339: This Week: The Philadelphia Experiment, Macbeth, The Pacific

August 12th, 1943. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

For our first movie this week, we’re heading to a 1982 movie from Executive Producer John Carpenter that you’ve probably never seen called The Philadelphia Experiment. We’re starting at about 11 and a half minutes into the movie where we see Eric Christmas’ character, Dr. James Longstreet, centered in the frame. He’s wearing white shirt, maroon tie, an almost-matching maroon scarf, underneath a herringbone tweed overcoat, topped with a brown fedora.

He’s looking off camera at something in the distance for a moment before turning around and going back through the doorway of what looks like the military gray of a Navy ship. As he does, the wind picks up and throws the maroon scarf over his left shoulder.

The camera cuts to a different angle, and Dr. Longstreet’s silhouette is prominent in the foreground as he walks inside leaving us to see what he was looking at: Another Navy ship in the harbor of a metropolitan city that I’m assuming is Philadelphia.

Inside the ship now, the camera is focused on a red radar screen. As the line goes around the circular screen the sound of two blips can be heard just as we see them on the radar. In other words, there are two ships on radar…and I’m assuming one of them is the ship we’re on with this radar. That’s the ship we just saw Dr. Longstreet step inside, and then I’m assuming the other blip on the radar is the ship Dr. Longstreet was looking at across the harbor.

Oh, by the way, that line you see going around the radar in the movies all the time is called the radar sweep, or just the sweep. Don’t worry, I had to look it up, too.

Dr. Longstreet and his assistant enter the bridge we can see the military officers running the ship. Except, it looks like the U.S. Navy officers are calling Dr. Longstreet “sir,” so I get the sense he’s in charge of whatever they’re doing.

And whatever it is involves those two ships because one of them tells Dr. Longstreet that, “the ships are on station, sir.”

So, the two ships are placed in a specific location.

Just then, the camera cuts to show us the ship Dr. Longstreet was looking at before, and now there’s a small cutter ship in front of it. Was that there before? I didn’t notice it, but now I’m questioning if those are the two ships we see on the radar.

Back inside the ship, we’re in some kind of control room with a sailor manning a huge black piece of equipment with knobs, buttons, and dials on it. We can’t see what any of them are, though, other than a red sign that says, “High Voltage.” That sign matches another “High Voltage” sign directly across from our camera view. That box is connected to three smaller boxes labeled “Gen 1”, “Gen 2”, and “Gen 3.”

The sailor manning the controls is Jim Parker, who is played by Bobby Di Cicco in the movie.

Another sailor, Michael Paré’s character, David Herdeg, enters through the open doorway just behind Parker and one-by-one, flips on the three “Gen” boxes. As he does, he remarks to his colleague, “Here we go.”

The camera shifts to another room that’s bathed in red light. There’s some sort of huge device in the center. A black box similar to the one we just saw in the last room is in the center, but this one doesn’t say “High Voltage” on it. This box doesn’t say anything that’s legible in the movie, it’s just a black rectangle sitting in the middle of a room of pipes, just in front of some huge metal structure.

The movie doesn’t explain it here, but if I had to guess, I’d say this is the control box for whatever that huge structure is. As the camera pans up, we can see a sailor walking around the structure taking notes. Steam rises from it, too, in a way that reminds me of how the steam emits from a rocket on the launch pad before the main engines kick in.

Back on the bridge, another sailor informs him that the generators are activated. That must’ve been the three “Gen” boxes they just turned on. Putting on his round framed glasses, Dr. Longstreet gives the order, “Power to the main field.”

Knobs are turned on control boards. A knob is turned to “Set Level,” and another set to the value of 3%.

Back in the room with the sailor who turned on the “Gen” boxes, we can see more of the room now. The other sailor is still at the black box with the “High Voltage” sign, operating it by turning knobs and dials. In the foreground are eight huge panels of vintage light bulbs. You know the ones where you can see the yellow filament inside? It’s like that, but hundreds of them…

…in fact, I paused the movie to count them all so you don’t have to. 710 is the number I came up with, although I’ll admit that I might’ve miscounted because it’s really hard to see some of them in the back. So, if you got a different number, let me know!

All of the bulbs are pulsing. On, off. On, off. Almost like a throbbing of the light around the two sailors manning the equipment in the room, David Herdeg and Jim Parker.

Outside, everything is normal. We can see the massive Navy ship with the number “724” in the side in the foreground against a bright blue sky.

Then, on the right of the frame what looks like an antenna of some sort starts pulsing like the light bulbs did inside. Rays of lights start spraying out of the antenna toward the left of the screen. Inside the ship, now, everything is cloaked in an eerie red light. A couple of the sailors look at each other, each of the men is bursting with some sort of unnaturally bright, red, light.

From a distance, we can see the entire ship in the harbor as the rays of light from the antenna intensify. Maybe it’s coming from other parts of the ship, at this point there’s so much light I doubt it can be from one small antenna. The movie cuts to a few different shots of men watching the lights in wonder before going to one of the radar operators with the two blips.

We can hear them as the sweep goes around the radar.

Beep, beep. Beep, beep. Beep, beep.

The other of the two radar operators says he can’t believe it, the Eldridge is beginning to fade.

Beep, beep. Beep, beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

It’s gone. One of the officers looks at the radar in disbelief. Then, turning around, he looks right at Dr. Longstreet, “She’s radar invisible,” he says. I didn’t think it was possible. Congratulations, Doctor, it looks like you’ve taken the entire German fleet out of this war.

Back in the room, David Herdeg and Jim Parker are just standing there watching the pulsing light bulbs all around them. And back outside on the Eldridge, there’s still that eerie red glow pulsing around the entire ship—and the men on board.

A klaxon alarm goes off. Is something wrong?

Then, the camera cuts back to the shot of the harbor with the whole ship in view. Rays of light continue to emit from the ship until…it just disappears. On the bridge, one of the men says the cutter has radioed that the Eldridge has disappeared. Of course, she’s radar invisible!

No, sir, she’s gone. She’s really vanished.

The camera follows Dr. Longstreet as he rushes out of the door, he just came in a few moments earlier. Out in the harbor, as peaceful as ever is the small ship. The cutter.

Next to it?

Nothing.

The entire Navy ship has just disappeared.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Philadelphia Experiment

Let’s move onto our fact-checking segment, because there is a huge caveat to add to this movie.

There is a very good chance none of that happened.

I mean, making a Navy ship disappear? It’s the stuff of conspiracy theories, and that is exactly what we’re talking about today.

Another huge part of the movie’s version of the tale that differs from what many believe about the true story is the date. Movies often shift timelines, and this case is no different. You see, many people believe all this happened in October of 1943.

And that’s the version the movie tells, because even though I didn’t talk about this part today, at the beginning of the movie it says this is taking place in Philadelphia in October of 1943.

To add to the historical context that we don’t get in the movie, October 28^th is the date many associate with the experiment. Many, except for one key person in the story.

And that one key person is why we’re talking about this today instead of October. After today’s movie came out, one of the people who saw it was a man named Al Bielek.

According to Al’s version of the story, soon after seeing the movie, memories started returning of the time he was a part of The Philadelphia Experiment, and even leading other such top-secret government programs.

For example, some of those memories that returned included his time working at the Montauk Project on Long Island, New York. Where the story gets strange is that Al supposedly lived in California. So, every morning during the 1970s, he’d commute from his apartment in California, teleport to Long Island, New York, through the time tunnel the U.S. government perfected around that time, then he’d return to California at the end of the day.

For geographical context, that’s about 2,500 miles or almost 4,000 kilometers each way.

It sure would be nice if that teleportation was available in the mainstream for you and I, huh?

So, anyway, one of those memories that started coming back to Al Bielek after he saw the movie in January of 1988 was that his work at the top-secret Montauk Project ended with what we now know as the Philadelphia Experiment.

Are you ready to go down the rabbit hole on this segment?

And according to Al’s version of the story, he and another man named Duncan Cameron were on board USS Eldridge, that’s the ship in the movie, and they both jumped off the deck and then got mixed up in hyperspace with the Project Rainbow they were conducting exactly 20 years earlier on August 12^th, 1943.

So, while all the men on Eldridge were stuck in hyperspace somewhere between 1943 and 1983, Al and Duncan woke up at Camp Hero in Montauk, New York. That was in 1983, and while at Camp Hero, they met the famous physicist John von Neumann, implying he was working on the project as well. But, then, it was the Camp Hero staff that shut down those generators on the Eldridge in 1983, thereby collapsing the time tunnel and returning the Eldridge to the Philadelphia naval yard where the time traveling experiment started.

But, then, after the experiments ended all the records were destroyed, everyone involved was sworn to secrecy, or in some versions of the story some of the staff were even brainwashed or shot so they wouldn’t talk. And it only started to come back to light after Al’s memory started coming back after he saw the movie we talked about today.

Although I saw reports that claimed the ship was covered in a greenish-blue glow and not the reddish glow like we see in the movie. But, as the story goes, it really did simply disappear in front of everyone’s eyes in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1943.

Oh, and there are also reports of some people seeing Eldridge at the Naval Shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia for a moment before it disappeared from there and reappeared in Philadelphia a few hours later.

So, what’s the true story?

Well, if you believe Al Bielek, all of this has been the true story.

But, since we are talking about a conspiracy theory here, I feel like maybe we should step outside of one person’s version of events.

USS Eldridge was a real ship, that’s not a made-up name for the movie or the conspiracy theory. She was a Cannon-class destroyer escort ship, 300 feet, or about 90 meters long. She was launched in July of 1943, commissioned August 27^th, 1943, and named after Lt. Commander John Eldridge, Jr., who was a U.S. Navy officer who posthumously received the Navy Cross for his role leading the initial invasion of the Solomon Islands on August 7^th and 8^th, in 1942.

Her role in the war was escorting soldiers and materials for the Allied operations in North Africa and Southern Europe, so she spent a lot of time in the Mediterranean. After the war, she wasn’t needed anymore, so she was placed out of commission in June of 1946, and sold to Greece in 1951. Greece renamed her to Leon, or Lion, and she served in their Navy until being decommissioned in 1992, and ultimately sold for scrap in 1999.

With all that said, if you noticed the timing there, there was about a month between her launch and being officially commissioned, and then going off to do her missions during the war. To be more specific, the U.S. Navy officially lists her launch date as July 25^th, 1943, and then about a month later on August 27^th, 1943, she was officially commissioned into the Navy with a ceremony.

Immediately, in early September, her first mission was to go to the Bahamas for shakedown operations. Or, in other words, a sea trial for a new ship and her crew to make sure they’re all good to go before joining the war. A training mission, basically.

So, the official history has Eldridge around the Bahamas around this time. Or, did something happen between July 25^th and August 27^th that we don’t know about?

What do you think really happened?

If you want to watch the movie’s version of events, I’ve got a link in the show notes for where you can watch the 1984 movie The Philadelphia Experiment. We started our segment today about 11 and a half minutes into it.

And if you want to go even further down the rabbit hole, they made a sequel in 1994 and a made-for-TV remake of the 1984 movie came out in 2012. I’ll go ahead and throw all those links in the show notes in case you feel like a conspiracy this week.

August 14th, 1040. Scotland.

For our next movie, we’ll join about 33 minutes into the 2015 movie adaptation of the Shakespeare play Macbeth. It’s a dimly lit room where we see Michael Fassbender’s version of Macbeth as he’s looking down and to the left. After a moment’s pause, he turns and sees someone at the door. They’re hard to see due to the dim candlelight in the room, but it seems to be a boy. His face is smeared in mud or grease of some sort, and he’s wearing all black, so he blends into the night behind him.

He’s holding something in his right hand, and that catches Macbeth’s attention. He asks if it’s a dagger. The boy doesn’t say anything, but as Macbeth approaches him, the camera cuts to a closeup of the boy’s hand as he stretches it out toward Macbeth, handing him the dagger. Interestingly, the dagger is facing Macbeth, so the boy’s hand is all bloody as he’s holding the blade.

Macbeth stares at the boy, calling him a vision. A dagger of the mind.

Slowly, the boy backs out of the open doorway into the night. Macbeth follows him, leaving the room and going outside.

Once outside, Macbeth continues to speak to the boy. The boy hasn’t said anything in return, but Macbeth still isn’t sure if he’s really seeing the boy or if he’s a vision. Closing his eyes, Macbeth tells himself there is no such thing.

And as he continues walking forward into the night, the boy is no longer there. Maybe he was a vision after all.

Macbeth walks across the darkness to the glow of candles coming from inside a nearby tent. As he gets closer, we can see there’s a large bed inside the tent with a man sleeping on it. Macbeth sneaks through the opening of the tent, kneeling by a body lying on the ground. The sound of a knife slicing as Macbeth makes sure they’re dead, whomever they are. Then, he moves forward into the tent.

As he continues forward, he says things like, “Whiles I threat, he lives. Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.”

Remember, this is Shakespeare.

Macbeth continues into the tent. He’s standing beside the bed now, looking down at the man sleeping. No one else is in the room. When the camera cuts to a closeup of the man in the bed, we can see his face a lot better now. It’s David Thewlis’ character, Duncan.

If the actor’s name doesn’t ring a bell, you might know him better as Lupin from the Harry Potter franchise.

His eyes are closed as he’s sleeping peacefully amid the flickering candlelight, completely unaware that Macbeth is standing over him. Then, his eyes open slowly, but he doesn’t move. He just looks up at Macbeth, who slowly puts his own hand over Duncan’s mouth. Then, we can see the silhouette of a long knife—the dagger from the boy. Positioning it over Duncan’s chest, Macbeth shoves down on the knife with one hand while his other hand muffles Duncan’s cries.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Macbeth

I almost feel bad saying this after our conspiracy theory-laden segment for The Philadelphia Experiment, but this scene from Macbeth also never happened.

While the movie is faithful to Shakespeare’s version of the story. In the play, Macbeth kills Duncan of Scotland by stabbing him while he’s sleeping, just like we see in the movie.

In the true story, though, King Duncan I was killed during battle.

But it was during a battle against the Macbeth, so at least Shakespeare got the idea of conflict between those two men right.

So, in the true story, Duncan was born somewhere around 1001 CE. Some sources even say he was born on August 15^th of that year, meaning this Thursday would’ve been his 1,023^rd birthday. Although I’ve also seen some sources saying he also died on the 15^th, and not the 14^th, which would mean there’s a chance he died on his 39^th birthday.

Duncan was the maternal grandson of Malcom II who, in turn, was King of Alba from 1005 to 1034. And it is true that back then, the Crown of Alba was passed back and forth between different lineages.

That concept was from generations before when the Scots and the Picts were united under a single king. At the time, they didn’t call it Scotland, but looking back on it through the lens of history that’s when many historians point to as the start of the Scotland we know of today.

Since most people didn’t make it to old age back then, the crown passed between different lineages to ensure someone strong enough to undertake the role would be in charge. Back and forth. That changed with Malcolm II, though, who tried to kill anyone else who might have a claim to the throne. As you can probably guess, the violent power grab was met with more violence.

But, even Malcolm II couldn’t escape old age. That brings us to Duncan, who ascended to the throne after Malcolm II died, on November 25^th, 1034, while he was in his 30s…Duncan was in his 30s, that is.

And that also brings us to Macbeth who, like Duncan, was also Malcolm II’s grandson. Macbeth challenged Duncan’s claim to the throne, so that is how the two cousins ended up at odds. Actually, there was a third cousin, too, Earl Thorfinn of Orkney, who teamed up with Macbeth against Duncan.

And so it was that the three cousins met on the field of battle near Elgin on August 15^th, 1040, and that’s where Duncan was killed. We don’t know if he was killed by Macbeth’s hand, or someone else’s, but that’s probably not too surprising from an event over a thousand years ago.

If you want to watch the movie’s version of events, in the show notes you’ll find a link to the 2015 adaptation of Macbeth, as well as some other resources to kickstart your own deep dive into the true story.

August 15th, 1945. Long Island, New York.

For our next segment, we’re going to the HBO miniseries The Pacific.

At the very beginning of the final episode, the scene fades up from black to reveal we’re inside a hospital. A line of beds are filled with men. We can hear a woman speaking, saying nothing of huge importance to the storyline but then the camera cuts closer to where we can see that she’s reading from a book, saying things like:

“…Then bethought them of the blessed boon of sleep; but Achilles still wept for thinking of his dear comrade…”

The series doesn’t mention this, but that’s Homer’s Iliad.

The camera pans over to a couple of the guys in the hospital beds. The man further away from the camera is heavily bandaged. His fingers, wrist, arm, head, eye, all have bandages…there’s also a metal contraption of some sort around his chest, neck, and although the camera angle makes it hard to see everything it looks like there might be something attached to his legs, too.

In the foreground of the camera’s shot is a man without any visible bandages. Neither of the men are paying attention to the woman reading to them, but the man in the foreground is reading the newspaper. It looks like he’s reading the comic strips.

Oh, there we go, she just noticed they’re not paying attention to her. She puts down the book and says, “Hey, you’re not listening to me.”

Putting a cigarette to his mouth as he puts down the paper, the man who was reading the comics says they were listening. He puts a cigarette in the other guy’s mouth—I’m guessing he can’t move his arms enough to smoke on his own. Each of the men take a drag on their cigarettes, the smoke swirling as they blow out.

He recites the last few things she read, proving he was paying attention. Then, he looks back at the newspaper and suggests he read a comic to the other guy all bandaged up.

In the background, we can hear a door open.

The camera cuts to a man walking into the room. He looks around. Then, addressing no one in particular, he blurts out the news. The Japanese have surrendered.

Everyone looks at him, including the two men who were preoccupied by the comics and being read to.

The man standing there smiles, laughs a bit. Then he continues, “The war’s over!” He says.

Murmurs start among everyone in the room. A woman’s voice in the back confirms the news as we can see a nurse excitedly saying it’s definite. It’s on the radio! The war is over!

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the TV series The Pacific

Let’s start fact-checking how The Pacific shows that event now. And just to be clear, the event I’m talking about from this week in history is when Japan surrendered on August 15^th, 1945, bringing World War II to an end. Or, as it’s sometimes called, V-J Day. Victory over Japan Day.

It’s also known as V-P Day or Victory in the Pacific Day, since it’s the Pacific Theater of the war as opposed to the European Theater. When that came to an end with the fall of Nazi Germany, May 8^th, 1945, became known as V-E Day, Victory in Europe. We talked about back in episode #318 for the BOATS This Week episode covering May 8^th, 1945. So, I thought it’d be fitting to use how another HBO miniseries covers V-J Day.

Although, it’s worth pointing out that is not technically when Japan surrendered.

V-J Day or V-P Day, whichever you prefer, is commonly known as August 15^th, 1945. But that wasn’t the official surrender. That commemorates the announcement of surrender. Or, due to time zone differences, August 14^th in the United States is when it was broadcast. So, the series is correct to suggest that’d be when people found out about it, and even today some people refer to both August 14^th and the 15^th as V-J Day. However, the formal surrender happened a couple weeks later, on September 2^nd. That’s also why sometimes people refer to September 2^nd as V-J Day.

So, you’ll get some historical sticklers out there who point out its September 2^nd, and technically they’re not wrong, but in The Pacific they mention August 15^th, which is why we’re including it this week. Of course, just like Band of Brothers doesn’t show the actual surrender itself, neither does The Pacific. It’s showing what happened on the day for the characters the series is about.

So, to give a little more historical context that we don’t see in the series, on July 26^th, 1945, the Allies sent the Japanese government what’s known as the Potsdam Declaration. That’s named after Potsdam, Germany, the name of the city where a conference between the three leading Allies took place to draw up a plan for peace.

Maybe you’ve seen the photograph of Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman, and Joseph Stalin sitting together…that happened at the Potsdam Conference. If you haven’t seen it, I’ll add a link to it in the show notes for this episode.

The Declaration, though, essentially defined the terms of surrender for the Japanese. It was quite literally an unconditional surrender, as the end of the document said:

“We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.”

The Japanese government’s reply was “mokusatsu.” Or, basically, to ignore it. The exact meaning of that word has been debated ever since. The United States government took it as being ignored, though.

The decision to drop the atomic bombs was made and, on August 6^th, Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima. On August 8^th, the Soviet Union officially declared war on Japan and launched an offensive into Japanese-occupied Manchuria with over a million Soviet soldiers. Then, on August 9^th, Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki.

So, to summarize, what happened on August 15^th, was the Japanese government announced they would be accepting the Potsdam Declaration.

With the announcement, bombers on Tinian Island getting ready for a mission over Japan were called off. Or, at least, put on hold to make sure the Japanese announcement was something they were going to follow through with.

They did.

The formal document of surrender was signed on the deck of USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2^nd, 1945.

If you want to watch this week in history as it’s shown in HBO’s The Pacific, the text on screen saying it’s August 15^th, 1945, is how the 10^th and final episode of the series begins. And we covered the entire ten-part HBO miniseries in our own three-part miniseries so you can learn the true story in all its historical detail over at basedonatruestorypodcast.com/thepacific

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 August 13th, 1860, Phoebe Ann Moses was born just east of North Star, Ohio. She was better known by her stage name, Annie Oakley, who earned fame as a sharpshooter in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. She’s been portrayed in a number of movies, including 1950’s Annie Get Your Gun, which is a movie based on the extremely popular musical of the same name by Irving Berlin.

On August 14th, 1851, John Henry Holliday was born in Griffin, Georgia. Most people know him by his nickname, Doc. Doc Holliday’s involvement in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona has seen him portrayed in a number of movies and TV shows. Probably one of the more popular of those is the 1993 film simply called Tombstone where Doc Holliday is played by Val Kilmer. We’ve covered that movie three times over the years, actually. One is a solo episode with just me, one is with the excellent podcaster Chris Wimmer from Legends of the Old West, and the other is with Tom Clavin who wrote the book “Tombstone” and all of them are linked in the show notes.

On August 15th, 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. I’m sure you already know who Napoleon was—the French military leader and emperor who conquered a lot of Europe. Have you seen the Ridley Scott biographical movie from last year? There’s so much to talk about with Napoleon, we’ve covered that movie twice with two different historians covering different elements of the movie, so you’ll find those links in the show notes as well.

On August 16th, 1888, Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in Wales. Although he usually went by his initials, T.E. Lawrence. Or, as he’s more commonly known today, Lawrence of Arabia. He was a British officer who gained fame for his involvement in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. He was played by Peter O’Toole in the 1962 classic film that’s named after him: Lawrence of Arabia.

‘Based on a True Story’ movie that released this week

Time now for our segment about ‘based on a true story’ movies released this week in history.

Actually, I have two of them for you this week, and they both released this week back in 1979.

Thursday is the 45^th anniversary of the widescale release in the United States of Francis Ford Coppola’s classic, Apocalypse Now.

The movie stars Marlon Brando as Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, Martin Sheen as Captain Benjamin Willard, and Robert Duvall as Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore.

None of those were real people, which tells you a bit about the historical accuracy of the movie, but then again, the movie doesn’t really try to claim they are. It’s one of those movies that uses a real historical event and maybe inspired by some real people, but for the most part uses a fake storyline to tell the tale.

For example, like Saving Private Ryan where Private Ryan was not a real person—check out BOATS episode #159.

For Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando’s character of Colonel Kurtz is entirely fictional, although he’s not made up for the movie. He’s made up for the book the movie is based on. That would be Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Or, perhaps, “inspired by” is a better phrase, because Conrad’s book was published in 1899, and it has the character of Colonel Kurtz in that book. He was an ivory dealer in the book, but the mere fact that the book was published in 1899 means obviously the Vietnam War hadn’t happened yet. With that said, though, that doesn’t mean the filmmakers didn’t use contemporary soldiers as inspiration for the Vietnam era version of Kurtz.

The name that popped up most in my research was a CIA paramilitary operations officer named Anthony Poshepny, better known as Tony Poe.

As for Martin Sheen’s character in the movie, Captain Willard, he was most likely based on another character from Heart of Darkness named Charles Marlow. And Marlow was completely made up for the book, although some have suggested perhaps his name came from an Elizabethan playwright named Christopher Marlowe, with an “e” at the end.

Of the main characters in the movie, that leaves Robert Duvall’s character, Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, and I’m guessing by now you get the idea for how this goes. Just like Colonel Kurtz, Lt. Col. Kilgore was based on someone real, though. In this case, it’s John Stockton. No, not the NBA Hall of Fame, all-time assists and steals leader basketball player. Colonel John B. Stockton was in command of the 1^st squadron, 9^th Cavalry in the 1960s during the Vietnam War; and Robert Duvall used him as inspiration for his portrayal of Kilgore.

I’ll include a photo of Colonel Stockton in the show notes in case you want to see what he looks like.

And while you’re there, you’ll find a link to where Apocalypse Now is streaming if you want to watch it this week.

So, that’s one of the two movies this week. If you’re not feeling a war movie, just two days after Apocalypse Now hit theaters in 1979, Monty Python’s Life of Brian was released. That’d be on August 17^th, 1979, which makes Saturday the 45^th anniversary of that movie’s release.

I’m sure you already know what Life of Brian is…it tells the story of, well, Brian.

He’s just a normal guy. There’s really nothing special about him other than the fact that he was born just next door to Jesus, so everyone thinks he’s the Messiah. Then he joins a revolutionary group called the People’s Front of Judea to try and overthrow Roman rule, all the while masterfully tying together the story of historical Jesus into the tale—but in a comedic way because it’s Brian.

Tell you what, I could try to unravel the history and the religion from the movie and the comedy, but there’s someone much more knowledgeable than I am who can help with this because episode #205, I had a chat Dr. Adele Reinhartz about Life of Brian. Here’s a clip of my chat with her about what she thinks about how well the movie sets up the Brian character:

Dan LeFebvre  01:43

The movie opens with a spoof on the birth of baby Jesus, three wise men show up at two o’clock in the morning to worship the baby. They explain to Mandy, the baby’s mother, that they were led there by a star. She’s about to shoo them away when one of the wise men says we must see him. We have presence, gold, frankincense, myrrh, and Mandy’s replies like, oh, well, why didn’t you say so? He’s right over here. And then we find out the baby’s name is Brian. But what did you think of that opening sequence? In the movie? Looking at it from a historical perspective?

Adele Reinhartz  02:16

Well, first of all, it’s 100%. Hilarious. I agree. And it shows us the character of Mandy right away. And then of course, at the end of this season, they realize they see another another major, who lit up, and they realize they’ve been at the wrong place, and they take their gifts back. So that’s kind of funny. From a historical point of view, it’s it’s very difficult to assess this is based on the account in the Gospel of Matthew in the infancy narrative about the Magi coming to visit. And we don’t know the historicity of that, but the scene itself and in the movie, is really a take off on how that scene is presented in Christmas cards, in Christmas pageants and in other Jesus movies. So you’ve got the star making its way slowly across the sky. And then, you know, this atmosphere of reverence with the sacred music, and then you’ve got Mandy. So it really sets up that record the still is going to be about or at the film is going to do, which is essentially take some of the building blocks both of the Gospels, but also of Jesus movies, and Jesus and popular culture, and make fun of them.

Dan LeFebvre  03:40

Now, one of the overarching themes throughout the movie, of course, is the idea that Brian gets misidentified as Jesus was that a common thing misidentification back then?

Adele Reinhartz  03:50

I think that that’s really a part of the film’s comic premise. And it allows them to be free and how they portray Brian. The film is interesting the film was, they had a hard time getting it released commercially. And in the end, I think it was triggered through the intervention of George Harrison, it finally did get released. And the reason was that people were worried that it was blasphemous or that it portray Jesus in a negative light. If you actually see the film Jesus is in the brief moments when Jesus is there on the screen is completely reverential. The fun is with Brian, and I think that’s really why they did it not so much because misunder mis identification was a common theme. But because it allowed them a certain freedom to portray Brian without the constraints that filmmakers face when they try to portray Jesus.

You’ll find a link to my full chat with Adele about Life of Brian in the show notes, as well as where you can find it on streaming…in case you want to give it a watch before listening to the true story.