You ignorant slut.
Very good suggestion, I would watch the shit out of that movie.
It’s really fascinating to contemplate the extent to which much of the 1870s USA seemed to be poised to just accept racial equality as a done deal. “Slavery was a horrible evil, now we’ve fixed it, we’re all just Americans together, let’s get to work.” Of course that totally ignores the persistence and pervasiveness of anti-Black racism in various forms throughout American society, but my point is that there were so many white people who were fine with just openly renouncing and denouncing it.
The racially integrated political parties like the Readjuster Party in Virginia, the election of Black officeholders at all levels, the multiracial farmer coalitions: it was remarkable. Then the Democrats and other white-supremacist organizations of the era got to work with their Black suppression efforts, via legislation and terrorism, and “slavery lite” became the national norm for nearly the next century.
I can’t think of even one significant feature film that focuses on these developments in US history, though apparently there’s a documentary series.
Hollywood could do a lot worse than making a biopic of Robert Smalls. Here’s a man born into slavery, who worked around the docks and ships of Charleston, S.C., eventually becoming a helmsman (in all but name, since enslaved people weren’t permitted the title.)
During the Union blockade of Charleston Harbor in 1862, he straight up stole a Confederate ship, the C.S.S. Planter, with the help of its black crew. Stopped to pick up his family, and the crew’s, then put on the uniform and straw hat the Planter’s captain usually wore, steamed past five Confederate forts. The last one was Fort Sumter, the most heavily-armed and dangerous one; the crew begged Smalls to steer wide of the fort, but he argued thst doing so would seem suspicious. So he calmly steered the usual course, and when challenged, responded with the correct signals, then waited several nervewracking minutes until the fort cleared him to proceed. He then and made his way out to the Union blockade, where he surrendered the Planter, giving the Navy four artillery pieces, 200 pounds of ammunition, and - most valuable of all - the Confederate Navy codebook and maps of the harbor and its defenses. Smalls’ action helped convince Lincoln to open the military to African-Americans.
That’s a hell of a story to begin with, but after the war - which Smalls spent as a civilian pilot for the Navy - he founded the Republican Party of South Carolina, built a school for freedmen, started a railroad, and published a newspaper (after teaching himself to read and write). He got into politics, becoming a state representative, senator, and finally U.S. Congressman. He authored legislation that gave South Carolina the first free and compulsory public education. He also once personally stopped a lynch mob from murdering two men accused of killing a white man.
Now surely that’s a man whose story is worth telling. I honestly don’t know why his name is not as familiar as Harriet Tubman’s or Fredrick Douglass’.
The Wikipedia article mentioned a couple of biopics under development, though who knows whether they’ll ever get anywhere.
My HERO!! We were just talking about a potential biopic of him last June!
I belong to a Civil War roundtable group, and they’re always looking for presenters of new topics. This sounds great!
I would watch that movie. That sounds dramatic and exciting and uplifting.
That is a great summary, to which I’ll add just a few details, based on my slightly fuzzy memory of a biography I read of him a few years ago:
Supposedly, the escape plan began when he and a few other enslaved men were joking around on the boat, and he put on the slaver captain’s hat and mimicked the man, and everyone else was amazed at how well he impersonated the guy. When they sailed past Fort Sumter to freedom, he stood on the prow of the ship, wearing the captains hat, and waved at the guards. In the early morning light, they saw the captain and waved back.
The cannons were not supposed to be on the ship: the day before the escape, they were supposed to have moved them from one side of the port to the other. But they played stupid and acted like they couldn’t get the cannons moved in time, securing a valuable treasure for the union and denying it to the confederacy.
The ship they commandeered was also a big loss for the confederacy, as it was one of the only ships in Charleston that was able to move heavy equipment like cannons.
Another ship had been stolen earlier in the war from Charleston by enslaved people escaping captivity. Due to that event, it was illegal for white captains to leave ships unguarded. But the enslavers were lazy and arrogant, and they didn’t want to have to stay on board the ship at night, so they posted no guards.
Those escaping slavery made an agreement that if they were caught, rather than be returned to almost certain death by torture, they would hold hands and leap to their deaths in the ocean.
It’s really a tremendous story.
I feel that way about most of Mel Brooks’ body of work. It’s more fun to talk about those movies than it is to watch them.
His movies are mostly farces - never meant to be taken seriously. You do have to take into account what was “normal” at that time. His movies definitely aren’t for everyone. As a farce, much of the humor is puerile. The campfire scene in Blazing Saddles; “Nice knockers” and “roll in the hay” from Young Frankenstein. Funny for a 12-year-old, or for someone who can channel their inner 12-year-old, not for anyone else.
My favorite Mel Brooks movie is The Producers. Not the musical remake, the original with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. Yes, it is absolutely a product of the times, but it intended to be. Not a farce, but a straight ahead comedy with a plot that stretches credulity. I think of it as a Mel Brooks movie for people who don’t like Mel Brooks.
I was never a big fan of Blazing Saddles, but I love The Producers (the original, as Dr. WoB says), Young Frankenstein, and Spaceballs. Also the VERY underappreciated The Twelve Chairs, with a young Frank Langella and Ron Moody. There are parts I like in High Anxiety, and Dracula: Dead and Loving It. **Robin Hood, Men in Tights ** only exists, I’m convinced for one line – Cary Elwes’ “Unlike other Robin Hoods, I speak with a British accent” — which is hilarious, but not enough to support a whole movie.
The four I mention are really very good, poking proper fun at the subject matter that really needs it.
Spaceballs is Hardware Wars with money.
Young Frankenstein owes a huge debt to Gene Wilder’s surprisingly literate script It not only makes fun of the Universal movies of the 1930s and 1940s (which it’s very well informed about, and it uses Kenneth Strickfaden’s original electrical equipment), but it also parodies Shelley’s original novel, from which it quotes entire lines. Plus it had an unbelievably talented cast, most especially Marty Feldman as Ygor (“EYE-gor”) . The movie is an almost direct parody of the second sequel, “Son of Frankenstein”, right down to the title.
Did you know that the dart-throwing scene, which looks like something Wilder and Brooks cooked up together, is actually in the original film? Without the cheating, of course.
The name of the dog is one of the reasons why we never got a Dam Busters remake. Peter Jackson was trying for years to make the movie. Even he said it was a no win situation. He was planning to rename the dog Digger. Unfortunately the name of the dog was central to the real life plot and the original movie. He would be accused of whitewashing history if he changed it. If he left it in people would be offended. I really want to see a well done historically accurate remake. The name should be changed but I’m sure that’s the only thing the internet chatter would be about no matter how good the movie is.
I thought Teri Garr was great in Young Frankenstein; funny, without falling in to the dumb blonde stereotype.
How was it central to the plot? The name of the dog was used as one of the confirmation code signals that one of the dams had been breached. So all they have to do is change the name of the dog and the code signal to Digger. It’s such a minor change that I don’;t think anyone would accuse him of whitewashing, we all know what the original name was and that it is totally unacceptable nowadays. I am old enough to remember the original movie and I don’t have any problem with changing it.
I agree. it’s not like Hollywood (or Londonwood 
) never changes anything in historical movies.
I mean, I prefer historical accuracy. We just never get it anyway, so why sweat the dog’s name change.
Oh, and I forgot Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie and To Be or Not to Be. I loved both, but they’ve pretty much disappeared. I haven’t seen the entire original Jack Benny To Be or Not to Be but – blasphemy – I prefer what I’ve seen of Brooks’ version.
History of the World, Part I had its moments, but I can’t say I loved it.
But you can forget Life Stinks
Yeah, Mostel can do more with just an expression than most actors can do with a page of dialogue. cf A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Mind you, Uma Thurman was very nice in the musical version, but Nathan Lane is no Zero Mostel.
Yep. if Costner saw that, it must have been quite a burn.
I liked Mel Brooks’ version of To Be or Not To Be better. Though I’ve seen it many more times than I have seen the other.
Have you not met the internet? I guarantee at least half of the internet traffic about the movie would be about that one thing. Peter Jackson had to address the topic and he hasn’t filmed one minute of it. The point is moot. Jackson tried for 20 years and didn’t make it. I’m not sure if he still has the rights to it.