I’ve always been fascinated by the 1908 baseball story involving Fred Merkle of the New York Giants.
Also, the wartime invention of spead spectrum by Hedy Lamarr – which would sort of be like if Pamela Anderson devised a technology that tracked down Bin Ladin, and then became a bag lady in her later life.
I have no idea whether either story would translate well to the screen (or for that matter, has been done already).
I remember a mini-series on A&E about the Borgias. Lucrezia was portrayed as being more sinned against than sinning. And Cesare was a fierce and ruthless character.
F. U. Shakespeare writes:
> Also, the wartime invention of spead spectrum by Hedy Lamarr
> – which would sort of be like if Pamela Anderson devised a
> technology that tracked down Bin Ladin, and then became a
> bag lady in her later life.
Not quite. Spread spectrum technology didn’t become useful till the '60’s when electronic control of radio frequency became common, just after the patent for the basic idea (co-invented by Lamarr) ran out. The proposal that Lamarr made required a mechanical implementation of the control of frequency, and that just wouldn’t work. (The interesting thing about spread spectrum is that inventing it didn’t take a very detailed knowledge of radio, just a general knowledge of it and one brilliant insight.) She was unlucky enough to propose a good idea twenty years before it could be put into practice. Do you have a cite that says that Lamarr became a bag lady or anything close to it?
Hey, I said ‘sorta’ – I’m sure Hollywood could take care of those pesky details. 
Oh, and apparently the two shoplifting arrests were less damning than I recalled.
Ibid, the last part of my previous message.
I think the biblical (but most would agree historical) story of King Josiah would make an excellent tragic drama.
The downfall of the Knights Templar brought about by King Phillip the Fair and Pope Clement V during the Avignon Papacy. Politcal backstabbing; greed; accusations of witchcraft, devil worship, heresy, and sodomy; Inquisition-style torture and kangaroo court trials, burning at the stake, and the possibly fictional challenge Jacques de Molay made at the stake to Phillip and Clement to meet him before the throne of God within one year. Clement died one month later, Phillip five months later.
A factual account of William Quantrill and his band of Civil War guerillas/cutthroats/criminals/murderers including The James Brothers and “Bloody” Bill Anderson.
A biopic of famous actor/madman Klaus Kinski. Although anything similar to his book All I Need Is Love would be certain to get an NC-17 rating.
A biopic of Irish president Eamon de Valera.
The battle and siege between the French Foreign Legion and the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu.
A biopic of Phillip K. Dick, dealing with his unusual literary career, multiple marriages, drug problems and mental illness. This would probably take it out of the realm of straight biography, but telling the story from his perspective would be a challenge to pull off especially with his religious and extraterrestial fixations and dellusions.
I second P. K. Dick- if his real life was anything like the semi-autobiographical ‘Crap Artist’ it would be a dead cert for Nicholas Cage-
who would be pretty good as Borgia too, who died, IIRC, after breaking his ankle escaping from a castle.
Sci-fi worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
I love the dramas and films based on English history. I even went so far as to write two dramas myself. I’d redo them today, of course. But I think they’d make great drama.
The Peasant’s Revolt of 1381. Wat Tyler’s rebellion. Wat and John Ball and his men actually succeeded in driving the King and his government out of London briefly, before the King and company violated parley to kill and capture the leaders. Powerful stuff.
Jady Jane Gray. Queen of England for 9 days. Not her idea, and the people themselves were against her (even then, the people still helped determine the succession by their acquiescence). I know that there was a film done with Cary Elwes and Patrick Stewart, but I’m very sure, having researched it myself, that they got the facts and characters wronf. Guilford Dudley was no Cary Elwes.
I think there’s immense scope for early American history – not enough drama has centered on the first half of the nineteenth century, when the Republic was young and the rules were still being set. Heck, duels played a part in shaping American History at that point. Things could be both educational and dramatic.
I second the Paris Commune of 1871.
Has anyone ever done a movie of Savonarola and the Florentine Republic?
John Ruskin’s life would also make for a good, if rather sad, movie.
The story of Queen Boodica and the revolt against the Romans. Little known story, but enough data to make an historically acurate movie. Loads of drama!
Celestine V was the only pope known to voluntarily abdicate the papacy. His five-month reign is a very short and sad story, which I’ve endeavoured to explain in a MPSIMS thread. Incidentally, today (19 May) is his feast day.
Another good candidate would be Kaspar Hauser. In 1828 a young man appeared in Nuremberg dressed in peasant’s garb. He was barely able to speak, walk, or even see in the bright light of day. It was later revealed that he had spent most of his life locked in a tiny cell with no light, deprived of all human contact. He was never able to identify his captors, who had taught him to write his name and to say a few basic phrases shortly before they released him and abandoned him in Nuremberg. Suspicions that Kaspar was the true heir to an usurped throne were intensified after both he and the famous detective investigating his case were apparently assassinated (in separate incidents).
Aw, c’mon. I trust your analysis of the story is good, but when I read that I laughed my a$$ off.
(in other commentary)
The Kaspar Hauser story has been done at least twice, once about 10 years ago (Kaspar Hauser), and once about 30 years ago with a lovely title of Every Man for Himself and God Against All.
I am interested in the strange career of Laszló IV (1262-1290), known as Kun Laszló, the “bad boy” of the Hungarian monarchy. He was supposed to be a Christian monarch, but instead he hung out and partied with the pagan Cumans (a Turkic people that had been driven west from the steppes by the Mongol invasion and they wound up in Hungary). I’d like to see a movie about his relationship with the Cumans and how they influenced his reign. His mother was a Cuman. He loved them … but yet … they were the ones that murdered him. He debauched his dalliance with the Cuman women while he neglected his Christian queen. According to one report, he had sexual intercourse with a Cuman woman while holding a royal council of state.
Man, Laszló must have been some party animal. However, the respectable Hungarian historians are embarrassed to admit he even existed. He was assassinated by the people he loved. Seems to me that a film about him would be a fascinating cinematic experience.
I would love to see this. If poor Jane’s story was told truthfully, I think modern audiences would leave the theater in tears of outrage.
As you can see from all of my posts in this thread, I’m a Tudor buff. So many wonderful stories! I can’t believe they’ve been so neglected.
Ludwig II (“Mad King Ludwig”) of Bavaria. Troubled childhood. King at 18. A dissapointed romantic idealist. Likely gay. Built cool castles. Loved opera. Eccentric. Reclusive. Declared insane for political reasons. Died under mysterious circumstances. Could be turned into a pretty moving film I think, a tragedy or a mystery, or perhaps a schlocktacular costume drama, take your pick.
I know Ludwig’s been the subject of plenty of German books, an opera, and I hear a yaoi manga too, but aside from one computer game (Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within) there’s been little about him done in English except for a couple of bios.
Ooh, I was just going to mention poor Ludwig! He was also a cousin of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, who was also somewhat mad-it ran in the Wittelsbach family. She would also make a good subject for a movie! I think there was a German one about her.
She was outrageously beautiful, but extremely unhappy, and probably bipolar. She was assassinated in 1898. Her husband was Emperor Franz Josef, who declared war on Serbia in 1914.
A real biopic about Vlad the Impaler, that isn’t centered on him being a vampire-but an actual historical drama.
The Johnstown flood of the 1880s, in Johnstown, PA would also be fantastic!
Oh, and actually Lamia, poor Ludwig probably WAS insane. He complained of hearing voices as a child. It wasn’t just political reasons-he was bankrupting the country with his castles and tormented his staff with his childish escapades. His brother, King Otto, who succeeded him, was even worse-he was just a gigantic child and their cousin ruled as Regent during Otto’s entire reign, because all the poor man did was play with toys and cry.
Like I said, the Wittelsbach family had a long history of mental illness.
I’d like to see a good Benedict Arnold miniseries
I’m not an expert by any means, but didn’t Pope Benedict IX abdicate as well? He was a party animal himself – called the “child pope”, he was actually in his twenties when his daddy’s money and political clout put him on the throne of Peter. While he hosted wild bisexual orgies in the Lateran palace, his brothers roamed the streets and harrassed Roman citizens. Benedict was rumored to be into bestiality and heresy, among other things, and supposedly practiced Satanism (!). He was driven out in 1044, and a new pope was elected, but Benedict returned a year later and regained his position. An apparently bored Benedict sold the papacy later that year to his godfather so he could marry his cousin and settle down to raise little perverts. He died in obscurity in 1055.
Speaking of which, another good subject would be Benedict’s great-great-great-grandmother, Marozia. Probably the truth behind the old story of “Pope Joan”, Marozia was born into the Italian nobility and was apparently a piece of work even as a girl – she was accused of killing her nanny by pushing her down a flight of stairs. Her mother, Theodora, was already notorious as the lover of the future Pope John X. Marozia seduced Pope Sergius III when she was 15 and bore his son, the future John XI. She then married Alberic of Camerino and they had a son. After Sergius and her husband died, she remarried to Guido, Duca di Lucca, and they conspired together to seize power. Marozia and Guido had her mother’s lover, Pope John X, smothered with a pillow, and placed her son in the Lateran palace.
This is where things get complicated (like they weren’t already!). Guido dies, so Marozia decides to marry his half-brother, King Ugo of Italy. He was already married, but her son John XI handed over an annulment quickly enough. At their wedding feast, Ugo slapped her other son, Alberic (from her first marriage) and called him clumsy. An angry Alberic stormed from the party, gathered together a mob, and returned to attack the castle where his mother and new stepfather were staying. Ugo shimmed out the window on a bed sheet and escaped, but Alberic had his mother and half-brother thrown into prison. He drove Ugo’s troops from the city and knocked up Ugo’s daughter (his own stepsister!) for good measure. Alberic ruled Rome as a dictator for many years until his death in 954, when his son became the notorious dissolute Pope John XII.
Pope John XII got brained with a hammer by an angry husband, and Emperor Otto II invaded Italy. He found Marozia still in prison, and deciding she was too evil to live, had her exorcized and executed. Marozia’s legacy lived on, though – she was the lover of one pope, the mother of another, grandmother of another, great-great-grandmother to two more, and great-great-great-grandmother of one last. Quite the lady (and I use that term loosely).
.:Nichol:.