I think there’s a movie to be made about the Underground Railroad. Central character would be Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave who became the Underground Railroad’s most prolific “conductor”, returning from Canada dozens and dozens of times to help others escape. She was also a spy in the Civil War, and—it’s true but you won’t believe it—after the war, she married Nelson Davis, son of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy.
This could be balanced with a secondary character (probably fictionalized): a white abolitionist whose house is a “station”. Those people took an incredible risk by harboring fugitives; bounty hunters were ruthless. I can envision a very tense scene with the fictional character claiming, in the face of a shotgun or three, that, no, no, there are no “darkies” in this house…that’s just the pantry, go ahead and look inside (and all the time praying that no one will notice the false panel in the wall).
And, of course, there would be a scene of crossing at Niagara Falls, with a voiceover of Tubman’s quote: “I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person, and I couldn’t believe it”.
I hear the Van Buren boys won’t let this one through. They hold a lot of influence on the streets.
Since I now feel obligated to contribute to the thread, Marie Curie might make for a good movie, or at least a Lifetime Feel-Good-About-Awesome-Women movie. After all, between her Nobel Prizes in 1903 (Physics) and 1911 (Chemistry), and her daughter’s in in 1935, I don’t think a non-Curie woman won a Nobel in either category until the sixties(looking at this page ) - so she’s got the all-important Female Achievement part down. Plus, she had to leave Warsaw because of her involvement in a revolutionary organization (against the Evil Russians, even better!) She carried on her husband’s work (ooh, romantic!) and ended up dying because of her devotion to her work-but her daughter carries on the family tradition…this is great!
You left out the bit about him rocking his infant son to death after the wife and lover murders. And the fact that he subsequently cut down all the trees around his castle so his wife’s family couldn’t sneak up on him. And then there’s the men he would hire to beat him with heavy sticks on a regular basis (I sense Evil Captor’s interest picking up, there). Oh, and the funky music, let’s not forget that…
I’m still waiting for the Crystal Palace movie, myself – there’s a great story there. Maybe I’ll write one…
Michael Ellis: Sorry, but there will be. Either sometime in the next few years, or decades from now, when it has taken on mythic proportions, a la the Titanic disaster.
I didn’t say I approve of the idea; just that it’s bound to happen.
I think the problem with the historical movie ideas from Hollywoods’ POV is that they presuppose the existence of an audience that knows something. And by “something” I mean “anything.”
Frex, I could see the Arostook war as a Blake Edwards kinda “Mouse that Roared” movie. But a lot of the humor inherent would require knowing SOMETHING about that period in history. Something more than that they didn’t have jet planes and the Internet. And I think yer modern mass audience isn’t up to that. Hell, I think your average studio/network TV isn’t up to that.
Same with the Marie Curie story. I’ll bet your average young adult would happily identify her as a contemporary of Madame Bovary, Madamoiselle LaFarge and Mamie Eisenhower.
My own contribution would be a Western about the rivalry between Othneil Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. it would be an incredible story – dinosaurs, the Old West, bitter hatred and petty jealousy … and there’s not a hope in hell that it’ll ever be made as anything other than a lame PBS documentary.
All these great ideas for stories based on historical and current events makes me think …
WTF is wrong with the History Channel? Why are they so stuck on WWII and warfare in general? Jeebus H. Forking Cripes! There’s so much good stuff out there that you guys have come up with effortlessly, and the history channel’s seems to be determined to ignore it. They should be all over these stories.
