And it’s also high praise of what you had in your head, also came out in the book. Obviously, it translated to the other side too, where they were able to see what you had in your head as you wrote.

00:49:59:07 – 00:50:18:24
Jack El-Hai
Yeah. And James Vanderbilt, the screenwriter and director, is, very attuned to history as well as being an excellent screenwriter. And, I think he placed a priority, whenever possible, to make things as historically accurate as possible.

00:50:18:27 – 00:50:21:07
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you again so much for your time, Jack.

00:50:21:09 – 00:50:31:15
Jack El-Hai
Thank you. Dan, good to be here.

00:50:31:17 – 00:50:48:02
Dan LeFebvre
This episode is based on a true story was produced by me, Dan the Fed. Thank you once again to Jack ally for sharing his time and expertise to help us separate fact from fiction in the movie Nuremberg. If you want to dig deeper into the true story, I can’t recommend Jack’s book enough. It’s called The Nazi and the psychiatrist.

00:50:48:04 – 00:51:05:17
Dan LeFebvre
And as we learned, this is the book that they based the movie on. I’ve got a link to this in the show notes, so you can pick up your own copy, as well as on the shows home on the web over at based on a True Story podcast.com/378. Okay, now it’s time for the answer to our two truths and a lie game from the beginning of the episode, and it’s a quick refresher.

00:51:05:18 – 00:51:28:08
Dan LeFebvre
Here are the two truths and one lie again. Number one Doctor Kelly was fired for talking to a newspaper reporter in Nuremberg. Number two, Doctor Kelly delivered letters from Hermann Goering to his family like we see in the movie number three. Doctor Kelly talked to growing more than any of the other Nazi prisoners in Nuremberg. Did you figure out which one is a lie?

00:51:28:10 – 00:51:46:10
Dan LeFebvre
I’ve got the envelope here, so let’s open this up. And the lie is number one. As Jack pointed out, the reporter that we see Doctor Kelly talking to in the movie is a fictional character. And we also learned that Doctor Kelly left Nuremberg. I was on a court and he was never fired like we see in the movie.

00:51:46:13 – 00:52:02:01
Dan LeFebvre
Thanks for sticking around to the end. If you are watching the video version here in a moment, you’re going to see the credits roll, and if you want to get your name in the credits for the next video and on the website, you can learn how to become a based on a true story producer using the link in the description or over at based on a True Story podcast.

00:52:02:01 – 00:52:13:17
Dan LeFebvre
E-commerce support once again, that’s based on a true story podcast.com/support. Until next time, thanks so much for spending your time with Jack and I today, and I’ll chat with you again really soon.

00:03:19:13 – 00:03:34:00
Dan LeFebvre
As longtime listeners of Based on a True Story know, I always like to start with an overall letter grade for a movie’s historical accuracy. So today we’re talking about 2025 Trail of Vengeance. What grade does it get?

00:03:34:02 – 00:04:00:25
Rob Hilliard
Well, it’s a little bit of a tough question to answer, mainly because it’s a fictional story. So, and they’re, you know, obviously we’re going to get into this there, there is at least one, true to life character in the story. And it certainly references real events like the Civil War and, and some specific things within the, specific actions within the Civil War that we’ll get to.

00:04:01:22 – 00:04:45:05
Rob Hilliard
But it is it really makes no pretense of being a true story. So it’s a little less like, things that you’ve covered in the past, like tombstone or, even like a series like Billy the Kid, which are based on true events, real people. And it’s kind of reshaping those. This is more like along the lines of, like a Dances With Wolves or, like there’s a movie called Shadow Riders with, Tom Selleck and, Sam Elliott and they those are both Westerns that are set shortly after the Civil War.

00:04:45:05 – 00:05:16:09
Rob Hilliard
And they reference back to the Civil War. But there, like I said, they don’t really make any pretense of being based on on, true story or all real characters. So that’s a prolonged way of saying I would probably give it a B, in because it wasn’t, there weren’t any, like, glaring anachronisms. There was nobody wearing, you know, re boxes or walking around or anything.

00:05:17:15 – 00:05:34:08
Rob Hilliard
And I didn’t go to the like the extensive trouble of looking at, well, I, I did actually a little bit, but looking at some of the armaments that were carrying and making sure that they dated to the right period and stuff, most of the things were were accurate. I did get a little bit of a chuckle.

00:05:34:08 – 00:05:55:29
Rob Hilliard
There’s a crowd scene where they show people kind of walking down the street in the town, and there’s kind of dozens of people, and the first thing that struck me was, they look awfully clean for being, you know, in kind of a, 1870 ish, type of time period. But, but yeah, that’s, you know, that’s minor stuff.

00:05:55:29 – 00:06:16:19
Rob Hilliard
So I would say it’s a B I think largely they, they capture the time period accurately. And, you know, like I said, they, they weren’t they weren’t attempting to portray it as, as an actual true story with, with one glaring exception that I, I know you’re going to hit right now.

00:06:16:22 – 00:06:43:05
Dan LeFebvre
You know what I mean? It is good. It’s good to know that, too, because I think a lot of times it just being set in a historical time period, it can just lend itself to, oh, this must be based on a true story. So it’s also good to know that. But the part that you probably are talking about is what I’m going to follow up with, because one of the key things to me when I watch Trail of Vengeance is it’s probably the first feature film that I’m aware of, at least that features John Scoble as one of the main characters.

00:06:43:12 – 00:06:54:16
Dan LeFebvre
And I know you’ve done a ton of research into the real John Scoble for your book. So what letter grade would you give the movie for just how it brings John Scoble to life on screen?

00:06:54:18 – 00:07:13:21
Rob Hilliard
Good question. And yeah, I guess it’s probably worth noting for everybody. We wouldn’t. Well, I shouldn’t say we wouldn’t be having the show, but you wouldn’t be having me on as a guest right now if it weren’t for the fact that I had written a book about, John’s Google. So, I really I won’t, I won’t, give you a long preamble on this one.

00:07:13:21 – 00:07:33:10
Rob Hilliard
I thought they did a really good job. As you might expect, I was a little nervous going into it. And I was like, hey, Amanda, they’re going to, you know, how are they going to handle this? Are they going to mess it up or whatever? But, I actually the, the letter grade I wrote that was an A-minus.

00:07:33:12 – 00:08:07:24
Rob Hilliard
And, I guess, I mean, I can just go ahead and give you the details on the only reason it’s an A minus. But really the way there’s one particular scene, where Scoble is talking to, Catherine, which is the Rumer Willis, character, and, the, he, he’s talking about his background and kind of giving, some of the story of how he was a spy during the Civil War and, that he had been, recruited to be a spy.

00:08:07:24 – 00:08:51:28
Rob Hilliard
And we’ll touch on that a bit later. But what he says there or the description that he goes through there, is really straight out of what we know about John Scoble. And so, kind of getting into that, what we know about John Scoble is entirely, there have been variations on it, but everything derives back to a book that was written by Allan Pinkerton called The Spy of the rebellion in 1883, and that, at the outset or very near the outset of the Civil War, the neither at the outbreak of the Civil War, neither the North nor the South had their own spy agency or what was then called Secret service.

00:08:52:09 – 00:09:21:27
Rob Hilliard
We use that terminology different today. When they said Secret Service, they would mean something more like our FBI or CIA. And that’s a term that goes back to England. And you know, long before that. So, but neither neither side had that at the outbreak of the war because the US was very much an isolated, isolationist country at the time, they didn’t really feel like they had the need to have one, until April of 1861.

00:09:21:27 – 00:09:46:19
Rob Hilliard
And all of a sudden they were they were in a war. And both sides immediately realized they needed that. So, the federal the Union side, they made the decision to, just much like we would today when you don’t have when you have a need that you need to fill and you don’t have a way of immediately sort of staffing up to do it at the government level, you just bring in the contractor.

00:09:46:22 – 00:10:22:10
Rob Hilliard
And so what they did was they hired a Pinkerton agency, or specifically hired Allan Pinkerton, who’s based in Chicago, and he basically picked up his whole Pinkerton Detective Agency lock, stock and barrel and brought them to Washington, D.C., and the people who the day before basically had been, detectives and investigating crimes and things like that. Now all of a sudden, they were spies and they were spies for, for the Union Army, for the Federals against the Confederacy.

00:10:22:13 – 00:10:46:26
Rob Hilliard
And so Pinkerton, 20 years later, like I said in 1883, wrote this book called The Spy The Rebellion. He’s you’ve heard me say this before, when you interviewed me in the past, Pinkerton was a brilliant, groundbreaking detective. Kind of a middling spy. He did some things that were pretty innovative, which we’ll talk a little bit about as we go through here.

00:10:47:18 – 00:11:19:03
Rob Hilliard
But he tended to over inflate, exaggerate troop numbers, and, basically not he would just sort of deliver everything in a, in a, in a batch. He wouldn’t make a concise report that he could hand to, general McClellan, who was ahead of the Army of the Potomac at the time, or to President Lincoln and and have, like, a concise intelligence report, he would just kind of almost, almost literally hand him a batch of papers and say, well, here’s what we found.

00:11:19:03 – 00:11:47:07
Rob Hilliard
And it was like, you know, one report from this person which conflicts with another report from this person, and they kind of left them on their own to sort that out. So not a great spy, spy chief, I should say. And, so. And he was a miserable writer, a terrible, a terrible author. And, so the reason I mentioned that part is when you’re reading The Spy of the rebellion, it desperately needs an editor.

00:11:48:02 – 00:12:16:10
Rob Hilliard
And it’s very confusing because you’ll say one thing in one place and then another thing in another, and you’re left scratching your head saying, well, I thought this person was doing this, but you saying on the same day they’re also doing this, you know, miles away. So the reason I launch into all that, backstory is and this finally gets back to why I’m saying it was an A minus, because the story is actually a little bit different.

00:12:16:10 – 00:12:54:03
Rob Hilliard
The way they reported it for 150 plus years, people accepted the way Pinkerton presented the story about John Scoble and about his spies being in Richmond in, this would have been spring of 1862, and there were, in Pinkerton’s book, there were four names that he that he talked about, in that contacts mainly. There’s a couple of others, but one was Timothy Webster, who was kind of the primary spy in the field, on behalf of, Pinkerton and his operatives.

00:12:55:11 – 00:13:32:15
Rob Hilliard
And in other words, John Scoble. Course. And then then he talks about how he hated Wharton and a Carey Creek lot. And so really, only difference of three letters between, you know, between the two names and it was, again, very confusing. He talks about them both being in Richmond in different contexts. And, so for the longest time, a century and a half, people were under the impression that that was one in the same person.

00:13:32:15 – 00:14:05:25
Rob Hilliard
And the Pinkerton was just such a lousy writer that he was really talking about one person, but he was using two different names, and it was understandable. When I first started researching this, I thought the exact same thing. I’m like, how can this person be here where he’s actually saying she’s here? And it doesn’t make sense. And but the key part and this is, this is how it’s stated in Trail of Vengeance, is that if you accept that they’re the same person, then he talks about, then I gotta make sure I get this right, because I can always get it backwards.

00:14:05:25 – 00:14:34:10
Rob Hilliard
I always carry who was with John Scoble and Hattie was with Tim Webster. So if you accept that they’re the same person, like I said, that was kind of the generally accepted, historiography, I suppose, to be the right term for, for a long time. Then that meant the school was with Tim Webster. So the and then when Tim Webster.

00:14:34:12 – 00:15:00:12
Rob Hilliard
But spoiler spoiler for my book and for the movie. But he was captured by the Confederates and, Hattie Laughton was also captured. Then, by extension, you have to accept that. Well, if they captured the two of them, they must have captured Scoble as well. And that’s how, I will not get the pronunciation of his name correct.

00:15:00:12 – 00:15:37:09
Rob Hilliard
But I believe with Bengay, I can ogbe. But I think that’s close. A friend of mine is Nigerian and I can argue he is also Nigerian, so I actually checked with him to try and get some more close on the pronunciation. But, that’s the actor who plays John Scoble. And when he’s explaining this in the scene where he’s talking to, Katherine or Rumer Willis, he says that he was captured with them with Webster Lawton, and then he was released because the Confederates didn’t believe, basically, that a black man would be intelligent enough to be a spot.

00:15:37:12 – 00:15:59:19
Rob Hilliard
And and like I said, that was accepted as fact for for a very long time, but specifically until 2018. And in 2018, there was a book came out with the, one of the great book titles of all time. It was called Pinkertons, Prostitutes and Spies. But we’re not going to get into the prostitutes part, but I had to look that up on their own.

00:15:59:19 – 00:16:26:23
Rob Hilliard
But, and it was, written by God and John Stuart, a historian, and John Stuart, who had really just gone deeper and dug deeper in the research than anybody had previously. And he was able to determine that they were, in fact, two separate women who both were spies for the Pinkerton Agency. Now, neither of those was their real name, which is what made it confusing.

00:16:26:25 – 00:16:54:10
Rob Hilliard
And, so the those were both names of Pinkerton and fabricated, like I said, that the how close they are made it appear as if he had just sort of screwed up and had a, as you know, one person called two different names, but at the end of the day, and this was, the conclusion of Stuart’s research was that they were, in fact, two separate women.

00:16:54:11 – 00:17:25:29
Rob Hilliard
He was able to identify who they were. And, that Hattie Lawton is actually he he poses I can’t recall now if, if this was actually verified 100%. But he poses that Hattie Lawton was actually Kate Warne, who was the famous female actor, important agency. And of course, you and I talked about her before. We talked about victims because she was kind of a lead character in that, and, but Carey.

00:17:25:29 – 00:17:58:14
Rob Hilliard
So that was Hattie Carey. Was a a woman named Kitty Brackett who was separately a female spy for the Pinkerton Agency. She was the one that worked with Scoble on a sort of separate but parallel mission in Richmond, while Webster and Warne, M.I.T., you know, whatever name you want to use, was, they were on, like I said, a separate but parallel mission, same time frame, different actors in Richmond.

00:17:58:16 – 00:18:35:24
Rob Hilliard
So with all that very confusing, I’m sure your listeners are probably scratching their heads. Now. What the heck is even talking about? And you need a, you know, scorecard to follow the players here, but, the in Trail of Vengeance, the story that’s presented is the original sort of accepted canon, which was that Goble was, captured as part of the, Webster Hattie, as part of them being caught, and then released and then he was released.

00:18:36:18 – 00:19:01:02
Rob Hilliard
It actually makes a whole lot more sense. If you look at it, the two separate people, the story, you know, kind of make sense. Better. And, and so and as you know, that’s the approach that I took in in my book. And I was very fortunate, actually, that that book came out, five years before mine, because to be honest with you, at the time, I was already working on it, and I was still scratching my head trying to figure out how am I gonna write this?

00:19:01:02 – 00:19:26:04
Rob Hilliard
Because it makes no sense. These two people are, or one person is doing two different things at the same time. So, shout out to John Stewart wherever you are. I’ve never spoken to him, but thanks a million for, you know, sorting that out. And, but that’s like I said, that’s the only reason I gave it a minus is because they didn’t incorporate that relatively new scholarship that, you know, that had been done.

00:19:27:06 – 00:19:57:15
Rob Hilliard
So one other thing to mention. I’m going to further muddy the waters here, but just in the interest of full disclosure, for your listeners, they there is, an ongoing, frankly, discussion or controversy around whether John Scoble is in fact, a real person. And so, again, the the source information that we have on Scoble is, Pinkerton’s book.

00:19:58:20 – 00:20:34:27
Rob Hilliard
As I’ve already said, it wasn’t very trustworthy when it came to his, sharing of information or reliable. Maybe trustworthy might not be the right word, but reliable. And he like to change people’s names. So wanted just to kind of set that context a little bit. The reason he did that was, spying maybe even today, but certainly in the 1800s was not considered to be a, respected profession.

00:20:35:12 – 00:20:58:17
Rob Hilliard
People really disliked spies and after the Civil War, of course, when he wrote his book in the 1880s, it was we were into the actually really almost out of the reconstruction period. There was still a lot of division in between the North and the South in the country, politically and much of other things. I say a bunch of other things, as I said, are not important.

00:20:58:17 – 00:21:27:21
Rob Hilliard
Certainly Jim Crow period in the South is extraordinarily important. I don’t want to dismiss that. But, it’s separate from what I’m trying to get to with, with Pinkerton’s handling of this. So because of those sensitivities, and because spies were not low respected, they he changed the names of every person who worked for him in the book whose name hadn’t become publicly known during the Civil War.

00:21:27:24 – 00:21:55:17
Rob Hilliard
So Webster, for example, became, he was captured. His name was in all the newspapers. So everybody knew who he was. So he used Pinkerton uses the name Tim Webster in The Spy for the rebellion. A couple other, people who worked for him, during that period. Price Lewis is one. I can’t think of any other names off the top of my head, but anyway, they their names also became known during the war.

00:21:55:17 – 00:22:31:18
Rob Hilliard
So he uses their names in the book, but, Hattie Laughton and Terry Lot and their names did not become. It was never known who they were at the time of the war, or even after. And so he chose to use, pseudonyms for them. And he very likely did the same for John Scoble. So the controversy around whether Scoble was actually a real person or not is based on the fact that there’s really no record of him prior to the Civil War or after the Civil War.

00:22:31:23 – 00:22:54:11
Rob Hilliard
There’s just the little basically one year period within the war that, Pinkerton writes about in his book, The Problem. And that’s, you know, that’s valid, right? If you can’t find any verification or second source. I mean, that’s ironically, that’s how intelligence works when you gather one sort year by gather one piece of information, you try to confirm that with a second piece of information that aligns.

00:22:54:11 – 00:23:25:20
Rob Hilliard
Right. And here we are six years later trying to do that about a spot. And but the problem is, John Scoble very likely wasn’t his real name. Almost certainly Pinkerton changed some facts about him. Facts. I guess I’ll, er, quote that, but. So, changed some of the story to, help protect Scoles identity.

00:23:25:23 – 00:23:49:27
Rob Hilliard
And in doing so, you totally lose the thread. Now, I said earlier that, Mr. Stewart had gone back and done research and was able to ferret out just who Carrie Lawton and Hattie Lawton were. There’s a critically important distinction there. And that is this was the 1800s, and they were white. Scoble was blond. He was born a slave.

00:23:50:00 – 00:24:09:12
Rob Hilliard
So there had been no record of his birth, no record of where he lived? No, he wouldn’t appear in any census records. Certainly until after the Civil War. And but the problem is, after the Civil War, we wouldn’t know what name to look for, to see whether he was there or not. Because, again, John Scoble probably not his real name.

00:24:09:15 – 00:24:17:24
Rob Hilliard
So as I like to say, you have a guy who was born a slave, became a spy, and is only biographer, probably changed his name.

00:24:17:26 – 00:24:20:24
Dan LeFebvre
So really hard to find that second source. Then.

00:24:20:27 – 00:25:06:18
Rob Hilliard
Exactly. So to get that tie and get that verification, it’s almost impossible. That’s not to say that I’m going to, you know, take a stand and say no, he is absolutely real person. Unquestionably. You know, that’s those people who don’t believe he was real or wrong. Because I don’t know that verification either. But, it is the the preponderance of historians and very well respected historians not only over 150 years, but even much more recently, there were several who, there was, a guy named Ken Nagler who worked for the CIA, who researched into Scoble.

00:25:06:29 – 00:25:26:26
Rob Hilliard
He believes in to be a real person. There was another, man who worked for the NSA. We’re getting into all the spy agencies in here. And his name was Donald Markel, who became an expert on espionage in the Civil War after you retired from the NSA. And he very much believed that Jobs Global was a real person.

00:25:27:20 – 00:25:55:19
Rob Hilliard
So, like I said, these are not people who, from a hundred plus years ago, these are much more current, people who’ve done this research in the past, I don’t know, decade or 15 years. And, so the preponderance of, proof or the preponderance of professional historians believe or accept that Scoble was a real person.

00:25:55:22 – 00:26:06:02
Rob Hilliard
But, there is there is a, reasonable doubt there, or, I don’t know, whatever you want to use. And like I said, for the benefit of your listeners, I wanted to make sure that we that we touched on that as well.

00:26:06:02 – 00:26:27:14
Dan LeFebvre
So it’s fascinating. It’s fascinating to me that they were able to separate the two women, hundreds of years later. Two I mean, that sort of thing. I mean, because you are talking about spies and they’re purpose is to not be known. All right. So, so, so, so you have all these different things working against you and still being able to do that.

00:26:27:14 – 00:26:50:03
Dan LeFebvre
So it would make sense. It just makes logical sense to me that, you know, if Alan Pinkerton is writing something that Scoble would have to be based on somebody, we might not know what his real name was, but the point of just making somebody up, like, if we know that these two women were actually two separate women, he didn’t make them up.

00:26:50:05 – 00:27:13:03
Rob Hilliard
Right. That’s that’s true. And there’s there’s a really, important point to be made. I’m really glad you said that. There’s an important point to be made there. One is, you said, you know, is he a real person? There is a school of thought that may be Scoble, the character in, Pinkerton’s book was an amalgam.

00:27:13:03 – 00:27:33:17
Rob Hilliard
Maybe it was because we certainly know that he used people who were, or employed, I should say, use employed, which is important because they were getting paid. But people who had previously been slaves, that he absolutely used them to gather intelligence and that he interviewed them when they were escaping, or had escaped across, Confederate lines into Union lines.

00:27:33:19 – 00:27:59:12
Rob Hilliard
So we know all that that’s documented outside of, a Pinkerton’s book. But the, there is a thought that he might be, like I said, maybe, maybe a combination of a couple characters together, as opposed to just one person. Again, we’ll never know. The other thing, part of the reason we’ll never know is because, as I said, the packages were based in Chicago.

00:27:59:12 – 00:28:25:13
Rob Hilliard
That was their main office. And, the great Chicago Fire of 1871 burned up all their records. So, there’s a there’s a gap there as well. So you have the time gap and then you have the, you know, physically losing all the files. Gap. And, there was another point that I want to come back to there, and I, I veered off and lost myself.

00:28:26:13 – 00:28:56:20
Rob Hilliard
But the, Oh, you you said when you were talking about. Well, he wrote about two real women, and they were able to verify that if you kind of look at the if you start to question, did Pinkerton fabricate Scoble, you know, out of whole cloth and was he not just a real person at all? The immediate question that comes to my mind is, why would he do that?

00:28:56:22 – 00:29:51:10
Rob Hilliard
Right? And now in first Pinkerton, he was a staunch abolitionist. Well, prior to the Civil War. And so he certainly believed in emancipation, for, for blacks. But he when if you put yourself in his position now spin back to 1883, I’m sure we can all easily do that. To write and write about and essentially glorify, a black character in that time period, which, as I kind of alluded to earlier, you’re talking, you know, Jim Crow era in the South, reconstruction has essentially fallen apart, very deep and, and painful racial divisions, within the country.

00:29:52:28 – 00:30:28:14
Rob Hilliard
So what would be the upside for him? Like, he wasn’t doing it to sell more books, right? If anything, it was probably going to have the opposite effect. It was probably going to cause he would sell less books if he by appearing, sympathetic to, to blacks in that time period. And so, like, just to make himself look like a cool guy or I like, there’s really no, like I said, if anything, I would have created most likely a negative or more of a negative reaction, more of a negative backlash than than any sort of positive one.

00:30:28:14 – 00:31:01:06
Rob Hilliard
So it’s hard to see what his motivation might have been in creating, a fictional Scoble character and addressing him as or, you know, advertising him as, a real person. That’s the that’s the part of the aside from what I mentioned about the historians and all those things, in their investigations. But, that’s the part that just doesn’t really ring true in the John school was not a real person argument.

00:31:01:06 – 00:31:05:22
Rob Hilliard
Like what’s what would be the benefit of Pinkerton making him up?

00:31:05:24 – 00:31:21:05
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. No, that’s a great point. And it’s speaking of the talk of changing names and things like that, that Pinkerton in his book, if we go back to the movie, there is text at the beginning of the movie that is alludes to something along those lines. It’s kind of one of the key plot points throughout the entire movie.

00:31:21:11 – 00:31:49:00
Dan LeFebvre
I’m going to go ahead and read some of that opening text. It says based on historical figures and events during the American Civil War, the Pinkerton Agency, under the commission of Abraham Lincoln, created a secret spy group known as the woods to infiltrate the Confederate army. They named the woods because their code names uniformly ended with wood. And then throughout the movie, we learn about these spies that had code names like Kirkwood and Westwood and things like that.

00:31:49:03 – 00:31:52:28
Dan LeFebvre
Was there really a spy group known as The Woods?

00:31:53:01 – 00:32:14:12
Rob Hilliard
So when I first watched the movie, which was before, you and I talked about this and, I hadn’t seen these questions and that came up on the screen, as you said, like right at the gates before the start of the movie, actually, and I’ve done I don’t certainly don’t know everything there is to know about spies in the Civil War or out of the Civil War.

00:32:14:14 – 00:32:39:20
Rob Hilliard
But I’ve done extensive, extensive research on the Pinkerton spies during the Civil War. And as soon as I popped up, I was watching with my wife, my son, and I turned to them. And of course, they’re looking at me like, is that true? And we and I’m like, no, absolutely not true. And and I’m like, it’s, you know, totally made up and so cut like, you know, first 10s.

00:32:39:20 – 00:33:32:22
Rob Hilliard
Right. I’m already off on the, a train wreck, you know, but I was wrong. Well, I was kind of wrong. What I said was correct, that they didn’t use the the wood suffix effectively, as code names during the Civil War. That part is correct. They didn’t do that. But, it apparently started very shortly, like within a year or two after the Civil War that Alan Pinkerton started using that code system, not only for his operating lives, but also for, informants who were, I’ll kind of say the good guys, people who were, who were providing that information that they were able to use to capture criminals.

00:33:33:08 – 00:33:59:23
Rob Hilliard
And interestingly, well, there’s a couple interesting points about one is he had a similar system that he used for criminals or people they were investigating, except they use the suffix stone. So it would be like, you know, Featherstone or capstone or whatever. He would assign these names to people they were investigating. So the woods were the good guys?

00:34:00:10 – 00:34:19:09
Rob Hilliard
Technically the spies, as the text of the movie said. And then they didn’t mention the stone part, but the stone would be, the bad guys. And these were just to be clear. It’s not like they took, like it wasn’t Lafayette Stone or Wolf Wood. They didn’t take those names. And added something on to it.

00:34:19:11 – 00:34:45:14
Rob Hilliard
They would make, he would make up, you know, like a four letter, thing, like I said, like Atwood or, whatever. And then that would become that would become their name. But, and they would use that in a, telegraph code, which of course, was communication, not over time or letters. And Pinkerton was a big believer in substitution codes, which he did use during the Civil War.

00:34:45:17 – 00:35:10:09
Rob Hilliard
And he had a very extensive about 170 words, if I remember right, substitution code, where it would be like, I don’t know, remember him off top of his operatives had to memorize all of them. Fortunately, I didn’t. I would have been a terrible operator because I know these, but I don’t remember them. But he would say, like lamp Boyle and that might mean cavalry.

00:35:10:12 – 00:35:38:03
Rob Hilliard
And, coal would, would instead mean, soldier or something like that. So he would use that substitution code. So this was, this would and Stone system was really just an extension of that for people’s names or and then they kept in their files extensive, extensive notes on who, what, what the real person’s name was. So it would be Dan LaFave.

00:35:38:03 – 00:36:03:19
Rob Hilliard
You know, I’ll give you a good guy named. Yeah. Them would, or call wood or whatever. And so and then it would be, you know, Rob Hilliard, capstone and I would be somebody they would be investigating. So they actually had these cards, that, that had those all listed out and they maintained them at the agency.

00:36:03:27 – 00:36:34:02
Rob Hilliard
So another thing thing about this that started, like I said, after the Civil War, so let’s say 1860, 66, 67, somewhere in that ballpark. They used that system, the Pinkerton Agency, which still exists today, by the way. They used that system until 1965, 1965, so almost 100 years or basically a hundred years. And the only reason they stopped it.

00:36:34:03 – 00:36:57:06
Rob Hilliard
So the Pinkerton Agency was being run by Pinkerton descendants up until that time. And as long as they were pictured in descendant as the president of the company, they continued to use that wood and stone system for their agents and, and, and informants and, I can’t remember his name. I want to say it was like Robert Pinkerton the third.

00:36:57:06 – 00:37:23:13
Rob Hilliard
Maybe, he was Allan Pinkerton’s great, great 2 or 3 great mature, grandson. And, when he finally retired or handed over the reins of the, of the company, that’s when in 1965, that’s when they stopped using that system. So, so, yeah, it’s, like I said when I first saw it, I’m like, no, they didn’t do that during a Civil War.

00:37:23:15 – 00:37:34:12
Rob Hilliard
Technically, they didn’t do it during a Civil war. The movie plays a little bit fast and loose with the timing, but they’re rolling off by a couple of years. And the basis of the idea is, very much factual.

00:37:34:15 – 00:37:52:10
Dan LeFebvre
You might have already answered my next question about that, though, because if we don’t really know if John Scoble was real, but not to get too far, the the storyline in the movie, we do find out that, John Goebbels codename towards the end of the movie, we find out I think his codename was like James Howard. So it didn’t even go with wood there.

00:37:52:15 – 00:37:57:00
Dan LeFebvre
But do we know if John Scoble ever used a codename James Howard like we see in the movie?

00:37:57:22 – 00:38:09:17
Rob Hilliard
He he did not know or not. We don’t. Not in any time, as documented. Let’s put it that way. Okay? It’s not again, we don’t know his real name, so he might use some other name. Right?

00:38:09:19 – 00:38:11:14
Dan LeFebvre
John Scoble might have been the codename.

00:38:11:16 – 00:38:38:27
Rob Hilliard
Right. Exactly. Yeah, it could be exactly the opposite. So, yeah, if we go back into that vortex again. But, I did do a little digging, though, and there this is very tangential, but there was actually James Howard, who, was connected to the Pinkertons during the Civil War. He was a, Somebody who was working in.

00:38:38:27 – 00:39:01:24
Rob Hilliard
And I didn’t write this down. I should have, I can’t remember if he was a telegraph operator, or he was maybe an employee of the Telegraph. Company, living in Washington, DC at the outbreak of the war. But he was a Confederate sympathizer. Now, that is not at all unusual. There were hundreds of people who fit that description, and many of them became spies during the war.

00:39:02:05 – 00:39:34:06
Rob Hilliard
Howard did, in fact, become a spy. It was passing information that he learned in Washington, DC and sending it south to the Confederacy when he was identified by Pinkerton, Allan Pinkerton, and, ultimately, I think he was arrested. And, I think they actually just sent him south. I don’t think you jail, but, but anyway, that’s, you know, an interesting tie in.

00:39:34:06 – 00:39:55:26
Rob Hilliard
It’s weird because it’s kind of the opposite of of John Scoble. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. I mean, James Howard isn’t that unusual of a name that it might might land that I’m not? But, But you. No, that was not. There was. No, I guess I should be a little bit more specific. There was never a codename.

00:39:55:28 – 00:40:04:08
Rob Hilliard
Pinkerton never identified a code name that Scoble used during his time. As a as an undercover operative.

00:40:04:10 – 00:40:12:17
Dan LeFebvre
And, I mean, especially if we don’t even really know John Scoble. Then how would we start to know someone? Those other details. We don’t know the base thing.

00:40:12:19 – 00:40:18:16
Rob Hilliard
Yeah, if you’re already given a fictitious name, but why bother trying to get to some other fictitious name? So.

00:40:18:18 – 00:40:39:07
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I have to ask then, because, you know, a lot of movies do make up characters, and maybe you already answered this in the beginning when you were talking about how it was a more of a fictional story in the movie, but the main storyline in the movie revolves around Catherine Atherton and then the main bad guy is a guy named Colonel William Davis, and the only other person in the movie that I would call a main character.

00:40:39:07 – 00:40:53:20
Dan LeFebvre
Feel free to add more if you want, but it would be, Colonel Davis’s henchman, one of the guys named Frank Cooper, and I’m really kind of calling him a main character because he’s the one kind of going around trying to find the woods. And, he’s also recognized by John Scoble because of a huge scar on his face.

00:40:53:22 – 00:40:58:07
Dan LeFebvre
Do we know if any of those people were based on real people from history?

00:40:58:09 – 00:41:29:07
Rob Hilliard
Most likely not. Catherine Allerton is a fictional character. William Davis. Colonel William Davis, who was the Jesse he character? Was, he is a fictional character. I did do some digging just to after I missed on the wood thing. Then I’m like, man, I better all the way back there. But, there were actually a couple of Colonel William Davises in the Civil War on both sides.

00:41:29:10 – 00:41:49:17
Rob Hilliard
Interestingly, some for the Union and for the, Confederacy. But none of them. None of them fit the fit. The description of this character, they were like the war was in Massachusetts or from Massachusetts or whatever. And then, the other one never served in the West. He served in Georgia, if I remember, in the Confederacy.

00:41:49:17 – 00:41:52:00
Dan LeFebvre
So, again, just a popular name. It sounds.

00:41:52:03 – 00:42:17:17
Rob Hilliard
And, that’s a good segue, because Frank Cooper, speaking of popular names, I actually got on the, National Park Service website, and they have a say if anybody out there wants to find out about their ancestors in the Civil War or whatever, you go to the National Park Service, they have a, a subsection of their site where you can search Civil War records.

00:42:18:15 – 00:42:53:03
Rob Hilliard
And really useful, really helpful. So I search Frank Cooper, which proved to be kind of a mistake because there were 45,130 Frank Cooper’s or it was 1000 results. So that was kind of a fail. And then, I tried to narrow down a little bit, on the assumption that he was from Missouri, and we’ll get to the, the Kansas, Missouri, piece of story here in a bit, but I still got when I hit the Missouri, there were 2207 results for that super not section.

00:42:53:03 – 00:43:03:05
Rob Hilliard
So, yeah, again, I think Frank Cooper was just probably, you know, they threw a dart at a, at a name board and that’s the one they came up with.

00:43:03:05 – 00:43:10:02
Dan LeFebvre
So, I mean, that’s, it sounds like one of the bigger targets on the board for a random name. I mean, it’s a it’s a real name that a lot of people had.

00:43:10:02 – 00:43:31:09
Rob Hilliard
So probably absolutely correct. And there’s and there’s, you know, hundreds of variations. There’s, you know, Francis Cooper and then there’s just Frank Cooper and then was Frank Lynn Cooper. And of course, all of them turn up results. So, yeah, I think he was, he was I could tell he was just a fictional character.

00:43:31:11 – 00:43:52:06
Dan LeFebvre
Well, one of the core plot points in the movie revolves around Katherine’s husband, Caleb. It seems to know John Scoble when they were both spies for the Pinkertons. And speaking of the names, Caleb went by William Kirkwood when he was a spy. And so the very beginning of the movie, Caleb is killed, and then Katherine reaches out to Scoble to try to help track down her husband’s killers.

00:43:52:06 – 00:44:09:17
Dan LeFebvre
And that’s kind of the whole trail of vengeance from the title of the movie. How realistic is that concept of John Scoble being called to help the family of a former Pinkerton associate? They don’t seem to be in the Pinkertons now or in the timeline of the movie. But, you know, as a former associate.

00:44:09:19 – 00:44:43:18
Rob Hilliard
There’s no record that I found of anything like that happening. But I will say that it’s plausible. And the reason I say that is, Allan Pinkerton himself. And the agency, even after he was gone, after he passed away, were very big on loyalty. Amongst their agents and, and between them and, I’m sorry, amongst their agents and between Pinkerton and and the operatives.

00:44:44:17 – 00:45:12:22
Rob Hilliard
And just to give a couple of example, like there are a couple photos of that people can find online of, Pinkerton operatives during the Civil War, actually at the time of Civil War. And, there’s there’s actually one that I use in presentations where I’m talking about whether John Scoble was a real person or not, because they have all these people sat around a table, and there’s one black man seated in the center of the table where they’re all eating dinner together.

00:45:13:24 – 00:45:42:18
Rob Hilliard
And, and he’s kind of staring in the camera. I’m like, well, if he wasn’t a real person, then who was this guy? Right. But my point there is, they clearly all kind of hung out together and there’s a couple other pictures, like people maybe seeing pictures of certain units from the Civil War where everybody’s lined up in front of a tent and they’re all, you know, got their kind of, get the beards, go and, and and, nobody’s ever smiling because it.

00:45:42:19 – 00:46:04:15
Rob Hilliard
Yeah. Because it took so long to take a picture, but yeah, they’re all standing, puffed up. And so there’s a couple of pictures like that just of the Pinkertons. And so and then the other thing, the other really good example, this is, I mentioned Kate Warner earlier when she passed away, which was just a few years after the Civil War.

00:46:05:02 – 00:46:32:25
Rob Hilliard
Allan Pinkerton actually footing the bill for her funeral and her burial plot and paid for her headstone. And that’s people can still go see that today. It’s, sort of a morbid, I guess, tourist attraction or tourist site in Chicago or outside Chicago. So there was, like I said, they they really kind of bred this loyalty, between agents.

00:46:32:25 – 00:46:53:05
Rob Hilliard
And I mean, if you think about it. Right. Those are especially if you’re undercover, those are the only people you can depend on. They’re the only people who know your real story and who are going to have your back, and try and protect you when, when you know what hits the fan. And, so, I mean, it’s understandable, right?

00:46:53:05 – 00:47:00:04
Rob Hilliard
It would be not much different, I’m sure, from like, like I said earlier from the FBI or CIA today.

00:47:00:07 – 00:47:16:23
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, we see him with military, too. I mean, you see, I mean, I’ve seen in a lot of movies like, you know, you’re fighting alongside somebody right next to you and they’re the ones that have your back. So even after towards the end of the movie, the war is over, you know, and but they’re still they still have this camaraderie.

00:47:16:23 – 00:47:26:06
Dan LeFebvre
So it does make sense that, you know, during a War two, in the Civil War, these spies would have that sort of bond as well. That makes sense.

00:47:26:09 – 00:47:36:23
Rob Hilliard
Yeah. Yeah. So like I said, very much plausible. But there’s no, I wasn’t able to find any record of that having happened with other any other agents.

00:47:36:26 – 00:47:56:05
Dan LeFebvre
What is speaking of the Civil War, the movie wasn’t really clear about exactly what year it said. It just kind of suggests that it’s happening after the Civil War and after John squabbles time in the Pinkertons. So when Catherine goes to meet John Scoble for the first time in the movie, he’s staying in a place called Cades Cove, Tennessee.

00:47:56:07 – 00:48:07:27
Dan LeFebvre
And it it seems that he’s been there for a while since Catherine was able to track him down there after her husband is killed. Do we know if the real John Scoble lived in Cades Cove after his time in the Pinkertons?

00:48:08:00 – 00:48:34:02
Rob Hilliard
Unfortunately, and I, you know, I kind of already said this, but we we virtually know nothing of Scoble. Prior a little bit prior to the war. No real details, but we kind of where he came from and. And that he was a slave after the war. We know nothing. And that’s, Again, Pinkerton wrote the book later, and he was focused on.

00:48:34:02 – 00:48:53:18
Rob Hilliard
I mean, the title of his book was The Spy of the rebellion. So obviously that’s what he was talking about was the Civil War. He doesn’t mention anything about any of his operatives after the war, even though we have documentation that several of them did continue to work as Pinkerton agents after the war. But in the in the book, you know, he doesn’t get into that.

00:48:54:18 – 00:49:19:09
Rob Hilliard
So we don’t know that there is very much a real place called Cades Cove in Tennessee. Anybody who’s been to Great Smoky Mountain National Park probably knows about that, because it’s one of the major tourist attractions in the park. Gorgeous area. Can, you know, down the valley with the mountains behind it, but, yeah, we don’t know.

00:49:19:12 – 00:49:32:10
Rob Hilliard
You know, we don’t know Scoble live there. It’s against plausible that he might have, but, he might have because he lived in Butte, Montana. I mean, we really don’t know.

00:49:32:13 – 00:49:55:03
Dan LeFebvre
Fair point, fair point. During one of the conversations in the movie between John Scoble and Kathryn, we find there’s there’s a few clues that the dialog just kind of puts in there about John’s childhood. He mentions his dad’s name was John Armstrong. We don’t hear his mom’s name, but he talks about how she read to him from an Ethiopian Bible that they hid on their mattress while they were enslaved.

00:49:55:06 – 00:50:04:17
Dan LeFebvre
And then she died when he was just 12 years old. How well does the movie do, telling the bits and pieces that we know about John’s cobbles? Parents?

00:50:04:19 – 00:50:39:18
Rob Hilliard
Well, again, this was this was to me an interesting question, but for different reasons. So we don’t know anything about his parents. We know that, he was a slave in Mississippi prior to the war. The plantation that he lived on was owned by a guy named Scoble. And much like, you know, many slaves at the time, even after they got out of slavery, they adopted the surname of of the person around the the plantation and kept them, in slavery.

00:50:41:09 – 00:51:10:18
Rob Hilliard
And so that’s the that’s how Pinkerton presents it in the book that that he lived on the plantation of a guy who’s last Abel Scoble. The we like I said, we don’t know anything about his parents. What was it funny to me? Interesting to me is. And this is total coincidence. And maybe I should have started with at the very beginning, of our talk here that I don’t have any association with the movie.

00:51:11:19 – 00:51:39:01
Rob Hilliard
Other than the fact that we, you know, we have a character in common between the two things, but, like, I don’t know that anybody I don’t know the writers or director or any of those people. And and as far as I know, they don’t know anything about me either. So, the reason I say that now is, and the reason I find it interesting is totally coincidentally, we both chose to present very similar backgrounds for Scoble.

00:51:39:27 – 00:52:01:21
Rob Hilliard
So in my book, I talked about his parents, and I had, his mom passed away in childbirth. When when John was born. And then that his father lived, I think until I forget, I said he was, I got to check my notes. I you would think I would know this.

00:52:02:07 – 00:52:05:13
Dan LeFebvre
So I wrote it down. So you have to remember exactly like.

00:52:05:25 – 00:52:24:18
Rob Hilliard
I wrote it twice. I wrote it in the book, and then I saw it in my notes. But. So in my in my story, when John’s father passed away, when, John was six years old. So, as you just said, they had a somewhat similar story where his mother dies when he was young, and she’s not named in quotes in that way.

00:52:24:18 – 00:52:49:14
Rob Hilliard
She’s named in my book either. And, and then you know that his father kind of lives a little while longer, but, but the reality is, you know, we don’t know any of that stuff. I think it’s probably not a total coincidence that we both chose that little piece of the storyline, about his mother passing away.

00:52:49:14 – 00:53:26:22
Rob Hilliard
Because, as you might expect, the lifespan, people who were in slavery at that time was extraordinarily short, and for a whole variety of reasons. But, medical care wasn’t really a thing, for them. And, so if he got sick, if you were having a baby, if you were, if any little thing happened to you, not to mention the fact, you know, very poor nutrition, extraordinarily hard work and working conditions, you know, like, go on a run, but I’m sure you get the point.

00:53:27:09 – 00:53:46:06
Rob Hilliard
So it would it would not be at all unusual, for someone’s parents to to have died young and, so, like I said, probably not a total coincidence, but I just thought it was kind of odd. Kind of funny that, we ended up on a somewhat similar path, you know, totally unrelated to each other.

00:53:46:08 – 00:54:01:25
Dan LeFebvre
So you mentioned, Scoble being on a plantation whose name was Scoble. Have you ever done research to see if you could find, like, where that was and then kind of go from that direction to see if we can learn more about John Scoble or.

00:54:02:04 – 00:54:26:14
Rob Hilliard
Yes. The short answer is yes. And I wasn’t, wasn’t able to come up with anything from the name. And, there’s even I’m now I’m trying to remember this is, this is the, the tenuous line that a somebody who writes historical fiction falls into is when I think about these things, I can’t remember what’s actually true.

00:54:26:15 – 00:54:29:04
Rob Hilliard
When I moved up.

00:54:29:06 – 00:54:31:28
Dan LeFebvre
So it’s plausible. It must be true.

00:54:32:01 – 00:54:57:12
Rob Hilliard
Right. Exactly. And so I’d have to go back and look at the spy of the rebellion. Pinkerton’s book again. But I think there was a mention. I’m almost positive. No, I don’t think about it, that there’s a mention of a specific county in Mississippi. Although I don’t remember the name of it. Now. And and like I said, I went back and looked at, this is what I was researching the book.

00:54:57:12 – 00:55:22:19
Rob Hilliard
So this is, you know, pushing ten years ago now, but I looked at, troop regiment names, officer names from, you know, from the troops who were raised in those areas. Looked a little bit land ownership records in those areas. Didn’t see anything that, you know, that had the name Scoble in it. Which probably, again, just lends itself to the fact that he that Pinkerton fabricated that name.

00:55:22:19 – 00:55:34:07
Rob Hilliard
And, it might have been Cooper. For all we know, Frank Cooper was frank there with thousands of them. So, yeah, no. No way to tell.

00:55:34:09 – 00:55:58:00
Dan LeFebvre
Well, since we’re on the topic of of John was family, there are also some conversations in the movie where he talks about his wife and kids. He says he married a woman named Fanny Woodrow in 1859. They had a daughter named says Mary Armstrong. And then when she passed away, Fanny left with their son, John Armstrong Jr. And so that’s why, during the timeline of the movie, John Scoble is single.

00:55:58:02 – 00:56:02:01
Dan LeFebvre
Do we know anything about that? If that’s accurate?

00:56:02:03 – 00:56:33:25
Rob Hilliard
Not no, we don’t. So there’s, John John’s Goebbels wife, and I’m calling her that because she doesn’t. She’s not named. She gets, a whopping two sentences in Pinkerton’s book, The Spy of the rebellion. One saying that she existed and the other saying that she, took work in Richmond, Virginia. And that’s it. That’s all.

00:56:33:26 – 00:57:00:27
Rob Hilliard
That’s all we know about her. So. And and she is, again, we’re talking about a book was written in 83. Wouldn’t be very unusual for anybody, of any color or anything else, of a woman to be described as so-and-so’s wife, right? As opposed to using her her proper name. And that was, unfortunately for researchers of the 21st century, that was the approach that picker didn’t, chose.

00:57:00:27 – 00:57:13:27
Rob Hilliard
So, we don’t even we’ll know her first name, let alone her last name. You know, no indication of whether they had kids or not. So, that’s, you know.

00:57:14:00 – 00:57:36:27
Dan LeFebvre
One of those things we don’t know, which probably means I thought it was interesting that in the movie, they they called her Woodrow, which, you know, we’ve been talking about how there all these woods in it. So I was like, well, maybe she’s a spy, too. But of course, we don’t even really know much about her. Then we’re probably not going to know if she also was recruited by Pinkertons, although I would say this is just my assumption.

00:57:36:29 – 00:57:55:13
Dan LeFebvre
If Allan Pinkerton went to the length of at least mentioning that she existed, if she actually worked for him as a spy, I would assume there would be more information in there. But I might be. I mean, that’s just my assumption. Like maybe he would have said a little bit more about her.

00:57:55:15 – 00:58:21:13
Rob Hilliard
Yeah. Well, if if I would say, I think you’re you’re on the right track there. If she was spying for him during the Civil War, but that might not be true if she were working as a, Pinkerton detective after the Civil War. Right. And because, like I said, he basically drew a line and, and didn’t really talk about any of the operatives after the war.

00:58:22:18 – 00:58:33:11
Rob Hilliard
So and I’m not saying that to be coy. I’m just I’m just saying, you know, you’re right that if she was if she was actively spying on the Civil War, she would have certainly got a mentioned.

00:58:33:13 – 00:58:43:18
Dan LeFebvre
But it was after the Civil War that they started using the word codename. Right. So those two things then wouldn’t really my, my assumption would have been way out there.

00:58:43:20 – 00:58:49:03
Rob Hilliard
Yeah, I maybe, but you know, maybe the screenwriters were they might have been setting themselves up for a sequel there.

00:58:49:03 – 00:59:06:19
Dan LeFebvre
I don’t oh, there we go. We’re to see. Wait, you already talked about this a little bit. And there is a point in the movie where Catherine asks, well, how he met the Pinkertons, and he tells her that Mr. Pinkerton debriefed runaways and free slaves, and then recruited some of them to return back to the South as spies.

00:59:06:21 – 00:59:12:14
Dan LeFebvre
And I’m assuming then that’s how Scoble, the real John Scoble, was recruited into the Pinkertons.

00:59:12:17 – 00:59:36:19
Rob Hilliard
Yeah, that’s exactly right. In fact, I was, this was the scene that I was referencing earlier where he talks about how he’s recruiting. It is spot on. And then the only little wobble that you know, was in there, from my standpoint was when he talks about being in Richmond and when he says that he was, you know, he was captured with all of Webster and, and Lorton.

00:59:37:22 – 01:00:06:17
Rob Hilliard
So and again, that’s a completely forgivable one because that was, you know, kind of the accepted, backstory for Scoble. But, the just to get a little bit into the, the Pinkerton side of it here, he was, as I said before, he was a very staunch abolitionist, and felt very strongly about emancipation with that.

01:00:06:19 – 01:00:36:03
Rob Hilliard
He was one of, if not the first, people in the intelligence community. And that not includes, like Army intelligence or whoever else, to recognize that these slaves who were escaping and coming into Union line, there were largely slaves, not exclusively. There were some people who were free, people who were also coming across, but, they they were what became known as Contrabands.

01:00:36:06 – 01:01:05:22
Rob Hilliard
And that was the term that was used for slaves who came out of the South and into the North. They were legally considered to be contraband of war, meaning that, and it’s kind of a I always thought kind of a pretty sweet, twist of, legal interpretation where the, the Southerners, the Confederates felt that the slaves were property, right?

01:01:05:22 – 01:01:29:23
Rob Hilliard
They weren’t people. They were property. And so very early in the war, a couple of slaves came across, got onto the Union lines and, and the, after the skirmish that had happened, the Confederate, officer reached out to the Union officer and said, hey, I want my slaves back. And that Union officer happened to be Benjamin Butler, who was another staunch abolitionist of Massachusetts.

01:01:29:25 – 01:01:54:16
Rob Hilliard
But he was also a lawyer. And, and Butler said, well, not so fast if you’re saying that they’re not people, that they’re property and they were captured, effectively captured during a battle, then it would be no different than a cannon or a horse or a rifle. And I’m not giving you your cannon or your horses or your rifles back.

01:01:54:16 – 01:02:28:20
Rob Hilliard
So I’m not giving you your swing back either. And that’s where the in his sort of legal decision, as it were, on that, or his legal rationale, he actually used the terminology contraband of war. And then, within a month or so, President Lincoln recognized, of course, the strategic military value that beyond the human value of it and every, you know, basically every slave that came across, I mean, this is the basis of Emancipation Proclamation as well.

01:02:28:20 – 01:02:57:08
Rob Hilliard
But every slave who was not no longer working on a plantation or working wherever in the South was either that much less production for the South, or it meant that one more soldier or potential soldier for the Confederate army had to stay home and work, right. So he did way weaken the Confederate Army. And, so Lincoln adopted, that policy, across, you know, across the whole country.

01:02:57:10 – 01:03:39:29
Rob Hilliard
And so the slaves were coming across, therefore became those contrabands. And that became kind of a common, language even among the slaves themselves. And so Pinkerton was interviewing these people as they came over because, along with two federate deserters, Union P.O.W., who would either escaped or been released, because all of them had been just, you know, a lot of cases the day before or very shortly before on the other side of the skirmish line, and they would often know, what units were there, how many people were there, how much artillery was there?

01:03:39:29 – 01:04:00:15
Rob Hilliard
Was there a cavalry unit versus an infantry leader or whatever it might’ve been? So he was very deliberate about interviewing those people as they came across and gathering that intelligence to the best that he could, and then trying to to match it up with those we talked about earlier, try to match it up to confirm it, you know, with other sources.

01:04:01:00 – 01:04:23:07
Rob Hilliard
That was, as I said already, that was kind of where Picatinny fell apart in the in doing you did not do a very good job of that part. But but Scoble specifically, you know, he was part of that and he was interviewed as a contraband coming across. And, he made such an impression on Pinkerton.

01:04:24:18 – 01:04:39:12
Rob Hilliard
Mainly because he could read and write, which, of course, most slaves couldn’t, because it was illegal to teach. So to do so in most of the South, and I don’t remember. Do you remember if they mentioned that in the movie, the. Did Skomal say something about the.

01:04:39:15 – 01:04:46:23
Dan LeFebvre
I seem to recall something about that, but I don’t know if I’m, just making that up now off the top of my head. But.

01:04:46:25 – 01:04:51:13
Rob Hilliard
You’re starting to see more into my my into that I did I invent that or was that I.

01:04:51:16 – 01:05:09:25
Dan LeFebvre
I seem to recall something about that that was kind of one of the differentiating facts, but also the other part of that, too. And for, for people listening this if you, go listen to my chat with Rob where we talk about the Pinkertons, we also talk about John Scoble there, too. So that might also be where I’m pulling this from.

01:05:09:27 – 01:05:31:07
Rob Hilliard
That’s where, like I said, you’re following in my travels. Is that really real or did I just do that or did I write that? So, but anyway, yeah, it’s, that was a differentiator is that he could read and write. I just couldn’t remember if it’s I feel like the maybe he said that quickly in the movie, but yeah, I’d like to like you.

01:05:31:07 – 01:06:05:16
Rob Hilliard
I’m not actually positive. So, but he did make such a really strong impression on Pinkerton. And I mentioned, the CIA officer earlier who had done some research into this, and I talked to him, interviewed him when I was preparing my book. And he he used a phrase that I really liked. He said, if if he if Pinkerton had been talking to Scoble today, and debriefing him as a, as a contraband, what would have impressed Pinkerton would have been his street smarts.

01:06:05:19 – 01:06:37:18
Rob Hilliard
And they didn’t use the phrase street smarts as a modern phrase. Not, you know, not one would have been used in the 1800s, but, it it conveys the idea. Right? He was he was very sharp. He understood he pick things up quickly, understood what was going on. Yeah. He could read and write, but he was also somebody who Pinkerton immediately saw could, to use Pinkerton terminology, assume a role, in and be able to go undercover and, and gather intelligence and import it back.

01:06:37:23 – 01:06:45:12
Rob Hilliard
So it takes a special person to do that. And Pinkerton recognized right away, let’s go boys, was somebody who could do it successfully.

01:06:45:15 – 01:07:11:11
Dan LeFebvre
It takes a special kind of person to be willing to do that, especially, you know, if it’s covert. I can’t imagine being in the position of, you know, being finally getting to freedom. And then there’s this job that will take you back. And I’m correct me if I’m wrong. I would assume that he did have a choice in that matter, and he chose then to go back and actually work instead of just running away.

01:07:11:13 – 01:07:54:07
Rob Hilliard
Well. Pinkerton is not explicit on that point. Okay, so, excuse me. My word. Careful here. For a couple reasons. One of them, you know, I’m tiptoeing around spoilers for my book, but, but the, Pinkerton was notoriously as a person. All about the job. And so I mentioned earlier, and he was very loyal to his operatives, which is true, but I don’t think anybody would have described him as like, a kindly boss.

01:07:54:16 – 01:07:54:25
Rob Hilliard
That’s.

01:07:54:28 – 01:07:56:26
Dan LeFebvre
The results, it sounds like.

01:07:56:29 – 01:08:30:28
Rob Hilliard
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And like I said, it doesn’t mean that he wasn’t. He wasn’t loyal and that he didn’t care for his people. But, as you said, he was all about results. So I think he recognized, that opportunity was Scoble and and that he was somebody who would be uniquely positioned. And I probably should also touch on the fact that, that idea of using people who were uniquely positioned was not foreign to Pinkerton because he was the first to employ female detectives in the US, maybe in the world.

01:08:31:00 – 01:08:31:18
Dan LeFebvre
That weren’t.

01:08:31:24 – 01:08:33:08
Rob Hilliard
Him. Oh, sorry.

01:08:33:08 – 01:08:37:14
Dan LeFebvre
Go ahead. No, I was going to say like, hey, Warren, that we’ve mentioned that earlier. Yeah.

01:08:37:16 – 01:08:59:03
Rob Hilliard
Yeah. And so she was the first female detective that he hired and the first female detective anybody hired. But then after that, he actually built, I think he called the Women’s Bureau or Women Detective Bureau or something like that. Recognizing that they could you know, do things and get access to information and go places that men couldn’t, particularly in the 19th century.

01:08:59:21 – 01:09:24:09
Rob Hilliard
So the idea then of using a black man’s ability to do those things, is maybe just a little bit of a tangent off of, the idea of using a woman as a detective or a spy at that time. So, it wouldn’t have been. I guess what I’m trying to get at is it would have been a totally foreign concept for him to do that.

01:09:24:25 – 01:09:33:00
Rob Hilliard
Now, to your point about,

01:09:33:02 – 01:09:55:19
Rob Hilliard
Motivation. I always feel like. And this is really why I’m, I’m kind of choosing my words carefully. In my book, as you know, from reading it, I embedded a little bit more motivation into the reason for doing this. And, I’ll kind of, if you’ll indulge me, I’ll kind of do a little another little quick tangent here.

01:09:55:19 – 01:10:32:03
Rob Hilliard
But in the in the spy in the intelligence community, they talk about the reasons that people become spies and they use the acronym Mice, Mickey. And the reasons are money. Ideology, C coercion and E ego. Okay. Ego, the classic example that would be, from stripping a gear. The famous traitor during the Revolutionary War.

01:10:32:05 – 01:10:33:25
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, Benedict Arnold.

01:10:33:28 – 01:11:07:15
Rob Hilliard
The. Thank you for all my my work. I can think of his wife’s name in this movie. Her. Yeah, but Arnold passed over for promotion. You know, got pissed off at his superiors, and really, it was ego. So the classic example there, he he became, you know, traitor, spy for for the other side, ideology is, like, James Howard, I mentioned earlier, he was a Confederates sympathizer who happened to be living in the North in the capital, Washington, DC.

01:11:07:17 – 01:11:43:09
Rob Hilliard
But his ideology lay with the other side. So he spied and passed information to to the other side of the Confederacy. In that case, money. That’s pretty straightforward, right? Your pile of cash. If it’s big enough, you turn target tables. Coercion, though, can take many forms. And I chose to present score wars story with, a form of coercion, as, you know, his motivation.

01:11:43:25 – 01:12:07:16
Rob Hilliard
No, I think it would be in real life. Certainly a combination of ideology. Right. He he he was a good man. He certainly would have wanted to he wanted to be free himself so that he could have done to help free other black people. You know, there had to be some part of his motivation, be that, you know, how much percent ideology, how much percent coercion.

01:12:07:16 – 01:12:09:12
Rob Hilliard
Remember, we don’t even know the guy’s name.

01:12:09:12 – 01:12:12:07
Dan LeFebvre
Well, right. That’s going to say so.

01:12:12:07 – 01:12:43:24
Rob Hilliard
Yeah, but I always feel a little bit guilty, in my mind, because he might have been, he might have been that guy who was just like, you know what? I’m doing this because it’s the right thing. And doing it for, you know, to use that, that might terminology, doing it for ideology exclusively. I chose for reasons that have nothing to do with him or his personality or anything else, and everything to do with writing and kind of building a fictional story.

01:12:43:26 – 01:13:08:19
Rob Hilliard
I chose to blend in a little bit of, coercion, storyline in there. Because, frankly, because it made him a more interesting character. If you’re, you know, if you’re the the person who’s just always does things because it’s the right thing to do, if you’re always the upright, you know, person, like, you always know you’re gonna do the right thing, for the right reasons.

01:13:10:07 – 01:13:44:04
Rob Hilliard
You strangely, ironically, I guess, become a less interesting character, from a storytelling standpoint. So, so anyway, again, very long winded answer to, to your question there, but, it still doesn’t matter how you slice that. What he did was unquestionably extraordinarily courageous, extraordinarily heroic. There wasn’t you know, to your original point there, there was nothing forcing him to do it.

01:13:44:21 – 01:14:07:23
Rob Hilliard
So he did have some, you know, some freewill choice there. And, and he chose to do, frankly, probably the most frightening thing possible, which is not only risking his life, but his freedom and and probable torture and like every bad thing you can possibly think of, he risked all those things to become a spy.

01:14:07:23 – 01:14:30:23
Dan LeFebvre
So which tells you you kind of some a bit about who he who he was as a person to that he would even do that. But, before I go to the next question, I will say that that was a good job working around your, little plot line there. But, if somebody’s watching this, go pick up Rob’s book to find out that little nugget and that little plot line there.

01:14:31:00 – 01:14:57:21
Dan LeFebvre
But if we go back to this movie, one of the core plot points in the movie revolves around this, this massacre. And I mentioned, Colonel William Davis before, and we never see the massacre in the movie because it’s before the timeline. But the biggest clue that I saw in the movie is, I think it’s about an hour or so into the movie, and there’s a singular mention to something called the Quantrill Massacre, where men, women and children were killed in Lawrence, Kansas, and then the woods knew about it, according to the movie.

01:14:57:27 – 01:15:16:21
Dan LeFebvre
So that’s why in the movie’s timeline, Colonel Davis is now running for a seat in the Senate, and he kind of wants to hide that he was involved in this massacre. And so that seems to be his motivation for hiring hitmen to track down the woods and kill them. Is there any truth to the movie’s telling of this massacre?

01:15:16:24 – 01:15:40:29
Rob Hilliard
Yeah, the the massacre itself was absolutely true. And, it was, I mean, it was national news. It was extremely well known. I wasn’t like you. I think I wasn’t totally clear because it was so. Well known why he was trying to like, I’m not. Either I missed it or maybe it just wasn’t totally well explained.

01:15:40:29 – 01:15:52:14
Rob Hilliard
But why? Colonel Davis was worried about being associated with the massacre. Unless it was. The implication, I think, was that he had somehow ordered it or planned it.

01:15:52:16 – 01:16:01:29
Dan LeFebvre
That was the impression I got was he was basically responsible for it, and now he’s trying to get a seat in the Senate and he’s not going to get votes. If that was the impression I got from the when the movie explained. Yeah.

01:16:02:02 – 01:16:25:04
Rob Hilliard
Yeah. So anyway, I’m, I like to swing back around to that at the end, but just to give me the facts and figures here on, the, this is one of those, some of your listeners may know a lot of Civil War battles had two names, and that was because the newspapers in the South, used, I’m trying remember, the right way.

01:16:25:08 – 01:16:45:10
Rob Hilliard
They use stream names. And then the northern newspapers tended to use, like the closest, the closest town to it or mine on the backwards. But anyway, so you’ll see, like Manassas and Bull Run, it’s the same battle to the. This one, has two different names, but it depended on which side of the line you were sitting on.

01:16:45:10 – 01:17:16:27
Rob Hilliard
So if you were, southern sympathizer or specifically in Missouri, it was called quantiles raid. If you were a northern sympathizer, or in Kansas, it was called the Lawrence massacre. So take your pick. But it was very real event. It happened on August 21st, 1863. And the specifics of it are that a group of raiders, or again, prioritized.

01:17:16:29 – 01:17:43:12
Rob Hilliard
You’re on they were also known as bushwhackers, which is a term that we talked about in the, talked about the Pinkertons, or or guerrillas. So Cantrell’s raiders were about 400 men rode into Kansas and basically just started shooting people and then, and let the town on fire. So they killed somewhere between 160 and 190 people.

01:17:43:23 – 01:18:07:10
Rob Hilliard
All of those were civilians. They were not this was not soldiers versus soldiers, which is what made it, so terrible, what made national news. Some of those were, free blacks who lived in, in Lawrence at the time. And part of what precipitated this, I mean, this is like a you could put somebody probably does teach a whole college course on this.

01:18:07:10 – 01:18:34:18
Rob Hilliard
So I’m not going to give it justice even close. But, Kansas was a free state. Missouri was a slave state. That was the, Missouri compromise that you may or may not have learned about in history class where you’re in high school. And but Lawrence, specifically within Kansas, was known for a long time as kind of a bastion of, anti-slavery, kind of a stronghold of anti-slavery.

01:18:34:21 – 01:18:59:03
Rob Hilliard
And so there were a lot of free box there. So when controls man rode in, they were specifically, looking for black people, mostly black men, but black people who they were, shooting. And then, then they’d beyond that, though, of course, they killed many whites as well. I don’t I wasn’t able to find a breakdown of how many of you trace.

01:18:59:03 – 01:19:27:03
Rob Hilliard
It doesn’t matter. They killed almost 200 people. And burned most of the town to the ground. So, so what precipitated that? Again, this has been going back and forth for a couple of years, even prior to the war. And and then during the war, the Kansas regiments that were known as the Jayhawks, which had a college for both the and so, college sports fans will recognize that name for University of Kansas today.

01:19:27:22 – 01:19:53:11
Rob Hilliard
They conducted race in the Missouri prior to this, 1863 raid. And, so and that was really back and forth. I mean, the Missouri, the Bushwhackers were coming across and killing people, killing soldiers. A lot of this was, as I said, guerrilla warfare kind of back and forth, not, not organized set piece battles like we picture in the East.

01:19:54:07 – 01:20:21:02
Rob Hilliard
And that actually gave, rise to the term bleeding Kansas and, that was used widely in newspapers at the time. But it gives you an indication of just how bad it really was. One other thing to note. There is about a week before the Lawrence raid, there was, a Union prison in Kansas City where they were holding, Confederate, mostly women.

01:20:21:04 – 01:20:49:28
Rob Hilliard
And, they were, as you might expect, many of them were relatives of the bushwhackers. And tragically, the building collapsed, that it really knew what caused that. It wasn’t it wasn’t deliberate, but it collapsed and it killed five women. And among these, one was the sister of a guy known as bloody Bill Henderson, who was the most famous or infamous of Charles Raiders.

01:20:50:01 – 01:21:19:12
Rob Hilliard
And, and then another woman who was a cousin of Cole Younger. He later rode with, and Rob banks with just jacked. So that all and actually, speaking of Jesse James, he certainly had associations with, Raiders and probably was one of them may not have been present at the Lawrence massacre. But he definitely was part of that guerrilla.

01:21:19:22 – 01:21:24:13
Rob Hilliard
It was brother, brother Frank. Both were part of those guerrilla, outfits.

01:21:24:16 – 01:21:29:21
Dan LeFebvre
And that must have been then how they got connected to be the James Younger gang.

01:21:29:23 – 01:22:00:27
Rob Hilliard
Exactly. That’s exactly right. And, so the reason I mentioned the the prison collapse is that might have been part of the motivation for the attack on Lawrence because, you know, kind of a revenge factor. But there were at this point, by 1863, several years worth of, extremely bloody incidents that also prevented it. So, but because that was just the week before, it may have been, you know, it might have been the immediate, the straw that broke the camel’s back.

01:22:00:27 – 01:22:24:08
Dan LeFebvre
It’s also well, at the end of the movie, there’s there’s a final showdown for Katherine’s Trail of vengeance. Throughout the movie, she kills Zeke, who is one of the other, hitmen for Colonel Davis. Accidentally shoots Scoble from the long distance. Shot through the window seem to be aimed at Frank, but. And then she does get closer and actually shoots Frank in the head to kill him.

01:22:24:14 – 01:22:48:23
Dan LeFebvre
She also shoots Colonel Davis point blank range in a showdown with him. And then the movie ends by implying that she thought John Scoble was killed by her accidental shot. But then the movie fast forwards. Many years later, and the very end of the movie we see John Scoble is alive as he’s watching Katherine and her now son Caleb Junior from afar.

01:22:48:26 – 01:22:52:24
Dan LeFebvre
How historically accurate is the way the movie ends?

01:22:52:26 – 01:23:10:15
Rob Hilliard
Well, it’s, I’m not going to pick it apart because it’s a fictional story in an official, so, it’s not. Yeah. And other than Scoble and all the characters he mentioned there were made up for the purposes of the film, so I can’t say, you know, entirely accurate.

01:23:10:15 – 01:23:11:21
Dan LeFebvre
Just not historically.

01:23:11:24 – 01:23:39:17
Rob Hilliard
Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They can basically, it’s their story. They can end in any way they want. Yeah, yeah. The, the, the one thing, that, as I said, we were watching this, my wife and son and I were watching, and, when Catherine picks up the Henry rifle and she’s kind of aiming in the window, and, as you said, it was kind of a long distance shot, and I might have even said it out loud.

01:23:39:17 – 01:23:59:03
Rob Hilliard
I certainly thought it. I’m like, she’s going to shoot Scoble if she takes that shot. And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. So, of course I was very offended at that, since he’s he’s my guy. I didn’t wanna see him shot. But, but, yeah, at the end, you know, they did show, as any good, heroic character.

01:23:59:03 – 01:24:22:08
Rob Hilliard
Does he? He survived it. He pulled through. So, but, yeah, I’ve touched on this previously, but we don’t know anything about, what happened was go after the war. We don’t, you know, we don’t know how long you live where he lived. Anything like, we don’t know if he got shot in the chest and bounced back from it.

01:24:22:09 – 01:24:36:10
Rob Hilliard
And it came back to check on her or not. So, yeah, like I said, it’s it’s a, you know, a fictional story and a fictional ending. So there, it was up to the writers to decide how they wanted to make that one play out.

01:24:36:12 – 01:24:57:01
Dan LeFebvre
I felt like maybe, maybe, maybe they will do a sequel to this, but I felt like when they were talking about his wife, I almost assumed at the end. But when I was watching The end there, I was like, oh, he’s going to reunite with his wife somewhere or something like that, and it’s going to be, you know, him kind of having a happily ever after, I guess.

01:24:57:01 – 01:25:05:13
Dan LeFebvre
I didn’t really expect him to come back and find Catherine randomly after that. But I guess that’s, you know.

01:25:05:15 – 01:25:08:14
Rob Hilliard
Like I said, they can make any ending they, they want. That’s their movie.

01:25:08:14 – 01:25:32:12
Dan LeFebvre
So that’s true. Well, as we wrap up our discussion today, I would like to shift from the movie storyline to another storyline. We talked about a little bit featuring John Scoble. I’m talking course about your historical novel called In Freedom Shadow. There’s a link in the show notes, and as a quick tangent of my own, I know there are people in my audience who work in the feature film industry, so if that’s you, I will highly recommend reaching out to Rob to turn in Freedom Shadow into a movie.

01:25:32:12 – 01:25:37:14
Dan LeFebvre
That would be a fantastic movie. But, before I let you go, Rob, can you give us an overview of your book?

01:25:37:16 – 01:26:03:28
Rob Hilliard
Sure. It’s, I feel like I’ve already kind of done that a little bit, and I don’t want to I don’t want to bore anybody by repeating it, but, it does. It takes the the bit, the we know, the true story about John Scoble from Pinkerton’s book and, lays that on the broader context of what was going on in the Civil War, in the Civil War at that time.

01:26:04:25 – 01:26:25:07
Rob Hilliard
I love bashing Pinkerton as a as a writer. I’ll know one more time here before we wrap up, but what, another criticism that I’m the only one who has this that people have. And reading him is everything seem to happen in isolation. So it was like, well, you know, they were doing this in Richmond during this time period.

01:26:25:07 – 01:27:02:01
Rob Hilliard
And it’s like, well, the Richmond was virtually under attack in the spring of 18. So, by, by the Northern Army during the Peninsula Campaign. And he I don’t think the words Peninsula campaign actually appear in his book. And so anyway, point of all that is, I tried to take that the true story as kind of the backbone of the book and, and then build it into something that looks at the larger context of what was going on and, and puts a little more meat on the bones to tell Scoble story.

01:27:03:00 – 01:27:28:07
Rob Hilliard
And really fleshed out, and, you know, are already talked about this a little bit, but try to get into what were his motivations, why might he have done some of these things? A couple of these people who get just a word or two mention, in Pinkerton’s, story or, the whole Carrie lot, Patty lot and thing.

01:27:28:07 – 01:27:56:24
Rob Hilliard
Like, who was Carrie Latin and what did she do? Why did she do it? And how did she interact with Scoble? There’s very little of that. Almost none in Pinkerton’s book. So try to build, a larger, fuller story. Fictional course, because we don’t know, what what actually happened between those lines. But, I try to fill in some of the, some of the space in between with, with that story.

01:27:56:26 – 01:28:00:13
Dan LeFebvre
And make sure to add a link to that in the show notes. Thanks again so much for your time, Rob.

01:28:00:29 – 01:28:15:06
Rob Hilliard
I appreciate you having me back on. I wasn’t expecting it would be this soon, but we didn’t know that, Trail of Vengeance was coming out and that it was going to feature, John Scoble, that he was going to pop up in, in pop culture so soon. So, yeah, thanks very much.

01:28:15:09 – 01:28:32:04
Dan LeFebvre
Actually, one I do have one, since you mentioned that, since you were just on we talked about the Pinkertons and now a Trail of Vengeance. Would you say that? Which one would you say does a better job of portraying John Scoble and the Pinkertons? He’s not even named Scoble. He’s John Bell. And we’ve talked about both a little bit.

01:28:32:04 – 01:28:35:24
Dan LeFebvre
Do you think Trail of Vengeance did a better job bringing John’s Gospel to life?

01:28:36:03 – 01:28:56:22
Rob Hilliard
I think they did. I mean, in fairness to the writers of the Pinkertons and I know, I, I know I lit into them pretty good when we, when we did this earlier episodes, for their complete disregard for facts. But they, you know, as you said, they didn’t name their character John Scoble. They called him John Bell.

01:28:57:10 – 01:29:40:10
Rob Hilliard
And I think in retrospect, part of the reason for that might have been that because, well, if we’re not tied to this character, no, we that to be tied to his real life storyline, either we can kind of go off whatever direction we want, which they assuredly did. Let it but as I said earlier in this interview, you know, kudos to, to Trail Vengeance for and the writers and the director for, really toeing the line on the, on the Scoble story and, and sticking to, like I said before, almost verbatim, you know, what we know about about Scoble from, from Pinkerton’s work.

01:29:40:13 – 01:29:52:18
Dan LeFebvre
It’s it’s just fascinating that we we don’t know much. So there’s going to be you’re you’re almost going to have to have a story like this that’s made up because we don’t know much. But it is great to hear that what we do know. They did a good job.

01:29:52:20 – 01:30:09:07
Rob Hilliard
Yeah, yeah. And as I said, the I can’t criticize him because I did the exact same thing. Right? I took what was known and filled in the gaps in between. They took a different approach by taking that character and fast forwarding him a few years past the end of Civil War and then creating a story around him there.

01:30:09:07 – 01:30:23:12
Rob Hilliard
But still, you know, having some touch points back to those known, to the known facts. So, you know, two different approaches. But like you said, when they’re so little known, if you’re going to tell a story and have them in there, you got to have something to tell.

01:30:23:14 – 01:30:25:28
Dan LeFebvre
Thanks again so much for your time round.

01:30:26:01 – 01:30:33:23
Rob Hilliard
Appreciate you having me on, Dan. Thanks very much as always.

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.