― Jorge Luis Borges
“Of all man’s instruments, the most wondrous, no doubt, is the book. The other instruments are extensions of his body. The microscope, the telescope, are extensions of his sight; the telephone is the extension of his voice; then we have the plow and the sword, extensions of the arm. But the book is something else altogether: the book is an extension of memory and imagination.”
― Jorge Luis Borges
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I was talking to one of my sisters a couple of weeks ago, and she mentioned that she wanted to show her boys the 1938 Errol Flynn version of The Adventures of Robin Hood but didn't have a copy, and it didn't seem to be on Netflix. Well, obviously she should have consulted me first. Last Sunday I brought along my Errol Flynn collection to church to lend to her which, in addition to Robin Hood, contains Captain Blood (1935), The Sea Hawk (1940), and The Adventures of Don Juan (1948). On Friday night, she sent this picture and another with her four lads, eyes glued on the screen, with the message, "They're loving it!" Of course they were: what's not to love? No one swashbuckles quite like Errol Flynn; Olivia de Havilland is a beautiful and feisty Maid Marian, and the writing and music are superb. Also, the supporting cast is the stuff that dreams are made of: Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Una O'Connor, Alan Hale, Melville Cooper, Patric Knowles, Eugene Pallette... the list just goes on and on. A big problem with modern movies- apart from poor writing, a lack of original ideas, and an emphasis on "message" over plot- is a dearth of really great character actors. But I digress. I'm not going to talk much about the film itself today other than to say, if you haven't seen it but have seen the 1991 Kevin Costner version... I was going to add, "or the 2010 Ridley Scott Robin Hood," but I'm pretty sure no one saw that anyway. Mostly I just want to say what a great feeling it is to share classic books and movies with the younger generation and watch them discover the magic of these wonderful tales for themselves. If your kids- or nephews and nieces- have seen all of the 8000 or so (that number may be off by a bit) Marvel movies and shows, but have not seen any of the greats from back in the day, they're really missing out. Consider adding some to the family movie night rotation; I know you won't be disappointed. I'll be seeing the nephews today, at church and then at Sunday dinner. I look forward to chatting with them about The Adventures of Robin Hood. I suspect that the archery targets may get set up at some point during the afternoon as well. Related Posts:I took Monday off, since I'd gone in to work on the weekend and one of my sisters was having her baby that day. So I and another of my sisters took her 4 and 2 year old girls down to the Valley to visit with some of their cousins while their parents were at the hospital. While there we all went picking highbush blueberries at a local U-pick farm. "You ought to have seen what I saw on my way To the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day: Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb, Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum In the cavernous pail of the first one to come! And all ripe together, not some of them green And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!" -Robert Frost, Blueberries It was pretty hot out in the blueberry field, and one of the nephews needed a short siesta: While we were berry picking, we got a call from my brother-in-law, telling us that the baby had arrived, and sending us a picture. So cute! I'm an aunt for the 28th time!! My box of blueberries: Making some oatmeal blueberry muffins: Also some lemon blueberry loaf: Related Posts: I recently watched the 1948 movie Rope, which is an Alfred Hitchcock film starring James Stewart, Farley Granger, and John Dall. It's based on a play written by Patrick Hamilton, a British novelist/playwright who also penned the play upon which the 1940 film Gaslight was based. His play- also titled Rope- was inspired by a real-life murder which took place in 1924: that of a 14 year old boy named Bobby Franks by two wealthy university students- Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. The case gained a great deal of notoriety due to the circumstances surrounding it, and was even termed at the time to be "the crime of the century". Of course, newspapers and other forms of media- then as now- sensationalize pretty much anything they can in order to move product, and this story was no different in that regard. Nevertheless, the motives behind the murder were twisted enough to make this case stand out from murders committed for the usual, more mundane reasons. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were students at the University of Chicago in 1924. Both were still in their teens- 19 and 18 respectively- and both were from quite wealthy families. They were also both considered to be highly intelligent; Leopold had already graduated with a degree from U of C and was planning to enter Harvard Law School after a trip to Europe. Loeb had been- at 17- the youngest graduate ever at the University of Michigan and had come to the University of Chicago to enroll in the law school there. The two had been casually acquainted while growing up, being from the same social circle in Chicago, but became close friends- and lovers- while at the university. Nathan Leopold was fascinated with the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, specifically his concept of "supermen" and his dismissal of societal morality or ethics... more on this later. Loeb's interest seems to have been rather secondary, sparked by that of his friend. In any case, Loeb & Leopold became convinced that they were two of these so-called supermen and thus immune from the laws that govern lesser people. To prove that they were above the rules, the two began to commit a series of petty crimes, including theft, vandalism, and arson. But they were disgruntled to find that these crimes attracted little attention in the press. They decided that they would have to pull off something big, executed in such a way that they would never be found out, but would garner nation-wide attention; a "perfect" crime which would prove that they were Nietzschean supermen. They hit upon a plan to kidnap and murder a 14 year old boy, Bobby Franks, who was the son of affluent watch manufacturer Jacob Franks. Just to make the entire situation even more disgusting than it already was, Bobby was Richard Loeb's second cousin. The two rented a car and, driving past Bobby as he walked home from school, offered him a ride. He would have no reason not to accept a drive from his cousin and, once they had him in the car, they killed the boy with a chisel, drove to a remote area and concealed the body in a culvert, removing his clothes and pouring acid on him to try to impede identification. There is some dispute as to who committed the actual murder; afterwards they both claimed the other did it, but to my mind it doesn't make much difference: they were both guilty of Bobby's death. When Bobby didn't return from school, his parents instituted a search. Leopold phoned Bobby's mother and, calling himself George Johnson, told her that her son had been kidnapped, was being held for ransom, and that instructions for payment would follow. They typed a ransom note (using a typewriter they'd stolen during a previous crime) and mailed it, then burned their blood-stained clothes, cleaned the rental car, and spent the rest of the evening playing cards. After the note was delivered the following day, Leopold called the family again with further instructions for delivering the ransom, but this part of the plan was derailed when word came that the child's body had been found. As it turned out, the "perfect crime" was anything but; while Loeb quietly went about his regular routine, keeping his head down, Leopold couldn't keep his big, creepy yap shut. He talked to police, reporters- anyone who would listen, really- discussing the case with relish and offering theories about what had happened. The moron even told a detective, "If I were to murder anybody, it would be just such a cocky little s.o.b. as Bobby Franks." As if this wasn't suspicious enough, police searching the the area where Bobby's body was found uncovered a pair of glasses which happened to have an unusual custom feature. Upon further investigation, it turned out that only three such pairs had been purchased in Chicago, one of them by Nathan Leopold. When questioned, he told the police that, oh yeah, he'd been out in that area a week before birdwatching and must have dropped his glasses. Uh huh. Both Leopold and Loeb were brought in for questioning; apparently, thinking that they'd committed the perfect crime, the two hadn't bothered to construct a believable alibi. They told the police that, on the night of the murder, they'd been cruising around in Nathan Leopold's car and had picked up a couple of girls. The girl thing was a bit far-fetched anyway, given their proclivities, but their entire story fell apart when Leopold's chauffeur told the police that Nathan's car had broken down and, on the night in question, he was working on repairing it in the Leopold garage. Soon after this, the typewriter they had used for the ransom note was located by police in a local lagoon where they'd dumped it; it was traced back to their university, which is where they'd stolen it from. Leopold and Loeb committed the murder on May 21: they were arrested on May 29. So much for their superior intellect; the two were nothing but grubby, murderous rich kids, blinded by their own hubris. When questioned, Loeb broke first, confessing to the murder, but insisting that Leopold had wielded the murder weapon. Leopold confessed quickly after this and alleged the exact opposite- that Loeb had committed the actual murder. As I said previously, it doesn't really matter... they were both guilty. And their lawyer- their families sprung for an extremely expensive one: Clarence Darrow, later of Scopes Monkey Trial fame- knew it. Most people expected him to have his clients plead not guilty by reason of insanity, but he surprised them by having Leopold and Loeb plead guilty. There was a reason for this: if they plead "not guilty," the case would be tried before a jury and a jury, being composed of 12 regular people, would no doubt find the two nasty little rich boy killers guilty and sentence them to hang. But if the plea was "guilty," their fate would be decided by a judge, whom Darrow was sure he could sway with his arguments to forgo the death penalty. The State's Attorney presented the frankly irrefutable evidence against Leopold & Loeb, then Darrow got to work with his defense, arguing that the two were poor little rich boys, neglected by their parents as children, and suggesting that Leopold had been sexually abused by a nanny. Darrow had an expert testify about their superman delusions and also brought in a medical witness who testified that Loeb & Leopold both had dysfunctional endocrine glands, which affected their behaviours. Both of them. Uh huh. Darrow also spoke of the horrors of the Great War, ended only a few years before, suggesting that the mass killing may have inured the two to violence and death despite the fact that both of them were living at home in the lap of luxury while the War was being waged overseas. Like I said, no jury this side of O.J. Simpson's would fall for this lame tale of woe in the face of cold blooded child murder. The judge was apparently swayed by it however, though he also cited the youth of the two criminals. He took the death penalty off the table, and Leopold and Loeb were eventually sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Bobby Franks, with an extra 99 years for kidnapping. Both of them ended up serving their time in a penitentiary just outside Chicago and maintained their relationship there, working together on expanding the prison school system until 1936 when Richard Loeb was stabbed to death by another prisoner. Nathan Leopold continued to serve his sentence, apparently a model prisoner, until 1958 when he was paroled. So much for life plus 99 years. He moved to Puerto Rico where he worked as a medical technician at a missions hospital, eventually got married- to a woman- and took a masters degree at the University of Puerto Rico, later working for the Department of Health and researching leprosy. He died of a heart attack at the age of 66. So that's the history of the event which inspired the play Rope, then eventually the movie. The plot is nothing like the actual events of the Bobby Franks murder, though the motive of the murderous duo in it is the same: a desire to prove themselves supermen, unrestrained by traditional morality or societal laws. But I'll discuss the film's plot in more detail in the next part of my review. Related Posts: “Books. They are lined up on shelves or stacked on a table. There they are wrapped up in their jackets, lines of neat print on nicely bound pages. They look like such orderly, static things. Then you, the reader come along. You open the book jacket, and it can be like opening the gates to an unknown city, or opening the lid of a treasure chest. You read the first word and you're off on a journey of exploration and discovery.” ― David Almond I meant to have the first part of my review of Alfred Hitchcock's movie Rope done, but was unfortunately felled by a severe migraine (I get them periodically) and was unable to do much of anything for an entire day except make occasional trips to the washroom to vomit despite the fact there was nothing in my stomach to bring up... sorry for that image. In the aftermath of the migraine today I'm feeling lightheaded, my stomach muscles are sore from dry-heaving, and I have to go in to work to finish up an order which I didn't do yesterday. So, to circle around to my original point, no review. But one is coming. In the meantime, here's the trailer for Rope, which stars Jimmy Stewart:
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