Dan LeFebvre  02:40

Our movie today is a little different than what we normally cover here on the podcast. But even though it doesn’t claim to be based on a true story, Casablanca is not only set during the historical backdrop of World War Two. It was also released during the war as well. So if you were to give Casablanca a letter grade for its historical accuracy overall, what would it

Bob LeMent  03:09

get? I think it was pretty I think it was pretty close. So I think I would give it somewhere around the B. I don’t want to say b minus but I’ll give it. I don’t want to do minuses or pluses, so let’s just do B, A,

Dan LeFebvre  03:21

B, okay. That’s good. That’s good. I mean, again, it is one of the things. I’m kind of surprised that it’s that high, being that it was released during the war as well. And we know that there’s a lot of propaganda films that get released and such like that. So I’m glad to hear that it was pretty, pretty close,

Bob LeMent  03:36

I think. So I think, yeah, there’s a lot of instances there where they were, you know, pretty close to what was happening and, and since it was on right, everything was happening at that time, it’s kind of interesting that that they would, you know, put all that out there and not try to spin it too much, one way or the other. So, plus, to be honest, the movie, in parts of the movie were extremely vague. So, so it’s accurate in the sense that I think that’s probably what the times were, right? So you didn’t want to, you didn’t want to go one way or the other too much, because you didn’t know it was going

Dan LeFebvre  04:11

to happen. That’s true. And I guess I didn’t think about it until just now too like, they also didn’t know a lot of that stuff. Like, we didn’t know a lot of what actually happened until after the war anyway, right? And so that’s another element to it, that, yeah, okay, yeah,

Bob LeMent  04:27

if you because they were, I mean, this was the whole story of Casa block is trying to get away from the war, right? So people are using this as a as a point of departure, more than a point of arrival and and trying to get away from all of the, you know, the madness of Europe at the time and, and so I think it is. It’s fairly accurate in that portrayal. Obviously, it was much more gruesome and horrible than its portrayal. Trade, but that’s Hollywood, right? So they’re not, they’re not going to show all well at the time. That’s Hollywood. Now, maybe they would be more gruesome. But back then, it was all very, you know, clean and, and you know, all, they’re running away and, but it’s not like, you know, people were tortured and on screen and so forth. So, yeah, which you know, I’m sure happened even in Casablanca. You

Dan LeFebvre  05:26

mentioned getting away from the war. And at the beginning of the movie, it explains the storyline of why this is taking place in Casablanca. Basically, it says that the outbreak of World War Two in Europe, the civilians are trying to escape the war by heading to America. And to do that, they need to get to Lisbon, Portugal. Some people could get there directly, but because of the war, the movie explains that not everyone could get to Lisbon directly, so they had to kind of take this roundabout path from Paris to Marseille, across the Mediterranean to Iran and Algeria, and then across the northern coast of Africa to Casablanca, which is in Morocco. And then from there, people would try to barter or buy an exit visa from Casablanca to go the 380 or 615 kilometers, as the crow flies to Lisbon to then ultimately get to America. Was that an actual path that people took to try to escape the war in Europe? I

Bob LeMent  06:16

believe so, yeah. So I think that was the that was a path. It’s kind of like a political end around, right? So you couldn’t just, you couldn’t just go, Hey, I’m in Paris, which is a major metropolitan city, you know, even then, right? And just, I’m gonna hop on a plane and go to America. That wasn’t gonna happen. And so they had to go someplace, to go someplace, to go someplace in order to get where they needed to go. And so, yeah, this was a weird little stop along the way, as it were, in order to get to America, because you couldn’t just go straight. You couldn’t go, I mean, you couldn’t fly to London, right? So there was no way out of the situation other than going through, you know, kind of these backwater places in order to avoid the political, you know, devastation. Maybe we’ll say that was going on at that time because of, because of the war and all the different things that were happening that. So, yeah, I think the interesting thing to me, for all, I mean, it’s very, you know, sugar coated for perspective from today and so forth. But, you know, at the time, I think it was, it was deemed fairly tough in its portrayal of things that were happening for the for the general public. So there were, you know, they had guns, and they were Nazis, and, you know, people were, were, you know, running for their lives, a lot of them. And it didn’t really broach the, you know, the elephant in the room, which was the Jewish persecution so much. These were just, you know, when we say run of the mill people, I don’t think that’s the right word to say, but they, they weren’t in the Holocaust aspect of things. They were, you know, kind of the, the folks who were the, you know, bystanders who got caught up in everything and so And obviously some of them were as we watched the movie, some of them were against the war against the Nazis and so forth. But it really didn’t talk about the Holocaust so much in that regard. Now, if you look into the movie as who was working on the movie. It talks a lot about the Holocaust, right? So there are people who worked on this movie who knew things were going on and wanted to betray that. You know, this was not a good situation, without being so overt as to say, you know that this was happening.

Dan LeFebvre  09:01

Can you give an example of what you mean by that? I’m

Bob LeMent  09:03

so curious. You’re just saying there was, there were people in the movie who have escaped the Nazis, and there are extras in the movie, and there are characters in the movie, there are actors in the movie, and there’s also in the movie, there are folks who were the Jewish faith, who knew things were going on and they were working on this, as you know, I don’t know, I can’t get into their heads. But as this was going on, you can’t help but think, yes, we need to expose these people as, as you know, not being good people and but in a kind of, you know, non overt way, right? This is a bad situation. They couldn’t talk about, you know, the Holocaust or anything, but they could talk about how bad the war is. And so I think that was also. You know, if you look, you know, kind of an underlying thing. I’m sure, if you were to ask any one of those folks who are working on it, that that would be, you know, a surreptitious goal of theirs is to, is to make light of the fact that this was happening, and you need to pay attention. Everybody is, this is you’re not going to be, you know, it’s going to get you as well. We’re just in the first line. So, yeah, yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  10:25

which, which kind of goes back to being released during the war. It’s it. I mean, now we think of it as a period piece, perhaps, but it was, it was that during that time, like it was going on right then. So it was a way of getting that message out. I didn’t think about that, that it would, yeah, it’s a, not a documentary, but it’s telling what’s going on right now, right?

Bob LeMent  10:46

Yeah, if you take into consideration another movie that was, you know, kind of during this time period as well, earlier than this time period, actually, by a little bit, but, you know, very much in tune with kind of the things that were going on The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin, there was no ambiguity that he says. Hitler is a horrible person. This one’s a little more ambiguous. But The Great Dictator, you know, it was shouting from the rafters, hey everybody, you know, this is not going to be good for anybody. So this was, oddly enough, you would think that that would have been later, but it was earlier than Casablanca. And Casablanca is kind of the, you know, let’s get everybody on board with this politically and move our, you know, things forward, our position forward, but not be, you know, too upsetting in the political situation. I think so. Well,

Dan LeFebvre  11:55

movie doesn’t really talk about dates very much, but there is one line of dialog that mentions it being December of 1941 of course, we know Pearl Harbor was attacked in December of 1941 that brought the United States into the war. The movie doesn’t even mention that at all. What it does mention is things like Free France and Vichy France, and in case of Casablanca, specifically, they call it unoccupied France. But can you fill in a little more historical context? Because we’re, you know, recording this long after World War Two, obviously. And again, this was released in 1942 so just after the timeline of the movie itself in December of 1941 so can you give us some more historical context that we don’t see in the movie, that the audiences would have known then about these fragmentations of France and the location there in Casablanca?

Bob LeMent  12:38

That’s a that’s a good and I wish I could give you, like, a really detailed thing, but I can’t. But off my what I can’t tell you is that, basically, you know, Nazi Germany occupied France, and there was a point in time where, you know, everything’s a mess. That’s where the French resistance comes into existence because they don’t want to be occupied and, and if you, if you remember, in the movie, they’re talking about these papers that are signed by Charles de Gaulle, right? So those are very, very valuable, right? Because this is at a point in in transition where the Nazis are invading in French the French government is kind of going along with it a bit in order to, kind of, you know, not everybody get killed, I guess, and and so that’s why they, when they mention that in the movie, that’s why it’s so important, because it’s, they still have some, I won’t say, power, but they have some influence over the situation at this point. And because, you know, not too long after this, Charles de Gaulle, you know, who cares if he signed anything, right? Because the Nazis can, you know, totally occupy everything and batten down the hatches in France is, is part of Germany, in essence, during the war at that time. So this is that weird political time where they’re trying to figure things out. And the interesting thing is is, I believe, not too far after this time is also when they were trying to get Britain to sign on to something and allowed the Nazis to occupy them as well. In effect, right? A political strategy without, without having to be a military strategy. But they were moving towards the military strategy. And said, Hey, if you want to just surrender, like France did, go right ahead. We’ll let you, and they’ll be part of Germany as well, right? And so this movie portrays a really interesting time where people could still move, you know, even though not freely, but move somewhat by this kind of political end around going through northern Africa. And so it really is, and I think maybe that might be part of the attraction for the movie for the age. Is as it were, is because it’s portraying a time that was so, you know, interesting now, in hindsight, at the time, probably so, you know, incredibly frightful of what was happening. And can you imagine, I mean, you and I live in the United States. Can you imagine if all of a sudden something happens like, well, you can’t go, you know, if we go into the man of the High Castle, you can’t go past the Rockies, because we’re occupied on this side by one group, and the other side across the Rockies says is the other group. So you can’t do, can’t do that. We can’t even fathom that. But this was happening to in Europe, and it was happening to these people, and it just historically, looking back at is like, how can you you know? How can you fathom that? How can we, you know, as a generation beyond all of this, a couple generations beyond our list. But how can you, you know, bring that into your mind, because we’ve never had to experience but here you can see it. I mean, albeit very, you know, light in its presentation, a lot of people get killed and whatnot, but it’s not gruesome. It really is an interesting movie for that. And I reason I brought this up because I recently watched it before I contacted you, in amazingly, a very well made movie, and it moves right. So if you think of 1942 you know, a lot of movies are. Nobody watches a lot of movies from that time period because they’re not very the pace is very, very slow, and this one actually has a pretty good pace, man, that doesn’t answer the other part of the question, but it’s very interesting to me that this movie was so well paced and so and you kind of buy it, you know, you’re into the the what happens to These characters, because it is kind of an interesting situation, and then the corruption, right? So, I mean, for all intents and purposes, Rick is a gangster. He’s he’s selling access, right? There were other people selling access as well, you know, you want to get out of here. Well, guess what? You know, I mean, he was a nice gangster, but gangster nonetheless.

Dan LeFebvre  17:30

Yeah. Well, that leads right into my next question, because I have a feeling I already know the answer to this, but a lot of movies change the names or make up characters completely. But I have to ask like Rick Blaine, Ilsa Lund, Victor Laszlo, are kind of the three main characters. And then there’s the local French prefect of the police, Captain Renault, and then the German military officer, major Strasser, is kind of, there’s the main characters in the movie. Are any of them based on real people?

Bob LeMent  17:57

It’s based off of a play I’m trying to remember the title off the top of my head here, everyone can meet, everyone can go to Rick’s place. I think I can’t remember the I don’t know if you’re familiar with that play. I’m blanking on it here for some reason. But I don’t think that any I think they’re kind of a conglomerate of people who are going through there. I mean, the French, you know, Jardin person there he was, you know, he was somebody, but I don’t think he was that person with that name. And he probably, he was a gangster as well, if you think about it, because he was playing with people’s lives. And, you know, you can leave, you can’t leave. Where’s the money, you know, all that kind of stuff. But I think they’re all kind of a conglomeration of things that happened during that time, rather than actual people of the time. So it’s not a true story in any way, other than it’s based on experiences. Everybody’s welcome at Rick’s place. I think that’s what it’s called. Okay,

Dan LeFebvre  19:05

okay, yeah, and that makes sense. I mean, a lot of movies just completely make up characters like that too, well.

Bob LeMent  19:13

Plus, there was a time where I don’t think that they really wanted to do that, to be honest with you. I mean, can you imagine if you were, you were, you’re still probably outed

Dan LeFebvre  19:24

by the Hollywood movie. It’s still going on. That’s true. That’s true. That’s very, very true. Yeah.

Bob LeMent  19:33

So like, Hey, I’m not. You don’t use my name. Hey, I’m I’m still trying to make money on this situation, exactly,

Dan LeFebvre  19:39

and especially for, you know, according to the movie Victor Laszlo, is part of the underground fighting against the Nazis. We never, we never really find out exactly what his role is. There was a point at line of dialog where he says something like, you know, I’m privileged to be one of the great leaders, or one of the leaders of a great movement. And then we see that major strass is trying to use, um. Safe pass, or he’s trying to get safe passage out of Casablanca, and major Strasser is trying to use that to bribe him into giving up the other leaders of the resistance across major European cities. So we get the idea that Laszlo knows, you know, is very well connected with the resistance. And then there’s another part in the movie where Strasser is speaking directly with Laszlo and tells him that he’s an escaped prisoner of the Third Reich, and that’s why Strasser is there in Casablanca, tasked with making sure that Laszlo stays in Casablanca and doesn’t leave. But as I was watching it, I was I couldn’t help but think, why wouldn’t Strasser just take Laszlo into custody the moment that he sees him? The movie seems to imply the reason for that is because Casablanca is in unoccupied France, like we talked about. But looking at this from a historical lens, did the Germans behave differently in unoccupied France as they did in occupied territories? Yeah,

Bob LeMent  20:49

I think so. So, you know, we don’t have the benefit of living through it, which I’m glad. But yeah, I mean, there was weird political alliances and weird political happenings all during World War Two, you know, as it as it kind of went built up, right? And so, yes, I would say that there. I mean, I don’t think that they were as nice as they are in this movie, right? You know, where, where they’re singing, they’re singing the German, I can’t even pronounce it, Dirac and Rhine. And then they start singing le Marseille, you know, over it. And it was kind of like, you know, a rivalry for football teams, or something like

Dan LeFebvre  21:33

a West Side Story,

Bob LeMent  21:35

right? You know that? I’m sure that didn’t go on, you know, and go over very well, but no there. I think there was a they held to the political agreements because they, you know, it’s, it’s much easier to like when friends surrenders, right? It’s much easier to take over a country that way than it is to bomb them and shoot them and and go through all the fighting. And so I think at this point in the game, the Nazis wanted to do that. So they were probably on, you know, for lack of a better term, their best behavior. And so then, yeah, so it kind of makes sense that, I also think that it’s more of a an amalgam, right? So I don’t know that they just did one on one, let’s watch people not get out of the country, kind of a situation. But I think it’s more, you know, looking at the trying to build that into the storyline, that was probably the easiest, easiest way to do that. I think that they had people stationed, and they would communicate and say so and so is going to be in your area. Keep an eye on them, kind of just like the just like the French Jordan was, was keeping an eye on everybody and trying to make his money and live, live the good life in Casablanca and so, yeah, but I don’t know that it was just they were chasing each other on but hey, maybe, maybe they did. But I I couldn’t imagine, but you’re right, but you mentioned, you know, he’s like part of something again, all very vague, all very vague. They didn’t say the resistance. They didn’t say that. We don’t even know why Rick is there. They never explain why he’s got all this set up, other than it’s obviously lucrative, but he obviously didn’t move in yesterday. He’s been there for a while, and he’s set up shop. And this, to me, it was kind of implied that he’d been there for quite some time, and he’s taken advantage of the situation, as opposed to, he moved there to do this particular, you know, work. I think he was doing a lot of other stuff, and this just happened to pop up, and he’s like, Yeah, let’s, let’s make some money on this new idea.

Dan LeFebvre  23:56

Like you said it as a gangster, it’s take advantage of the situation, good

Bob LeMent  23:59

money. These people want to get out of here. So yeah, I mean, obviously he’s got a heart of gold in the movie, because he does help help them escape, essentially. But yeah, I think so. And I think it’s all you know, kind of set up to be, not strictly historical, but somewhat historical,

Dan LeFebvre  24:26

yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. And you mentioning Rick and kind of his backstory, we hear little bits and pieces throughout the movie. It’s, he’s born in New York City, so he’s an American. But then in 1935 it talks about how he ran guns in Ethiopia, and in 1936 he fought in Spain on the loyal side. But that’s as that’s as detailed as the movie gets. Do we know from history if there were things that happened in Ethiopia in 1935 and Spain in 1936 that the movie might be alluding to with Rick’s backstory? I

Bob LeMent  24:56

wish I knew the answer for you. I think that those things did happen, from my limited understanding on, on that aspect of things that those were, you know, they kind of star trekked it, you know what I mean. So they, they took real, cherry picked things out of history to put into his story. You know, like Efraim Cochrane, you know, he’s the person before him was, you know, Isaac Newton and all these real people. And then you get the Efraim Cochrane, and he breaks the warp barrier. But so if you’re familiar with that, sorry. And then, so, yeah, I think that those were actual things that happened. I took it that, I did not run that down necessarily. Sorry,

Dan LeFebvre  25:43

no, no, yeah, that makes sense, though. I mean, because, again, it’s alluding to there’s something vague there, kind of like with the resistance, or that that element and that they give it. One of the reasons it stood out to me was because it gave dates and places where most of the movie doesn’t really do that kind of stuff. And so, you know, the that they did that makes me think, yeah, kid, it must be something there that he was involved in. But then it again, alludes, since it mentioned December of 1941 like you had said, he’s already been there in Casablanca, and that was kind of the next thing that he was doing. And so he was doing things in other places, kind of behind the scenes. And then now he’s in in Casablanca. He’s been there, apparently, since after 1936 or at some point after that.

Bob LeMent  26:28

It’s kind of like a gun for hire, in a way, in the earlier stories. And now he’s older, and so this was the new venture that he took on because, you know, maybe he didn’t want to shoot people anymore, or at least not as many. We talked about him a little

Dan LeFebvre  26:45

bit, but I do want to ask a little bit more specifically about the relationship between Captain Renault and major Strasser in the movie, that’s the Renault is the French law enforcement. Strasser is the Nazi official, and again, Casablanca being in unoccupied France, but major Strasser is welcomed by Renault, and many of the locals in movie calls it unoccupied France. So it’s not occupied. I’m assuming that’s referring to, you know, not occupied by the Nazis, but then they’re still welcomed. What would the relationship have been like? Would the Nazis actually have been welcomed by local law enforcement? Did they kind of, do you think they foresaw what was going to happen, even though it wasn’t occupied by the Germans, but they’re like, Oh, we better appease them, because it’s coming. Or what do you think was happening there?

Bob LeMent  27:27

My guess would be that they’re, you know, obviously stuff’s happening. They’re seeing things and so forth, and, and just like Britain, you know, France was colonial, colonialist, right? And, and if, going forward in history, you know, part of the reason Vietnam became such a mess was because of colonialism, and that was French influenced. And so I think that they, you know, it’s again, it’s the times and the political thing. It’s, I don’t know that they would say welcomed as much as tolerated, more than likely. And so because what are you going to do? You don’t want them, you know, the the powers in Germany to say, Okay, well now we’re just going to take over this area, because it’d probably a pretty easy job. And obviously it was because they did take over most of North Africa by the time World War Two chugged along. That’s the whole Rommel aspect of things, and the Desert Fox and all that took over huge part of Africa for the for the Nazis. And so, you know, you, everybody’s playing it cool, right? So everything gets to happen and and they kind of just, they in the movie, they go into, you know, everybody falls into cronyism and, and, you know, being corrupt. And so, you know, the Germans money spends as well as the whoever else is coming through there, so you play both ends to get the money. So, yeah, I can imagine that that, you know, I don’t know that they would say open arms, but I think for sure, there was not any, you know, they’re like, Yeah, whatever, yeah, you can come in here and drink as well.

Dan LeFebvre  29:20

Yeah, yeah. I like the way you say that, that they, you know, they weren’t necessarily welcome, but they were tolerated. And the idea of, it sounds like they’re trying to survive, and, like, with Renault being that, you know, the the leader the law enforcement there, but also recognizing that he really doesn’t, I mean, if he does the wrong thing, like, I mean, they’re going to attack anyway, and, you know, so might as well just make the best of the situation that you have. He’s

Bob LeMent  29:45

corrupt, and so he’s trying to, you know, cash in. Because, I mean, guess what, he’s at the port of exit. So the going, it’s too tough. I’ve got these papers with Charles de Gaulle’s signature on them, and I. Will, you know, make my exit at the right time. And so it’s it. It really is, you know, even though, when you watch it, it’s not very it’s not like it is today, but it’s very corrupt situation. You know, in I think it’s portrayed in the film as palatable as corruption can be portrayed at the time period, you know, they’re not going to be, you know, overly terrible, you know, cutting off pinkies and whatnot. So, you know. But I think for the time period, this was, this was, you know, corruption at its best. You

Dan LeFebvre  30:40

mentioned the letters from De Gaulle, and you talked about that briefly before too, but that is that’s a core concept in the movie, that these letters of transit were signed by General de Gaulle, and they there’s also mentions of Captain Renault having exit visas that he’s signing, but they’re the letters of transit from De Gaulle are different because the movie specifically says that they cannot be rescinded or even questioned, which, of course, applies to me. Like, okay, well, of course, the only the people are going to want this are the ones that the Nazis would probably want to question. That’s right,

Bob LeMent  31:15

don’t question me, right? That that don’t want to have any, you know, they’re trying to skate right out of there without any kind of problems, whereas, you know, the other ones are like, maybe it’s going to work. Maybe it’s not going to work. So

Dan LeFebvre  31:31

is there any truth to the concept of those letters that we know

Bob LeMent  31:34

of, that we know of? I do believe that that is true, at least to a point, right? So that was, those were something that was available at the time, until, basically, De Gaulle stepped down and and so a lot of people got out via that mechanism, right? So that was, you know, you when you watch a lot of these movies, World War two movies and everything there’s with all these different things that are happening in corruption and everything this like Schindler’s List, right? So the list was there to save people because, well, they need to make ammunition, you know, munitions and so forth. And so Oscar Schindler was collecting people and saying that they were invaluable, and that would so I think all with all this corruption and everything going on that was, you know, the corruption on the good side of things, where it was helping people get out of the situation and, and, I mean, it’s happened since then in all kinds of different situations. And so, yeah, I believe so. And in the Now, as far as the the the officer, the French officer, have signed in those, I don’t know about that, that that may be part of the invention to show his corruptness. But I think when you’re when they’re invoking a real person, right? Charles de Gaulle and so forth. I think all that is factual to a point, obviously not, not forever, you know, I’m sure that he didn’t give it to those people or anything, but, you know, but the

Dan LeFebvre  33:16

concept of them being a thing, yeah? Which, again, goes back to something that I think is important to understand when watching this movie, is that it was released in 1942 during the war as well, and so the time period is very different than if we were to make a movie today of the same story we would we would know a lot more about The stuff going on behind the scenes and the but also, just like the political, the political side of it would be very different. I

Bob LeMent  33:47

think, I mean, we have a war going on over in the Ukraine, right? I don’t think that we know more than they knew

Dan LeFebvre  33:57

why. But I mean, like we would know more about what happened in Casablanca in World War Two, if the movie was made today, now, is what, yeah, but, but, because this was made during the war, they didn’t know a lot of the political mechanizations Behind the scenes that were going on. They just knew that there were these things that were going on, and so maybe that’s why they were so vague in a lot of it.

Bob LeMent  34:18

But they’re literally people in this movie, who took the route now there, yeah, so they knew, right? And they’re working on the movie. So I think the vagueness had more to do with the political climate probably than it had anything to do with giving away any secrets. Because they they talk, and there’s a, if you look on IMDb, they talk about when they did the whole, you know, singing thing, from the to the LE Marseille and everything, they were literally the people who were in the scene were crying because they had gone through this, you know, they had escaped. And now. Are, you know, in the film industry, and they’re trying to get by right during this time period, and they’re crying in this scene, because this is, this is so personal and and so, you know, I think I don’t know that they necessarily all the inside knowledge that they would have had made it into the movie. But, you know, there was known things. And just like The Great Dictator that was, they knew that stuff was happening, as far as the Holocaust was concerned, way back then, and that that Charlie Chaplin put into the movie, you know, insinuate, but it wasn’t totally proven. And, I mean, some people probably knew, but not everybody, and so they were, it’s a whole weird political climate that everybody was trying to navigate because that was so contentious, right? So you’re dealing with, you know, at this point, we call him a mad man, right in Hitler and the Nazi machine, and you’re trying to not get overly involved in in having everybody be killed in a war. And it was just massive. And so, you know, you say we were brought into the war after Pearl Harbor, right? And but we were involved in the war well before Pearl Harbor, because we were, yeah, we were supplying the British with all kinds of good stuff, because they were, at that point, they were the major power against the Nazis. And to this day, we’re supplying Ukraine with all sorts of good stuff in that skirmish. And so it’s not, you know, it’s not as if all this kind of just poof, you know, happened in a moment. So all this is, you know, ongoing. And I think that’s part of where you talk about Rick and his, his weird background and so forth, all all through history. This stuff doesn’t just happen overnight. Typically, it percolates and brews and and then things pop here and there, and then finally, it, you know, comes above the fray there, and everybody becomes aware of it. And so, yeah, I think that this was is like that. So we’re just emerging into the broader political ideologies that came out of all this. And at this point, when this was made, still not so sure where everybody’s at. I mean, people were taking meetings with Hitler from the United States all the way up until war was declared, right? And I’m talking, you know, known people. So it is weird. And I think the interesting thing about this movie is, is the ambiguity of all this, right? So it’s so ambiguous in parts that I think that that plays well to the politics that was happening, because they all had to get along still, but things were happening, but, you know, you didn’t, and people were obviously fleeing, but it wasn’t like it was a full blown situation, yet, kind of

Dan LeFebvre  38:30

like you’re saying before, just there are a lot of people that were tolerating each other and not not welcoming or but just a lot of toleration going on, even on the political side too. Yeah, it

Bob LeMent  38:39

was in and then you think of where it’s at in Morocco. I mean, it’s not Paris, right? Even in 1942 Morocco is not Paris. And so it really is not a major metropolitan, you know, forward thinking kind of place back then, and so all this is kind of, you know, a microcosm, terrible to say, the Gilligan’s Island of World War Two, right there in Casablanca.

Dan LeFebvre  39:15

Any other example? There? Nice, because,

Bob LeMent  39:17

because Gilligan’s Island was the microcosm of the rich and the poor and the working class and and everything. And that was how it was built, right? And so with the movie, that’s what they kind of built with this too, was, you know, you have people taking advantage. You have people who are trying to get away, and you have people who are just living there. And you have, you know, the waiters and so forth, that that the bar, who are, you know, just trying to to get through right in. And so it is. It is a microcosm for, I think the times

Dan LeFebvre  39:51

makes sense. You mentioned people kind of taking advantage. And other other than Rick, who we kind of had referred to before, there’s another guy named Ferrari, and he. Runs the big competitor to Rick’s, which is it called the Blue parrot. And according to the movie, he’s got a monopoly on the black market. At one point, talks about how buying and selling humans is the leading commodity in Casablanca. Was human trafficking a major issue in Casablanca during World War

Bob LeMent  40:17

Two. I hate to tell you this human trafficking still a major issue. Dan,

Dan LeFebvre  40:22

fair point,

Bob LeMent  40:25

yeah, I don’t know on, I don’t know what I would I would say that, chances are there was some of that going on. I don’t know to what extent, and so forth. It’s interesting that if you look at the two characters, you know, Rick looks very American, and then the the for our Ferrari guy looks he’s trying to acclimate. He’s wearing a fez. He doesn’t, he shouldn’t be wearing a fez. If you look at him, he’s, he’s got a suit on so forth. He’s wearing a fez. I mean, he’s trying to be a little more local, but he’s obviously not. He’s obviously, you know, American or British background so forth. As far as the human trafficking at the time, I That’s a good question. I wish I had a better answer for you. I would say that that unfortunately, it’s still an issue today. And so chances are, if that was the route that other people were taking, then that’s the route that they would take for that as well. The interesting thing that I found was that there was a lot of Jew Jewish people in Morocco, in that part of Northern Africa, and so then they, obviously, you know, wanted to leave because of what was happening, which, you know, I don’t know that it, it really dawned on me that’s a little bit of some research that I did. It was interesting to note that, because now, when we think about that, we don’t think of it as being particularly an area where a lot of Jewish people would be so that I found that interesting. Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  42:14

were they? Was it something they kind of, they were trying to escape from Europe, or was it a community that was already there. Oh, okay, okay, see, I would have expected that. Okay, there, everybody’s fleeing Europe. And, yeah, you know what?

Bob LeMent  42:27

It was already part of the already part of the community. They would live there. And so, you know, this wasn’t something they moved there. I mean, obviously, I’m sure there’s a wave of people during that time period. But no talks about the them being, having a community there. I wonder if they

Dan LeFebvre  42:46

were involved in, think of like with Victor Laszlo and being part of the resistance, if then he connected to, you know, the local community, because they knew what was going on and helping people escape. It seems like it could be a logical connection.

Bob LeMent  42:58

It seems like it would be a good connector. But they don’t go into that too much with the movie at all. They don’t actually get into the, you know, genetic stuff that the Nazis were into for that time, too much in the movie. And again, I think that was just the political climate, you know, they didn’t want to to broach that throughout

Dan LeFebvre  43:25

the movie. It takes place just across a few days in the movie. But there was a flashback sequence with Rick and Ilsa in Paris, and that’s, there’s artillery in the distance can be heard. And then Rick mentioned, you know, the German 77th is about 35 miles away. And then there’s another scene reading newspaper and talk about how the Germans are going to be in Paris by Wednesday or Thursday at the least. How well do you think the movie did just explaining the German invasion of Paris from the perspective of citizens like Rick and Ilsa who were living there at the time,

Bob LeMent  43:52

I don’t think they did a very good job, really. Okay? I mean, they talk about that and everything, but it’s always at a distance, right? And so, you know, it’s, it’s as if, well, we’re above all this. So it’s just, you know, the unlucky people, or the poor people are getting bombed or whatever, because we’re here in this hotel and we’re doing fine, where we know it wasn’t like that, you know, it was whenever they took over Paris, then there was fighting and so forth. And, I mean, you know, it was indiscriminate, right? It was wherever the fighting was happening. It wasn’t like they said, well, we can’t go over by the Ritz because, you know, all the rich people are there. So I think they, you know, it was a light way to bring it into the script, I think, but not really, you know, if you watch, you know, other movies, like Saving Private Ryan so forth, and you see the bombed out buildings and people still living in them. I think that’s a little bit more realistic portrayal of how things happened, where, you know, fighting. Happens. There’s so much, you know, just ancillary destruction, and people who aren’t even involved in the war dying, and then their family has to carry on, and all they’ve got is what’s left. And so, yeah, it was very, you know, the whole movie is very light on the realism, I think, in that, in that aspect of things, yeah. And then also, you know, they never went to Paris, obviously, so because they couldn’t at that time.

Dan LeFebvre  45:35

Oh, the Germans you’re talking about, yeah, no, I

Bob LeMent  45:38

mean the movie, they didn’t. They were all in the studio in Hollywood.

Dan LeFebvre  45:41

Oh well, right, yeah. Oh yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, yeah, that was a good point. I didn’t even think about that

Bob LeMent  45:48

Morocco. They weren’t anywhere they were. So the whole movie, and one of the aspects of the movie is, whenever they are at the airfield, and the we’re gonna get on the plane, and everything that was in that was indoors, because they couldn’t film outside during the war at night, because Hollywood itself was under alert, you know. So one of the things is the the plane is a model constructed, and they actually that one of the great stories trivia pieces from Casablanca is the plane is a model. And the people who, when they get you see them by the plane, they’re children in they’re dressed up as adults in order to get scale right, so to make the plane look bigger, because they could not film at an airfield, because the they were not allowed to have lights at night unless they were needed. So everything was dark because they were worried about invasion. And that’s and we can spin off into the Battle of Los Angeles, which is kind of a famous thing in and of itself, during that time period where something was in the sky and they shot the heck out of it, and no one knows. Yeah, I mean, they assume it’s a weather balloon or something. But, of course, but it, you know, that’s how high alert the West Coast of the United States was, at that time was, you know, there were people who, that was the Civil Defense, and they would sit out all night and watch the skies and so, yeah, which is something you

Dan LeFebvre  47:31

won’t even think about, watching the movie like that, that. I mean, especially watching the movie now. I mean, you think of, okay, it was, it was during the war. But you don’t think about little things like that, of even the production of the movie having to change because of the war that was still going on as they were, as they were filming it, yeah,

Bob LeMent  47:47

and, and so that that was, you know, since it’s all basically a studio movie, it’s all pretty much inside. I they didn’t, I don’t, I think, I think all that was inside, even the airplane thing, it was just in a big sound stage off in the distance and so forth, because you never really see the sky. It’s night. Yeah, it’s foggy, exactly, but, yeah, it’s interesting, like that. So, I mean, if you think about it, even they were under the threat because they were restricted, yeah, no, that makes sense. Shoots couldn’t do night. Shoots couldn’t do couldn’t go to Morocco, couldn’t hang on Casablanca, actually, you know, they just had to do it all from from the studio and, you know, relative safety, I think, at the time,

Dan LeFebvre  48:40

in the final scene at the airport, the airport, the way it all kind of ends, you have the Rick giving the letters of transit to Victor and Elsa so that they can take the last plane out of Casablanca. Rick stays behind. He ends up killing the Nazi major Strasser and so that the Germans won’t try to pursue the plane. But then, In a surprise move at the very end, Captain Renault doesn’t turn in Rick, but then he orders his police officers to go look for the other usual suspects. I think he says like he has normal people that they round up whenever there’s something wrong. And it seems obvious that that ruse isn’t going to last very long. So at the very end of the movie, you see Rick and Renault, kind of walking off in the distance, heading towards a Free French garrison in Brazzaville, which, again, was kind of something that seemed pretty significant that they would just mention Brazzaville. Was there any significance to that mention at the end

Bob LeMent  49:26

of the movie? I think that it was a safe haven still at that point as things were falling apart. But everything was like dominoes and so and it is interesting that that our French authority, you know, kind of turncoat. But you know, they kind of allude to his, you know, French patriotism, I suppose, in a way, it probably, you know, money was also a factor, because there, throughout the movie, the Germans are never portrayed. They’re not portrayed as super or they’re portrayed as negative, but they’re not portrayed as being in on the game. You know what? I mean, Rick and the blue parrot, they’re all in on the game. And then the Nazis are kind of there, but they’re ruining the game, as it were. And so, yeah, I think that’s also part of it. Yeah, he’s, he’s kind of a which way the wind blows, kind of guy in the whole movie, anyhow. And so I think that was part of that deal. But yeah, I think they were just heading the next, next free spot and on their way to, you know, whatever, wherever they had to go next as things were falling apart. Just

Dan LeFebvre  50:44

assume Casablanca. They’re done in Casablanca and head to wherever, wherever is safe next, right,

Bob LeMent  50:49

wherever or whatever that can make money, you know, because, you know, we started out saying that they’re, they’re corrupt, they’re, they’re gangsters of the period. And that’s, that’s how they had the flow with the, you know, go with where the money’s going to be. Whenever it gets to be no money. What’s the point of hanging out there? Yeah, but it’s weird that he, he let them go. But that was the whole thing that he knew her, and they, you know, kind of had some kind of a history and, and that was a little bit vague as well about their whole history, but, but he would, would make that move and not just take the flight himself. He could easily just went with her to, hey, let’s leave this other guy to be caught by the Nazis. But he, you know, but that’s not a happy ending. So,

Dan LeFebvre  51:44

yeah, I think they try to the impression I got was it’s way of him being selfless, because he loves her, and so it’s kind of, we’ll always have Paris, and you always get that line too, right? You wouldn’t have that otherwise,

Bob LeMent  51:58

yeah, well, at the time though, I mean, that would be that was a super hopeful thing to say, right? Always, Paris has fallen. Yeah, true. We’re, we are probably incredibly lucky that the Eiffel Tower wasn’t dismantled to make tanks. You know what I mean? So always have Paris in this movie is an incredibly hopeful statement, because I think about that, yeah, because it was all happening, and they’re like, oh, you know, we had, you know, metal rationing and and everything in the United States, let alone in Britain and in Germany and other parts of Europe, right? So, yeah, we’re so lucky that most of the architecture wasn’t just destroyed in order to support the war effort,

Dan LeFebvre  52:59

which it I mean, if not just taken apart, but also, like you mentioned, just that so many buildings bombed out in cities bombed out and things like that. You know that artillery and bullets don’t care where they fall, right,

Bob LeMent  53:11

exactly. And then they and they were, and they were rebuilt in some areas, right? And so, yeah, there’s a lot of things in Paris that are from before the war that are still there, thankfully, because of the way that it played out, and but it could have won anyway, and so yeah, we’ll always have Paris. Is, you know, an inspiring thing to say, right? Because they don’t know we may not have Paris, yeah, at that point, yeah. Who knows what’s going to happen to Paris? All up in the air? Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  53:46

that’s true. That’s true. Well, at this point, Casablanca, it’s like over 80 years old, so I doubt they’re going to do a remake. But just for the fun of it, if you were directing a remake of this film today, what’s something that you would do differently?

Bob LeMent  54:00

That’s That’s a tough one, because this is one of those movies that you can’t touch, right? Citizen Kane. I’m gonna remake Citizen Kane instead of a sled, he’s gonna have a motorbike. It’s not gonna work. I think if they were to try to remake it today, just in the trends for, you know, things and so forth, it would be, I think it would be more of a chase movie than it is in here. Here it’s very much a drama, very much, you know, there’s, you know, stuff happening, romance, kind of in the drama and all these people involved, and it’s but I think it would be like there’s a movie called salt with that was a chase movie or something like that. It probably would be like that, rather than being a drama like it is now and more just. People talking because, you know, you wanted to be on the run and and see the route. I think they could probably get away with that. They probably wouldn’t be able to call it Casablanca. It would just be one of the stops along the way. But, yeah, I think that’s probably what would happen. And then you could still have, you know, your Rick and and and your Renault and so forth in there to help you get through and make the the tension with Strasser and so forth. But, yeah, it wouldn’t be the same. I don’t know. The thing is, a lot of these older movies, it’s hard to remake just because storytelling has changed in what people want to see is changed. And so to me, that’s what makes this movie so interesting, is the fact that it still holds up, even though tastes and what people want to see have drastically changed over time. So it’s, it’s interesting that they that people still can go back to this one and say, you know, this is pretty good. I liked it,

Dan LeFebvre  56:11

yeah. And it’s interesting because it has, I mean, movies have been influenced, obviously, like we talked about, a lot of the history behind the movie, but there’s actually, I looked at, there’s actually a big cafe in Morocco, because that’s been inspired by the film, and things like that. And then we talk about things like, you know, we’ll always have parish. And there’s lines like, here’s looking at you kid, what are some of the favorite ways that you think Casablanca has kind of transcended the screen to make an impact on the world today?

Bob LeMent  56:39

Well, it’s given us archetypes, right? So this is a movie that set in motion, archetypes that you still have in film today, your gangster, your good gangster, is Rick right and Ferrari the blue parrot guy, Sydney, Green Street, his look right you when you see a bad person in the movie, they look like that guy, that actor, Sidney Green Street, I was just talking we watched it for my son is doing a film class in college. And we watched it for that reason, originally. And then I happened upon you and, and I’m like, do you recognize this persona? And he’s like, Well, I go, Well, mad, Max Fury Road. There is Sydney Green Street, sitting in the car as the oil guy, right? And he’s in the new one Furiosa as well. I mean, obviously it’s the post apocalyptic version of him, but it looks like him and so he, he transcended the movie so much that you can see it repeated again and again. You know the look of this person and his demeanor, right? He’s he’s not, he’s proper, but he’s evil. And then even Renault, the two faced authority. You know, all of these things have gone on to be repeated throughout cinema history since this was done. Now, there may be some ahead of this that helped with that too, but you can pretty much put your finger on this one and say, Yeah, this archetype came from, from this place, and we’re still using it in movies today. You know, it’s it’s interesting that that can have so much impact. And I think part of that is because it’s been revered and everyone has seen it. And so then, as you you know, anyone who does a creative endeavor right gets bits and pieces from everywhere, and the more popular something is, the more those bits and pieces infiltrate into the creativity. And so it really is, it really is something to see that and and think, you know people, people nowadays won’t even know it if they haven’t had to watch it for whatever reason. I mean, I don’t think that people actively go out and seek this movie nowadays unless they’re in it for other reasons, right? And films,

Dan LeFebvre  59:26

yeah, or

Bob LeMent  59:27

something like that, but, but there, it’s been influencing things all along the way in. So, yeah, so influential. It’s just interesting. It’s very which

Dan LeFebvre  59:38

ties in two things that you had talked about a moment ago where one it would be really hard to do a remake of something like this, because there are so many influences that you just have to get everything just right in order to know

Bob LeMent  59:51

how you get away with people would be, I mean, you had the way, I think another generation or so, unfortunately, it’ll be like, Oh, I. Can’t remember the title, but somebody they did a comical version of Hamlet the and it’s so they were trying to redo Hamlet, but it ended up the best way to do it was as a farce, and Woody Allen did this as a farce, right, played against Sam. That’s the way you have to do it. So, you know, you have to, you have to do the forest before. And I don’t think they’ll ever come back around. There’s always probably going to be someone, even in Hollywood, who’s like, we can’t make a buck off of this one, you know,

Dan LeFebvre  1:00:39

yeah, but it’ll still stick around. Because, I mean, what other movies are there that have, like, you said, I mean, you said it still holds up, right? And made, like, 80 years ago, another generation from now, it’ll probably still hold up too. So, yeah, you know, how many movies can say that they do that? And that makes sense why there’s so many things based on it? Not

Bob LeMent  1:00:57

a lot. I mean, weird. The weird thing is, it kind of goes in, if you look back, it kind of goes in waves a little bit. I mean, because the other thing we’re getting, I watched Maltese Falcon last night because my son needed to watch it for this class. I’ll watch it with it nice and so. So, yeah, we watch both of these. And they’re both from that time period, right? And they both are now have have transcended that time period. I would say Maltese Falcon is this. Casablanca is way better than Maltese Falcon, as far as a movie goes, as far as pacing, as far as story, as far as you know, drawing you into it and so forth is way better. But they captured, they both captured the imagination of people into, you know, today and will into the future. Because it’s just kind of that weird. It just so the funny thing is, we talk about it and we’re like, Humphrey Bogart is not the best actor, right? He’s not even that good, really, if you think about it, he’s kind of a one trick pony, and he’s the same in Maltese Falcon as he is in this but it’s the combination of things, right? It’s the combination of the story and and how it plays out and so forth in the direction of the movie that really bring it above the fray. And so to me, it, you know, I would say Renault is the best actor in this movie. He’s funny, he’s interesting. He plays the part so well, I mean, Claude Rains plays him and, and you’re like, if I met this guy in a bar, he’d be that guy. It totally convincing. You know what? I mean, whereas Humphrey Bogart, you’re like, I don’t know, and, but it’s interesting how the kind of the second tier players were all better actors than the top people. But unfortunately, in in the history of popular things, that’s usually the case. You can name almost any movie in the primary actor is probably not the best actor in that movie. It’s the second tier people who are all so much better at their jobs. The first thing comes to Maya Seinfeld, and he that he’s a horrible actor, but but everybody else in that cast is so much better in in that’s why it worked, because if you if they were all, if they were all lesser than Jerry, we wouldn’t be talking about it.

Dan LeFebvre  1:03:50

Yeah, yeah. No, that’s fair. That’s that. I think about that, but that’s a good point. Yeah,

Bob LeMent  1:03:55

so, but that’s, I think the same thing here, but, but at the time, he was the star power, and people really liked him. He was, I guess, kind of not really in every man. I don’t think he was. He was kind of portrayed as kind of a tougher guy, kind of a situation, kind of like Harrison Ford, right? So I would compare Humphrey Bogart to Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford, not the best actor, honestly, he plays Harrison Ford, right? He’s Harrison Ford. Is the President. He’s Harrison Ford. Is Han Solo. He’s Harrison Ford. You know what I mean, there’s, he’s not going to be Daniel Day Lewis, and meld into it, into his you know, he’d become Abraham Lincoln or anything. He’s Harrison Ford, and I think that’s what Humphrey Bogart was for the time, and and he did a good job at that, really good job of that. But, you know, I think everybody else in the even the the waiters and and so forth, were all better actors overall. I

Dan LeFebvre  1:04:58

guess they call him. Supporting actors for a reason, they support the whole show

Bob LeMent  1:05:02

characters. Yeah, yeah.

Dan LeFebvre  1:05:06

Well, thank you so much for coming on to help us separate fact from fiction in Casablanca. Before I let you go, let’s shift gears away from the movie’s history and shift to your own. Can you share a little bit more about static radio for our

Bob LeMent  1:05:16

listeners? Oh sure, if you want. So, I co host a show called static radio. We’ve been doing it for 25 years. Audio on the internet, and basically each week we tell funny stories about things that typically happen to us. We record. We recorded last night. So my story last night was about how I had a great hamburger in Columbia, Missouri. So if you want to have a great hamburger in Columbia, you might listen, and it veers off from there, it is comedic, humorous, and there’s no direction, so you never know where it goes. We start with a story, and then the story takes a life of its own, and by the time we’re finished, we don’t even know where the end is until we get there. I hope I’m Hope I’m more of a Claude Rains than a Humphrey Bogart. But who knows?

Dan LeFebvre  1:06:10

I like that. Like that analogy. That’s great. Isn’t that what we all want and like, be a little more Claude Rains and Humphrey Bogart

Bob LeMent  1:06:20

Exactly?

Dan LeFebvre  1:06:24

Well. Thank you again. So much for your time.

Bob LeMent  1:06:27

Thanks for having me. This is great fun. I hope I did it justice.

Dan LeFebvre  03:18

Before we dig into some of the details of the movie, one thing I like to do is to take a step back and look at the movie from an overall perspective. So if you were to give Disney’s Miracle a letter grade for how accurately it captured the essence of the true story, what would it get?

Lou Vairo  03:34

1. When I saw it, and I waited until a few weeks ago to even see the movie. I never wanted to watch it because as I lived it. But I remember Patti Brooks, Herb’s wife, telling me it was excellent portrayal. And several of the players really liked the movie. And people that were there and I worked with their all saw it, and they thought it was very accurate and and where it was. I had to agree with them all now.

Dan LeFebvre  04:04

At the very beginning of the movie, it sets up the story. We see Kurt Russell’s version of Herb Brooks being chosen to coach Team USA in the 1980 Olympics. What really stood out to me about this in the movie was the timeline, because we see coach Brooks getting the job about eight months before the Olympics are to start, and it doesn’t really seem like a lot of time to recruit players. Recruit players, build a team expected to compete on an international level. So as I was watching that part of the movie, on one hand, we know movies tend to build extra drama and tension a lot of times, and on the other hand, it’s not like the Olympics really sneak up on anyone less than, you know, eight months or a year beforehand. So I couldn’t help but think that maybe this was an example of the movie trying to build up drama by making it seem like the 1980s US Olympic team was just assembled in eight months. How accurate is the movie’s portrayal of building the US hockey team just eight months before the 1980 Olympics started?

Lou Vairo  04:57

It was, it was accurate. You know, we haven’t we. They call the National Sports Festival, which the Olympic committee put together. So we brought in 80 players in July of 79 Colorado Springs, and we had four teams. And we’re able to, of course, it’s summer time, but we were able to fairly evaluate the players. And also an interesting thing was that it’s not like it was years ago when guys weren’t in any kind of shape in the summer. Kids today skate year round. They go to gyms. They go to different programs. So, you know, they’re pretty well committed to hockey by the age of 1718, they finally figured that’s the sport they want to concentrate on. So they’re year round, in pretty good shape. It was a great sports festival. It was at the Air Force Academy, with which is fantastic, and it was very helpful in the election process. Plus curd was a very active coach, and coached in the WCA, the Minnesota golfers. They were national champions, and he knows all the players. He knew most of the players from the different teams, so it was okay. Worked out, okay, the timeframe,

Dan LeFebvre  06:29

okay, yeah, we see that some in the movie. We see them in Colorado Springs, a little bit before the Olympics, a few months before, and now you were involved in scouting for the team, which we don’t really see a lot in the movie. According to the movie, it almost seems like Coach Brooks was the one to decide who made it onto the team. So as I was watching that, I again got the impression that the movie was maybe oversimplifying the process. Can you fill in some more context around your involvement in helping the 80 Olympic team come together?

Lou Vairo  06:57

Yes, her did make all the final decisions which he should make, but he has to answer it. If it’s a failure or a success, you’ve got that answers. He was very he wanted a skating team. He knew the ice surface would be larger. He wanted a good skating, technically sound hockey team. My role didn’t well. I got involved. I was friends with her because I coached junior hockey in Minnesota and brought a different style of hockey to the what’s now the USHL, and it was called the Midwest Junior League, and we were national champions, and we had a lot of college coaches, followers, the players watch us play, including her. So I got to know all these guys, and he got to know me, and he liked what we did at that time in Austin, Minnesota. He really liked it. And he come to practice sessions. He’d invite my team up on Monday nights. We’d go sometimes during the season, play against this JV Williams Arena in Minnesota on the, you know, on the college ground. And so I got to know him real well. He got to know me. I never heard of the guy, and he’d never heard of me. Why? Why would he before I came to Minnesota, and I only came here because of an old player where mine recommended me for the job, and lo and behold, they gave it to me. I didn’t like pursue. It was all accidental, really. But anyway, but her would expose and consult with his people. Great Thatcher. Greg was a great assistant coach, great communicator, perfect go between for herb and the players. Herb was a disciplinarian, demanding and tough, but fair and honest. Good, good coach, excellent coach, and my role came about. I was coaching the under 20 junior national team in 79 and December 79 our games were in Sweden. Both think they were in Sweden. Was it 79 or 80? I can’t even remember, but on the way overseas, Herb asked me if I would stop in Lake Placid. There was a four nation tournament, the beat teams, national beat Team of Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia was one country then, and Sweden. And my boss said that’d be fine, do it. So I did it. And I was in Lake Placid. First period. I was watching between seed Sweden and the USA. And Sweden was doing something that seemed to dis in their own end coming out that was disruptive to our players, and unusual they were sending a week. Side, Winger out high when we had the puck in their own end, and it caused the defenseman on that side to go back, and he cut across the ice, and the entity got nervous, he went back. And what Sweden did was they created a man of damage in their own end, four against three. And they always had an open man. They took theirs to and walk out of the zone. Killed off for check. And I noticed that, and I mentioned that to Bob Fleming, who was chairman of the Olympic team. He’s basically the guy that selected bird to coach it. And Bob was sitting a couple of seats away from me, and I was writing that down on a brief diagram I had with me. And he said, What do you write? Then I explained it, and he said, Can I have that? I said, Yeah, they’ll get me period entity and her came out from the dressing room where the benches were, and he said, Lou, come on down a minute. So I did. We said, explain to me what he saw. And I told him. He said, Okay, good, very good. And they made an adjustment. I suggested something. He liked a suggestion. Usually they knew it anyway, and it’s just reaffirmed. In fact, when you’re sitting above and looking down, you see a lot, not sometimes all the time, you can see more than the coach on the bench out of you making line changes. You’re walking back and forth. You can’t always be the entire surface of the rink, but as a eye in the sky, you can it’s a very good way to scout. So based on that, from that, he kept in touch with me during the season, when they would play exhibition games, I’d get called every once in a while at home, and he would ask me if I been following the team? I said yes. And then when I got back from the World Junior he asked me if anybody, have I seen, anybody that I thought could help the team? And I told him, yeah, I there’s a few players. I gave you some names, but he had made a commitment when they picked the 26 players in Colorado Springs, that he would honor it, that the team of 20 would come from that, and the players held them accountable. He wanted to make change, and I supported him on that. But the players, led by ruzione, did the right thing, and they said, No, that’s not the deal we put up with you for six months. We’re gonna you know we can win a medal. We can win the gold medal. Leave us alone. Just leave us together. He called me, told me, the next thing that happened in a meeting, I believe in Dallas, who were playing the Dallas team in the Central Hockey League doesn’t exist anymore, the central League for the Goodland. And anyway, I said, Well, that’s perfect. He hadn’t to be right. He says, Yeah, I know they are. And I said, not only are they right, They’ve now taken responsibility and accountability for their upcoming performance. That’s that’s great, and, and we, he honored that, and it was great, and it did work. So anyway, from all of those interactions, he said, would you, are you coming to the Olympics? I said, I am. I’m going to help. You know, I’m, I’m going to help with all the, all the things that have to be done at the Olympics. I’m going to be coming as an employee of USA Hockey. There were only four of us at time, and we were all there. So he came up with the idea, what if you sit upstairs and and we use a walkie talkie from the band to the bench to Craig, Patrick, and anything you say to Greg, and he can relate to me, and also you. I’m going to want you to come down after each period and meet with you every morning in the dressing room and go over the different teams and who the next team is we play, etc. And he said, our first game is against Sweden. So I thought about that. When he said that, I went to my boss, Hal Trumbull. I said, How have you selected a team host of Sweden when they come over before the Olympic games start, and they travel and play exhibition games. He said, No, not yet, but I’m working on that right now. Why did I told him? I said, I should be the team host. I can meet them at the airport, take them to the different venues, and watch all their practices. Gaines who get a guilt for the team. I know the coach, Tommy sandling, very well, and I loaded Peter, pokie Lindstrom, and Hal said, Very good. That’s excellent, a good idea. And I called her and told him. He said, perfect, do it. And I think that’s what I did. So there’s a great team, the Swedish team. I was with them for three weeks. I never saw them miss a pass, not in practical games. They were unbelievable. They might have been the most skilled, ethnically skilled team, better than anybody in all the basic fundamental, skating, passing, receiving, combination play. They were good. And they had great young players. They had deli Lindberg and gold. They had Max Maslin, they had Thomas Erickson, Thomas Johnson, many others. I mean, that was a that was a great team, and I think they won the brunsmetal, but we had to be pretty damn good. So anyway, that’s how that all came about, and it worked. You know, I don’t know how much I contributed, but I did my best. I think I did more to contribute. It helped me. I mean, these are good hockey men, Herb and Greg, Patrick. They know what this thing is, because it does help when you have another set of eyes. It just gives you more confidence into what you think you’re seeing. But the big thing is, you know about it.

Lou Vairo  16:33

We had every area covered. He didn’t know if it was legal or not, and Bob Fleming had gotten permission from some of those, some agency, I don’t know what they call it, that’s AA or something, that we could do that, but I don’t know if we had permission, or we even asked the International Ice Hockey Federation or Olympic Committee if you’re allowed to do it or not. Just did it. And so I think it was we just wanted to keep that quiet. I guess. I don’t know for sure. I don’t see anything legal or wrong with it, but who knows, and that’s really why. And then, besides that, it wasn’t me, it was that great team and in the in the coaching staff, and I feel bad sometimes that the goalie coach, Juarez strelo, never gets mentioned. He was outstanding, just outstanding with Jimmy Craig and janicek, and he was one of the great goalie coaches I’ve ever met anywhere in the world. And a good guy, funny guy, terrific man, and hen appreciated him, but to have, excuse me, worm was more in the background. But that’s how that went down. That’s how that all happened. And it was good, because after the first period, I came downstairs. I sat in a little box upstairs. Mondale came the Vice President to some games, and I walked into my box, and there was the Vice President, Mondale and Secret Service agents, and there was guys with guards rifles laying on the beams above us in this in case, in the Spania. Can you imagine that? And here I am sitting there with a walkie talkie watching the game. He was weird, and he was a real nice guy, the Vice President, very nice man. He I introduced myself. He asked me what I was doing. I told him, he introduced I knew who he was, introduced himself and all that it was. He was a pleasant guy, and from Minnesota, of course, he was a big arty fan, and that’s how that went down. I had one of the best views of that whole Olympics, and I will tell you this behind the scenes Stoke, I felt my best contribution was just being heard spread was after the first period of the Swedish game. One, one he was tasting downstairs. There was a outside the dressing room. There was a exit, and nobody kind of staircase, nobody used. And it was big glass windows overlooking the speed skating oval. And I would meet him in that little area. They had just the two of us. Nobody’s bothering us. Nobody can hear us. He’d lean back against the wall. He had his pencil and pad, and they take lift one foot and put it against the wall and stand there. And I’d stand in front. He would ask me, what’d you say? What do you think? Like that? But he was pacing this guy, and I he was very nervous. I said, What’s the matter? Oh, that Efraim Johansson meeting Tenny was his GM. They didn’t get along. Kenny was a great guy, and he loved her and but they were both alpha guys, and they would, they argue with each other about everything, and he said that schedule, we’re finished. We can’t play with this team. We’re exhausted. I say Easy. Easy. Calm down. You play in the best skating team in the tournament, the best technical team in the tournament. These guys are good. I told you, I spent three weeks with them. They’re good, but they’re beatable. We skating with them in the spirit. Well, we just got to go up a notch, and we’re well prepared. We’re playing good. We’re playing really well. He said, You think so? I said, Yes. And I said, Look her, let me be very blunt with you. I’m glad I did this, by the way. I said we got a chance to win a medal. I wasn’t sure coming in, I’m not talking gold medal. I’m just saying we get a chance to win a medal. We, we need to win this game. We this game is winnable, right, pal, and you’ve done a great job with this team. These kids are good, but we have a young team, and the Swedish team is far more seasoned that a lot of these guys are playing a lot of World Champions ships and international events, but you’ve done a great job. You’re a great coach. And stop worrying about Kenny, and he’s my friend. Remember that? So be careful what you say. Stop worrying about you’re a great coach, and you’ve done a great job. You can’t do more than you’ve done. Just believe in the team. They believe in you. I believe in you. And he looked at me like, stop general and let us forget look. And he said, You really mean it? I said, 100% now let’s go get them. And luckily we we got some breaks in the last minute. The Swedes could have easily created off the boards and out. We lose that game, but we end up with a great goal by Baker and Todd, which was a key guy and all that. And we did the tie. And after that, it was fantastic, the confidence level. And, you know, at the beginning, there were that many spectators. There wasn’t even a full house in a search game. You know, people didn’t believe in us, and a lot of the spectators were from foreign countries, like I was, I knew the Soviet team was in trouble, because I was downstairs right by the dressing room every day, and I could see the goings and comings, and I knew their Guys. Boris mojaro, the president of the Federation of your zoomed out blood. Second coach brought a new museum out. I knew all these guy, laundry, store, voice, tough, the General Secretary and I just either were nervous, because whenever that bus would pull in a practice or games, if the 500 people shouting, waving flags of humbling Czechoslovakia, Poland, Eastern European countries, Russians would be the Soviets, and they’d be shouting at the players as they got off, terrible words in some Russian language. They all studied Russian in school, and the Russians were not comfortable. They were never comfortable. They felt not bad, but very nervous. But why are these Americans treating us this way? Plus of us understand, I guess, and all that. It wasn’t good. It was for them. They were not a they were not a confident bunch that they normally are. I could see it, and that’s never been recorded, but that’s the truth. And there were a lot of the fans came to cheer against them, not cheer for anybody in particular. But then, when our thieves started winning, they were cheering for us, of course. And even if you walk down Main Street in lane classic, I saw Soul Man, I can tell by the way they dress their faces that I hear their language. I know where they were from, and that was a big thing in that tournament, and it affected the Soviet team, for sure. Well,

Dan LeFebvre  24:50

I want to ask about the Soviet team, because in the movie, it seems like everything’s from the perspective of Team USA, but we see bits and pieces here. There to learn that the Soviets have been dominant for like, 15 years. I think there’s even a bit of dialog in there that talks about how some of the players on the Soviet team even played together in 15 years. And that just seems like such a stark contrast to the way the movie sets up Team USA, where, you know, they pretty much just started playing together for the past few months. And they’re not professionals at all that come from colleges and such, and so it just seems like there’s this huge contrast that the movie is setting up between the Soviet team and the US team. Is that pretty accurate?

Lou Vairo  25:32

Yeah, my feeling is this, and I I’ve been a student of their hockey there. My main mentor teacher. Was a great Soviet coach. Anatoly Tarasov, great friend of mine that’s still very close to his entire family that’s left, and so I knew their hockey inside and out. In my lifetime, I’ve been to starting with the Soviet Union now Russia 25 times, and I deal every day, basically, even now, with Russian Russian guys, coaches, players. I talked to some of my best friends. I just wrote a book, and I didn’t write it to author. Wrote it, but I gave him the information and dedicating the book to my friend Yuri kamanos, who died a couple of years ago. He was great friend of mine. He played for the Central Army team and played the terrorist out and played with some of those guys. But anyway, it was a great team. It might have been the strongest Soviet team ever put together, you can make that argument, but they weren’t comfortable. That’s what I noticed. They just weren’t comfortable. And that can have an effect on human nature. You know, at our gene, one of the things I don’t like, the main miracle. I don’t like it at all. It was a great, cocky team. Those players were outstanding. They were in great shape, as good a shape as any of the Soviets who were in great shape and and we had two coaches, three with with the goalie coach, stralo, they’re as good as anybody in the world coaching hockey. They were terrific coaches, and our players were wonderful. If you look at the history of hockey in America, the sentiment, are you kidding me? Mark Johnson, he is a great hockey player. Mark paddlewood was a great hockey player. Neil Broughton called me my favorite old time player, great hockey player. Then you had Wells who had a specific job and heard used him perfectly as a defensive spinnerman. He was terrific guy. And then moving Dave Christian back to defense a month before the Olympic Games, was brilliant, and I credit Gordon Jimmy Christensen. There was a nickname he suggested to her to put David back on defense. He said, he said he’s a he’s a son of man. He said he’s anything. He’s a winger, defenseman. He can even play golf. Just trust him, put him on defense. He’ll get the bug out of his own. He can work it because he can stay Yeah, it ran Baker o’ Callahan and soder and Morrill. This was a wonderful team, and Jim Craig was an outstanding goalie, and he probably played the best 20 days or 18 days, whatever the tournament took of his life. I don’t think he ever played better before or since, and it’s a shame that either the outstanding goalie, but he really rose to the occasion. So it wasn’t a miracle to me. It was doable, but I had to play him 10 times. They probably win six, seven of the games the Soviets, but our team that day against them was great, and that’s all we had to beat. Break that one day against them. You only plays them once,

Dan LeFebvre  29:33

yeah. Well, I want to ask about that too, because in the movie we see before the Olympics, like I think it’s three days in the movie, we see the Soviet team playing Team USA as kind of a warm up game between them. So it doesn’t really count, but according to the movie, the Soviet Union comes away with a like a 10, three blowout victory against Team USA, and it really starts to add to the tension and drama in the movie. At least of you know, are we doing the right. And kind of questioning everything up to that point. Can you share what the atmosphere was like around Team USA when they lost that

Lou Vairo  30:07

that night or that game in Madison Square Garden? I was doubting advanced scouting, and I had gone to Montreal. I drove up to Montreal, and I watched two games up there, Czechoslovakia, because that was our second game after Sweden. The checks played. I can’t remember who, maybe Canada. I’m not sure. Then there was another game I watched. So I had gotten all my notes done, and there were no cell phones in those days, and I was driving back to Lake Placid from from Montreal. It’s only an hour’s drive, and that’s where I was going to check in at Lake Placid and be there for the Olympic Games. But I had no way of knowing what we did in New York against the Soviets in the exhibition game, and the next day, I was able to reach herb in New York. And then talk to him in his hotel, and he said it was, it was something Luke. I said, What was the score? And he told me, I think it was 10th grade. I said, Oh, how did we look to me? Did we do anything? Right? He said, Yes. He said, first of all, we were the kids were overwhelmed. I knew we were in trouble, because when the public announcer was introducing the Soviet players, our guys were banging their spit for them on the ice, applauding each player as they got introduced. These have got these are well known players. You know that our kids know of, and they were starstruck. Some intimidation there, yeah, yeah. But he said the thing that I liked was we could have played another game after that, our conditioning has really been good. These kids have worked their ass off for me, and they’re in they were in great shape, but I wasn’t too worried. I at least I knew we could stay with them. And I think the whole thing was overwhelming, you know, just overwhelmed us. The young kid Madison Square Garden, packed house, chanting, applause. You know. So he says, I think if we, when we play him again, we’ll be better. And then we were, and it was, it was interesting, you know, was fun to watch all these teams, but I told them, I had told them. I said, not the Soviet team is jittery. Hey, we, if we can ever get ahead of them, we can really cause them problems. Just they’ll, they’ll argue with each other. They fight with each other. You know, the people say, Oh, they’re so disciplined than that, but they’re human beings, and they argue with bicker, will blame each other and stuff. That’s no different than any other country, but you never see that, because they’re never behind. They’re always weak, you know? They’re always comfortable. And when they told tradyak, I think that was a horrible decision, and he could out blame gizmo for it, your Zopa won’t talk about it. I know him very well. He won’t. He won’t, even to this day, he doesn’t want to talk about us. Every time I see him, he’s still around. He’s 82 he’s great guy, great archetype. I’ll see him and with you know, saying no and greet and all that I say to him, like Placid, and he goes crazy. He makes the best waves without me. Oh, he goes crazy. He’s a real good guy.

Dan LeFebvre  33:56

That’s funny. Well, if we go back to the movies timeline, after the Olympics start, there are a number of games that the movie just shows very quickly before the big game, we see USA versus Sweden. Talked about a little bit about that. That turns out to be a tie game. And then there’s a seven three win over Czechoslovakia, five to one win against Norway, yeah,

Lou Vairo  34:17

but that was the most unbelievable game for me in the whole Olympics. That was a great Czechoslovakian team. Yeah, and the night before the game, I invited the three Czech coaches. They the last of the three just died six months ago. The head coach was Carl boot, and the assistants were Dr Lud Bucha and Stanislav medvesseri, three outstanding players, former national team players and great coaches and great guys, great hockey men. Carol good later on, became president of the Czechoslovakian Ice Hockey Federation before. Of the, you know, the split, and then they was president, I think, of the Czech Federation for a while so, and they, they have like buildings that they rent out different countries. They call it the US House, Swedish House, or the Italian house. Well, I knew some of the people at the Italian house, and they loved me. And I bring them some pens and some little banners USA, and they would feed me, and they bought their old food and chefs from Italy with them. So it was unbelievable. No, you can’t find a restaurant as good anywhere in the inland, outside of Italy, as good as this was, so they told me. I said, Can I ever bring a Chinese? They said, of course, you bring whoever you want. But I bought three Czech coaches because they were all friends of mine, and we had a great dinner and great night. I remember boot coach. I he couldn’t speak English. Taro good, but Bucha never said he could. But with Carl, good, I can converse with him well enough in German. We could speak in Germany to each other well enough. And the other guys, I speak in English because I don’t know a few, maybe a few words, check or Slovak, but not many. And ludie said, I watched your team practice this morning. Uh, it tracks too hard, in my opinion, coming off the game against Sweden, and now the players tomorrow. And I remember Stan Stanislav saying to me, you know, I said, is everything good with your team? He said, No, not exactly. We lost Ivan Linka Henri was the key to our power play, and we just haven’t gotten that resolved the way we’d like it. And we’re, quite frankly, we’re worried about discuss these escaping, you know, what do they call that when they run away from the country? Uh, whatever that term is, defecting. Is

Dan LeFebvre  37:15

that right? Defecting, the

Lou Vairo  37:18

fact, yeah, they’re worried about detecting, because they had a lot of I would see them their own Secret Service people traveling with those teams from the East countries, from the Soviet Union, etc. They had the credentials. And I would see them in the bowels of the arena, always outside the dressing room, watching every move of every every part of the personnel. So they, and I, like the goalie, I think it was crelik, I’m not sure Yuri krillet. He’s okay, but one of the goodest previous Czechoslovakian goalies, like called a Czech even zerilla. And I have to tell you, if I were you going to predict, I would say I would have predicted the checks to win, 535242, something like that. They were really good. I mean, they’re the only team that ever really eat the Soviets. During those the reign of success that the Soviets had, it was always Czechoslovakia to be the team that beat them and in the 72 stupa series between the greatest Canadian NHL players against the greatest Soviet players, which wasn’t really true, because how how Bobby, you are. They weren’t playing because they were injured or in the WHA and they weren’t allowed to play, which was stupid in the 72 series. And playing that 72 Soviet team, which did a great job sure won. It really surprised. Well, I’m not surprised they lost because of two great players, Phyllis Esposito and his brother Tony. I’ll say it now, and I’ve said it forever. It should be a statue in front of any ice rink in Canada, a bronze bachelor, Tony in goal and Phil scoring, those two brothers with Canada on their back and led the will willed them to that victory in 72 and so, you know, Czechoslovakia was a great team, And they were the world champions that year. In 72 they had beat the Soviet team that was played Canada and then the Canadian team on their way home after the 72 Summit Series, they played, and I believe they beat Czechoslovakia of three two in Prague. I. Believe that’s pretty accurate, something like that. So I was done when I saw us play like we did. We were flying, we were flying, and we beat him. We ran them out of the building Seventh Street. Then I knew we could win a short a medal, maybe the big one. And then the games against Romania, West Germany, Norway, I think that’s who we played. They were. They weren’t easy. You know, these countries can put 1520, good players together. They weren’t easy. They were, I mean, we won them all without being too nervous, but they weren’t easy, and then, then Finland, after we beat the Soviets, we had to beat Finland, and they had a goalie. Jorma volnan yom is the hall of fame goalkeeper in the international SRC Federation, Hall of Fame, one of the greats from Finland, the first of many great finish goalies. Yom is still coaches today. He’s probably close to 80 coaches in Italy now, and he helped develop the great finished goalkeeping program that’s produced all these great finish goalies the last 20 years or so. And I gotta tell you a little side story about Yom. I still was still in touch with each other. Yoma, do you remember the plane from Yaris Lovell that was going to St Petersburg at the opening of the KH Hill season of library years ago that took off and crashed and everybody died. He remember

Dan LeFebvre  41:48

that story, I remember, I remember the story, yeah, yeah.

Lou Vairo  41:52

And he was on that flight, Oh, wow. And they just announced. He told me the story, passing your seat belts. And his cell phone rang, and it was his president of the club. He was working for Yaroslavl, teaching goalies, and Mr. Yaakov called him, and he said, Are you in the air? He said, No, we’re getting ready to take off. He said, tell him to stop. And he did. He yelled out, don’t take off. You know, whatever. And what’s going on? It’s Mr. Yaka Levy. I have to get off the plane. We got two Junior goalies just came in. He wants me to work with them, so I’m not going to make the trip. And he got off. But finally got to the rink. The plane, he crashed. Wow. Imagine that. Wow. I

Dan LeFebvre  42:39

I couldn’t, I mean, I couldn’t imagine, I don’t know what my the thought process would be around that that’s, wow,

Lou Vairo  42:47

wasn’t meant to be. God intervened, I guess I don’t know. Yeah, and, and he still alive. Yeah and, and that was such a tragedy. And, boy, that they do a great job in the Aristotle every single home game, they honored them all the parish. It’s beautiful, and they did it. They still do it. It’s very nice, nice way to remember those poor people.

Dan LeFebvre  43:15

Well, you’re talking about the the Soviets, kind of feeling like they were never really behind and in the movie, we see the games from Team USA that you were you were talking about. But on the Soviet side, we don’t really see a lot of their games, but we find out that they basically blew out their competition. I think they they said they won all five of their games. Scored like 51 goals. No, they

Lou Vairo  43:36

murdered Japan. And a few teams had a very tough game against Finland and a very tough game against Canada. Okay, the key out of all this, I have to say the truth. You’re interviewing me. I’m going to tell you the truth. Yeah, no, that’s what we’re here for with I’m just glad we never played Canada for some reason during the pre Olympic trial. I mean, games exhibition schedule Canada was tough for us to beat. Okay, it is something that’s now, I think, overcome, but for a while, very psychological between just like blow boxing checks. Checks seem to always beat the slow box, but now it’s changing, and the checks are playing well, but it’s changing US and Canada. Canada had maybe a subconscious little advantage over the US, not that often. 1960 Olympics, under Coach Jack Riley, we beat Canada. Harry Sidon was claiming might have been captain of the Canadian team. And Canada was a, not an easy team to play against, and they almost beat the Soviets, you know, they gave them all they could handle and and Finland too. So we knew Finland was good, very. Very good, and I knew involved in was great. I told everybody said their goal is good. We gotta, we can’t raise shots. We gotta spoil when we shoot. This guy is good. He’s one of the best in the history of international hockey, one of the better goalies. So anyway, but her made that great each I was standing outside, but the lotto door was opened, and the typical Brooks beach, and very typical, he said, You know what we did the other day against the service, something like that will mean nothing if we don’t win today. This is, this is a game we have to win. What, believe me, you’ll take it to your grades. If we don’t, you’ll take it to your grades. That’s very powerful words, and I couldn’t describe it better. And, and, of course, we won. Mark Johnson was spectacular. Dover told it. These guys were good players.

Dan LeFebvre  46:05

The kind of climax of of the movie at the end is, is that big game we’ve kind of alluded to and talked about a little bit, but in the movie, the way it sets it up is because, because of the the game beforehand at Madison Square, where the US got beat. Now it’s, there’s all this tension here in the movie, of, are they going to be able to beat? This the Soviet team. And throughout the movie shows bits and pieces back and forth. They kind of going back and forth. There’s a lot of action that’s, that’s fun to watch. It doesn’t focus on a lot of specific details. But it’s, a movie, so it’s focused on just showing a lot of the action of the game itself. But then as time starts to tick away in towards the end of the game, the Soviets find themselves in a position that they’re not familiar with, being down four to three in a game. And we start to sense in the movie, something that you had kind of alluded to was the Soviets started to look like they were not very comfortable. Can you share what the experience was like for that game?

Lou Vairo  47:08

They were very uncomfortable and very, very nervous. And when they told all right, I don’t. I thought tradiac was, I always believed traded to be one of the greatest goalies that’s ever played the game. Really, physically hardest work you all got. He was a great goalie, only guy that ever could score. Two guys could score against him without much trouble, Bill Esposito and must love nedimansky used to score against him, but most people have a tough time with Ronnie Iceman. He’s intimidating. He’s so big and agile and quit you think he’s going to kill you. Well, he can go you want to go in and shoot on him. He charges out he said, Hey, I can tell you that I’m not exactly Sonia Henrik once, but anyway, pulling him to me, I think deflated team a little bit and broke their confidence like we depend on him. He’s our man and Mushkin, excellent goalie. People forget one year previous and the Challenge Cup at Madison Square Garden. It was best of three. He was tired of one game each the NHL all starts against the same Soviet team. He could have started moosekin In the game, which shocked everybody. Mooskin Shut him out, I think shit nothing, which is pretty impressive. And mooskin was a good goalie, but what I’m saying is I think it shook the team up, and Michael was the only he was a hard working guy, wonderful captain, a great leader for that team, but he was something else that he’s never gotten the credit he deserves. He’s a natural goal scorer. He can score a goal anywhere he ever played high schooler. He’s a goal scorer. He can bury the biscuit. And he scored a great goal against Moskin, who was a great goalie. Too great goal for the winning goal. How do you not? How do you not Where did the miracle? Where this was a great goal scorer, who scored a great goal? I want to see these kids get credit heard. And Craig Patrick did a great job, and Warren strelo The equipment managed many to try. Mean old team, Dr Nagi, all the guys, great guys, but the truth of the matter is they, they won a miracle team. They played the game of their lives against Soviets, and they played a a wonderful, wonderful Olympic competition. They were great. Just like our 60 team, they were great. We’ve had other teams that played well and great, but no, none of the other teams won the gold medal. These two teams did, and they should be eluded for their excellence.

Dan LeFebvre  50:35

Just a good, good team. Yeah, no, it’s

Lou Vairo  50:39

a great team. I coached a lot of those players, so myself on teams. I know how good they were, yeah, and they had said this, and I’ll say right, Daniel again, I don’t believe any other coach would have won, won the gold medal with that team, but books, he was just the right, perfect coach, perfect timing. I often told him. I said, if you were to coach in in 76 or 84 it wouldn’t be a legend. You’d be like me, a dummy. You wouldn’t have made a legend. I think it matters. Everything has to be right. Just go right for any team to win a gold medal in the Olympics, not just that we did. Everything has to go right. You got to get bounces. You got to be healthy, you got to it just has to work. Guys have to play at the top of their game for two weeks of their life. And this team did it, and I, I salute the coaches. They didn’t, they didn’t get in the way and mess it up and made it better. And Craig Patrick did a great job in his role, uh, supporting her all year long. It was Estrella you can coach Goldies, you know. So that’s my take on it. Anyway,

Dan LeFebvre  52:09

yeah. Well, I wanted to ask about the Soviets when they replaced their goalie, since the movie kind of focuses on the US side of things, not as much from the Soviet side. You mentioned that that kind of seemed to deflate the Soviets. But according to the movie it shows it seems to be like a morale boost for team USA. Was that kind of the point in the game where you felt, wow, we might actually win this thing.

Lou Vairo  52:35

Yeah. But you know what really when Mark Johnson scored at the end of the period, pinker was David’s Christian flipped the puck up in the air and thought side and mark the two defensemen, Billy tervulkin, on the Soviet side, and even trading at they kind of let up, and Mark was right between them, grabbed the puck and leaked out tradiac and scored. To me, that was, that’s what I said. Oh, we could win this. We got a shot. And, yeah, it was, there was tension still, and like, oh God, the last I liked Herb’s comment, the last 10 minutes of the game, he said, with the longest 10 minutes of my life. And I felt the same way. I mean, I just kept looking at the clock. Move, move, move. They put on a rush the course bar, I think, and maybe the post malfev was in there. Petra, a lama. They’re a great team. I I can comfortably say that. I think that might have been in greatest Soviet team I’ve ever seen, at least on paper. But they didn’t have a great tournament, and they still could think what they went to silver, and they they weren’t comfortable. Those people from the Eastern countries upset them. Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  54:07

you were talking about that before, where they just they didn’t feel comfortable the whole time. But it’s

Lou Vairo  54:12

and I was outside their dressing room a lot, and I remember when they beat Canada or Finland. I can’t remember which team the game ended, and it was a such game for them. And as they were walking in, something I never saw coaches do before, but it’s, you know, we’re talking different cultures here too. Uh, Soviet culture was not the Canadian or the American culture, but he could not. Was standing outside the dressing room door, and as each player was coming in off the ice at the end of the game, he was greatly relieved. He would kiss each player on the lips. He would listen to do that, you know, part of their culture, men kissed men on. Lips, relatives and friends, you know, and as they came in, he would kiss him, and he would fold their shoulders, and he would say, bolshei, basiba. Great thanks. Many, many, great plants. Each player, they were so relieved they had won that game, though I knew they were bold enough. I felt it all along. I INAF times. I knew their culture, I knew their nervousness, and I kept saying and never in the position to win. Lucky. You know, they’re usually ahead by three four goals going into the third period. I’d like to see how they’re going to react when things are not going good, and that’s what we thought of it. You know, we

Dan LeFebvre  55:52

don’t see a lot from the Soviet side in in the movie, but the movie seems to imply, as I mentioned earlier, that they were kind of blowing out their opponents, but you mentioned that they weren’t necessarily so at the point at which the Soviets were playing the US. Do you think that kind of the the atmosphere of the games had changed overall?

Lou Vairo  56:13

Yeah, oh yeah. We were Oh. The building was now packed. Everybody waved flags. All the front runners showed up. They weren’t there at the beginning. They all showed up and in the streets, all these people. I mean, I had a USA jacket so and I I didn’t live in the Olympic Village. I lived outside of it because I wasn’t an official part of the team, and I’d walk the streets. I knew everybody from these different countries, because working with USA hocking is part of my job. And just walking around, they’d see USA jacket. People would come up to me, hug me, kiss me. Some women brought me flowers, and they would say with their accents, thank you. Thank you. Thank you America. It was so thrilled to see the Russians get beat and and I’d have a chance for the gold medal. It was, it was never talked about, never spoken about. But there’s people. They’re immigrants to our country, and here they were cheering for us against their role, people you know, against people they felt invaded them their country, and tell them hostage. So it was interesting.

Dan LeFebvre  57:36

There was a point in the movie. I don’t remember the specific dialog to it, but it becomes pretty obvious that there’s more than just the game itself. I mean, the movie doesn’t get into politics or anything like that, so we don’t focus on politics either. But there is a point where Kurt Russell’s version of coach Brooks says something like, we’re about to play the greatest team in the world. Can’t we just leave it at that? But it seems pretty obvious that there’s, there’s something else to Soviet Union playing the United States in the Olympics game. They’re going to have external impacts. Did that imply a lot of extra pressure to the team?

Lou Vairo  58:14

No, I’d say no. I think most of them didn’t care. Most of them, most people, young people like that. They just want to live their lives. And these kids were looking to become pros and or move on with their lights to the next stage, whatever that might be. I don’t, I don’t think so. No, I think that scrum probably, yeah, some, it probably excites me more than others, but most, no. And you know, I dealt with the Soviets a lot, and if you’re dealing with bureaucrats and you’re dealing with politicians, it’s never, wasn’t in any realm. But if you deal with the people, it is just the people. They’re no different than we are to be Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Italian, Irish, Swedish, and it doesn’t matter Argentinian. It doesn’t matter Canadian. All people basically want to do is live their lives. They want to have a job, decent job, raise their family, go to the beach for two weeks in the summer, have food on their table, follow their favorite sports teams, maybe have a doctor in Russia, in Russia, or some of the European countries outside of a big city, where they have a little garden and a place in the summer, a retreat to go to on weekends, that’s all people want. Really, average person, they don’t get deeply involved in the international politics of everything, and if you follow it. On the news. You know, as well as I do, the way it’s the news have deteriorated now it’s half the newscasts, nor more than half the newscasts are politically slanted, and you don’t even know if you’re getting honest reports from either side of the political spectrum. No, I don’t think politics. I think underneath the circus with Carter saying we’re not going to go to Russia for the Summer Olympics in this in the invasion of Afghanistan, yeah, they bothered. We took the same thing years later, and we got chased out just like, just like Soviet now we gotta, really gotta find, we gotta find politicians that look to create peace, not not not fighting, because General people, in general, are just people that the same everywhere. You just want to live, live their lives well, because

Dan LeFebvre  1:01:05

the movie focuses so much on that game against the Soviets, as you mentioned earlier, it wasn’t like Team USA was done. They had one more game against Finland, but the movie doesn’t really focus on that too much. So can you fill in some more details that we don’t see in the movie about the actual gold medal game for team USA against Finland.

Lou Vairo  1:01:24

Yeah, I can tell you that Herb was very concerned and worried that there’d be a letdown, and that’s why he made that great speech in the room. And I think we had very good leadership from luzioni and pakoda and these guys on the team, some of the team leaders of the team, Jimmy Craig was zoned in focus then, and Mark Johnson, you know, like I told you, history USA Hockey, I would put them in The top six, seven sentiment we ever had in our hockey to this day. You gotta have Johnson Pavlov, and they got the job done against a great goalie, Walton and from Finland and a good Finnish team. So we did great. We did great and and like I told you, we had the right coaches at the right time for the right team, and it was in the right place. You know, we won two gold medals in our history, in the Olympics, and one was in Squaw Valley, California, the other Lake Placid, and the silver and Salt Lake City on the when you play in the other countries, it’s a little tough. And I’ve been probably, I think I’ve been about six Olympics, so I have a seal for it. And we did great. Plus we were nervous. I didn’t want to. I kept saying to myself, let’s not blow it now we, you know, we cut but what I heard her words, you’ll take it forever to your grades. It got me fired up. I remember because normally I would leave in enough time to walk up a bunch of steps and get to my little booth. Anthony said that that was enough for me to hear. I ran up the steps. I was juiced. I was fired up. You know, those were perfect words for him to come up with,

Dan LeFebvre  1:03:37

yeah, and all ready to go and ready to bring it home and actually finish off and get the gold.

Lou Vairo  1:03:43

Well, what a release that was to do that. It was such a release. Oh, my God. It was so great. Really, was I cried?

Dan LeFebvre  1:03:53

Yeah, I could see it really emotional just letting

Lou Vairo  1:03:57

1. How much cry with this interview. A few times I get choked up. Those memories were great to see such joy on the faces of the players and the fan. It was great, and it’s important to this day because I still coach little kids off ice, training 910, year olds, and they all saw a miracle 150 times each, and they all know it. And I they always asked me about is, did this really help me coach Lou whatever? And I tell them, yeah, it’s all true, boys and a few girls, because we have girls now playing. And if you guys ever want to get to that position. You got to work as hard as those kids did, and that’s just as hard as smart. And we’re giving you stuff here to learn, and you got to practice it at home on your own also. And they get all fired up. They love it well,

Dan LeFebvre  1:04:55

then the movie ends after the the 1980 Olympics. But do. I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you following up in 1984 Olympics after you know, Herb Brooks was not coaching team USA. That was you were the head coach of us hockey that year. Did you feel any pressure following the as the movie puts it, the miracle team from 1980

Lou Vairo  1:05:17

Yes. Let me tell you a little story that’s interesting. I wasn’t there was no pre ordained coach. I didn’t even want to do it. Nothing like that. What happened was nobody wanted to coach. I gave names. I wasn’t officially on the search committee, but I gave names to the search committees, and I can’t remember exactly. Art Berlin is dead now, but art told me how many five or six coaches they asked, I mean, well known names, Coach team, they all refused, different reasons, legitimate, you know, I can’t leave my college team first a year. I don’t want to do that. What other thing might have been? And Ron De Gregorio, art Berlin and Fayette tutter Was the President of the USA Hockey it was called a house, but I’m a Charity Association of the United States. They said to me, you’ve coached the junior national team. You were with her the Lake Placid. You’ve worked with Bob Johnson. You work with the best and you know, you know the European teams better than anybody we have, and you know, I’ll play a pool. Would you like to coach the team? And I said, No. I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t feel I earned it. And, yeah, I was still pretty young. I don’t know, 36 whatever. I said, No, and art is the one who convinced me. He said, Look, never get another chance. You do that. Anybody can coach anywhere, but the coaching Olympic team is special, and we need you. We need you. And Fayette Hutt was a favorite person of mine. He was a funny, little old guy, good guy, smart and everything, but also just a good guy. And he was always so nice to me. He said, Luke coach, Dean. So they interviewed me, and they interviewed Tim Taylor, and in the interview, I said, give it to Timmy, and he needs help. He’s more qualified than I am, and when they interview Timmy, he’s going to give it to Luke.

Dan LeFebvre  1:07:52

I’ll help, of course.

Lou Vairo  1:07:56

Finally, art Birdland wore me down, and I agreed to do it, and I have absolutely zero regrets. I’m really happy I did it. I had a great team, but of course, when I agreed, I had looked at the debt chart and I saw some of the players that we had. We’d have Bobby Carpenter, we’d have, let’s see Erickson, Brian Mullen, uh, Craig Ludwig, Phil Housley, Tom Barrasso, Johnny van beatrick. I was, I can’t remember all the names now, but pretty good plays. They all died. They didn’t want to wait a year and a half, whatever. Well, I don’t blame them? I didn’t blame them at all. They all died. Baracko died. He got kidnapped by the buffalo sabers during our training camp in Alaska. We were playing the Soviet wings, wings. They came up and they stole and slowed back on a private plane of Buffalo and signed them, and that year in one first gold star, I think, looking of the year of Desmond award. He’s 18 years old. He was a high school player and and I wish they would have said something to me. I wouldn’t have stopped them. I couldn’t have anyway, but I wouldn’t have liked Tom. He turned out to be a great goalie. And I had no problem with the goalies we had left. Mason and Baron were great. They were great. Loved them. But, I mean, it could have been different. Who knows if it would have been different? Aaron brought me another one up until five, six years ago. He was the all time leading scorer of the New Jersey double. These guys would have been on our 84 team, except they will sign and again, don’t blame them the least bit. Never told anything against them, but it would have been a little bit of a different team, and a spill was a great team as Joliot LaFontaine, Eddie oldchurch, David. So two of them, hna, Tommy Hirsch, the Fusco brothers. No, I was a great team. Terry Sampson, Gotti bukester, these guys could play. They could play. They could play better than I could coach. I’ll tell you that they could play. And they were very that was the youngest team ever. But I mean, Ally, afraid, I think, and old Chuck, he was guys. I think eight of our players could have played on the junior national team. There was a team, or very young team, and they went on, many of them, to great careers. Injuries caused problems for a few others. But I love that team, and my sadness with that team is we only lost, you know, how many games that we only lost two games in the Olympics? You could lose the Czechoslovakia and Canada, you know, in close games, that’s possible. And that wasn’t republic of this. And the Republic you didn’t play Panama and Guatemala. You know, you played great countries in hockey and out of our country. But those kids were so young. I had three kids in high school, three or four kids still taking high school classes, living with building families, and ice check the homework. You know, that’s the way it was. And of course, the expectations were tremendous, and our record was two wins, two losses, two ties. I could live with that. And the only reason I It upsets me is the world didn’t see what a good team this was. This was a good team. We beat a lot of NHL teams in preseason exhibition games, and you can’t do that. And we beat Soviet teams at exhibition games. You can’t do that if you weren’t good. You know the players weren’t good. Can’t happen.

Dan LeFebvre  1:12:03

Yeah, it makes sense. Great experience.

Lou Vairo  1:12:05

I’m glad I did it. Now I look back and I’m happy I did it,

Dan LeFebvre  1:12:12

yeah, yeah, no, that, I mean, that’s great. It’s funny, you’re didn’t want to do it, and the other guy didn’t want to do it. And it’s almost like a game of hot potato. Like, no, I don’t want it. You take it. But in

Lou Vairo  1:12:23

the end, it sounds like it was great. If you don’t win a gold medal, you’re a fan,

Dan LeFebvre  1:12:27

right? That’s why I was, yeah, I was, that was the impression that I got. It would be like, because you’re following up with a team that won the gold medal, it’s like, well, if what else can you do? There’s nowhere to go. But

Lou Vairo  1:12:39

down. I tell people, it’s the second greatest thing I ever did in my life, that I’m proud of, that I did it, and I’m glad I took the I wasn’t afraid to take the risk. I wanted our hockey to be great in America. That’s why I worked for USA Hockey. I seen it grow from nothing, something great that it is today. I was very proud of it, but yelled, there’s more important things than winning games. You know, I always say I got drafted in 66 to the army two years that’s the greatest achievement, personally, that I ever had, serving my country that I cherish as the most wonderful gift, then the hockey comes second, and of course, your family comes family and God comes before any time. That’s the way I look at life, simple.

Dan LeFebvre  1:13:38

Well, thank you for your service in the military. And thank you for coming on to chat about the movie miracle. I want to shift a little bit before I let you go to talk about your new autobiography, I’ll make sure to add a link to it in the show notes for this if anybody’s listening and wants to get a copy. But can you give listeners a little peek in your new book and maybe share one of your favorite stories from it the

Lou Vairo  1:14:00

most sweat I had was if Mike said, Lou, you gotta, we gotta have testimonials. I don’t even know what he meant. I thought I died. I said, What do you mean the testimonials? He said, call up some people you know, in hockey or players, sex players, and get them to spend that a few sentences about you, meaning me. I said, I can’t do that. I’m afraid to do it with some of God knows what they’ll list. So I, I went to people. I worked with Jay Riley, Jack Riley’s son. We worked together with national teams. Years ago, he sent the nice piece. Then when I you think I only destroyed hockey in America, I coached the national teams of Italy in Holland also. So I destroyed hockey in three countries, mice and so I called, I called, he has a big job. Up in column now with a former national team player. He wrote a nice thing in and and I asked Phil Housley, Soviet player, very close friend of mine, and guy, go back 40 years with Igor Ariana. Phil Esposito Christian, Chelios, just to name a few. Those are pretty big names. These are all Hall of Fame guys. And very nice thing. Jim Craig, the real beautiful things are very touchy to me, and I didn’t know they felt that way. And I was even afraid to ask them, God knows what they’d write, and Pat Lafon Payne wrote the forward for the book. It’s beautifully written. What he wrote, it’s very touching to me, emotional, and you don’t realize it, but you never think of yourself as making making a difference in anybody’s lives, but these guys claim I did, so it’s just humbling, and very humbling. I don’t like to talk about myself like that. So yeah, it’s going to be an interesting book and and I think a fun read if me and I’ll tell you something else. I can’t stand when I hear people say I’ve been misquoted or I’ve then, what’s the other word? It’s about what I shared. Shut up. I’ve never I’ve done a million interviews in my life that I’ve said some things later on, a few times, that I might have regret, I might have regrets for but I’ve never been misquoted. Period, what you say is what you say, and you can’t run away from it. You gotta deal with it. And you if you did something that you regret, then you can apologize. Can’t say I’ve been misquoted. You. Blame it on the reporter. That’s not right at all. So yeah, that’s a few thinking they’re probably gonna erase somebody. But I also I don’t care. I said them, and so I said, I’ll live with it. No, but I will. I’ll tell you one little story. It’s not in the book. I could write a book just on some of the things, little stories from different people. But this is funny. I had an 18 city tour in the United States in 79 that I organized because we didn’t have teams. Weren’t doing dry land training specific for Aki in those days. And the guy who had really thought of it officially was Anatoly Tara Soviet Union, and he coached Central Army team, and he was national team coach and assistant coach, or CO coach with akati chairmanship. So I invited Bolger to come. I had a good relationship with the Soviet Federation, and we worked it out. And Dr ladaslav Gorski, unfortunately, they’re all dead now. Worski was some Bratislava. He was the Slovak, but then it was Czechoslovak, and he did specific or vice training for goalkeepers of all ages. Karasad Did under 20, rather 15 years old and up pros and chernochev under 15, and we went to 18 cities. I had Charlie to check he’s alive. He lives in Greenwood Lake, New York. Charlie was originally from Czechoslovakia, Prague, and immigrated to the US. We met him as Brooklyn. I met him in Brooklyn at the rate, and we became friends, which we still are to stay. He was the interpreter for Gorski and the Russian the Soviets, and called then they sent led, she’s alive. He’s in his 80s, and Moscow, good guy. He was the interpreter so the two Soviet coaches, so we went all around. They did a great job. They didn’t make much money. We only charge $15 a head per coach come to the seminars. They absolutely was sensational, and they sold out everywhere, and it changed the fortunes of our hockey because 1000s of coach, I don’t know, hundreds or 1000s of coaches were, and lots of kids that we use this the examples in the workouts, learned something great and new that could help them. It influenced our hockey daytime was a great move, and we thought we were going to lose 10 grand, which was a lot of money then, and we made 10. Steam grand after I got permission to give those guys each a bonus for the great job they did. And so it was a win, win, win, win. I was the only one that lost. There was exhausted heal and carrying medicine balls and weights and ropes and rubber suspenders and all kinds of things on airlines around the country, and then there was a plane crash in Chicago when we were there, terrorists have refused to fly anymore. He said, Only if you have aerosol out. I said, Our next stop is Detroit. There’s no air flight flights from Chicago to Detroit, so I had a rest the van, and that’s how we did the last part of our trip, with van with me driving. And it worked out great. It worked out it worked out great. It was wonderful. But we’re in Niagara Falls, New York, and what I wanted to do in order to increase income, and also to include Canada, because we wanted to have a good working relationship the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. Dennis McDonald was running it. Great guy. Did a great job. He helped me a lot. When I was starting out. We put him in border like Seattle, Hancock, Michigan, Duluth, Minnesota. Where else? Oh, Niagara Falls, New York, right across the river from Ontario. We were able to get a lot of Canadian coaches to come, which was great, and it made him work well. So well in Niagara Falls, and we had a day off. Was a beautiful June day. I said, guys, let’s go see the falls. So we went to the falls. Everybody was impressed. He said that Assaf, he was a very proud Soviet guy. And I said, you don’t think it’s nice. He said, Yes, it’s it’s very nice, but we have better water Forbes and so Henri, I said, it’s okay. That’s who he is, let him say. And I love it now we go to because I would get along great with them, but we’d argue once in a while. Then we went to the aquarium, which was great. You know, with 1000s and they could, they had an aquarium. They still have it. It’s above ground, and you could go down below. You could see the dolphins underwater, as well as on top. So we started out on top, and tarasa wanted to go down to sea, so we all went down, and we’re watching, and I see him make a comment to the interpreter, and both of them laughed at a laugh, but I walked over, I said, Look, what did Anatoly say? He said, Oh, nothing, not important. And of course, but outside, he told me. He said, uh, Lou, you’ll be insulted. I said, No, I won’t. But what did he say? He said, You American? These Americans amazed me. They have beautiful supermarkets, big buildings we’re seeing as we travel across the country. He said they have more mayonnaise than one supermarket to I can find now in all of Moscow combined. They can do everything. They can even teach fish to fulfill the most difficult tasks. Tell me, why can’t they teach their hockey players to make a three meter pass? And I found it was better going and ironically, very true, it was great.

Lou Vairo  1:24:02

This went on week and day after day, week after week. I mean, it was a the height of the Cold War. He was at one of my grandmother’s house. So all these guys for dinner in Brooklyn, this wonderful grandmother of my old Italian lady from Sicily, and she prepared an incredible meal. She was in her 80s that time. She lived to 103 and these guys so respectful and polite and appreciative to her. They just loved loved it that few years after, and it’s at the height of this Cold War. He’s sitting in a club you know, Alison in Brooklyn, eating spaghetti. And it was wild when I look back at wonderful memories every time I would see him anywhere we were in. The world. The first thing he would always say after greeting me, whoa, babushka, okay, grandmother, okay. And I put my thumbs up. It say yes. And he said whoa, very, very in English, he only knew like five words he’d say, very, very, very good spaghetti. And I told my grandmother, she’d get a big kick out of it and ask me how they were doing the last you know, good. You’re okay little wives. So yeah, that’s about it.

Dan LeFebvre  1:25:35

Thank you again. So much for your time, and I really appreciate it.

Lou Vairo  1:25:39

You’re welcome. You’re a pro. Thank you.

October 8, 1967. Bolivia.

To kick off this week’s events from the movies, we’ll go back to the 1969 film called Che! to find an event that happened 57 years ago on Tuesday this week.

About an hour and 21 minutes into the movie, we’re inside a room with a shirtless man’s body lying on a table. A group of men, some in suits and others in military uniforms, are crowded around. One of them points to a bullet wound on body, saying this was the fatal shot less than 24 hours ago.

The camera pans over to the corner of the room where we can see the man in the three-star beret breaking the fourth wall as he talks to the camera. I guess we can give him a name…that’s Albert Paulsen’s character, Captain Vasquez. He explains that the raid on Alto Saco was the beginning of the end for Guevara. Vasquez says they ambushed his rear guard in La Higueras and encircled him in the Churro Ravine.

We’re no longer in the room with the dead body, now, as the scene shifts to what Vasquez is explaining. Rebel soldiers are being shot at by the Rangers in rocks surrounding the ravine. It’s not just rifles, but the Rangers have mortars as well. One of the rebels is killed. Then another. They’re firing back, and some of the Rangers are shot, too.

The intense fighting continues for a few more moments until we can see Omar Sharif’s version of Che Guevara climbing to get out of the ravine. The rebel machine gun is captured, silencing most of the firing. Che and another man seem to be the only two left, and Che is obviously in a lot of pain.

The Rangers close in as the two rebel soldiers fire back from the cover of rocks. The other man is shot and killed. Che, too, is shot, although he’s not killed. Wounded, he lies back and the shooting stops. The Rangers stand up, walking slowly to where Che is lying on the ground.

Che is still breathing as Captain Vasquez reaches him. Pulling out a photo, Vasquez looks at it and then back down at Che. Then, over the radio, Vasquez announces: Puma to Lancer. Puma to Lancer. We’ve got Papa. Alive. Repeat, we’ve got Papa.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Che!

Transitioning into our fact-check of the 1969 film Che!, I’ll first point out that we did a deep dive into the full movie that I’ll link to in the show notes. For this week’s historical event, though, it got the basic gist correct even if it did change a lot of the details from the true story.

For example, remember the guy leading the Rangers in the movie? We talked about him earlier; he’s the guy with the three stars on his beret. The actor playing him Albert Paulsen, and in the movie it’s a character named Captain Vasquez.

In the true story, the leader of the Bolivian Army’s 2^nd Ranger Battalion was Gary Prado Salmón, who was later promoted to General and a national hero in Bolivia for Che’s capture.

The 2^nd Ranger Battalion was trained especially to target the guerilla fighters. While we didn’t cover it in our movie segment this week, a bit earlier in the film Captain Vasquez tells the camera that the CIA was not involved in any way.

Well, most sources that I found say that even though the 2^nd Rangers were from the Bolivian Army, they did get help from the CIA, as well training from the 8^th Special Forces Group from the U.S. Army. I’ll add a link to the show notes for this episode with a fascinating article by Marco Margaritoff over on the website All That’s Interesting that gives a nice overview of a man named Félix Rodríguez, who was the CIA agent tasked with helping in the capture of Che Guevara.

Something else the movie changes from the real story is the number of soldiers involved. In the movie, it looks like Captain Vasquez has maybe a dozen or so Rangers with him. Granted, they’re often among the rocks and moving around the terrain so it’s hard to track down an exact number.

With that said, though, the 2^nd Ranger Battalion had 650 soldiers in it and about 180 to 200 of them were involved in the capture of Che Guevara on October 8^th, 1967. So, there were a lot more soldiers involved than we see in the movie.

In the true story, the Rangers received word during the early morning hours of October 8^th of a little over a dozen men who had walked through a local farmer’s field the night before. They were going toward a canyon area nearby, so that’s where the Rangers went.

The movie was right to show mortars being used, though, as they used mortars and machine guns along with sections, or platoons, of soldiers set up at different areas in the canyon to help seal off the entrances and exits to the canyon while other soldiers in the Battalion closed in on their targets.

It was a tactic that worked, as before long the Rangers pushed back the guerrillas to where they had nowhere else to go. As for Che Guevara himself, somehow his rifle was destroyed—or at least, rendered unusable, and he was shot in the leg. It was in his right calf, so not a mortal wound but between that and not having a weapon, he was forced to surrender when the Rangers came upon him.

Although this, too, seems to have happened differently than what we see in the movie. I say that because in the movie we see the Captain Vasquez character look down at Che and pull a photo out of his pocket to verify that’s who it is. In the true story, though, one of the Rangers, a Sergeant, later told Che’s biographer that Che was the one to identify himself to them.

Either way, Che Guevara was captured on October 8^th, 1967. The next day, the President of Bolivia ordered Che be put to death. And so, on October 9^th, 1967, the revolutionary Che Guevara was executed at the age of 39.

As a last little side note, when the movie shows Che’s body, we can see a bullet wound in his chest that one of the bystanders mentions as being the fatal shot. Even though Che was executed, that sort of shot would still be accurate because according to some sources, it was the CIA agent Félix Rodríguez who suggested they don’t shoot Che in the head to make it obvious he was executed, but rather to shoot him in a way that would look like he’d been a casualty of a run-in with the Bolivian Army.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, check out the 1969 movie called Che! That’s not to be confused with the 2008 two-part series from Steven Soderbergh that’s also called Che. While that’s another good one to watch this week, the movie we talked about today is the 1969 film with an exclamation point at the end: Che!

And don’t forget we’ve got a deep dive in the show notes that you can queue up right now to hear more about the true story of the entire movie!

October 9, 1919. Chicago, Illinois.

Our next historical event falls on Wednesday this week, and we’ll find a re-enactment of it at about an hour and 22 minutes into the movie called Eight Men Out.

Hitting play on the movie, and we’re at a baseball game.

The crowd seems to be getting ready for the game to start. On the mound for the Chicago White Sox is Lefty Williams. He’s played by James Read in the movie.

<whew> Williams exhales.

There’s text on the screen in the movie saying this is game #8.

Then, Williams winds and offers the first pitch. The batter swings, sending a fly ball into right field. We don’t see how far the ball goes, but what we can see is the reaction from many of the White Sox players who don’t seem happy. Williams returns to the mound with a stern look on his face. He looks into the batter’s box where another hitter steps to the plate.

The camera is just behind the catcher now. We can see Williams wind, and pitch. The batter swings, another hit.

Again, we don’t see where it goes, but we can see a baserunner make it to second base. That must be the guy who got the first hit. Two back-to-back hits, it seems.

In the crowd, Lefty Williams’ wife looks sad.

Back on the mound, Williams is ready for another hitter. He looks at the runner on second. The pitch. Way outside. The catcher has to reach to stop it, but he does. No runners advance. The next pitch.

The batter swings, and Williams’ head snaps around to watch what we can assume is a high fly ball to right field. Again, we can’t see how far it goes, but we can see the catcher throwing his mitt down as a runner crosses the plate to score. The crowd is jeering at Williams, who seems to be starting the game off on a rocky note.

But, the game goes on, and Williams settles in to face the next hitter.

The pitch.

Another high fly ball, this time to left field. It hits the outfield wall, and we can see another runner score as he crosses home plate. Again, the catcher throws his mitt to the ground in disgust. As he does, another runner crosses home plate. Three runs scored so far, and there’s a runner on second.

John Mahoney’s character, Kid Gleason, runs from the White Sox dugout. As he does, he yells, “James, you’re in!”

When he reaches the pitcher’s mound he takes the ball from Williams, ending his day.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Eight Men Out

That sequence comes from the 1988 movie directed by John Sayles called Eight Men Out. The event it’s depicting is the final game of the 16^th World Series, which happened this week in history on October 9^th, 1919.

The movie is historically accurate to show Lefty Williams starting that day for what was game eight of the Series. And it’s also correct to show him giving up a number of hits, but in the movie, it looks like all but one of the hits are going to right field—they weren’t all hit there, but then again, we don’t see where the ball goes in the movie. All we can see are the actor’s reactions to the hits, so maybe that’s nitpicking a little too much.

Here’s the true story.

The first hitter to face Lefty Williams in game eight of the 1919 World Series was the Cincinnati Reds’ second baseman, Morrie Rath. He popped out to start the game. The second hitter was the Reds first baseman Jake Daubert. He hit a single to center field. Next up was Heinie Groh, the third baseman. He smacked another single, this one to right field a lot like we see in the movie. It also allowed Daubert to advance from first to second, just like we see in the movie.

Next up for the Reds was their cleanup hitter, the center fielder Edd Roush. He smashed a double to right field, allowing Daubert to score and Groh moved to third base.

I couldn’t find anything in my research to suggest the White Sox catcher got so fed up by the pitcher Williams giving up these hits that he threw his mitt on the ground like we see happening in the movie. But the movie was correct to show that catcher for the White Sox being Ray Schalk. He’s played by Gordon Clapp in the movie.

The next batter for the Reds was their left fielder, Pat Duncan. He hit a double to left field, driving in Groh from third and Roush from second. At this point, the Reds were up 3-0 with one out in the first inning.

The White Sox manager had seen enough. Just like we see him doing in the movie, Kid Gleason took out his starter and put in the right-handed reliever Bill James.

To establish a bit of context that we don’t see in the movie, the 26-year-old Lefty Williams was the White Sox #2 starter. His real name, by the way, is Claude. “Lefty” was just a nickname. And yes, he was a left-handed pitcher.

In 1919, Lefty had a stellar record of 23 wins to 11 losses with an ERA of 2.64. That’s spread across 297 innings. In fact, Williams not only led the White Sox with 125 strikeouts, he led the majors that season with 40 games started and he tied the White Sox #1 starter, Eddie Cicotte, with five shutouts.

So, Williams had a fantastic season in 1919.

His playoff record wasn’t so great, as he went 0-3 giving up 12 earned runs across 16.1 innings pitched for an ERA of 6.61. And while we didn’t talk about what happened the night before the game, there are a lot of people who believe Lefty Williams was given an ultimatum.

What really happened is one of those moments behind closed doors that we’ll just never know for sure.

As the story goes, Williams was visited by an associate of the bookie and gambler who had offered cash to the White Sox players in exchange for them throwing games. That same story suggests this unnamed associate told Williams that either he purposely lose his next start or else his wife and child would pay the consequences.

And so, as we know from what happened publicly, Lefty Williams had a terrible game. He gave up three runs and couldn’t even get through the first inning before being pulled. The Reds would go on to win the game 10-5, and by extension, the World Series overall, five games to three.

The allegations of throwing the Series hit the White Sox almost immediately, earning the team the nickname “Black Sox” for the scandal. It also changed Major League Baseball as the owners gave over control to establish the position of the Commissioner of Baseball, a position that still exists today, in an attempt to give public trust in the sport again. It’d also end up with eight players from the White Sox being permanently banned from Major League Baseball—hence the title of the movie, Eight Men Out.

One of those players who was permanently banned was Lefty Williams.

So, if you’re feeling like a sports movie to watch this week, check out the 1988 film called Eight Men Out!

And if you want to learn more about the true story, after you watch the movie, we compared that with history back on episode #132 of Based on a True Story. Or, if you want to take a super deep dive, the entire second season of another fantastic podcast called Infamous America is dedicated to the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. You can find a link to that in the show notes for this episode.

October 12, 1492. The Bahamas.

From the baseball field in the last movie, to the Bahamas, our next movie is the 1992 movie called 1492: Conquest of Paradise. About 54 minutes into the movie, we’ll find this week’s event as we can see two large ships. There’s one in the foreground and another a little distance away, and they’re not moving at all. In fact, the night before in the movie, we saw the anchors land in the water.

Today, we’re seeing smaller boats departing the large ships and heading toward the land we can see in the distance. Lush, green trees and sandy beaches make this scene look like what you’d expect for sailors on ships in the 1400s to be making landfall on an island in the Caribbean.

Because of the camera angles in the movie, it’s hard to see exactly how many boats are leaving the larger ships but I counted at least five in a single frame. Each boat is filled with men, and each boat is carrying flags of orange, yellow, purple, and many bright colors.

The camera focuses on one of the men as he jumps off the boat into the water. The movie goes into slow motion, capturing the moment as he splashes into the waist-deep water. He continues to walk in slow motion, each footstep splashing into the water.

He falls to his knees just beyond the waves in a gesture of appreciation. The camera cuts to other men jumping off the boats now. Some are running onto the land, others are falling onto the sandy beach—overall, it’s a scene that makes it obvious they haven’t seen land for quite some time. Dry land is a welcome sight.

Then, the movie gives us the location and the date. Guanahani Island. 12^th of October 1492.

The man who was on his knees gets up now. He’s approached by a colorfully dressed man.

“Don Christopher,” he says, as he unravels a scroll. Christopher signs something on the scroll. Then he speaks, “By the grace of God, in the name of their gracious Majesties of Castilla and Aragon…”

He pauses for a moment to turn around to the men who are all lined up on the beach now.

“…by all the powers vested in me, I claim this island and name it San Salvador.”

Then, the camera backs up to show the line of men as they start walking inland.

The true story behind that scene in the movie 1942: Conquest of Paradise!

That is a sequence from the 1992 movie called 1492: Conquest of Paradise. The event it’s depicting is Christopher Columbus making his first landing after the long trip across the ocean from Europe.

That happened this week in history, on October 12^th, 1492, right away let’s clarify the ships themselves. In the sequence we talked about today, we could only see two ships at any one time in the movie. In the true story, Columbus sailed with three ships: Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria.

That we only saw two in the sequence we talked about today isn’t really a point against the movie for historical accuracy—we do see three ships at different points in the movie. It’s just the sequence for October 12^th doesn’t really show all three ships at one time.

With that said, there has been a lot of debate among historians about exactly where Columbus landed.

According to Columbus himself, it was on an island called Guanahani. That’s the name we see mentioned in the movie.

The name, Guanahani, is the Taino name for the island. Just like we see in the movie, Columbus named the island San Salvador upon his arrival. I’m not sure if he did it the moment he landed on the beach like we see in the movie, but then again, Columbus thought he landed in East Asia at first. He didn’t know he actually landed in a chain of islands we now know as the Bahamas.

The name he gave the island is derived from the Spanish “Isla San Salvador” or, in English, “Island of the Holy Savior.”

As a little side note, the name “Guanahani” means “Small Land in the Upper Waters” in the Taino language. The Taino language, in turn, used to be the most popular language in the Caribbean at the time of Columbus’ landing…but that language is extinct now. Also, in the 17^th century, the island was called Waitlings Island after an Englishman who landed there. In 1925, the island was officially renamed to San Salvador.

In 1971, Columbus Day became an officially recognized Federal holiday in the United States—but that recognition has changed in recent years. The observance of the holiday doesn’t always land on October 12^th, but at least now you know a little more about the history behind the event that happened this week in history.

If you want to dig further into the story, of course you can watch the movie called 1492: Conquest of Paradise.

Even that title is a bit controversial when you consider how Columbus landed on lands owned by people who already lived there and conquered them.

Remember when I mentioned the Taino language is extinct now? Well, that’s just one example of something lost to history since Columbus’ landing. There has been a lot of controversy over his and other colonists’ actions.

As a result, in 1992, Berkeley, California became the first city in the United States to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day. Cities like Austin, Seattle, and Philadelphia, or states like Maine, South Dakota, and Alaska, among many others have dropped Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Here in Oklahoma where I’m recording this from right now, many here celebrate Native American Day instead.

So, if you’re looking for something to watch this week, the movie we talked about in this segment is called 1492: Conquest of Paradise. The landing sequence happens at about 54 minutes into the movie. If you watch the movie, or even if you just want to dig deeper into the history, scroll back to episode #186 of Based on a True Story where we covered that movie and the true story behind it.

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 October 9^th, 1895, Eugene Bullard was born in Columbus, Georgia. He is considered to be the first African American military pilot to fly in combat. And even though he was born in the United States, he flew for the French during WWI—he was rejected by the U.S. military. He’s one of those historical figures that I wish there was a biopic about his life, but if you want to see a movie in his honor this week, then I’d recommend the 2012 movie called Red Tails. Now, right up front, I’ll let you know that movie is not about Eugene Bullard. It’s about the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, but the filmmakers honored Bullard’s memory by having the commander in the movie be named Col. A.J. Bullard. He’s played by Terrence Howard in the movie.

On October 11, 1884, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City, New York. She’s better known by her middle name: Eleanor Roosevelt, and as the First Lady of the United States during World War II while her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or just FDR as he’s called, was president. And yes, I did a double-check on that too…Eleanor Roosevelt’s maiden name was Roosevelt, and she married Franklin Roosevelt so both her maiden and married name was Roosevelt. Eleanor and Franklin were fifth cousins once removed. This week’s recommendation portraying Eleanor on screen is called The First Lady, the 2022 series from Showtime. Eleanor Roosevelt is played by Gillian Anderson.

On October 13^th, 1537, Jane Grey was born in Bradgate, England. At least, that’s the date often given for her birthdate—hers is one of those birthdays in history that we’re not 100% sure of. She’s often known as Lady Jane Grey, or sometimes as the Nine Days’ Queen, because she was Queen of England for only nine days. Her name earned more fame when Mark Twain used her as a character in his novel from 1882 called The Prince and the Pauper. So, most movie adaptations of that will have someone playing Lady Jane. My recommendation this week, though, is the 2022 series from Starz called Becoming Elizabeth. As you can tell from the title, it’s more about Queen Elizabeth I, but Lady Jane is played by Bella Ramsey in that series. So, if you’re a fan of The Last of Us, maybe you’ll enjoy seeing Bella star in another series.

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

This week’s movie premiere from history is the film directed by Paul Greengrass called Captain Phillips, which was released in the U.S. 11 years ago this week on October 11^th, 2013.

In the movie, Tom Hanks portrays the lead role of Captain Richard Phillips, who takes command of the cargo ship called the Maersk Alabama. Despite the name, the Maersk Alabama’s home port according to the movie is the Port of Salalah in Oman.

When he’s given orders to take the vessel to Mombasa, Kenya, that takes him past the Horn of Africa where there has been some known pirate activity. So, along with the help of the first officer, Michael Chernus’ version of Shane Murphy, as they get underway, they go through their security protocols.

That’s when they notice a couple small boats following their massive ship.

Fearing they’re pirates, Captain Phillips calls for aid from a nearby warship. Of course, there’s not really a warship, but the pirates don’t know that. And Captain Phillips knows the pirates don’t know that, but he also knows they’re listening to the radio, so he thinks maybe if they think the military is nearby that’ll scare them off.

And it sort of works. One of the two skiffs turns around, while the other loses power in the wake of the huge cargo ship.

But they’re not in the clear yet, because the next day, one of the skiffs filled with pirates returns to the chase. Since their boat is much smaller, it’s also faster, and before long the armed pirates manage to attach their ladder to the Maersk Alabama and climb aboard despite the best efforts of the cargo ship’s crew to stop them. Then, the pirates seize control of the ship at gunpoint, and very soon it becomes clear to Captain Phillips that the pirates intend to ransom off the crew and ship for the insurance money.

The leader of the pirates is a guy named Abduwali Muse, who is played by Barkhad Abdi in the movie.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t take long for the U.S. military to actually find out the Maersk Alabama has been taken over by the pirates. After all, they’re wanting the insurance money, so the pirates aren’t trying to hide the fact that they took over the ship. So, the U.S. Navy launches a destroyer called USS Bainbridge under the command of Frank Castellano. He’s played by Yul Vazquez in the movie.

Things descend into a fight between the mostly unarmed crew and very well-armed pirates aboard the cargo ship. I say “mostly” unarmed, because we do see things like the crew using a knife to try and hold Muse hostage and force all the pirates to leave in a lifeboat. But, they won’t do that unless Captain Phillips goes with them. Trying not to make matters worse, Phillips goes along with the pirates in exchange for them leaving the rest of the crew on the Maersk Alabama.

Meanwhile, on the lifeboat, the pirates beat and blindfold Captain Phillips in what has now become a kidnapping situation as well. We see Bainbridge enter the picture and try to get to a peaceful solution. As part of that process, they hook up the lifeboat to Bainbridge so it’s being towed by the destroyer while inviting the pirate leader, Muse, to Bainbridge to negotiate. He agrees, and in the movie, we also see SEAL Team Six from the U.S. Navy setting up snipers to try and take out the pirates.

Near the climax at the end of the movie, the U.S. Navy pulls off a perfectly timed maneuver that involves stopping their tow of the lifeboat to throw the pirates off balance just as three snipers from the destroyer take three simultaneous shots and kill three of the pirates at the exact same moment.

The movie ends with Muse being the only pirate left alive. He’s arrested and taken into custody as Captain Phillips is rescued from the lifeboat and treated for his injuries.

The true story behind Captain Phillips

Before we compare the true story with the movie, I do want to point out that we did a deep dive into the full movie back on episode #28 of Based on a True Story so I’ll link that in the show notes if you want to give that a listen as well.

For today’s purposes, though, let’s start with the overview of the people in the story.

The character Tom Hanks is playing in the movie, Captain Phillips, is a real person. As of this recording, he’s still alive. Actually, it’s his book that the movie is based on. That book is called A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea. I’ll throw a link to that in the show notes, too.

The pirate leader, Abduwali Muse, is also a real person who is also still alive as of this recording—he’s currently serving a 33-year prison sentence in Terre Haute, Indiana, which means unless something changes between now and then, Muse will be released in 2038, by which time he’ll be 48 years old.

That’s right, Muse was just 18 years old when all this happened in April of 2009. Or…maybe he was 19, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Some of the other characters in the movie are real people, too, like USS Bainbridge’s Commander Frank Castellano, and some other more background crew in the movie are based on real people but with some fictionalization thrown in to help tell the story.

But, of course, there’s always more to the true story that we don’t see in the movie.

So, let’s go back to April 8^th, 2009, because that’s when our true story starts.

Maersk Alabama really is the name of the ship that was hijacked by pirates that day. The name comes from the Danish shipping company headquartered out of Copenhagen called Maersk. They’re a massive company who has been around since 1928, although it’s worth mentioning that Maersk Alabama was registered under a U.S. flag.

That’s because technically Maersk Alabama in 2009 was run by Maersk Line, a division of Maersk that’s based out of Norfolk, Virginia, in the United States. As a little side note, after the timeline of the movie, Maersk Alabama was sold to another company and renamed to MV Tygra. As of this recording, she’s still in operation on the seas.

While I didn’t notice the movie mentioning this, in the true story when she was hijacked that marked the first time a ship bearing the U.S. flag was seized by pirates since the 1800s.

With that said, though, the movie is correct to show the crew on Maersk Alabama preparing for a possible pirate attack because Maersk Alabama was actually the sixth ship to be attacked by pirates just that week! The other ships just weren’t bearing a U.S. flag, but everyone was aware of how dangerous the waters were.

The movie is correct to show that she was heading from Salalah, Oman, to Mombasa, Kenya. On board, she was carrying 401 containers of primarily food aid for refugees in countries like Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Somalia, etc.

Any training the crew had done prior turned into reality when the true story behind the movie began on April 8^th, 2009. Just like we see in the movie, that’s when four pirates attacked the ship armed with AK-47s. We learned that Muse was just 18 or 19 years old at the time of the attack, and that actually became an issue in the subsequent trial because at first there were questions about whether or not he could even be tried as an adult.

According to Robert Gates, who was the U.S. Secretary of Defense at the time, the four pirates were between 17 and 19 years old, although Muse’s own mother said he was only 16 at the time. At the time, some suggested perhaps she said that so Muse wouldn’t be tried as an adult, but regardless, for our purposes today it’s safe to say all the pirates who boarded Maersk Alabama that day were teenagers.

The movie is also correct to show the purpose for the pirates was to get the insurance money for Maersk Alabama. As we just learned, there were a lot of other ships captured at the time—actually, even the fishing vessel the pirates used as their own “mother ship,” so to speak, was one they hijacked. That was the FV Win Far 161, which was a 700-tonnes Taiwanese ship that Somali pirates captured on April 6^th, 2009, and then used to launch the smaller skiffs to hijack even more ships.

We don’t see any of that in the movie since it’s mostly focused on Maersk Alabama, but FV Win Far 161 was eventually released by pirates in early 2010.

Back to the true story aboard Maersk Alabama, though, after being boarded by the pirates, the ship’s Chief Engineer and First Assistant Engineer, Mike Perry and Matt Fisher, respectively, worked to remove steering and engine control from the bridge, and shut down the ship’s systems. In other words, the ship went dead in the water.

Just like we see in the movie, the pirates boarded the ship and went right to the bridge. That’s where they captured Captain Phillips along with other crew, and they also found out they weren’t able to control the ship thanks to what Perry and Fisher did down below. And as we just learned, the pirates were very young and they were not highly trained engineers like Perry and Fisher so couldn’t really do anything about it themselves without help from Maersk Alabama’s crew—which, obviously, they weren’t inclined to do!

Of course, that doesn’t mean the pirates didn’t try to convince the ship’s crew to get it going again. While they held Captain Phillips in the bridge, Muse went in search of the rest of the cargo ship’s crew to do exactly that. And as you can probably guess, that was something the pirates intended to do at gunpoint.

But here’s where the movie shows the Maersk Alabama crew start fighting back, because for all they knew the pirates were going to sail the ship back to Somalia if they got it moving again…and that wouldn’t bode well for them.

Before I mentioned Mike Perry, the Chief Engineer; he’s played by David Warshofsky in the movie. While I didn’t mention this earlier, while the pirates were boarding the ship and trying to figure out why the controls didn’t work in the bridge, the rest of the Maersk Alabama’s crew hid in a secure hold in the ship. Remember, they had prepared for a possible pirate attack, so kind of like you have a plan for where you’ll go in case of emergency—so did they.

Mike Perry, though, hid himself outside of the secure room. His plan was to try and capture one of the pirates so he could trade the pirate for Captain Phillips. Basically, a prisoner exchange. So, when Muse walked by looking for crew, Perry jumped him with a knife and managed to subdue the teenager. Then, they offered the exchange to the pirates in the bridge. The movie gets that pretty accurate, too, because the offer was for the pirates to get their leader back, Muse, as well as all the cash they had on the ship—there was $30,000 in the ship’s safe, and then they also offered the pirates the use of the Maersk Alabama’s lifeboat for them to get off the ship.

Keeping in mind, again, that the pirates were teenagers who no doubt were feeling a little overwhelmed and unable to move the massive ship, they agreed to the deal. So, the crew released Muse with the cash and expected the pirates to hold up their end of the bargain.

But, things didn’t go according to plan. Instead, the pirates took Captain Phillips into the 28-foot lifeboat with them. So, now, the four pirates are off the Maersk Alabama, but now it’s also a hostage situation.

In the movie, we see the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Bainbridge get called into the picture around this time, and that is true. But, in the true story, the USS Bainbridge was not the only U.S. Navy ship involved—because, as we learned earlier—the Maersk Alabama was also not the only ship that had been hijacked by Somali pirates recently. So, there was a U.S. Navy presence in the area. There was another frigate, USS Halyburton, who was sent to deal with the hostage situation alongside Bainbridge.

And something else we don’t see in the movie is that the pirates’ ships also started to converge on the situation. Remember when we talked about the Taiwanese fishing vessel the pirates used as a “mother ship” of sorts? Well, as the Navy arrived on scene, so, too, did about four other ships all under pirate control. On those four ships were the crew held hostage by the pirates, so over 50 hostages from countries around the world.

Since Maersk Alabama was the only U.S. ship hijacked, though, and Captain Phillips was the captain of said ship…that’s why the movie’s story focuses more on the U.S.-centric version of the story. Also, because it’s based on Captain Phillips’ book, of course.

So, if you recall, the pirates boarded Maersk Alabama on April 8^th. On April 9^th, the Bainbridge and Halyburton arrived on scene and stayed just outside of the range of fire from the pirates. Instead, they used UAVs to get intelligence on the lifeboat and the situation as a whole.

By the way, the lifeboat is a covered lifeboat. The movie shows it pretty well, but if you’re like me and you think of the Titanic lifeboats—well, this happened in 2009 and not 1912, so obviously the lifeboat is a little different haha! Before long, the Navy made contact with the lifeboat and started to try negotiating with the pirates for Captain Phillips’ release—as well as the 54 other hostages on the other pirate-held boats.

On April 10^th, another Navy ship, the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer arrived at the scene, and negotiations continued with the pirates. The next day, everything changed when the pirates fired on USS Halyburton. No one was hurt, and Halyburton didn’t shoot back—no doubt not wanting to make things worse. I mean, Halyburton isn’t the world’s largest military ship, but it’s still a 453-foot-long battle-ready military ship with an array of armaments that could easily take out the 28-foot lifeboat if they really wanted to.

With Captain Phillips still held hostage on the lifeboat, though, Halyburton held their fire.

We don’t really see this in the movie, but in the true story’s timeline, April 11^th was also when Maersk Alabama finally arrived in Mombasa, Kenya, with the rest of the ship’s crew who had gotten it back underway after the pirates made their escape in the lifeboat. The U.S. Navy was involved in that, too, and escorted Maersk Alabama the rest of the way to ensure no other pirates would try to capture her again.

Meanwhile, back in the hostage situation, when the pirates fired on Halyburton, the U.S. Navy’s position changed from attempting to negotiate a release, to arranging a rescue. To help with that, they managed to convince Muse to come aboard Bainbridge for the negotiations the following day, April 12^th.

And so, the end of the movie is quite accurate to the end of the true story.

With Muse aboard Bainbridge, three SEAL Team Six snipers coordinated to simultaneously shoot the remaining three pirates on the lifeboat at the same time. Then, the Navy swooped in to rescue Captain Phillips, and with no more hostage to negotiate, Muse was arrested aboard Bainbridge. They never did find the $30,000, although some conspiracies have arisen that perhaps members of the SEAL Team Six took it before anyone else noticed—that’s never been proven one way or the other, though.

After the situation was handled at sea, Muse was taken back to the United States where he stood trial. Despite what his mother said about him being 16, Muse himself said he was 18, so he was tried as an adult. A few weeks later, in May of 2009, Captain Phillips sold his story to be told in what would become both the 2010 memoir from Phillips as well as the 2013 Paul Greengrass-directed movie we’ve learned about today.

September 30th, 331 BCE. Persia.

We’ll start this week by going back into ancient history from the 2004 Alexander movie.

Just a few minutes into the beginning of the movie we’ll find an event from this week in history as the camera pans across the desert. There are a few clouds in the sky, but it’s hardly a blue sky—more of a hazy mix of gray and an orange that, along with the sand in front of us, makes for a very one-colored landscape.

There’s some text on the screen telling us we’re in Gaugamela, Persia. That’s in modern-day Iraqi Kurdistan.

As we see a man on a horse, another man’s voice is narrating the story. He says it was mad. 40,000 of us against hundreds of thousands of them under Darius. East and West had come together to decide the fate of the known world.

That night, the soldiers camp in the desert. Collin Ferrell’s version of Alexander the Great looks at the moon along with Jared Leto’s character, Hephaestion. He says the moon is a bad omen, to which Alexander says it’s a bad omen for Darius.

They go on, talking a bit more about the battle to come before Alexander goes to his tent while Hephaestion walks off.

The next day, the sun is bright in the sky. We see scores of soldiers marching. The camera cuts between Alexander offering up a cow as a sacrifice and the feet of scores of marching soldiers. Dust gets kicked up as they’re marching. Immediately above the soldiers, the sky is darkened with the lines of long spears carried by the soldiers.

After the sacrifice is made, Alexander jumps on his horse and the camera flies into the sky for an overhead view. Among the sand in the desert, the soldiers are too many to count. The lines of soldiers we can see quickly fade into the dust and sand being kicked up as the men are marching. The battle is about to begin.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Alexander

In the show notes I’ll have a link to the deep dive that we did back on episode #157 of Based on a True Story for the entire movie, but for this week’s event, I actually backed up a day to September 30^th because what we just watched in the movie are the events leading up to the Battle of Gaugamela that happened on October 1^st, 331 BCE when Alexander the Great defeated Darius III of Persia.

The movie’s mention of 40,000 men against hundreds of thousands is a generalization, but it’s close enough. In the true story, Alexander had 47,000 soldiers under his command while Darius had anywhere from 50,000 to over a million soldiers.

As you can imagine, that’s a huge discrepancy in the numbers. But I guess that’s something that can happen about an event that took place thousands of years ago.

And to be fair, most historians today dispute there being over a million soldiers—that comes from some ancient sources. For example, a Greek historian who lived at the time, Arrian, estimated 40,000 cavalry and 1,000,000 infantry for the Persians. Another ancient historian estimated 800,000 infantry and 200,000 cavalry. Another estimated just 1,000,000 troops without breaking them down into cavalry and infantry. Yet another said 45,000 cavalry and only 200,000 infantry.

Only.

200,000 is still a huge army for a battle. But, you get the point of how conflicting accounts make it difficult to know exactly how many were there. Generally, modern estimates range between 50,000 and 120,000 soldiers altogether for the Persians.

On the Greek side, most historians agree the army under the command of Alexander the Great was about 47,000. There seems to be less dispute about that, but anyway you look at it, the Greeks were outnumbered.

Perhaps that’s one reason why the battle is something we still talk about to this day.

Times were different in 331 BCE, and both Darius and Alexander themselves led the attack with their soldiers. After some intense fighting, the decisive blow took place when Alexander charged with a giant wedge of soldiers against the Persian infantry. They managed to weaken the Persian center where Darius was located.

Remember the name Arrian that I mentioned a moment ago? Arrian was a Greek historian who lived from around 86 to around 160 CE, so he wasn’t alive during 331 BCE when the battle was—but, of course, he was still closer to the events than we are today. Arrian’s book called The Anabasis of Alexander is one of the best sources we have about Alexander the Great.

Here’s a quote from Arrian about the turning point in the Battle of Gaugamela:

For a short time there ensued a hand-to-hand fight; but when the Macedonian cavalry, commanded by Alexander himself, pressed on vigorously, thrusting themselves against the Persians and striking their faces with their spears, and when the Macedonian phalanx in dense array and bristling with long pikes had also made an attack upon them, all things together appeared full of terror to Darius, who had already long been in a state of fear, so that he was the first to turn and flee.

By the end of October 1^st, Alexander won what many consider one of his finest and most decisive victories in the face of overwhelming odds. On the other side, the Persian King Darius III did manage to escape on horseback, but it was considered to be the beginning of the end for the First Persian Empire, which later fell completely to the Greeks and Alexander the Great.

October 1st, 1961. New York.

Our next event happened on Tuesday this week, and we’ll find it about an hour and 52 minutes into the made-for-TV movie called 61*.

We’re on a baseball field. The camera dollies down just behind home plate, so we can see a perfect angle of the batter, catcher, and umpire on the right side of the camera frame. On the left side, the pitcher stands on the mound. In the distance behind them is the crowd in the stands.

At the plate is number 9, and we can see from the uniform he’s on the New York Yankees. After a few moments, he gets into position in the batter’s box. The pitcher, wearing a Boston Red Sox away uniform, nods to the catcher the approval of the next pitch. Then, he winds, and throws.

The batter swings. We can hear the crack of the bat as the ball goes soaring into right field. The announcer is excited. It’s going back, back…the camera cuts to the crowd in the outfield looking up. The outfielder races to the fence, tracking the ball. He gets to the wall just in time to see the ball land a few rows into the stands.

And the crowd goes wild!

The true story behind that scene in the movie 61*

That short sequence in the movie is a depiction of Roger Maris hitting his 61^st home run of the 1961 season, breaking Babe Ruth’s record that he had set in 1927. We’ll learn more about that and the movie’s title in a moment, but before we do that, let’s do our fact-check of the movie because it is correct to show Maris hitting his 61^st homer off the Red Sox, but there’s more to the story that we don’t see there.

It was the final game of the 1961 season when the New York Yankees were playing their rivals, the Boston Red Sox. On the mound for the Red Sox was a rookie starter by the name of Tracy Stallard. Technically, Stallard had his major league debut the year prior in 1960, but he only had four appearances that year, so he qualified as a rookie in 1961.

That day, Stallard managed to get Roger Maris to pop out to left field during his first at bat. That was in the first inning. Maris came to bat again in the fourth. On a 2-0 pitch, Maris hit a fastball into the right field stands for his 61^st home run.

Oh, I mentioned the asterisk in the movie’s title of 61*. The reason for that is because in 1961, the American League expanded with the Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators joining the league—the previous Washington Senators moved to Minneapolis after the 1960 season to become the Minnesota Twins. With more teams in the league, they decided to change the number of games played from 154 to 162. 1961 was the first year the American League did that, the National League didn’t follow with the 162-game season until the following year, 1962.

So, when Roger Maris was on his record-setting season in 1961, baseball was in the midst of a lot of changes. Not only the expanded number of games, but with new teams in the league that meant there were a lot of players in the majors who had just been called up from the minors.

In other words, a lot of people felt the teams were not quite as good as they had been just a year prior with 50 more players added to the league in the two brand-new expansion teams.

And, in a nutshell, that’s why the asterisk is on Maris’ record. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in 154 games. In 154 games of the 1961 season, Roger Maris had 59 home runs. It wasn’t until the final game of the 162-game season for Roger Maris to hit his 61^st home run. Since it took Maris more games to break the record, a lot of people questioned whether or not the record was a legitimate record.

More specifically, it was a New York sportswriter named Dick Young who suggested the asterisk. Officially, the Commissioner of Baseball removed any asterisk from Maris’ record in 1991, but whether or not there’s an asterisk is still something many people debate today, due in large part to the 1998 season. That’s when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both broke Maris’ record with Sosa hitting 66 home runs and McGwire hitting 70 home runs. That record would then be broken three years later when Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in the 2001 season. None of those three players, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds, have been inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame because of their alleged use of PEDs.

So, that started to bring up Maris’ record again because if he had the asterisk in his, should Sosa, McGwire and/or Bonds have one? For some baseball fans, the debate continues to this day.

As a little side note, it’s worth pointing out that Maris’ record of 61 home runs was still the most by a New York Yankee until Aaron Judge hit 62 in 2022.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, though, check out the 2001 movie called 61*. Roger Maris’ at-bat with the 61^st home run starts at about an hour and 52 minutes into the movie.

Oh, and since I mentioned Babe Ruth, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that it was also this week in history when Babe Ruth’s called shot took place. That was on October 1^st, 1932.

The New York Yankees were playing the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field for game three of the World Series when things got to be pretty chippy on the field with players on both sides doing their fair share of name-calling. When Babe Ruth came to bat in the fifth inning, he made a gesture that looks like he was pointing to the center field bleachers. Then, sure enough, he hit a home run right to those center field bleachers.

Was he calling his shot? This is another thing that’s up for debate. Some people say that’s exactly what he was doing. Footage of the event that you can find online certainly looks like that could be what he’s doing. But, again, it’s footage from 1932 so not quite the high-definition footage we have today. Some say he wasn’t calling his shot but simply gesturing his bat toward fans or other players or something else.

Regardless of what you believe, no one can deny that Babe Ruth calling his shot is an event that has gone down in sports history, and it happened this week.

Oh, and to bring it back to movies, there is a scene about 11 minutes into the 1984 movie The Natural where a nicknamed “The Whammer” that’s supposed to be kind of like Babe Ruth called his shot in a contest between himself and the star of the movie, Robert Redford’s character, Roy Hobbs.

Of course, that happens in a contest at a fair and not the World Series. “The Whammer” may have been based on Babe Ruth, but he’s a fictional character. Just like Roy Hobbs is a fictional character. So, that scene may only be inspired by a true story, but it’s enough of a reason to watch The Natural if you’re looking for more baseball movies to watch this week!

The last baseball movie I’d recommend is a documentary, not a fictional movie. It’s called Say Hey, Willie Mays! from HBO and as you can probably guess it’s all about Willie Mays. I’m throwing that into the baseball recommendation this week because it was actually last week in history when Willie Mays made what we now know simply as “The Catch.”

That happened during game one of the World Series on September 29^th, 1954. With the score tied 2-2 in the 8^th inning, Vic Wertz of the Cleveland Indians hit a fly ball to deep center field. It traveled some 420 feet or so, that’s about 130 meters, before Willie Mays made an over-the-shoulder catch while sprinting from where he had been positioned in shallow center field. In a single motion, he caught the ball, spun around and threw the ball back to the infield preventing any runners from advancing. It was such an amazing play that it’s been regarded as one of the greatest plays in sports.

So, hop in the show notes for lots of great baseball movies from this week in history!

October 3, 1993. Mogadishu, Somalia.

Our third event falls on Thursday this week, and we’ll find it about 43 minutes into the movie called Black Hawk Down as we find ourselves in the middle of Mogadishu, Somalia. There’s dirt street lined with buildings on either side. Driving down the street is a line of American Humvees, each vehicle is equipped with a machine gun at the top and manned by a soldier in full uniform. As they move forward, people in the streets start running the opposite direction as the Humvees. Whatever is about to go down, these civilians don’t want to get involved and I don’t blame them.

The camera changes angles now and we’re transported to the helicopters flying over the city, offering air support to the Humvees below. It looks like there are four helicopters, each of them loaded full of American soldiers so much so they we can see them sitting partially hanging out the open doors on either side of the helicopters.

Down on the ground, we’re inside a local resident’s car now. He watches as the four helicopters touch down in a line on the street. As the helicopters touch down, the soldiers jump out with their weapons ready. Another helicopter touches down on the top of a nearby building, the soldiers inside hopping out to get an overhead view of the street.

Almost immediately, these soldiers open fire on armed men across the way on another building. The four helicopters lift back off, leaving the soldiers on the ground. Or, well, some on the rooftops, as I just mentioned, but you know what I mean—they’re not on the helicopters anymore.

The camera angle shows us the helicopters leaving and then behind them we can see three more larger helicopters arriving.

But we don’t see much more of that yet as the camera changes again, following some of the soldiers who are entering one of the buildings. Weapons hot, they open fire on people inside. We can’t even see who they are before the soldiers shoot them, although it looks like they’re carrying weapons.

Back outside, the three larger military helicopters are taking up a triangle sort of positioning around a single building. On that building is the word “Olympic.”

These helicopters don’t touch down, but instead, they’re hovering low to the ground as ropes are thrown out either side. By this point, the blades on the helicopters have kicked up so much dirt and dust from the streets below that the normally blue sky has a tint of orange to it as we see from ground level the American soldiers rappel from the ropes.

Back with the Humvees, that line stops now. It’s hard to tell where they’re located from what we’re seeing in the movie. Quickly the movie cuts to another scene of American soldiers kicking in a door. Inside, a bunch of men put their hands up at the sight of the soldiers pointing their rifles at them.

There is someone firing at the Americans, forcing them to take cover.

One of the soldiers from the Humvees looks around the corner to see a helicopter hovering in the street with more American soldiers rappelling down the ropes. So, I guess the Humvees must be just around the corner from the helicopters by the “Olympic” building.

The four smaller helicopters from earlier aren’t anywhere to be seen, and now the three larger helicopters are flying away, too. Except they’re not going far. We can hear what must be the pilots talking to each other, talking about how chalk’s on the ground, so now they’re going to go into a holding pattern to provide sniper cover from the air.

Down below, things are getting more intense as a truck filled with armed men shows up and begins firing back at the American soldiers on the ground. Among the machine gun and rifles, we can see some of the men running up the stairs to a rooftop carrying rocket-propelled grenades: RPGs.

Back inside one of the helicopters, a soldier sees the RPG coming right at them. The pilot manages to move the helicopter out of the way just in time. A soldier on the ropes who was rappelling to the ground loses his grip and falls to the ground—we can’t see him hit because there’s so much dirt being kicked up by the helicopters that he just falls into the abyss.

Another soldier hops out to help his fallen comrade. The soldier who fell isn’t moving. The Americans and Somalis continue shooting at each other. After a while, the action shifts and we can hear the soldiers talking about as it’s time for extraction. We can see some men who seem to be prisoners from one of the rooms the soldiers burst into being guarded as they walk back to where the helicopters pick them up.

The armed resistance is increasing, though, and we can see an armed man leading a couple others with RPGs. Finding a view from below, he instructs them to shoot at one of the helicopters. The Americans inside see the RPG, but not before the tail is hit. A burst of flame and smoke pours out of the tail as the helicopter starts spinning around. Inside, alarms are beeping. Back at the command post, we can see the man in charge of the American’s mission stand up as he watches a screen with the smoking helicopter.

“Wolcott’s bird is hit,” we can hear someone saying.

Down below the American soldiers look up in disbelief as the helicopter continues to spin out of control.

“Super six-one is going down,” we can hear one of the soldiers saying.

Inside the helicopter, the pilot yells at the other men to hold on. Alarms continue beeping as he tries to control the ‘copter. The spinning helicopter manages to make it to a clearing between buildings before it crashes in a huge plume of smoke and dirt.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Black Hawk Down

That sequence comes from the 2001 film directed by Ridley Scott called Black Hawk Down, and it depicts an event that really did happen this week in history when not one, but two Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were shot down on October 3^rd, 1993, in what we now know as the Battle of Mogadishu.

Or, I guess, because of the movie and the book it’s based on it’s also often referred to simply as the “Black Hawk Down Incident.”

What we didn’t get to hear in the brief description leading up to the events of October 3^rd was the reason the American soldiers were there that day.

In a nutshell, Somalia had just had a military coup by a group called the Somali National Alliance, or SNA, led by a man named Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Soon after, the United Nations launched an operation to offer food and relief supplies to the country’s affected citizens. So, from an overall perspective, that’s why the American soldiers were there as a part of the United Nations’ mission.

The mission for that particular day, October 3^rd, 1993, was to try and capture some of the SNA’s senior leadership. If you recall, the movie shows a building with the word “Olympic” on it. That would be a point for the movie’s historical accuracy, because it is true that intel had placed some of Aidid’s leadership in a building near the Olympic Hotel.

The movie also got the timing right.

By 3:40 PM, the four helicopters we see at first in the movie arrived. The movie doesn’t say exactly what they are, but they’re Boeing MH-6 Little Bird light helicopters. Their purpose that day was to carry rockets and ammo while authorized to kill any SNA soldiers who shot at them.

Down below, the noise of the helicopters had alerted Somalis in the city of their presence. The Americans’ mission was all about speed and by 4:00 PM, the Delta Force commandos had completed their mission and successfully captured 24 of Aidid’s senior leadership.

“Laurie” was the code word given to let everyone know the prisoners were secured and it was time to go home.

And just like we see in the movie, that’s when everything went wrong for the Americans when an RPG hit one of the Black Hawk helicopters. That was at 4:20 PM, so not long after the prisoners were secured.

In the movie, we hear them talking about Super Six-One, which is true because that was the designation for the MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that was shot down.

All of a sudden, the mission wasn’t just about getting out of there with the prisoners anymore. They had to rescue the soldiers in the downed helicopter. While most didn’t know it yet, both pilots had already been killed in the crash and a couple other soldiers were badly wounded. The remaining two soldiers inside set up to defend their ground until help came.

Oh, and one of those pilots was who we heard mentioned in the movie when they’re referring to “Wolcott’s bird.” That would be Chief Warrant Officer 3 Clifton Wolcott, one of the pilots of Super Six-One who was killed in the crash.

The line of Humvees we see in the movie were tasked with making their way to Super Six-One, while one of the smaller helicopters we saw in the movie, an MH-6 Little Bird, went to cover the crash site until the ground forces could get there.

But that posed a logistical problem because even though the helicopter crashed about 300 yards from the target building, the forces on the ground couldn’t see that. So, they asked for help from the helicopters still in the air and slowly made their way in the direction of the crash site.

Another Black Hawk designated Super Six-Eight was sent to the crash site. While the rescue team was rappelling from Super Six-Eight, that helicopter was also hit by an RPG. It didn’t crash, thankfully, but it was forced to return to base.

Another Black Hawk, Super Six-Four, went to the crash site to help both support the soldiers on the ground while also giving a visual indicator to the troops trying to find the crash site from below.

Things went from bad to worse when, at 4:40 PM, Super Six-Four was hit by an RPG, sending it crashing down into some buildings below.

There were now two crashed Black Hawk helicopters. It was the start of what would be a 15-hour rescue mission that would leave 80 American soldiers wounded, 18 American soldiers dead and an estimated 1,000 or more Somali fighters killed.

As you can tell, there’s a lot more to the story of what happened on October 3^rd and 4^th, so if you want to take a deep dive into the true story, scroll back to episode #105 of Based on a True Story where we covered the movie Black Hawk Down.

If you just want to watch the movie, of course, we started our segment about 43 minutes into the movie, but really, pretty much the entire movie takes place this week in history.

Historical birthdays from the movies

This week there are two historical birthdays on Wednesday!

Starting with Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, who was born on October 2^nd, 1847, in the city of Posen in the Kingdom of Prussia—today that’s in Poland.

Paul von Hindenburg was remembered in history as the man who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and then became the President of Germany who proposed Adolf Hitler become the chancellor. Hindenburg remained the President until his death when Hitler dissolved the office of the president so that he could take those powers, too. Because of his association with World War I and Hitler, Von Hindenburg has been portrayed in a lot of movies and TV shows, but if you haven’t seen it yet then I’d recommend the two-part TV miniseries called Hitler: The Rise of Evil. In that series, Von Hindenburg is played by the great actor Peter O’Toole.

Or if you want something more focused on entertainment and not quite as historically accurate, Hindenburg is played by Rainer Bock in the 2017 Wonder Woman movie.

Also on October 2^nd but in the year 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Porbandar, India. Better known as Mahatma Ghandi, he was born in British-controlled India and was a lawyer and activist who was influential in leading India toward a peaceful independence from British rule. Probably the most popular movie portraying Ghandi’s life is the 1982 film from Richard Attenborough simply called Ghandi where he was played by Ben Kingsley.

On October 5^th, 1902, Ray Kroc was born in Oak Park, Illinois. Ray was best known as the businessman who bought a fast-food company from the McDonald brothers in 1961 and turned it into the McDonald’s brand we all know today. That story was told in the 2016 movie called The Founder where Ray Kroc is played by Michael Keaton. We compared that movie with history back on episode #90 of Based on a True Story.

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

Tuesday this week marks the 14^th anniversary of David Fincher’s biographical drama about the founding of Facebook. In The Social Network, we follow Jesse Eisenberg’s character of Mark Zuckerberg as he’s a Harvard University student back in 2003.

According to the movie, he’s dumped by his girlfriend Erica Albright, played by Rooney Mara, and in response to the breakup he creates a website called “FaceMash.” That website basically lets Harvard students compare and rank the attractiveness of female students, and it’s an instant hit—so much so that it lands Zuckerberg in trouble with the university administration.

Inspired by the success of “FaceMash,” Zuckerberg decides to create a social networking site for Harvard students, which he calls “The Facebook.”

Meanwhile, we meet two other students named Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The identical twins are both played by Armie Hammer in the movie, and they approach Zuckerberg with an idea for their social networking site, “Harvard Connection.” Zuckerberg agrees to help them but instead uses their concept as a foundation for his own project.

“The Facebook” quickly expands to other Ivy League schools and eventually spreads to universities across the country. Eduardo Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield, is Zuckerberg’s best friend and co-founder of Facebook. He serves as the company’s CFO, providing the initial funding for the venture. However, tensions arise between the two as the platform grows in popularity.

Sean Parker, portrayed by Justin Timberlake, enters the picture as the co-founder of Napster and becomes involved with Facebook. Parker convinces Zuckerberg to relocate the company to Silicon Valley and pursue aggressive expansion, leading to a rift between Zuckerberg and Saverin. Eventually, Saverin’s shares in the company are diluted, and he is effectively pushed out of the business.

The film is framed by two lawsuits filed against Zuckerberg. The first is from the Winklevoss twins, who claim that Zuckerberg stole their idea. The second is from Saverin, who sues Zuckerberg for diluting his shares in the company. These legal proceedings are interspersed with flashbacks to the creation and rise of Facebook.

As the lawsuits are settled, the film concludes with Zuckerberg alone, refreshing his Facebook page while awaiting a friend request acceptance from his ex-girlfriend Erica. The movie ends with text stating the outcomes of the lawsuits: the Winklevoss twins received a settlement of $65 million, and Saverin’s name was restored to the list of Facebook’s founders.

The true story behind The Social Network

So, that’s all from the movie’s version of events.

Shifting from the fiction and into the fact-checking, I’m sure you already know who Mark Zuckerberg is, and maybe you’ve heard of the Winklevoss twins. Erica Albright, Eduardo Saverin, Sean Parker…those are all real people, too, and the movie does a pretty good job of setting up who they are in the true story.

The movie is also correct to show Mark Zuckerberg setting up a website called “FaceMash” that was basically comparing two women side-by-side and letting users vote on which one was more attractive. While the movie doesn’t really focus on this, in the true story Mark Zuckerberg based his “FaceMash” website that he built in 2003 on a website from 2000 called “Hot or Not” that, well, is pretty self-explanatory on what it did.

While Tinder didn’t come around until 2012, a lot of people have compared that style of swiping left or right as the same as concept. Except, of course, Zuckerberg’s “FaceMash” website only included voting for women.

To get photos of students for his own website, Zuckerberg hacked into the Harvard student directories. Those directories were called “facebooks” – so you can get a sense of where the name came from. You can also get an idea for how happy students were when they found out their photos were on FaceMash without their permission. He launched FaceMash on October 28^th, 2003, and the movie is correct to show that almost immediately it was both very popular—and also something that Zuckerberg got into huge trouble over.

After all, he had used photos without permission and used them to objectify women without their consent. People considered it both a violation legal copyright infringement, as well as just being ethically immoral.

Zuckerberg managed to avoid getting expelled, and shut down FaceMash after just three days.

In the movie, we see the lesson Zuckerberg learned from this was to find a way to get people to give their photos and information for free. That’s where, according to the movie, the Winklevoss twins’ idea of “The Harvard Connection” comes in.

And that’s basically correct, because as Zuckerberg was facing the repercussions of FaceMash, enter the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, along with another student named Divya Narendra. He’s played by Max Minghella in the movie.

And it is true that those three worked on a new networking website they called “The Harvard Connection” back in late 2002, and into 2003. When Zuckerberg’s whole FaceMash debacle made him a name on campus, Narendra and the Winklevoss twins asked Zuckerberg if he’d join their project as the lead developer for “The Harvard Connection.”

The idea they had for “The Harvard Connection” was basically to be a social networking platform online for Harvard students—with an eventual plan to grow beyond Harvard—it was eventually renamed “ConnectU.”

So, that’s how Mark Zuckerberg got involved in what was then The Harvard Connection. At the same time as he was helping them, he also recognized the idea of a social networking platform was the perfect way to get people to upload their information into his own platform—the next “FaceMash,” so to speak.

And so it was that, on February 4^th, 2004, Zuckerberg launched a new website he called “The Facebook” after Harvard’s internal directories. This time, though, he wasn’t hacking the directories to get information. He allowed users to upload their information to share with others. And so, the concept of what we know as Facebook now was born.

The Facebook started getting popular fast—and the movie is also correct to show that the Winklevoss twins and Narendra were not happy when they found out about Zuckerberg’s new website. After all, it was basically what they were wanting to do! On top of that, they also felt like Zuckerberg was slacking on developing their platform while working on his own competitor.

We see that in the movie, but to get a better understanding, it’s helpful to know the timeline of it all.

So, if you recall, it was at the end of October in 2003 that FaceMash was shut down. In November of 2003, Narendra and the Winklevoss twins asked Zuckerberg to help with their project. He agreed. Then, on February 4^th, 2004, Zuckerberg launched The Facebook on his own while still developing The Harvard Connection. It took a few months, but as The Facebook got more popular, around May of 2004, the rest of The Harvard Connection team found out about The Facebook.

Well, I guess technically by then they had rebranded from The Harvard Connection to ConnectU in the hopes of expanding beyond Harvard.

In September of 2004, ConnectU officially filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg claiming he stole their ideas to start Facebook. In return, Facebook filed a lawsuit against ConnectU in 2005 claiming they stole Facebook’s web design for ConnectU.

As you can imagine, the lawsuits didn’t make either side happy for quite some time…until, in 2008, they finally agreed on a settlement that saw Facebook handing over about $20 million in cash as well as over a million Facebook shares—another $45 million or so in valuation at the time.

At the time of the settlement in 2008, Facebook was worth about $15 billion dollars, thanks in no small part to an October 2007 investment from Microsoft of about $240 million for 1.6% of Facebook.

Oh! And I didn’t even mention Justin Timberlake’s character, Sean Parker.

It is true that Sean Parker was the very first president of Facebook.

It’s also true that he’s the same guy who founded Napster, although the movie focuses more on Facebook so it doesn’t really tell that part of the story.

In a nutshell, the true story for Sean Parker’s involvement started years earlier back around the turn of the century in 1999 when Parker and his partner Shawn Fanning launched the file-sharing service they called Napster—named after Fanning’s high-school nickname. Both Parker and Fanning were still teenagers when they launched Napster, after all. And that gives you a little insight into Sean Parker, because he didn’t go to Harvard like Mark Zuckerberg did.

In fact, Sean Parker never went to any college. At 16, he won a tech fair by developing a web browser. That was back in 1995, and Netscape Navigator launched in 1994, so the idea of a web browser was still new at the time—and that win earned him an internship at a company called FreeLoader. That was the first company started by Mark Pincus, who you might know as the guy who started Zynga. You remember FarmVille and Words with Friends?

So, that’s who Sean Parker worked for throughout high school. As Sean said in an interview for Forbes, “I wasn’t going to school. I was technically in a co-op program but in truth was just going to work.”

He also said he made about $80,000 that year which, adjusted for inflation, is about the same as $150,000 today. So, his parents were okay with him not going to college.

And that’s what he was doing when he met Shawn Fanning on a dial-up bulletin board. Together, the two built and launched Napster in June of 1999. It gained popularity to help infuse them with some investment money, but they also started to run into legal troubles. That part of the story comes from the band Metallica. They had a song called “I Disappear” on the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack that showed up on Napster before it was officially released.

In April of 2000, they officially filed a lawsuit against Napster, followed soon by other musicians like Dr. Dre as well as the RIAA overall.

The tricky part to all this, though, is the way Napster worked isn’t by hosting the files themselves. If you’re familiar with BitTorrent, that’s a technology that came out in the wake of Napster and works basically the same way. When you installed Napster, it’d scan your hard drive for any MP3 files—technically you could do more than just MP3s as Napster’s software evolved, but MP3s and music was its focus. So, it’d scan for MP3s and create an index of the files you had on your computer. Then, someone else could request that file and Napster would transfer it from your computer to theirs.

The concept is called peer-to-peer, and what that meant is that Napster didn’t actually store the files themselves. So, when they were hit with lawsuits to remove all the copyrighted files—they couldn’t really do that. Napster was forced to cease operations in 2001 and filed for bankruptcy in 2002.

Of course, as is often the case for tech companies, other companies buy up their assets and branding. So, as a little side note, if you look up Napster today—it still exists, or maybe it’s better to say it exists again, because it’s a completely legal streaming service now.

So, in 2002, Parker started up a new company called Plaxo. It was basically a souped-up address book in Microsoft Outlook, but at the time it was also a precursor to social networking. Parker was forced out of Plaxo by investors in 2004, so when he saw “The Facebook” as it was called then on his girlfriend’s computer while she was a student at Stanford and immediately saw the potential.

Thanks to Sean’s past with Napster, he had connections with investors and helped bring on Peter Thiel as one of the first outside investors for Facebook. If that name rings a bell, it’s because he co-founded PayPal alongside Elon Musk, which he was also the CEO of until they sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.

So, around 2004, Thiel was flush with cash and invested $500,000 for about 10.2% of the company. He sold all those shares in 2012 for about $1 billion, although he’s still on the board—actually, there’s a Wall Street Journal article from 2019 that I’ll link to in the show notes if you want to read about some of the controversy swirling around him and his pressuring of Facebook not to fact-check political ads.

And I’m sure you’ve seen the aftermath of those decisions as Mark Zuckerberg was called to testify before Congress in April of 2018 about Facebook’s role in the election.

September 24^th, 1780. New York.

At 36 minutes into the third season, episode 9 of AMC’s Turn: Washington’s Spies, we’ll find an event that happened exactly 244 years ago today during the American Revolutionary War.

Hitting play on the series, we’re in a wooded encampment of American soldiers. In the foreground is a cannon, with horses and a tent in the background. On the right side, everything is gathered around a rustic, wooden building. Off in the distance, behind the building, a uniformed officer in blue and white can be seen riding a horse into the encampment. Taking off his helmet, he tells one of the soldiers he’s looking for Colonel Jameson. They point him to the building. Handing the soldier his helmet, he walks to the building and enters.

Once inside, we can see another uniformed man sitting behind a desk. That must be Colonel Jameson, although there’s no one with that name cast in the series. But we can tell the man walking into the building who just entered the encampment is Seth Numrich’s character, Benjamin Tallmadge.

Tallmadge addresses Jameson inside the building, and we can see another man there playing a game of checkers across from the Colonel. The other man isn’t wearing a uniform at all, and when Tallmadge introduces himself as Major Benjamin Tallmadge from General Washington’s staff, the other man seems to noticeably shy away a bit.

Tallmadge tells the Colonel he was sent to find out what happened last night.

Now the three men are all facing each other, and Tallmadge makes no indication of recognizing the non-uniformed man. Colonel Jameson goes on, saying an enemy ship got a little rowdy, but she turned tail after a few shots. Oh, and this man was caught by some Skinners a few hours ago. They said he’s a spy, but he has a letter of pass from General Arnold that they couldn’t read.

Tallmadge looks directly at the other man, who we know from the actor is JJ Feild’s character, Major John Andre. He smiles at Tallmadge saying it was a simple misunderstanding. Tallmadge makes no indication of recognizing Andre.

“Yes, of course,” he says. Then, he asks Jameson for a word between just the two men, and they leave the building together. Once outside, Tallmadge asks Jameson to confirm Andre’s story. Then, Tallmadge asks Jameson if he had any shoes on. Jameson pauses for a moment.

No, he didn’t have any.

You didn’t think that was odd?

Then, turning to look at one of the Skinners standing there, Tallmadge continues to talk to Jameson.

“Or, you didn’t think it was odd that one of the Skinners is wearing a pair of royal officer’s boots?”

We can see one of the men standing there is wearing a nice pair of boots. Tallmadge asks what the man’s name is inside. Jameson thinks for a moment, then he says, “John Anderson.”

Tallmadge thinks for a moment, seemingly racking his brain for that name.

Then, Colonel Jameson continues to speak, saying that he should add that he did have plans for West Point on his person. But we didn’t think anything of it because they were in General Arnold’s handwriting. Tallmadge is in disbelief, “Wait a minute, what? And you just thought to tell me this now?”

Jameson stands a little taller now, “Of course not. It’s all in my report to General Arnold.”

Tallmadge pauses for a moment, as the realization starts to set in across his face before rushing away.

The true story behind this week’s event in the movie Turn: Washington’s Spies

Let’s start our fact-checking of this week’s event by clarifying the timeline, because the series doesn’t give us any indication of dates or anything. But, if I had to guess, I’d say this segment from the movie happened on September 24^th, 1780, because of a line in the series where Colonel Jameson talks about “John Anderson” being caught the night before.

And we know from history that the real Major John Andre was captured on September 23^rd, 1780—so, the night before the meeting we see in the series.

The TV show is correct to mention the name John Anderson, too, because that was the name John Andre used undercover. And it’s also correct to suggest Benjamin Tallmadge was involved as part of Washington’s Spies—as to borrow from the title of the series.

So, in the true story, Major General Benedict Arnold was in the inner circle for the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, General George Washington. But, Arnold grew disillusioned with his position in the Army because, quite simply, he was going broke and the Continental Army wasn’t paying him what he felt he deserved. So, he offered to turn over the fort at West Point in exchange for about £20,000 and a position in the British Army. While it’s hard to convert British pounds of 1780 to today’s U.S. dollars, a rough ballpark would be about $42 million today.

After nearly a year of communicating in secret, Major Andre took a British ship called Vulture to meet face-to-face with General Arnold of the Continental Army. They met in the evening hours of September 21^st, 1780, and talked all night until the sun started to come up on September 22^nd. Even as the sun came up, Major Andre decided to keep the conversation with Arnold going, so instead of going back to Vulture, he and Arnold decided to go to a nearby house. It was owned by a man named Joshua Hett Smith at the time—he’s not in the TV series at all. Today, though, Smith’s house has another name: The Treason House. That’s thanks to the meeting between Andre and Arnold that took place there. At least, that was a nickname it had before it was demolished. I’ll throw a link in the show notes of a photo of what the house looked like in case you want to see.

So, at Smith’s house on September 22^nd is where Andre and Arnold continued their conversations. Meanwhile, though, the presence of a British ship on the river drew the gunfire of some Continental soldiers. That’s what the TV series is talking about when we hear Colonel Jameson telling Tallmadge about a ship that turned tail after a few shots.

They couldn’t have known it at the time, but that’s a nice little historical level of detail there because the ship they’re talking about is Vulture, which had delivered Andre to the meeting with Arnold and then once it shot at, Vulture was forced to retreat, leaving Andre stranded.

When it was finally time to leave, Arnold convinced Andre that he’d be safer going undercover on land instead of trying to sneak back to the British ship that was long gone by now.

So, that’s why we see Major John Andre in the series without a British uniform on—because he took it off to try and sneak past the American lines. He tried to do that in the early morning hours of September 23^rd, and I say “tried” for a reason. He was not successful.

If you remember from the TV series, Colonel Jameson tells Tallmadge that Andre had a passport from General Arnold that the Skinners couldn’t read.

The term “Skinners” we hear in the series are referring to slang term used in American-held territory for fighters loyal to the British Crown. That was a real term, but it’s how Colonel Jameson says the Skinners couldn’t read the pass that’s a change from what really happened.

In the true story, the men who captured John Andre were named John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart. Those were the three Americans who stopped Andre on the morning of September 23^rd, 1780. They didn’t have to read any passport from Andre, because he told them exactly who he was. You see, one of those men, John Paulding, just happened to be wearing a captured Hessian uniform.

Hessians were Germans who were serving in the British army.

So, Hessians were loyal to the British Crown. When Andre saw the Hessian uniform, he assumed the three men were British soldiers. He asked if they belonged to the “lower party” referring to the British camp to the south of them. They said they do, so John Andre told them he was a British officer who was on important business. It must’ve been quite a shock to Andre when the three men replied with, “We’re Americans” and arrested him.

Only then did Andre change his story, telling the men he was actually an American. That’s when he showed them the passport that General Arnold gave him, but again the men didn’t even need to read it like we see in the series because at that point they already were suspicious of this man.

Just like we see in the series, it is true that John Andre was taken to a nearby camp run by Lt. Colonel John Jameson. And Jameson had no idea of Andre’s true intentions, but he was aware of the passport from General Arnold. Of course, Jameson also had no idea of Arnold’s true intentions, either, so Jameson was going to send Andre directly to Arnold!

Very very similar to what we see happening in the TV show, Major Benjamin Tallmadge arrived at Jameson’s camp while Andre was there. He was suspicious of Andre, and instead of sending Andre to General Arnold, he convinced Jameson to send Andre and the letters from Arnold that Andre was carrying to General Washington.

As fate would have it, though, Jameson knew what all this implied. But he still wasn’t sure about Arnold’s guilt. And remember, as far as he’s concerned, General Arnold is still Colonel Jameson’s superior officer at this point—because, technically, he still was. If for any reason General Arnold was found not guilty, you can bet General Arnold’s retaliation would fall on Colonel Jameson.

So, Col. Jameson sent Andre to General Washington, and also sent a letter to General Arnold telling him of Andre’s arrest. That gave Arnold enough time to escape, which he did—also this week in history—on September 25^th, 1780.

And while John Andre’s capture and Benedict Arnold’s betrayal was a major moment during the American Revolution, of course, it’s just one small part of the overall story of the spy ring that’s told in AMC’s Turn: Washington’s Spies.

So, if you want to learn more about the true story, I’ve got a deep-dive episode all about Turn linked in the show notes—that’s episode #139 of Based on a True Story.

September 25^th, 1944. Arnhem, Netherlands.

Our next event happened on the 25^th, so Wednesday this week, and back during World War II. To see how it’s shown in the movies, we’re at about two hours and 42 minutes into the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far.

Picking up a piece of paper, Sean Connery’s character, Maj. Gen. Urquhart, reads it with an air of disgust in his voice. “Withdraw!?”

He turns around, speaking to no one in particular, although we can see some other soldiers in the background.

“Two days, they said, and we’ve been here nine,” he mutters under his breath as he paces across the floor. Again, in disgust, he mutters something about how you’d think we could accomplish one bloody mile. Then, General Urquhart’s demeanor seems to change slightly as he turns to another man in the room. As if finally accepting the piece of paper, he says they have their marching orders.

In the next shot, we see General Urquhart addressing his men. Referring to George Innes’ character, he says MacDonald will stay behind with the radio to give the Germans something to listen to while the rest of the men sneak away. On top of that, some of the medical staff have volunteered to stay behind with the wounded who are too bad to move. Those wounded will replace the men firing, to allow them to escape.

By the time the Germans find out what’s happening, we should all be safely across the river.

And then, under the cover of a rainy night, we see what looks like General Urquhart’s British soldiers making their escape. It’s so dark and the rain is heavy enough that it’s very difficult to see just how many there are, but we can see a line of soldiers all walking along a rope, using it like a guiding line. They stop when they can hear the sound of German voices over the rain.

After a moment, the voices seem to die down, and the line starts moving again. One of the soldiers turns to Urquhart and says something to the effect of how he’s finally starting to believe they’ll make it. And, in the next few scenes, there are more and more soldiers in the cover of night who are walking the same direction toward a large river. General Urquhart watches for a moment before getting into a small boat with a few other soldiers and making his way across the river, too.

The true story behind this week’s event in the movie A Bridge Too Far

That event we’re seeing is the end of the military operation known as Market Garden—a disastrous failure for the Allies during World War II that many historians believe prolonged the war instead of ending it early.

So, let’s start our fact-check with Sean Connery’s character, Major General Urquhart.

He was a real person, and he really was the man in charge of the 1^st Airborne Division for the Battle of Arnhem. That battle was just part of the overall Operation Market Garden, but the movie is correct to show Arnhem as being the last major part of the overall Market Garden that ended in the retreat of Allied forces.

In a nutshell, the way Operation Market Garden worked was the Allies dropped paratroopers at strategic locations just a few miles away from the bridges they were tasked with taking out. That’s why Sean Connery’s version of General Urquhart says something to the effect of going a “bloody mile” or something.

The airborne part of the operation commenced on September 17^th, 1944, and the plan was for the troops to hold the bridges until the land forces could meet them. That’s where the name comes from, because the “Market” part of the plan were the paratroopers, to be relieved by the “Garden” part of the operation—the ground troops.

If you remember, in the movie we hear Sean Connery’s version of General Urquhart mention how it was supposed to be two days, and it’s been nine.

Well, it is true that they were supposed to be relieved within 48 hours.

It’s also true that didn’t really go according to plan, though, because there were a lot more Germans in the area than the Allies anticipated. Somewhere around 100,000 Germans were in the area, compared to a little over 41,000 Allied troops. Of course, that’s for the overall operation, for the part of the true story we’re seeing in the movie with General Urquhart, there were about 10,000 of the British 1^st Airborne Division.

But, it’s still important to know the overall military operation, because all that fighting slowed down the reinforcements that were supposed to make it to them. The British paratroopers who had managed to make it to the bridge, there were only about 800 or so that made it to the bridge at Arnhem only to find themselves surrounded and alone. Despite that, and in spite of constant artillery bombardments and ground assaults from the Germans, the British held their positions for four days.

By the time the 21^st of September rolled around, the British at the bridge were being forced to surrender. The Germans continued their heavy assaults on the Allied troops. Still, they held out for a few more days. Finally, it was this week in history during the late-night hours of the 25^th or early morning hours of the 26^th that General Urquhart ordered a withdrawal.

So, that’s the scene in the movie A Bridge Too Far—the Battle of Arnhem, and also the bridge at Arnhem proved to be too much for the Allied troops. And although the scene from the movie we watched today made it hard to see how many soldiers managed to escape, only 2,000 of the 10,000 troops who were dropped managed to get out.

Oh, and just to clarify about the name of the movie. The name “A Bridge Too Far” comes from the book by Cornelius Ryan about Operation Market Garden. That’s the book the movie is based on, and the term “a bridge too far” is referring to the bridge at Arnhem where General Urquhart’s men were at, since it overstretched the Allies and led to the eventual withdrawal.

Would Operation Market Garden have been successful had they not tried to capture the one bridge at Arnhem? Despite that being something the book and movie title implies, in the true story, Operation Market Garden is debated among military historians to this day because as you might imagine, the true story is a lot more complicated.

But, if you want to watch the disastrous end of the operation that happened this week in history, hop in the show notes for where you can watch the movie A Bridge Too Far!

September 28^th, 1978. The Vatican.

At about two and a half hours into the film Godfather 3, we’ll find our next event from Saturday this week as two men dressed in black clergy robes walk down a dimly-lit hallway. The walls are a dark red color, with a huge painting in an ornate frame hanging on the wall, as well as fancy, old chairs and wooden furniture set along the wall. One of the two men is carrying a small tray with a saucer and cup.

As the movie plays, they walk down the marble-floored hallway and around the corner. After a pause, there’s a slight knock at the door. As the door opens, we can only hear someone saying, “Tea, Your Holiness? It will help you sleep” and the man with the steaming hot cup of tea on the saucer walks into the room.

The door closes behind him as the movie shifts to another scene of what looks like a mob hit as the character on the bed is smothered by two other men holding a pillow. Another cut in the movie, and we can see a sequence of even more dead men—apparently others taken out by the mob.

In the luxury box of a play, someone comes up to Al Pacino’s character, Michale Corleone, and whispers something in his ear. It must be something important, because he gets up and leaves with the man. In the dark hallway of the theater, we can hear what sounds like Andy Garcia’s version of Vincent Mancini telling Michael that their man inside the Vatican says something will happen to the Pope.

He’ll have a heart attack?

This is serious.

Michael says this Pope has powerful enemies, we might not be in time to save him. Then, they decide to go back into the play so no one notices them missing.

Back in the room we saw the man enter with the tea cup earlier, now it’s a nun knocking on the same door. She doesn’t wait very long for an answer before she opens the door herself, saying something as she walks into the room. There’s no reply, so she walks further into the room. On the nightstand, she picks up the saucer with what seems to be a now-empty teacup.

The nun is still trying to get the attention of whomever is lying on the bed.

The camera cuts to the man, smiling as if calmly sleeping in the bed. She nudges him. He doesn’t move. She nudges a little harder, making the reading glasses fall off his nose. He still doesn’t get up. The nun gasps, and rushes out of the room. We can hear the sound of the teacup shattering on the ground as she runs out of the room screaming, “The Holy Father is dead!”

The true story behind this week’s event in the movie Godfather III

Let’s kick off our fact-checking segment by stating the obvious: This is an example of a movie using a very real historical event as part of its fictional story. That real event is the death of Pope John Paul I.

And you guessed it, this week in history is when the real Pope John Paul I died.

Was he poisoned by a cup of tea like we see in the movie?

Well, that’s where the fictional part of the story comes into play…and not necessarily because the movie is wrong, but more that we just don’t know everything about the true story.

And here’s where this part of the story ventures into the land of conspiracies, because if you’ve ever done any research into the Catholic Church, you’ll know they’re not really known for being forthcoming with all the intricate details about how a Pope dies. Oh, sure, there’s the official version…but is that what really happened to Pope John Paul I?

Like any good conspiracy theory, let’s just lay out what we do know about the true story so you can decide what you believe.

We didn’t talk about this part of the movie, but if you’ve seen Godfather III, then you’ll know that earlier in the movie we see Pope John Paul I being elected to the papacy.

In the true story, that happened on August 26^th, 1978, and if you got the impression from the movie that perhaps he wasn’t 100% on board with the papacy, you’d be correct. We know this because of an interview that Father Diego Lorenzi did to honor the former pope. Lorenzi had worked with Pope John Paul I before he was Pope John Paul I, back when he was the Patriarch of Venice.

As a side note, his name before being Pope John Paul I was Albino Luciani. He picked Pope John Paul I because Pope Paul VI was his papal predecessor who had named him a cardinal, and the pope before that was Pope John XXIII, who had named him a bishop. So, that’s how he got the name.

So, anyway, as the true story goes, Luciani had said before going to the College of Cardinals where they vote for the pope, that if they voted for him—he would turn them down. But, in the end, he must’ve changed his mind…because when he was voted in, he said “yes” just like we see in the movie.

Well, I guess in the movie he says, “I accept,” but you know what I mean.

Pope John Paul I was only the Pope for 33 days, though.

He died on September 26^th, 1978. That falls on Thursday this week.

To say his death was a surprise is an understatement. He was the shortest-reigning pope since Pope Leo XI died of a cold just 27 days after being elected—back in the year 1605.

According to the official version of the story, Pope John Paul I died very similar to the way we see in the movie: Peacefully and in bed. The bedside lamp was still lit…and while the movie shows him smiling as if he’s just sleeping with a happy dream, we don’t really know if he had a smile on his face when he was found.

With that said, though, it is a little nod of the hat from the filmmakers to the real history because Pope John Paul I had the nickname “The Smiling Pope” because, well, he smiled a lot.

The official version of the true story is that Pope John Paul I most likely had a heart attack at some point during the night.

As you can imagine from such a short papacy, there are a lot of conspiracy theories surrounding his death. And one of them is very much in line with what we see in the Godfather III that it surrounded something to do with the Vatican Bank and maybe even the Mafia. Check out the show notes for a link to David Yallop’s 1984 book called In God’s Name where he lays out that conspiracy in more detail.

Historical birthdays from the movies

Time now for some birthdays from historical figures in the movies that were born this week in history.

On September 25^th, 1764, Fletcher Christian was born in Cumberland, England. He’s best known as the master’s mate on the Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty under the command of Lieutenant William Bligh. It was Christian who led the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789. That story has been told in multiple movies, including the 1962 movie simply called Mutiny on the Bounty where Fletcher Christian is played by Marlon Brando. And we did a deep dive into the historical accuracy of that movie back on episode #156 of Based on a True Story.

On September 26^th, 1888, Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He was better known as T.S. Eliot, who is now considered one of the 20^th century’s greatest poets. He was played by Willem Dafoe in the 1994 biopic about his early life called Tom & Viv.

On September 27^th, 1389, Cosimo di Giovanni de’ Medici was born in the Republic of Florence, in modern-day Italy. Cosimo was best known as the Italian banker whose immense riches allowed him to establish his family as one of the most powerful families during the Italian Renaissance. He was played by Richard Madden in the Netflix series simply called Medici.

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

This Sunday is the anniversary of the Denzel Washington movie called Remember the Titans! The movie was directed by Boaz Yakin and when it opened 24-years ago this week, it earned back almost everything it took to make the movie. With a budget of $30 million, Remember the Titans opened with about $21 million on its way to over $130 million worldwide.

Released in 2000 and set mostly in 1971, Remember the Titans gives us the “Based on a True Story” text about 45 seconds into the movie as it goes on to tell the tale of the T.C. Williams High School football team from Alexandria, Virginia. That football team goes by the Titans—hence the name of the movie.

According to the movie, T.C. Williams High School are newly integrating Black and white players, as well as coaches. That’s where Denzel Washington’s character, Herman Boone, comes into the movie as he’s appointed the head coach of the football team, replacing the former head coach Bill Yoast—he’s played by Will Patton in the movie.

And that’s where the first racial tensions arise in the movie, because Coach Yoast doesn’t appreciate being replaced. Then again, in the movie, Coach Boone doesn’t like that he’s been appointed the new head coach despite Coach Yoast having a fantastic career. He almost doesn’t accept the position, but he eventually does, and similarly Coach Yoast decides to stick around as Coach Boone’s defensive coordinator.

In the movie, we see Coach Boone taking the team to a rather rigorous training camp in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in an attempt to unite the team. Using the history of the Battle of Gettysburg to emphasize the importance of unity and overcoming racial divides, the team gradually begins to bond. The movie really focuses on two key players and team captains, Gerry Bertier, who is white, and Julius Campbell, who is Black, and as those two start to develop a close friendship so, too, does the rest of the team.

Gerry is played by Ryan Hurst while Wood Harris plays Julius Campbell in the movie.

When the team returns to Alexandria, there’s still the societal pressures and ongoing racial tensions they have to face. But the Titans go on to have an extraordinary season, remaining undefeated and eventually making it to the state championship—no thanks to a scheme by the school board to have Coach Yoast reinstated by having the refs make bad calls against the Titans. But, Coach Yoast is onto the scheme and calls out the ref in the middle of the game, so things go back to the Titan’s way once the refs go back to making fair calls.

As they’re celebrating their trip to the state championship, tragedy strikes when Gerry Bertier is driving his car when a truck side-swipes him, leaving him in the hospital for the big game. Despite this, the Titans still manage to win the state championship…and then, we find out at the very end that Gerry died ten years later, bringing everyone back together for his funeral.

The true story behind Remember the Titans

Shifting to the fact-checking segment, and let’s start with what is probably the biggest historical inaccuracy: Gerry Bertier was not in a car accident that left him handicapped before the state championship game.

With that said, though, it is true that he was in a car crash…but, it wasn’t like what we see in the movie.

In the true story, this was after Titans’ 1971 season when they had a banquet to honor Gerry. Afterward, he was driving some of his friends home in his mother’s new Camero when he lost control of the car, it crashed and resulted in Gerry being paralyzed.

Speaking of their 1971 season, the rest of the key plot points in the movie are basically correct.

T.C. Williams High School in the movie was a real place. That name comes from Thomas Chambliss Williams, who was a former superintendent of the school system from the 1930s to the 1960s. Today, it’s the Alexandria City High School.

During the movie’s timeline, though, T.C. Williams High School was pretty new, having first opened its doors in 1965. That same year, the city of Alexandria integrated all their schools, and T.C. Williams High School received all the 11^th and 12^th graders in the city.

So, the movie is correct to show the racial tensions and prejudices throughout the team, and the school overall. On the football field, though, the Titans had an amazing year. Earlier I mentioned Gerry Bertier, so he was a real person. So, too, was Julius Campbell.

In the true story, they were both team captains whose friendship helped bond the team despite the racial tensions outside. And on top of that, helped the Titans become simply a great team as well. After all, they had players from three different schools coming together at T.C. Williams for the first time that year.

And they ended up going 13-0, and not by a close margin. Gerry Bertier alone had 142 tackles and 42 sacks! What about Julius Campbell? He had 34 sacks of his own. That’s 76 sacks for just two players—in 13 games! So, it’s no wonder the Titans outscored their opponents 338-38.

Then, as we talked about before, Bertier’s car crash left him paralyzed. Oh, to give you a better idea of how the movie’s timeline compressed that part, the Titans’ final game in 1971 was on December 4^th. The car crash that left Bertier paralyzed was on December 11^th.

The movie skipping ahead to 1981 for his death is, sadly, also true.

Gerry Bertier was on his way home in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a car going the opposite way on the highway crossed the center lane and smashed into him. He died at the hospital later. Gerry Bertier was 27 years old.

September 17th, 1925. Mexico City, Mexico.

To find our first event this week, we’ll skip to about eight and a half minutes into the 2002 movie called Frida.

The streets are crowded with people, but the movie is focusing on a young man and woman in the crowd. She gets sidetracked by one of the vendors on the street. He calls to her, “Frida, come on!” Putting his arm around her, the two continue making their way through the crowd on the street. They’re both dressed nicely in what appears to be some sort of a school uniform.

In the next shot, young Frida is running along the sidewalk. “It’s the bus!” She yells as she runs. We can see a bus—but in the 1920s, this bus looks more like a modified truck with room for people to sit in the back—driving along the road. The boy, Alejandro, assures her they’ll catch the next one.

She keeps running, “No, no!” He runs after her as the two run through the street, almost getting hit by a car, running down the bus. A moment later, and it works. They catch up to the bus and climb aboard.

Once on the bus, the two continue the conversation they were having. Frida sits down on a bench. Then, a lady with a baby is there and Frida gives up her seat for them. Alejandro and Frida continue their conversation, talking about something political or apolitical—Alejandro talks about Marx and Hegel, so maybe they’re referring to Karl Marx and Georg Hegel. They both are standing along with others on the bus, holding onto a bar for stability like you’d expect on a bus even today.

Frida doesn’t seem interested in the conversation about Marx and Hegel and gets sidetracked by someone else on the bus and the theater props they’re carrying.

Just then, the bus driver tries to swerve. Through the window of the bus, we can see what looks like a trolley ramming into the side of the bus. The trolley seems to continue pushing the bus until it hits a wall, throwing glass and everyone inside the bus all over the place. The camera fades to black before coming back to show Frida lying there, bloody and obviously badly hurt from the accident.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Frida

What we’re seeing in the movie happened 99 years ago this Tuesday, on September 17^th, 1925. That’s when Frida Kahlo’s life was forever changed in a bus accident that left her severely injured.

Of course, today, we know of Frida as an artist. At the time of the accident, Frida was only 18 years old and art wasn’t what she was wanting to do with her life.

One of the reasons we see the Frida and Alejandro wearing what looks like a school uniform is because the real reason the two schoolmates and friends were in Mexico City that day was because that’s where they went to school. But they lived about an hour away in Coyoacan, so that’s why they were taking the bus each way.

That day seemed like nothing out of the ordinary for the two.

And the movie was also correct to show the crash being the result of a trolley car. It was traveling full speed when the bus turned around the corner and there wasn’t enough time to get out of the way. The trolley slammed into the bus, crushing it and anyone inside against the street corner.

While we don’t really see this happening in the movie, there was a metal rod that ripped through Frida during the crash. Afterward, a nearby pedestrian trying to help people in the crash saw the rod sticking out of Frida and tried to remove it only to cries so loud that Alejandro would later recall no one could hear the ambulance siren because of Frida’s cries.

For months, Frida Kahlo was confined to bed while her body healed. During that timeframe, she turned to art. Her parents put a mirror on her bed so she could paint herself. She started painting more and more, something that helped her cope with the loneliness of being, well, alone in a bed for months on end.

By the time she was able to leave the bed, her life had changed. She was on the path to become an artist known for putting her own personal trauma and pain into her art. That openness was one of the key characteristics of Frida’s artwork, something that was unique at the time as most women artists in the early 20^th century didn’t put their own hardships into their art. Frida’s artwork was the opposite of that. She didn’t hide what was difficult or painful as many women were forced to do. Instead, she put herself on display through her paintings in a very real way, in a way that was groundbreaking at the time and something we remember her for today.

September 19th, 1952. Washington, D.C.

For our next event this week, we’ll jump to about two hours into the 1992 biopic starring Robert Downey, Jr. simply called Chaplin.

We’re in an office with elegant wood furnishings. A United States flag stands in the corner. Behind the desk in the middle of the room is a black, leather chair. It’s empty. There’s a man in a suit carrying a manilla folder who has just entered the office. He notices the chair is empty, so he turns his head to look off camera.

He carefully sets the folder down on the desk before sneaking over to the other side of the office. As he does, we can see the U.S. Capitol building through the windows.

The camera pans over as the man quietly makes his way to the fireplace. Now we can tell why he was sneaking. He’s trying not to wake the man sleeping in his chair by the fireplace. He touches the sleeping man’s hand trying to wake him.

“Sir”, he whispers quietly.

It didn’t work.

The camera cuts to the man’s face now and we can see this is Kevin Dunn’s character, J. Edgar Hoover. The man shakes Hoover’s shoulder now in a slightly more firm attempt to wake him.

“Sir,” he says a little louder than the whisper before.

Hoover’s eyes open slightly.

“Sir,” the man continues, “we just got word. Chaplin’s off to London on vacation.”

Hoover doesn’t move as he ponders this for a moment. Then, slowly, his mouth curls into a smile.

The next scene in the movie is the one that happens this week in history as we can see text on the screen saying it’s New York Harbor, September 1952.

A massive ocean liner is in the harbor. If you imagine what the Titanic looked like with its iconic four funnels, or smokestacks, well this ship looks a lot like that but with three. So, a similar style ocean liner, albeit not as large as Titanic—but still a good-sized ship. Imagine that in front of the New York skyline in 1952, and that’s what this scene looks like.

After a moment, the movie cuts to aboard the ship, though, as Moira Kelly’s version of Oona O’Neill Chaplin rushes down the stairs to find her husband, Charlie Chaplin. She finds him as he’s at the stern of the ship, overlooking the New York skyline, the Statue of Liberty. On the ship a blue flag with the British Union Jack in the corner is flying.

Oona rushes to Charlie. When she gets there, she has a concerned look on her face. He recognizes this immediately and asks what’s wrong. Then, she tells him the news: They’ve thrown you out.

Charlie is confused at first, as she hands him a piece of paper with the news. She explains it to him: They’ve thrown you out of the United States.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Chaplin

Transitioning to our fact-checking segment, and right away I’ll admit the first part that happened in Washington D.C. probably didn’t happen this week in history. But it’s an important part to set up what did happen this week in history when Charlie Chaplin was refused his entry into the United States.

Granted, the way it happened in the movie was dramatized, but the gist is there.

In the movie, the agent telling Hoover that Chaplin has gone to London mentions it as being a vacation. In the true story, Charlie Chaplin went to London to hold the world premiere of his latest movie called Limelight, which was an autobiographical movie in which the character in the movie is an ex-star dealing with the loss of his popularity. Since Charlie was originally from London, that’s where the story in Limelight was set, so that’s where he decided to hold the world premiere for the film.

And, I guess, it is true that Chaplin took his family to London with him so I could definitely see how it could’ve been considered a vacation, so maybe we can give the movie a break on that.

He boarded the RMS Queen Elizabeth on September 18^th, 1952. On September 19^th, the U.S. Attorney General James P. McGranery revoked Charlie’s permit for re-entry into the U.S.

This is my own speculation, but the speed which that happened the day after tells me there were people in the government just waiting for him to leave so they could revoke the permit.

In the years since, it’s been suggested the U.S. government didn’t have much of a case against Chaplin and he probably could’ve been allowed back into the U.S. had he applied. But, when Charlie Chaplin got the news, he decided not to return to the U.S. He himself wrote about the event in his autobiography, and while I can’t offer a direct quote here, you can read exactly what he said on page 455 of his autobiography if you’d like. To paraphrase, basically, Chaplin was fed up with the insults and hatred he’d received in America.

The catch was that most of Charlie’s wealth—his film studio, his home, etc. was in the United States. So, it was Oona who returned to the U.S. to settle his affairs. They moved to Switzerland and she renounced her own U.S. citizenship in 1953.

As you can imagine, there’s a lot more to this story…which is why I had a chat with Pulitzer Prize finalist author Scott Eyeman, who has written a number of excellent biographies on film history—including his book called Charlie Chaplin Vs America that digs into the true story of Charlie Chaplin—and of course you’ll find a link to it in the show notes.

September 21st, 1937. England.

Our third event from this week in history can be found in the 2019 biopic called Tolkien, and we’re starting about an hour and 43 minutes into the movie, we’re outside with trees in the background and dead leaves covering the ground. A man and woman are walking together with some kids. The man asks the kids if they’ll do something for him. He asks them to listen to a story.

“Is it a good story?” One of the kids asks in a blunt way that kids do so well.

“I hope so,” he says.

“Is it long?”

“Extremely long.”

They go on to ask more questions about his story. Has it been started? What’s it about?

He says it’s been started in his mind. It’s about journeys, adventures, magic, treasure, and love. All things, really. All the kids are looking at him now.

He says the story is about the journeys we take to prove ourselves. It’s about fellowship. He points to one of the little boys and says it’s about little people just like you. The child retorts that he’s not little, and the man quickly corrects himself. No. Little in stature, not little in spirit.

The movie cuts away from the outdoors and we’re not in the woods anymore. We’re inside in a room. The same man from before is sitting, reading some papers. He’s deep in thought.

Then, he turns the paper to a fresh page. Pen in hand, he pauses to think for one more moment before he starts to write. The camera angle doesn’t let us see what he’s writing at first, but after a few seconds, it cuts to a more overhead view of the page. Now, we can see the words he’s written to start the story: “In a hole in the ground, there lived” … he stops writing for a bit and the camera cuts away from the paper to the man’s face. He speaks the word: “Hobbit.”

The true story behind that scene in the movie Tolkien

Okay, so right away I’ll admit that this is another scene that didn’t really happen this week in history. But that’s because the movie doesn’t show the real event that did happen this week, and that scene in the movie is talking about the start of something that ended this week in history…the movie just doesn’t show the ending.

I’m sure you already know by now the man with the story is J.R.R. Tolkien and the story itself is The Hobbit. That scene comes from the 2019 biopic that is simply called Tolkien.

And it shows Tolkien starting to write The Hobbit. What happened this week in history was that The Hobbit was published.

What we don’t see in that sequence in the movie is that J.R.R. Tolkien had been writing stories about the world he created—Middle Earth—for many years at this point, but The Hobbit was his first published work.

There was a BBC documentary in 1968 where Tolkien himself described writing that opening line. I’ll include a link to it in the show notes for this episode if you want to watch it, but basically Tolkien recounts that he was grading his student’s papers in his house at 20 Northmoor Road. He had a pile of exam papers to go through, something he admitted was a boring task.

He picked up one of the papers to review and the student had left one page blank. So, he just grabbed the blank page and wrote down: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

That was then published this week in history on September 21^st, 1937, as The Hobbit. Of course, he’d go on to write The Lord of the Rings and other books, making Tolkien one of the most popular authors of all time. And covering the Tolkien movie as one of the first interviews for Based on a True Story is no mistake, because I’m such a fan of Tolkien’s work…it was one of my great honors to chat with legendary Tolkien scholar John Garth about the Tolkien movie.

Hop in the show notes to find a link for that episode now!

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 September 18^th, 1905, Greta Gustafsson was born in Stockholm, Sweden. She’s better known by her stage name, Greta Garbo, and is regarded by many as one of the greatest screen actresses of all time. Her story was portrayed in the 1980 movie called The Silent Lovers where she’s played by Kristina Wayborn.

Oh, and as another bonus, Greta Garbo was the actress who played Mata Hari in the classic 1931 film of the same name that we covered on episode #74 of Based on a True Story—so I’ll link that in the show notes.

On September 20^th, 1884, Maxwell Perkins was born in New York City. He was an editor and publisher at Scribner where he oversaw works by esteemed authors like Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway, to name a few. His story is told in the 2016 movie called Genius where Max is played by Colin Firth. We covered that movie in more depth back on episode #65 of Based on a True Story.

Also on September 20^th, but in 1917, Arnold Jacob Auerbach was born in Brooklyn, New York. He’s best known by his nickname, “Red,” and as the head coach of the Washington Capitols, Tri-Cities Blackhawks, and Boston Celtics, where he set NBA records was one of the most successful coaches in the history of professional sports. He was played by Michael Chiklis in the 2022 TV series from Max called Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.

‘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, and this week’s movie has the BOATS text less than a minute into the movie. The very first thing after the opening credits in the movie Goodfellas is text that says, “This film is based on a true story.”

This Wednesday marks the 34^th anniversary of Goodfellas, which hit theaters in the U.S. on September 18^th, 1990.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, Goodfellas is adapted from a book by Nicholas Pileggi called Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family. The IMDb description for Goodfellas says it is, “The story of Henry Hill and his life in the mafia, covering his relationship with his wife Karen and his mob partners Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito.”

Henry Hill is played by Ray Liotta, while his wife Karen is played by Lorraine Bracco. Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito are played by Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, respectively.

It starts in the 1950s, as a young child, Henry’s mother happened to grow up in the same Italian city as Paulie Cicero, so now that Paulie is a big wig in the Mafia, that’s how Henry grew up around “the life,” as they call it in the movie. So, it’s not a big surprise that Henry starts working for Paulie Cicero when he’s old enough. Paulie is played by Paul Sorvino in the movie.

Also growing up with Henry is Tommy Devito, who is played by Joe Pesci. When Henry and Tommy start helping the Mafia with jobs—they can’t be more than teenagers at the time—the two boys are mentored by Robert De Niro’s character, Jimmy Conway.

As they continue to rise in the Mafia’s ranks, so, too, does their violence. Tommy, in particular, has a short fuse leading to a lot of rage. That rage is on full display in the 1970s when a guy named Billy Batts enters their nightclub. Billy Batts is played by Frank Vincent in the movie.

And according to the movie, Billy Batts is not just any guy, but he’s a made man in the Gambino crime family. He says the wrong thing to Tommy, who starts stabbing Billy Batts.

Killing a made guy without approval from the Mafia’s leadership then, basically, you’re the next to get whacked. To try and avoid that fate, the three associates try to cover up their crime by burying Billy’s body in upstate New York…and then re-bury the body a few months later when they find out the place they buried it was going to have something built on it.

A tip to the FBI ends up sending Henry to prison for about four years, so we see some of his prison time in the movie as well. While he’s in there, he has Karen sneak drugs into the prison so Henry can sell them to another inmate.

When he gets out, Henry joins Tommy for a heist that Jimmy is planning. The target is the Lufthansa vault at JFK International Airport in New York City. And, according to the movie, it’s successful! Ray Liotta’s version of Henry Hill says they got away with $6 million in cash.

But…some of the robbers get a little too excited about their new money and they ignore Jimmy’s order not to make any large purchases. So, after that leads police to find the getaway car they used, Jimmy has everyone killed, except Tommy and Henry.

Violence finally comes to the trio a few years later when Tommy is tricked into thinking he’s going to a ceremony for his becoming a made man. Instead, he’s murdered for his part in killing Billy Batts. That’s in 1979, and no doubt it doesn’t help Henry’s cocaine habit that just continues to get worse—leading to his arrest in 1980 when he tried to buy some drugs from undercover agents.

He gets bailed out by Karen, but the drugs go against Paulie’s orders—he had told Henry not to get into the drug world. So, after he’s bailed out, Paulie gives Henry some cash and then officially cuts ties with Henry.

Henry turns to Jimmy for help, but Jimmy is still in the Mafia and we start to get the sense from the movie that Jimmy is probably going to take out Henry. So, Henry decides to become an informant for the feds. He gives them enough information to take down Jimmy and Paulie, and in exchange the feds put Henry and his family into the Witness Protection Program.

And, according to the text at the end of the movie, that’s where Henry Hill is still at—in the Witness Protection Program, after his arrest in 1987. Paulie died in Fort Worth Federal Prison of a respiratory illness in 1988 at the age of 73. Henry and Karen separated in 1989.

And Jimmy Conway, Robert De Niro’s character, is currently serving a 20-years-to-life sentence for murder and won’t be eligible for parole until 2004.

The true story behind Goodfellas

Well, obviously, it’s after 2004, and now in 2024, those three men are all dead now. But, remember, the movie came out in 1990, and back then two of the three were still alive.

So, that gives us the perfect place to start our fact-checking: The people.

Henry Hill was based on a real person; we’ll learn more about him in a moment. The real Henry Hill died on June 12^th, 2012.

And Lorraine Bracco’s character, Karen, really was Henry Hill’s wife. Karen Hill née Friedman is still alive as of this recording—she’s 76, and the movie is correct that she and Henry divorced in 1989, although it was legally finalized in 2002.

For the other mobsters, the names changed some.

Robert De Niro’s character of Jimmy Conway is based on a real gangster named Jimmy Burke. The real Jimmy Burke died on April 13^th, 1996—so, after the movie was released.

Joe Pesci’s character, Tommy DeVito, is based on another real gangster named Tommy DeSimone. And in the movie, we see Tommy’s death. We don’t really know what happened to the real Tommy DeSimone. He just simply disappeared on January 14^th, 1979.

And Paul Sorvino’s character, Paulie Cicero, is based on Paul Vario, who really was a powerful caporegime in the Lucchese crime family. The movie was correct to say he died in a Fort Worth prison of a respiratory failure as a result of lung cancer on May 3^rd, 1988.

The movie does a pretty good job of capturing how the real Henry Hill got into the Mafia. His dad was an Irish-American, and his mother was of Sicilian descent. The family moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn when Henry was just seven years old, and coincidentally Paul Vario had a son about the same age. So, they played together often, and Henry started idolizing the mobsters he saw.

Just like we see in the movie, Henry started working for the mobsters as a teenager. One of them was Jimmy Burke, the guy that Robert De Niro’s character is based on.

So, that’s how Jimmy started to take Henry under his wing, very much like we see in the movie. As for the real Tommy DeSimone, that’s the guy Joe Pesci’s character is based on, he grew up in the same neighborhood as Henry so they became close friends as they rose in the Mafia’s ranks.

That brings us to the event in the movie that changes it all: The murder of Billy Batts. Billy was a real gangster, who really went by the nickname Billy Batts. His real name was William Bentvena.

The movie doesn’t show anything about Billy Batts being in prison, it just shows him getting out and implies he was in there for a while. And in the true story, William Bentvena was in prison for narcotics trafficking—he was caught by undercover police in a drug deal on Valentine’s Day in 1959. Then, three years later, he was convicted and received a sentence of 15 years. He was released in 1970, though, which is why we’re seeing him for the first time in the movie.

And while the way Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito acted out the scene of killing Billy Batts is sped up a little bit, the basic gist gets across with the movie’s version.

This all comes from the book the movie is based on, and according to that book, Henry Hill’s version of the events are just like what we see in the movie. The whole reason for them being at the nightclub owned by Jimmy that night was because of a welcome home party of sorts for Billy. That’s why we see the balloons and streamers decorating the bar in the movie, and I think someone even comes up to Billy to say “Welcome home, Billy,” in the movie too.

At one point in the night, Billy joked to Tommy something about asking if he still shined shoes. Tommy took it as an insult and threatened to kill Billy. Here’s where the movie changed it, though, because in the movie’s version it seems to be later that night when Tommy attacks Billy from behind, before Jimmy joins in.

The true story behind that event might’ve started with an insult about shining shoes that led to Tommy’s threats against Billy Batts, but it was actually two weeks later when Tommy snuck up behind Billy and pistol-whipped him, yelling, “Shine these fucking shoes!”

And the movie shows Jimmy start kicking Billy pretty fast, too, but I couldn’t find anything about it happening that fast in the true story. Henry Hill’s version of the event did see Tommy beat Billy to the point of him being dead…at least, they thought he was. Just like we see in the movie, Billy wasn’t really dead. They started hearing noises from the trunk of the car.

And he was in the trunk of the car because Jimmy Burke was driving his body up to a friend’s dog kennel in upstate New York where he knew he could hide the body. Because the movie is also correct to show that the real Billy Batts was a made man in the Gambino crime family.

Oh, and the movie is also correct to show them having to move the body later. Jimmy’s friend who owned the dog kennel sold it about three months later. So, Jimmy ordered Tommy and Henry to go move the body. We don’t see this happening in the movie, but in the book Henry says they took the body to be crushed in a compactor at a New Jersey junkyard owned by a mob associate.

The real Henry Hill also gave commentary for the movie, which I’d recommend watching, and for that he contradicted his previous statement, though, and said Billy was buried in Jimmy’s nightclub, a place called Robert’s Lounge, until it could be put in the compactor later.

Regardless of which version is true, that was the beginning of the end for the real Tommy DeSimone who was killed in retaliation just like we see in the movie. Although the movie mentions it was only partially for the murder of Billy Batts—and that’s true, because he also killed someone else the movie doesn’t even show.

That’s a guy named Ronald Jerothe. Tommy dated Ronald’s sister and beat her up, which made Ronald understandably angry and he said he was going to kill Tommy. But, Tommy overheard this, and killed Ronald first.

Here’s the connection: Both Billy Batts and Ronald Jerothe reported to the same guy in the Gambino crime family: A man named John Gotti, maybe you’ve heard of him. He turned out to be quite infamous as well.

So, Tommy committed the murder of Ronald Jerothe, and on top of that it came out that Tommy had committed another unsanctioned murder of Billy Batts?

You see where this is headed. Thomas DeSimone was reported missing on January 14^th, 1979, by his wife, Angela. So, if you see that as the date of Tommy’s death, that’s why…but we don’t really know if he died that day because when Angela reported him missing, she said she last saw him a couple weeks earlier.

At least, that’s how the story goes…but the true story? Well, as you can imagine, when we’re talking about the world of organized crime, we just don’t know a lot of things.

So, for a lot of these events —for a lot of things, that’s all we have to rely on: The word of someone who was there.

Even the things I’ve talked about today, we know most of that thanks to the book the movie is based on as well as a book Henry Hill wrote himself later called Gangsters and Goodfellas.

Actually…do you want to hear more Mafia stories from someone who was there?

On episode #286, I had a chat with Scott Hoffman, whose dad was a part of the Chicago Outfit and actually worked for the real Henry Hill as a kid himself! We talked about how the Mafia is portrayed in movies like Goodfellas, and other gangster movies like Casino, Donnie Brasco, and The Sopranos!

Dan LeFebvre  03:15

Before we dig into some of the details of the movie, if you would do take a step back, give We Were Soldiers a letter grade for its historical accuracy. What would it get

Joshua Donohue  03:26

We Were Soldiers, in my opinion, gets a solid B plus, and that was even flirting with an A minus. But as there were a few historical inaccuracies, and they’re not many, though there the film was does a great job on depicting the events. And as you see, when the eye drain, battle commences, a literally a minute, almost minute by minute, completely document

Joshua Donohue  03:52

of the battle. And it’s incredible how that plays out. And it’s really the first true Vietnam War. It’s a tribute film, and I think that’s really the big difference between that and previous war films. So when you and I were speaking about covering the film, I thought it would have been a good idea to summarize some of the other important Vietnam War movies that had come before. It to kind of give it, you know, a balance, to see where it where it’s at, see where it fits in the puzzle, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I really believe that it’s, it’s the first true depiction of the ground battle, the continuous battle, you know, hour to hour, as you see throughout the film, the timestamps at the bottom, you know, at 1048, the landing. And then you see the, you know, the next hour, the next hour, and what the sequence of events occurs on at landing zone X ray. So it’s reminiscent of filming Black Hawk Down I feel and Saving Private Ryan. I feel like towards the late 90s and early 2000s you saw war movies.

Joshua Donohue  05:00

Kind of change a little bit. Even the Thin Red Line is a northern movie I would go to also where you’re on the ground, you’re with the other men, you know, Flags of Our Fathers. Another good one, where you’re on the Iwo Jima with these guys and, you know, guys are getting killed all around you, coming up behind you, getting shot. I mean, it’s, you know, war films really didn’t give you that perspective, like, you know, like you see all these films, like Private Ryan and, you know, even a band of brothers, of course, gives you that, that same sort of that view, although Vietnam war films do as well. But I think that we were soldiers is really the only film that you know, gives you that the rawness of battle. And one of the things that I noticed right off the bat, when I was reading about it, was a quote from Hal Moore where he said, Hollywood just hasn’t gotten it right. And and that really spoke volumes, because I definitely agree with that, in a lot of cases, taken of any war film that you know has any historical inaccuracies. But, take a film like Apocalypse Now, which was really the first real big, you know, big name film. Amazing film features some big name actress, Marlon Brando, Martin, Sheen, Dennis Hopper. Can’t forget that that early cameo Harrison four in the very beginning of that film.

Dan LeFebvre  06:20

I’m gonna have to watch it again now. I must have, okay,

Joshua Donohue  06:24

yes, yeah, Harrison Ford is in the very beginning of that briefing captain, Captain Willard Martin Sheen’s character. So it’s not based on real events. It’s actually based upon, you know, events that took place in 19th century Congo, but they converted it to Southeast Asian the Vietnam War in the backdrop of that. Then you have the end of it, where it’s Martin, she is coming out of the water, and he goes to kill Marlon Brando, and the play of the doors the end is playing. And it’s all dramatic. And while it’s an incredible film, and the other memorable scene is the ride of the Valkyrie scene with the helicopters the Hueys, right, and that gives the viewer, for the for the first time what air mobile, air Cav war was like with that scene with Robert Duvall, and not to also a good cameo in there, Sergeant Hartman. Arlie Ermey is also one of the helicopter pilots in that scene, if you look closely. So take another film like The Deer Hunter late 1970s if you look at the central narrative of these films, you know it’s once air and ground combat operations end in 1973 of course, the fall of Saigon in 75 you think of the deer hunt. You think of, oh, the Russian Roulette scene with Christopher Walken and Robert De Niro. And while it does touch upon a lot of themes coming home from war, pow themes, things like that, even those early Rambo movies, I would say, dealt with that as well. And PTSD readjusting to life after war, which is, of course, not easy for Vietnam veterans at all, so you know, for a multitude of reasons. So it bringing us to the 80s. You have platoon, 1986 Oliver Stone, Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. 1987 Born on the Fourth of July, another Oliver Stone movie, the 89 with Tom Cruise, you have casualties of war in 1989 Michael J Fox shown Penn and hanberger Hill in 1987 which was actually considered to be an indie film. Hamburger Hill was the story of the men of the 101st airborne who fought a bloody battle against the North Vietnamese over hill 937, in May of 1969 it was really the first Vietnam War film to capture the prolonged brutality of combat based on true events. Now, although the characters were fictional, the sheer violence of that film was memorable. As we were soldiers is as well. I actually recall my father keeping me away from that film when I was a kid for the longest time. I mean, I remember I walked in on the scene in platoon where Kevin Dillon is just killing that one civilian with his rifle. My dad’s like, get out of the room. Get out of the room. He can’t watch this. And I remember Hamburger Hill was the movie he he’s like, do not even come close to that film. You cannot watch that movie. So I always had that impression that Vietnam War races, the scale of violence was quite dramatic as at a young age.

Dan LeFebvre  09:26

It’s funny, you mentioned that because my my dad loved world war two movies, and I had the same sort of feeling when it came to Vietnam War movies, I guess I grew up with, you know, World War two movies, you think about the classic black and white John Wayne, like Longest Day, and things like that. And and then you get into the Vietnam War movies like, oh, this war actually is hell, you know, it’s not a movie and entertainment, and you like, even though they are movies. But still, it did bring a lot more into the the psychological aspect. And, like you said, you know, PTSD, and that aspect of this taking you to the.

Joshua Donohue  15:00

The climax of all these events. So this particular scene is prophetic because it also foreshadows the events and lets the audience know that the NVA and the Viet Cong are a very formidable opponent. They know the land. They use aggressive strategy and tactics to their advantage. They close with the enemy. They will this will also, you know, come to pass during the play a key role in I drank where artillery, napalm will be brought in, literally on top of the the enemy and the men of the Seventh Cavalry during the fight. So another scene from the French route there in 1954 as we’re an NVA soldier bayonets the French officer while he’s firing his sidearm. And of course, this is a bit of foreshadowing, as we’ll see later in the film, when the Vietnamese soldiers making his run with a bayonet towards Hal Moore while he’s at his CP, while he’s on the receiver phone with a much different outcome the second time around. So again, to give some historical context of the opening scenes, the French would attack and seize Vietnam during the middle part of the 19th century. The invasion was bloody. It was cruel. The French conquest of Indochina began with a major assault on the ancient Vietnamese port of Danang in the year 1858, and it took a quite a long time, around 50 years, for the French to finally lay claim, not only to Southeast Asia, but of course, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. So it was ruled by a French governor. He ruled from his palace in Hanoi. The French largely lived on plantation estates, modeled many of the cities, including Saigon in South Vietnam, to look like a home. Basically France look at the Parisian cafe or a corner market. So most of the French didn’t bother to learn the language of their subjects. They installed a series of puppet emperors to employ a bunch of French speaking Vietnamese officials to carry out their orders. The French put their subjects to work and hard labor, building infrastructure, railroads, bridges, canals. The Vietnamese people in general did not take well to French occupation. So yeah, and so they had fought invasions previous ones by the Chinese in the past. So Vietnam had essentially been struggling for its independence for centuries, and by the early 20th century, nationalism was also on the ride. So this was the climate that was going on at the time, and anyone who dared to resist French colonial rule, risk, exile, prison, execution. The guillotine was still being employed at that time, so the French looked upon the Vietnamese as inferior. And it was during the post World War One era where a young Ho Chi Minh begins to rally support of the Vietnamese independence from the people. He actually makes a tremendous sacrifice in terms of his health. He gives up on having a family, which is a big sacrifice, because in Vietnam, in the Vietnamese culture, it is a big deal to have a large family. And he foregoes this so Ho Chi Minh forms what’s called the Vietnamese independency, or the Viet Minh, he called upon General von Jaap, the teacher of French history, instruction into Henri elite. Both Ho Chi Minh and general job were students of communism, and Job’s wife was actually being to death in prison. So that has a profound effect on him and of course, solidifying communism in amongst that was also starting to come into pass. So Job had developed a distinct theory on warfare, guerrilla tactics, and during World War Two, the Japanese now occupy Southeast Asia, the OSS which is the Office of Strategic Services, actually parachuted weapons and supplies to the Vietnamese. We were actually helping Ho Chi Minh during World War Two, and we were chopping, you know, American arms, and that’s why you’ve seen a lot of old Vietnamese War footage, and even beyond before that, in the early 1960s you see American weapons in World War Two in the hands of everyone, and one gorans, bars, 30 caliber machine guns, all sorts of American World War and one carbide you see that we were soldiers as well. So to the Americans, they marveled at how quickly they were able to adopt to the Western weapons and the Ho Chi Minh called the Viet American army. He saw the Americans as champions of democracy, and that would help them end colonial rule. So we were friendly with Ho Chi Minh at one point in time. So it’s interesting how that dynamic begins to play out. So Ho Chi Minh had his people break into Japanese storehouses, help steal rice, help feed his starving country. Uh. He was hailed as a savior, and following the bombings, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ho realized it was only a matter of time until the Japanese left the area, and he called upon his people to rise up and take back their country as quickly as possible before the French return and reasserted their colonial control. So he actually quoted Thomas Jefferson, the all men are created equal. Speech during his declaration, speech in Hanoi on September 2, 1945 which was the same day the Japanese surrender. So Charles de Gaulle had insisted that the United States stay out of France’s way. It’s their empire. They’re going to go reassert their rule. There us remain neutral, with hopes that the French and the Viet Minh would work out some sort of peaceful agreement. And that did not work out. So

Dan LeFebvre  20:48

as you’re saying, I we think of, you know, the Vietnam War, right? I mean, I’ve said it, I don’t know how many times already, you know, I’m sure. I am sure I will. But from the Vietnamese perspective, then, was it almost a revolution against the French. I mean, what you’re saying sounds eerily similar to the American Revolution against the British, right?

Joshua Donohue  21:05

You’re exactly right. You’re exactly right. Yeah, north, actually North and South Vietnam were divided temporarily into separate zones along the 17th parallel. The British were actually holding the South, and nationalist China were holding the North. This is immediately after World War Two. And of course, you had the Chinese Revolution, the civil war going on there between Mao Zedong and the communists and Chiang Kai Shek and the nationalists. So the French and the Viet Minh were already fighting in the streets of Saigon. It was already chaos in the streets. It was anarchy. And this will be the theme of what happens really, with South Vietnam. North Vietnam quickly unites under the flag of communism, and, you know, below the 17th parallel, it is complete in utter chaos. So a fresh group of French troops is arriving in Saigon. As the British begin to pull out of there, they reassert their control on the entire country, and soon 1000s of more French troops will begin pouring into the area. So general job is now consolidating his Viet Minh forces, many were viewed as renewed fighting and killing their own people fighting for the communist system. By 1949 Soviet Union and the Communist China Chinese were now reaching out to help. So to counter this move, us, President Harry Truman now approves $23 million later, increased at $336 million as an aid plan for the French and Vietnam. America was no longer neutral. So with 35 advisors overseeing the delivery of jeeps and other supplies to the French, the US was officially in Vietnam, and the growing disdain towards the US was now clearly becoming more evident in Vietnam, as they now saw supporting the French. So Vietnam had been caught up into the gears of by the Cold War at this point in the 1950s so by that time that Dwight Eisenhower is elected president, America is footing 80% of the build for France’s fight in Vietnam and by 1953 the French had already been fighting for seven years. They had suffered over 100,000 casualties. It was not going well for them whatsoever. So on the eve of Dien Bien Phu, there was a proposed meeting in Geneva with each side trying to improve their position. Before the negotiations, French General Navarre had set up a base in the remote valley in northwestern Dan Bien Phu and hoping to lure the men into a decisive battle the French forces, and this has to be one of the strangest strategies with all of military history, they dug into the valley floor, surrounded by the mountains, and they were, and this is one of the most remarkable feats in military history. General, General job pulled off one of the greatest logistical feats of, probably, of all time. He had a quarter of a million porters transport all of his food and weaponry by foot, artillery pieces that were disassembled. Job surrounded the valley with 50,000 men and over 200 guns, and the Eisenhower administration tries to send in an aircraft to resupply the besieged French. And there was the belief that if we lost Vietnam to communism, the rest of Southeast Asia would follow the domino theory. So after 55 days, the exhausted French would surrender on May 7, 1954 and they would lose 8000 men there, wounded or missing. So it should have been the end of the colonial era in Southeast Asia, but we saw it in Cold War terms.

Dan LeFebvre  24:33

That’s a great setup to a lot of stuff. A lot of the context that the movie obviously doesn’t show. It just assumes, you know, but I think it’s, it’s kind of telling that, you know, I was like, Well, it sounds like a lot like the river. Lot like the Revolutionary War. It’s a testament to, I don’t even understand a lot of the details there. And the movie also mentions, as, like, Americans don’t understand the Vietnam War. Was that a pretty accurate sentiment for the general American in the 1960s that they don’t understand what’s going

Joshua Donohue  24:56

on over there. Most Americans in the 1960s probably could. Low K Vietnam on a map. They really Vietnam was just a name in the news, on a map, on a newscast. And again, this was television was still very much in its infancy. So Vietnam would, of course, become the first real television wars. Americans would see Americans coming back, kill the wounded and so on. So following France’s defeat at Dan, Bien Phu, Senate Majority Leader at the time, Lyndon Johnson, was quite vocal about communism spreading throughout Southeast Asia. He quoted as saying, We’ve been caught bluffing by our enemies. Today, it’s Indochina. Tomorrow, Asia may be in flames after the Western alliance will lie in ruins. So Americans knew really nothing about what was going on with Hanoi or Saigon or anything in between. So Ho Chi Minh was now surrounded by individuals who wanted to waste no more time in reunifying Vietnam, very aggressive generals, and it was almost sort of how World War One plays out. And you can even make the argument for the American side on this, where the Kaiser was sort of in the background, and you had, you know, Eric Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg will be running the show. And this is really what happens in Vietnam, where guys like job and lay Swan will sort of shuffle Ho Chi Minh to the back. Say we’re going to run the war here and even in America. Lyndon Johnson in the background, Westmoreland and Robert McNamara and others running the show. So Ho Chi Minh was surrounded by these people. And the party secretary, first party secretary, and men named les Juan was one of those individuals he had helped found the Indochina Communist Party. He had actually survived 10 years in a French prison. So at in July in 1965 at bnoi, about 20 miles to the north of Saigon, six American military advisors were watching film in their mess hall. So in 1963 I should say, the Viet Minh guerrillas snuck into the compound, opened fire, killing two men, major Dale Wiss and Master Sergeant Chester abnon. They were the first American soldiers to die by enemy fire in Vietnam. And even before then, there were advisors being killed. Also, you know, men for the Peace Corps who were just there trying to help. You know, the Venus people live a better life, a better, you know, installation, better infrastructure, little, you know, immunizations, things like that. So Kennedy and Richard Nixon both wanted to hold the line against international Communism. That was a big deal in 1960 election, so very few Americans knew or cared about was going under Vietnam and Vietnam in those days. And a great quote by Leslie Gelb work for the Pentagon, said Vietnam in those days was, was a strategic chess board, not a country with a culture or a history that Americans would have again, they would have an impossible time trying to figure out, even with the mighty Fist of the American military behind it,

Dan LeFebvre  28:06

wow, yeah. I mean, that’s so different than World War

Joshua Donohue  28:11

Two. It is what’s much more complicated, yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  28:14

not that they’re all the same, but even just the sentiment, and I think it feeds into kind of what we’re talking about, you know, with with the movies, and that element to where that’s going to feature, into how the movies are made, right? You know, to cater to American audiences, and how much of it they understand, and all that, how much they have to explain beforehand. Like, I mean, obviously it helps me, because we, we get to talk about it, but, I mean, but that’s, that’s the kind of thing where it’s, you know, it’s fascinating to me how different movies from World War Two are to Vietnam, or movies like, like this,

Joshua Donohue  28:50

yeah, you know, I always say that World War two movies are heavily romanticized, heavily romantic, because it’s, there’s, you know, We defeated the evil Nazis with, you know that with their, you know, black SS uniforms, with their swastikas. And we defeated fascism. We defeated, you know, Mussolini. And then, of course, we, you know, the climactic battle that ended World War Two. The Pacific wheel got re avenged Pearl Harbor, we defeated the Japanese. And interesting in many ways, how the Japanese experience for the American military will translate to Vietnam in a lot of respects, as we get into so, really towards in going into the formation of the First Cavalry the air mobile division was created during John F Kennedy’s administration with a goal to break down the Army’s exclusive training and preparation for world war three, basically. So they had to get more familiar with the battlefields of the jungles of Southeast Asia, again, instead of the flat expanses of Eastern or Western Europe. So by mid 1962 defense secretary. Robert McNamara concur with Kennedy’s vision for Special Warfare operations using the Air Mobility idea ordering to determine the if the new uh one Hueys and the CH 47 Chinook helicopters and any other rotary wing aircraft were a viable option or future battlefield. So these decisions were being made at the very highest levels of government, even at that particular time.

Dan LeFebvre  30:25

Well, speaking of the heir mobile, you mentioned his name briefly before, but if we go back to the movie, we’re introduced to Mel Gibson’s character, Lieutenant Colonel halmore. Early on, he moves to Fort Benning, Georgia with his family. In the movie, takes command of the seventh Calvary in 1964 and according to the movie, the way, the way they show this, is they’re using the helicopters to carry men to and from the battlefield. It’s a new concept, similar to, kind of what you’re talking about right there. And Colonel Moore is chosen for command. There’s a scene where he’s like, Oh, he volunteered for test to test experimental parachutes. Sounds like the man for the job, right? Yeah, exactly.

Joshua Donohue  30:58

So it was the IR mobile was a very new concept in war, in every way, shape or form. And as you see, the men of the Seventh Cavalry are, they’re raring to go. They just, they have that gung ho attitude. And when we first see the seventh Cabot their base at ankay. There’s a sign that reads, headquarters, first battalion, seventh US Cavalry Regiment, and the name Gary Owen appears on the build the board as well. So in the book We Were Soldiers and young Hal Moore talks about the origin of the First Cavalry Division, Henri mobile and the name where it’s derived from. So we’ll talk about Custer now. So in the days when Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer commanded the Seventh Cavalry, the regiment adopted a rowdy Irish drinking song called Gary Owen as its marching tune. So the words Gary Owen made it into the regimental crest, and the officers and the men of the regiment often say Gary Owen, sir. So this tradition dates back to custer’s command of the seventh and of course, this is ingrained into the men by Hal Moore. Moore’s men even call him yellow hair as a sort of tongue in cheek reference to Custer. So before America becomes fully involved in Vietnam. Helicopters are being employed in the battlefield. They are used in the Korean War. And in Vietnam, American pilots are flying them in combat operations before the war even begins. For America, assisting in the the the advisory phase for the for the Arvin So back at Fort Benning during the mid 50s, there was a general by the name of John Tolson. He came up with a tactical doctorate for the use of helicopters in combat, becoming one of the leading early pioneers of Air Mobility. So JFK really ushers in this era of what we call, of course, have today and these types of operations. The CIA comes of age during his time, special operations, the Green Berets. All of these are meant to any kind of communist or in hot spots around the world. They are dispatched to those areas and to then dispatch with them as quickly and as cleanly as possible. They have too much warfare going on an expanded level. So the 11th aerosol division was formed in February of 1963 tactical training experimenting at Fort Benning, Georgia, now called Fort Moore, by the way. And at the same time, the 10th air transport brigade was also an existing aviation battalion at Fort Benning. So by early July, the Pentagon makes the announcement the air 11th Air Assault test has more or less served its purpose and would become the First Air Cavalry Division, air mobile. The first battalion would also have a sister battalion the second battalion, Seventh Cavalry, and will get into them towards the end. They will come into play at the end of the battle. Well,

Dan LeFebvre  34:02

you mentioned Custer, and we do see, it seems in the movie, Mel Gibson’s version of Colonel Moore, which I’m assuming is the more that you’re referring to with Fort Benning, he seems concerned. And the way the movie ties it in, we see, like the they call it a massacre, the French massacre that we talked about in 1954 and then, of course, it’s the Seventh Cavalry, which is Custer, and things didn’t turn out so good for him. So Colonel Moore in the movie seems kind of concerned before he even leaves. Was it actually a concern that he had like to Seventh Cavalry and his superstitions or anything? Yeah,

Joshua Donohue  34:35

he was concerned. He was a student of history, so he knew he was well read and well versed and all the great commanders and generals that had come before Him. So there you see in september of 1965 the newly created First Cavalry Division had 16,000 men, 1600 vehicles. And the film does a great job by setting the stage for the. I drank battle right where we see the scene after Hal Moore and Jack Gagan, who was played by Chris Klein in the film, in the chapel following the birth of gagan’s daughter. It cuts right to the speech to Lyndon Johnson, telling the American people that he is sending the air mobile division to Vietnam. And the scene after that, they’re at a party, and you see where Hal Moore is privately conversing with Major General Harry Kennard, who is the division commanding general they have and house against a tree as a tree behind them, and Madeline Stowe, who plays Julia Compton Moore, his wife. And the film keeps looking over at him, and she can see the look on his audio. She knows he’s serious. And the quotes go, I didn’t hear the President mentioned state of emergency. Canard, you know. And says, you know. Moore says, without that declaration, that means our listens won’t be extended. And then canard replies, sorry, Hal, his next words are another example of the concerns he had before the unit deployed to Vietnam. Says, Forgive me, sir, but let me get this straight. We form a division using techniques that have never been attempted in battle against an enemy with 20 years of combat experience on his ground, 12,000 miles away from our ground. And right before the army sends us into the fight, they take away a third of my men, the most experienced, including the officers. And this gets worse over the coming weeks, when they arrive. Moore describes in the book how a particularly bad strain of malaria knocks 56 more of his men and hospitals. And as he continues the conversation with canard, adding insult to injury, it says, By the way, how since you’re being deployed, they’re renumbering the units you’re now committing officer of the first battalion of the Seventh Cavalry, and it says seventh, same regiment as Custer. And he just looks at him with that real stern look of approval, almost like a grin on his face. And what’s interesting about this general canard and the placement of the First Cavalry at ankay, it was right in the middle of enemy territory. Sound familiar, so Custer would find himself in a similar spot. And what’s an interesting piece about canard, that guy who was speaking to him, and a lot of the viewers will like this one. They give a little interesting piece of info on him. He was a West Point graduate in the class of 1939 became a paratrooper by 1942 and what Moore called one of the shooting stars of the 101st Airborne Division during World War Two. And it was during World War Two at Bastogne, during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 he was the Operations Officer g3 to Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, who actually made the suggestion to him to reply nuts to the German commander, as you see in Band of Brothers. So he was the guy who actually made the suggestion for nuts. So as we see in the bastone episode of Band of Brothers. So that that was pretty

Dan LeFebvre  37:51

interesting, nice. It’s almost like everything just piling on top for Colonel Moore. It’s like, it’s almost like they were setting it up for a movie. Exactly.

Joshua Donohue  38:01

It’s all all scripted before. It was just one piece of bad news afterwards.

Dan LeFebvre  38:08

Wow, wow. Some of the other characters that we do see in the movie are, of course, the helicopter pilots. And in the movie, if we’re to believe that version of history, they are, let’s just call them an odd bunch. They’re outside army regulations, the quirky major Bruce Crandall nickname that he has in the movie snake, right? Because he can fly lower than snake Mel Gibson’s version of Colonel Moore just says, Well, you guys might look like but your equipment is immaculate, right? And then, of course, once we see them flying, we can see just how good they are. Do you think the movie did a good job setting up the pilots as being a little unorthodox? Yeah,

Joshua Donohue  38:47

right from the outset in this in the baseball scene that you see when they’re all playing baseball out there, you got that impression right off the bat. So, yeah, you get the impression that the helicopter pilots of the 229th assault helicopter Italian, or it’s certainly operating outside of the normal confines of the normal military rank and file. I’d

Dan LeFebvre  39:07

like to see how they got too tall, actually, into a helicopter pilot seat. Yeah.

Joshua Donohue  39:11

I love the quote he has where he’s like, too tall, sir. And Mel Gibson goes,

Dan LeFebvre  39:16

That’s right. I think I get to I see how you got your nickname.

Joshua Donohue  39:20

So to tell you the story about how Crandall got his affectionate nickname, and this ties in with the personality the entire 229 Crandall sent one of his warrant officers. And Crandall been in the military since the 1950s he’s, you know, he’s a major at this point, one of his sends one of his warrant officers to a local market where he buys a large Python. And what Crandall would do to sort of initiate the new guys, he would wrap the Python, coil the Python around his arm, and sneak up behind them and say, welcome to the outfit. I’m your commanding officer and. And wrap his arm around them, as, you know, they’re looking at him. And all of a sudden they look back, looking square him, and the yellows like, you know, it’s the sea down the Crocodile Hunter or something like that, right? But, and that obviously sets the tone right there from the get go. So she would get some interesting reactions, even if too tall. Freeman was there just in case someone decided to throw a punch at their CEO too tall and a few other guys be waiting there in case someone got out of line and decided to hit Crandall. But if I had to describe Bruce Crandall and I watched a number of interviews still alive, it would be resourceful. And operating outside of the Army Regulation was the reason why he was resourceful. He could probably do a TV or a film adaptation of the activities of the helicopter pilots there alone. There was certainly a odd lot in many ways, but you needed to be especially in those types of combat environments. I say this because Crandall had to resort to drastic measures at times to get his men the most basic essentials. So he was an example of how you’re able to maintain that delicate balance between regulation and non regulation when it comes to things like maintaining morale in Vietnam, basic essentials like, you know, food and water. You know, you’re in the middle of the jungle. You gotta think of things you know pretty quickly and think on your toes. I listened to a great interview with Crandall, who was being interviewed by Joe Galloway from 2015 it goes into detail about he and his men were able to devise methods about bringing water into the camp, procuring items on a pretty regular basis. When I say procure, liberating, he would say lights, lights from the officers club, they were just magically disappeared. He talks about stealing the generators from the Air Force, discussing an issue with keeping the beer cold in the refrigerator and being able to keep the light on at the same time. So you went out and got another generator to make the make sure they had an adequate power to make sure the beer was cold and the light stayed on at the same time. So she would also tell this great story to Galloway about yet he and his men would actually fly their helicopters to the army supply depot and make off with an untold amount of items that were marked for removal to other areas. So he said the guards were, of course, never shoot them. You’re not going to shoot down a helicopter. And you know, obviously shooting them down causing an even bigger issue. He would even cut deals with the guards, and they had concrete floors, all the amenities available. Even brags about having them before his superior officers even at them. So one thing he actually didn’t tolerate among his men was gambling. And I immediately thought of the conversation and Banner brothers with Dick winters has with Buck Compton when they were in the jeep. And he’s saying, You know what, if you had won, don’t ever put yourself in a position to take from these men. I love that quote. And I thought of that when I thought of this, this part from Crandall, where he comments that Ian Freeman, we’re actually here we go again, thrown out of Vegas casino because Ed too tall Freeman was winning too much, and they decided, you guys got to go. It’s not so. These guys were definitely some interesting fellows, to say the least. They got away with a lot. And Bruce Crandall, played by actor Greg Kinnear, who does a great job in the film, and he see the scene where they’re playing baseball, where Crandall slides into the bases. Call that. He looks up and sees, I believe you’re out Colonel, you know, Colonel Moore, standing there. And in the book, Moore describes Crandall as my kind of guy, good at what he did, straight talking and dead honest. And that’s a great scene in the film where he just pulls the pocket out of his pocket of beer, gives it to him. They start drinking, walking down the flight line, and says, you know, it has that conversation like you just referenced, say, your men operate outside the confines and all this stuff. And said, You’re and he said, like the covid says, I just suppose I have a choice in the matter. Goes, No, you don’t. And

Dan LeFebvre  43:56

speaking like we were talking about World War two movies when you’re talking about crane bill, it reminds me of, I was, I think James Garner’s character in Great Escape, where he’s just, just the scavenger guy who just need anything. You go to him, and he, I don’t know how he does it, but he finds a way to get it. And it’s just, yeah, and it’s

Joshua Donohue  44:11

in to, sort of, you know, not to summarize what they do. At, I drank, you know, during the battle Crandall and two tall Freeman evacuate approximately 70 wounded soldiers from LZ X ray while under intense enemy fire. And for these actions, Crandall and Freeman received the Distinguished Service Cross and Distinguished Flying Cross respectively. Then would both would be upgraded to Medals of Honor. Crandall also received the 1966 Aviation and Space writers helicopter heroism award, and he would fly into some dangerous spots. And eye drag wasn’t the last so these guys had to be a little bit outside of regulation to do the things they did, especially at eye Dragon,

Dan LeFebvre  44:55

like testing experimental parachutes.

Joshua Donohue  44:58

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Dan LeFebvre  45:02

We go back to the movie. Just before they are deployed to Vietnam, we see an address from Colonel Moore at their men, kind of a graduation, almost. That we see their significant others and loved ones watching the stands behind him. And during that we see Colonel Moore making a promise that he will be the first on the battlefield and the last to step off. No one’s going to be left behind, dead or alive. We’re all going to come home together. And the movie makes a point in showing, not only that, but kind of throughout, showing that he’s he’s doing exactly that. He is the first to step off. There’s a close up of his foot, you know, getting off the helicopter. And then at the end of the movie, not to skip too far ahead of our timeline, but near the end, we see he is the last to leave. Did Colonel Moore really make and then keep that promise that we see in the movie, he

Joshua Donohue  45:43

absolutely did. And references he talks about in the book, he was on the lead helicopters Bruce Crandall was flying, and he was the first man to step off on to LZ X ray. And one of the things that I admire most about Hal Moore is, again, I mentioned earlier, his keen awareness of history and how he closely studied leaders like Hannibal, who’s the famous general of Carthaginians, Napoleon Alexander, the great. And he often said a leader leads and set in the example is the best example. And he believed that a going in first mentality, what? And we, under those circumstances where he knew what to do and how to do it. Act on instinct. He says there was a head part of leadership that comes from being fully prepared, and there is the hard part, which extinctively, knows when to lead and how to do it. And with him, he felt that she you know, he had to do it, he had to go and lead others, because you saw how devoted his men were to him. They follow him, right, you know, right into the heat of the battle. So he had so many great qualities that any good combat leader would have. He reminds me of a dick winners type of soldier, just smart, articulate, well spoken, well versed in history, even tempered, humble. You know, he can come up with endless adjectives to describe how Moore, he was, straight and simple a guy, and he would often say there was a solution to every problem, and never quit and just keep driving on. So Moore describes, in many ways, how he attains those vital leadership qualities. At West Point, he learns he can handle pressure situations and make critical split second decisions that any good combat leader could make. And he would also describe, again, great military leaders of the past. He would ask questions like, Why did Robert E Lee lose at Gettysburg? Why did Custer fail at Little Big Horn? You know, here’s a great quote, and it’s just says, to study military history is to study leadership, and I couldn’t agree more with that. So she would often relate his experiences in the Korean War. More fought at the Battle of Pork Chop Hill. He would say, there are tigers in this world, and the US military must be ready to fight those tigers. So in Korea, more learns how to handle the stress of combat, everything he would experience at I drank the explosions, the screams of wounded and dying men, the environment, the dust, the smoke, he went 72 hours without sleep, and he was able to function. At I Dre, yeah, most of us would probably fall apart at that point. I

Dan LeFebvre  48:18

can’t do that at home, let alone on a battlefield? Yeah,

Joshua Donohue  48:21

I can barely make 24 hours, let alone 72

Dan LeFebvre  48:27

but you talked briefly. You talked about the helicopters. We kind of talked about that. Now I want to ask a little more detail around how the movie sets up their their cycle. Right when we see in the movie, the seventh Calvary sent into battle, they said, almost like a resupply chain of soldiers and equipment getting to the field. There, again, the cavalry, the movie sets up using helicopters instead of horses. But one key difference between the horse powered cavalry and the helicopter powered cavalry is that each soldier has his own horse, and with helicopters, once they’re dropped in, they’re kind of stuck until the pilots come back with more men equipment, or take the injured back. And in the movie, Colonel Moore mentions it’s a 30 minute trip by chopper, round trip from the base of the battlefield. So that means the first 60 men will be on the ground alone for half an hour until more come. And then in the movie we see there’s six helicopters taking the first group of men. I’m assuming, because of the numbers there, it’s 10 men per helicopter. They there was another scene, I think Sergeant Major Plumlee mentions that there’s 395 Battle Ready men that they have overall. So doing the math on that, little less than seven trips with six helicopters or so. And if each trip is 30 minutes, three and a half hours to get all the men to the battlefield. Rough, roughly, right? Of course, that doesn’t factor in things, other things as well. There are, yeah,

Joshua Donohue  49:46

there are two things that definitely come into factors as well. Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  49:49

is that a pretty good analysis? I mean, that’s strictly from the movies. Timelines are pretty good. Yeah. And was,

Joshua Donohue  49:55

was interesting. I watched a speech that Hal Moore made. At West Point is, I think it was in 1995 around there. And you know how you see the timestamps on every you know those major events throughout the battle? Moore did that. He has these. He had pictures, aerial photographs taken of the battle while it was going on and times after. And he literally hand writes the timestamps on on the top of the polar one, the white part at the very top of the photograph. So he just was prepared minute to minute. Knew exactly what, what the timing of the lifts and throughout the film, and really throughout every major Vietnam War movie. And the one that I always guess me is the Forrest Gump scene, where it cuts from him hugging his mother, and write to Fortunate Son and the Huey flying the Shui is the workhorse of the Vietnam War, hands down. And the seventh, of course, uses it to a very high degree. So if you retrace exactly what occurred that morning, Crandall describes how when he took off, Hal Moore was with him. He patted him on the back and said, We can’t land yet. We have to go into orbit for a little bit. So he flew around play may over the airspace there for about 20 minutes. And play May was also a special forces kid that was being attacked, and this was part of that operation to, you know, to alleviate that those attacks there. So she was almost running out of fuel at this point. He was only able to get four lifts in before we had to go back and refuel the first eight aircraft. So he can only refuel four at a time. So the second eight are going to have to wait, because they’re only about 30 seconds behind him in the landing zone. So as soon as he pulls up, they’re coming right in. So he had to refuel after about four lifts, because after the fourth into the fifth one, that’s when they really started getting hit, and the in the landing zone started getting overrun by the North Vietnamese. So by the fifth one, she would have all the infantry in and more. Also talks about this, where he says, where you when they come off, and they’re shooting their guns blazing soon as they come off, those choppers, Lauren has been a firing away. That’s exactly what happens in Phil, in real life, you know. And then they stop and look around, and it’s quiet, almost eerily similar to a lot of those later Japanese home island battles. Say, Okinawa is a good example, where they lead, or Guadalcanal, where they land on the beach and there’s nothing, no resistance. They go on, and then Dan, enemy knows are there. They’re watching every move. They’re up, they’re high up and observing the enemy recon patrols. They’re getting, they’re probing. They’re getting every which way imaginable. So the first lift of eight huries, led by cradle all lift off from X ray banked in towards the base at 1120. After that first lift, the second lift lands 16 helicopters bring in the rest of Bravo Company, third platoon of Alpha Company and Captain Tony Nadal’s Alpha Company command group. So at this time, this is when they discover the deserter. The everybody says, you know, Mr. Nick, who’s actually the guy who jumps off after war with the m1 carbine, tells him there are three battalions in that mountain, about over 1600 men. And wars continued to wait for the rest of his men to arrive. And then Crandall third lift and X ray, they were getting shot, you know, by the fourth one, they were getting shot up, pretty bad. And on the fifth lift, he had to change aircraft. And another thing that Crandall says that would happen, he had to switch a couple times because the Hueys were show shot up and damaged. He would not take off until the door of his helicopter with the snake emblem on it was taken off and put onto his the next helicopter, he wouldn’t leave until it was done. So that door had to be on every single Huey helicopter that snake Crandall took off with to go to the back and forth, I found that I blew my mind when I heard that. It’s like, you know, it doesn’t, it doesn’t get any more quirky than

Dan LeFebvre  54:06

that’s gonna say, talk about superstition of some sort, right?

54:09

Exactly, exactly

Dan LeFebvre  54:12

you mentioned the deserter. And I want to ask about this thing that I was watching. I thought it might be a plot hole, so I want to, might take a little bit for me to set up. But there’s a few different scenes here, and one is with with the deserter. It’s, well, I guess even before they before they land that we did in the movie, we do see it looks like artillery clearing the landing zone before they land, and then after they land, pretty soon afterwards, there’s that deserter, or at least, need to look out, pretending to be a desert or whatever he is, but in either case, he does tell Colonel Moore where the base camp is for the NBA, about 4000 men or so. It points to a mountain, kind of cross the way, and then later on in the thick of the fight, the American soldiers are just about to be overrun by the enemy. And then Colonel Moore calls in close air supports the enemy soldiers back. We’ll talk about that part later, but we see you know. Know, jets coming in, airplanes dropping bombs, I’m assuming napalm. There’s there’s helicopters come in and everything. Why didn’t they just bomb the mountain as soon as they found out where the enemy was? We see the seventh end up waiting for snakes helicopter to clear out the base before they go in anyway. Why didn’t they just do that from the start?

Joshua Donohue  55:18

Yeah, so there are a few answers to that. The first being more himself, and he was quoted as saying he really did not have a whole lot of information about how many enemy were in the area at the time. And that’s really a running theme throughout Vietnam. The Vietnam War, in general intelligence is, you know, you have to be right there in the jungle, on the ground and begin. They’re using the Ho Chi Minh Trail they’re having, you know, they’re going into different countries to get around into South Vietnam and infiltrate. So the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong really had a fast network where they could be anywhere at any given time and send reinforcements and at a moment’s notice. So they really were everywhere and Moore’s men again, capturing the scout and telling that they want to kill Americans very badly. They just haven’t been able to find any. That did indeed happen, as the film shows, there’s actually photographs and moving footage of that very person during I drag. I drag was actually documented pretty thoroughly, and that they There’s footage of that, of that, that that Scout, uh, slash deserter. So the to take into consideration the geography the mountain itself, the chupang massive is a 2041 foot high mountain that overlooks the landing zone. It was honeycombed with tunnels linking NVA storage areas and pores, as you see throughout the film. You see that’s where their command post is, and the lieutenant colonel win, who on who’s more counterpart there is operating. And I love those scenes because it also is the film where it gives the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong a face, a human more of a human side. They fought the battle too. They lost people as well. And you see him the Americans overrunning the landing zone. And he’s saying, right then, they’re making immediate command decisions right on his map. They’re giving orders to his men, and they’re carrying them out. So to give you a sort of historic perspective on it, if you look at that particular mountain range, chupang, is actually much larger than the film suggests. The mountain range itself stretches from the western side of what’s known as the central highlands, and it’s actually divided almost straight down the middle by the border between South Vietnam and Cambodia. So the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong were masters of underground warfare and booby traps, and you know, sapper is sappers and things like that, much in the same regard as the Japanese were during the Second World War. Going back to the last two years of the Pacific War, in the Pacific theater of World War Two, you see examples of how the Japanese were able to withstand heavy bombardment from the air and the sea artillery, naval guns. As the United States drew closer to the Japanese home islands, the fighting became much more intense, with American losses mounting with each passing battle. So take an example, like the Battle of Peleliu in september of 1944 the Japanese had literally dug seemingly endless network of caves and tunnels into the island’s coral rock into the mountain ranges which stretched across from the island the humor brogans, giving the Japanese a commanding view from all sides with interlocking fields of fire, the Marines suffered grievous casualties there. They lost about 2000 men, about 8000 wounded. Napalm was also being used to a considerable degree during this battle as well. So take the last two major invasions of World War Two, Iwo Jima in February of 1945 and Okinawa in April of 45 the Japanese were dug into the island, and intelligence reports were never able to accurately determine how large the garrison was on the Iwo Jima. It turned out to be 21,000 men were alive in spite of 72 straight days of bombing, 72 straight, wow, I would quit just from the noise, speaking of not

Dan LeFebvre  59:07

being able to survive, 72 hours awake, 72 hours of bombing. Yeah.

Joshua Donohue  59:11

So, and when you see those in the in reverse soldiers, where you see those scenes with the NVA, you notice that the command post is underground. This is a good representation of how this same type of warfare is still being employed by the North Vietnamese. And when we see a win who honored this map table with a complex network of tunnels around them allows them to conceal their numbers and attack with reinforcements at a moment’s notice, and any bombing attack really wouldn’t have made much sense until really the enemy couldn’t really be seen. And that runs the theme of all of Vietnam, especially in a film like flight of the intruder in 1991 where they’re bombing trees. They came and tell them what they’re bombing. And that’s really how that how that theme runs.

Dan LeFebvre  59:51

So would it be correct to assume, then, that not only were the Americans using tactics from that they learned from the Japanese and World War Two, but also. People were the Vietnamese using that to build their tunnels and like, here’s how we can get away from or be safe from these bombardments that we know the Americans are going to have.

Joshua Donohue  1:00:08

Yeah. And as I mentioned, you know, the after World War Two had ended, we were so focused on fighting world war three, this big open conventional warfare of the ancient variety, if you will. This, this great open expense. There are the Russians. Here we are. Let’s meet in the middle and blow them up and see what happens to the end.

Dan LeFebvre  1:00:24

Everybody line up and, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Joshua Donohue  1:00:27

exactly. So you know, tunnels, caves, and these, you know types of things. You can hide your numbers because they know the land, they know the trails, they know roots in and out of the mountain passes. So they can move in and out of areas at a moment’s notice. So you know, more is what more does. And one of the most impressive decisions he makes the moment those helicopters land at X ray, she immediately sends, you know, three companies right up the slope to meet the enemy, in case that sent scouts in, not even give them a chance to even come down the slopes of the chew Pong, massive Joe, they want to more immediately sends those guys right up. And that’s a great decision, saying we’re not just going to sit around and wait for guys to come in and just all commiserate and be in this one area and kind of slowly fed up. No, get to the base of that mountain, get up those slopes and attack the enemy as soon as you see it. You talked

Dan LeFebvre  1:01:20

about this briefly, but I want to kind of just talk about it on its own, being those the text on screen with the specific points, because at the climax of the movie, we see some of the most intense fighting. We see the American one of the American platoons get cut off from the main group. They get pinned down by enemy fire throughout most of the fighting. Movie shows us those times, times and dates. I think the first one is about 46 minutes into the movie after they land there that says landing zone. X ray at 10:48am, then we see the null at 1:15pm that’s when the enemy overruns the landing zone, about three minutes of movie time, and that later we see Americans blowing up the trees to form landing zone Falcon a second landing zone about five miles away. There’s a text on screen, 2:27pm, the creek bed. 3:34pm, back at the Knoll, the ridge at 2:23am, back at the creek bed at 6:09am, so it’s kind of going around. And that’s then, of course, the Broken Arrow call at an hour and 35 minutes into the movie. We’ll get to that in a moment. A moment. But all of that added together, it’s about 50 minutes of screen time in the movie to show us events from about 11am to about 6:09am, the next day. So if we’re to believe the movie’s timeline, it wasn’t even a full day before the Broken Arrow distress call indicated that they were overrun. I also know the movies also changed timelines around a lot. So is that accurate?

Joshua Donohue  1:02:41

Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, Moore does a phenomenal job with documenting every at the timeline of the battle with those Polaroid, those reconnaissance photos. I mean, he’s a meticulous, meticulous leader, and it does line up with with the with the events that I drank at Bravo Company had worked its way up the map at this point with first platoon and a man named Lieutenant Henri Herrick. He’s the guy who leads Second platoon and gets cut off Lieutenant Dennis Neil. Third platoon is in the rear. The first platoon only got about 300 yards when Sergeant Mingo squad found an enemy lookout. The unarmed youth gets off, it starts running away. And that’s something that reminded me of a great quote from the Ken Burns series where John Musgrave was led into a similar ambush guy. Two guys won out, AK 47 spray them and take off. He goes, this is as old as cluster. We know what’s going to happen. We’re going to chase after these guys, and the enemy is going to pounce right there. So Herrick goes off. He lets his commanders know he’s doing this. But you know, before he’s able to get support from the rest of the platoons and the other companies, he is surrounded. And this method, the Americans at this at this particular juncture are heavily outnumbered. At 11:20am, as we see, the next flight of helicopters arrive at the rest of Bravo Company, part of Alpha Company, the prisoner was evacuated on the helicopter, and another, another lift comes into 1210, so some of the troopers had paused to eat C rations around 1215, and the right, the fire rang out from the direction of Bravo Company. More as a great quote about the guy, the prisoner they evacuated. He says, It’s 1995 and I still have yet to find out what information that that that guy we took off the battlefield never had. He never knew at any point what happened. So first platoon was cut off. It was about 100 yards west of that dry creek bed, as we see in the battle with Henri platoon on the right, they ran headlong into an NBA attack. They were streaming down the mount. At this point, they were heavily engaged with the enemy trying to outflank them on both sides. Both sides took casualties, and the Americans were soon pinned down, and Captain Heron or. Heard Lieutenant Herrick and his platoon to basically form up with another so as they did so, Second platoon would take fire from the right. They would respond by pursuing the enemy soldiers. So he told them Be careful not to break off in the main pursuit. And as the men of first platoon watched, second moved up towards them, and then the third platoon was ordered to help the first they all came under heavy fire. And as Herrick led his second platoon down the trail, as we see in the movie, he’s the particular officer who, as we see, every guy who stands up is shot. There’s two or three guys that are just being shot. And is that the footage that the camera going away from that arrow view, he’s laying there, kind of holding his side. And is that great, the visual where you see his pupils dilate when he when he dies in the film. So this would actually lead up to the events where we see to Broken Arrow, which was at the point where Moore sees the the NVA and the vehicle running or running the landing zone, and you also see them. He’s talking to Charlie Hastings, who is the Air Force forward controller on the radio next to him. He’s the guy calling in in the air strikes, and he’s a communication with the the American intelligence command in Saigon. Those that office that you see the camera come back to those two guys revealed that one guy’s smoking pretty heavily, and they’re having those arguments. And it zooms over to the to the table, you see the American flag surrounded by all the, all the North Vietnamese ones. So yeah, that that we’ll get into the the the comings and goings of the Broken Arrow call, because it’s pretty significant there

Dan LeFebvre  1:06:41

too. Yeah, well, I mean that leads right into that. I mean, with the Broken Arrow, the way the movie sets it up, it, I think there’s even a line dialog that just straight out says that it’s a distressed call, meaning that an American news been overrun, calls in every combat aircraft for support. And then that’s when we start, I talked about it earlier. That’s when you start talking seeing like the planes dropping, the bombs, pushing the enemy soldiers back. Was in the movie, it seems like a turning point. Was that actually a turning point for the Americans?

Joshua Donohue  1:07:07

Yeah, it was because, like I said, the LZ X ray was overrun, and their enemy wandering right in amongst the perimeter of more and Plumlee and everyone at the CP behind the termite mound that you should see as they’re trying to maintain order. And he said that one see where Plumlee loads is 45 and gentlemen, barely defend yourselves. And guys are just coming in left and right on them. And in the when the Broken Arrow order is called, and they talk about this pretty, pretty in depth in the book, in the movie, what people may not realize I love the film, Flight of the intruder. When I first saw we were soldiers. Some of the cut scenes that you see of the A six intruders taking off, and the A One Sky Raiders are actually from the film. Oh, okay, yeah, so that orders were laid by more, and he’s looking around him, and Charlie Hastings says, broken arrow into the into the radio, and that would bring all of the available us and Republic of Vietnam aircraft throughout South Vietnam to assist. You know the one seven soon planes, as you hear Hastings, tell him they’ll be stacked up with 1000 foot interviews from seven to 35,000 feet, each of them waiting to drop their ordinance on the NBA. And to put that in perspective, that’s 28 pairs of aircraft conducting strikes all in one single go. That must have been a hell on earth. And the one scene that always gets me is when Crandall is flying in, and he just looks at the sea, says, damn it. And he sees just napalm, it’s smoke, and planes just going into Lz, X ray. It’s like, I gotta land in that. And to, not to forget, a scene that you also see in the film where he has those two medevac choppers with him, and he’s talking since, hey, you guys going in, it’s pretty hot down there. Not a big deal. Follow me in, and as soon as they go in, they’re getting shot up. And the helicopter behind, uh, snake gets shot and crashes. Those two meta backs fly right over this engine state. They bug right out. And the scene where the guy goes to fight him, and Crandall pulls out his revolver at him, that actually did happen. Um, he actually thought the guy was that was an enemy soldier about to cut his throat. He somehow got around and whipped out his revolver. And they had that, that exchange there. So to talk about the the scene that you what happens where and Joe Galloway talks about in the book to and you see him, he was right there to witness this whole thing as well, where you see the 2f 100 super savers, both with canisters of napalm, moving into position for their bobbing run, believing on enemy target. The lead pilot releases the first two canisters and more sees him and says, Charlie, call that son of a bitch. Off. And he screams, pull up. Pull up. And they say, That’s literally how it. Happened. He had just gotten the order that that follow up, f1 100 to pull up, and you see those two rope there. And Galloway says they were just lobbing lobby. He literally watched them explode right in front of them. And what happens to two of the soldiers? Jimmy Akiyama, who you see in the film, is consumed by the flames, and when they go into after the aftermath, when they go, when a Galloway goes to pick him up, the skin comes right off of his legs. And is that that’s just a gut wrenching scene, and that that’s exactly how that whole Broken Arrow played out.

Dan LeFebvre  1:10:38

I couldn’t, I can’t wrap my head around how the type of reflexes you would have to have for that pilot to be able to, like, to split second, like it wasn’t, I mean, it was, it’s broken arrow. So, you know, it was a call that they probably were off doing some other mission. Who knows? Right? I don’t know. Maybe you do, but those that specific pilot, and then so his, he’s got to shift gears to drop his ordinance, and then, like, split second, yeah, register what he says. I mean, I can’t, yeah, the timing.

Joshua Donohue  1:11:09

And Galloway even says in the book, if he would have released his two tanks, we would have been right in the right on top of his done. We would have it would have been completely right on right in the middle of it, so that that particular scene is riveting, but, well, what I do like about it is they did not really use a whole lot of CGI, like you see in a lot of films nowadays, that you know, that a lot of the some of the Huey scenes were CJ, but most of them Were actually shot using real helicopters that use on the cutscenes, like a totally from fly to the intruder, and the A one Skyrim is providing providing close air support the napalm explosion. And they really the special effects team I felt with the film did an exemplary job with the firearms. There’s a whole website devoted just to the firearms you just on the movie. It’s that the internet, the internet movie, firearm database, the Weaver soldiers. One is impressive. I mean, even if, if you saw a slight, you know, in the background of a scene where an NVA soldier had a specific gun, they capture it, and this is the type of gun it has. So the production team did a phenomenal job of the show. Wow.

Dan LeFebvre  1:12:22

I hope to check that out. If we head back to the movie after the turning of the tide with with that the air support coming in, the Americans push back the enemy at the original landing zone. They take it back, and then that allows the helicopters to come in and start evacuating the men. We see Sergeant Major Plumlee informed Colonel Moore that all of our men living in debt are off the field, and so then we see the last American soldier to leave the field is Colonel Hal Moore. How well did the movie do showing the way the battle ends?

Joshua Donohue  1:12:51

Well, there’s, it’s an interesting question, because it’s, it doesn’t happen the way the ending of itself with the bayonet charge. That doesn’t happen. So what you see is where they’re waiting, and then the hubies come up right the last second, as as you know, more is right over the cresting of the hill, and the guys waiting to squeeze the triggers, got them lined up in the scope, and then Crandall and the guys show up with their gunships. And that that didn’t happen that way,

Dan LeFebvre  1:13:21

Hollywood timing. I mean, it happens that’s, that’s

Joshua Donohue  1:13:23

where the Brave Heart part comes into the film.

Dan LeFebvre  1:13:26

Every movie has to have it. That’s, of course, of course, Gibson

Joshua Donohue  1:13:29

and Wallace synonymous with the film Braveheart. And that’s gotten pretty well beat up over historical accuracies over time. But, yeah, just a little bit. So what happens? What they don’t show in the film is what happens at landing zone, Albany, which is just, just situated, you know, not too long, not too far off from X ray. So Albany is, what occurs, where the garrison there is literally just about annihilated. And it’s a stark departure from the ending of the film, where you see the America just overrunning the NVA. They’re bayonetting them. Guys are trying to get a call into the phone. An American guy just you know, stabs him with his bayonet. You know, the screams so, you know, it’s the slow motion shots where the bullets are going into their foot, AK, 40 sevens are flying through the air, and the whole that’s obviously not, not the way it went down, but it’s what the success, any success, that the US forces have at I drank is the opposite of what happens at landing zone Albany. So what happens after I drank, really the main battle ceases, is that they call in A, B, 52 strike. And this is a. A major point in the bow, because the chupang massive is about to be bombed and the second Cav is now being sent in there, and they are literally wiped out, practically before they are relieved. They are cut off by a number of North Vietnamese, and they’re killed, almost to the last man, many, many wounded. So almost in the same regards, what happens to Herricks outfit when they’re cut off and they have to go in and rescue them. And Sergeant Savage is, you know, when his hand kind of raises up out of the ground, and, you know, he’s got that great quote, that’s a great it’s a good day, sorry, savage at the very end of it. So, yeah, the events of Albany are actually what emboldened the North Vietnamese. They say, You know what? Forget about what happens in I drank. Look what we did in Albany. We wiped out. It was the entire, you know, Garrison there. And they see what happens the events of Albany as the victory. They don’t see it as the Americans beat us. No, we got a victory here. We beat you guys at Albany. You guys may have won an I drank. But again, that’s a good sort of foreshadowing for the type of war that the Americans are going to get into as we start to see, you know, obviously going into 6667 6869 and on Florida from there, speaking

Dan LeFebvre  1:16:26

the type of war, and you mentioned this earlier, where Vietnam being more television and things like that, and in the movie, at the very end of the battle, there’s a helicopter that comes down just delivers a bunch of reporters. It reminded me like the end of a sports game. You see the reporters come up and interview the coaches and the players. Except this is, you know, right after the battle, they’re trying to interview Colonel Moore. Did that really happen to reporters actually show up that fast right after the yeah, oh yeah,

Joshua Donohue  1:16:49

it definitely did. They, they were helicoptered in. And you can go on YouTube and see it. There, they interview Colonel Moore right right after the battle, multiple interviews. And he says some some amazing things. He when the reporter asked him what’s going on, he says, I put a platoon over on the company on this side, but another company on this side. And he’s just dictating what he’s doing to the reporters, and you hear artillery fire in the background. And he says, we’re just clearing out enemy. The sound that you hear was part of that and and just is so matter of fact about it. It’s, it’s remarkable. I mean, think about the adrenaline that he must have been going through him. But there’s also another interview that’s even more poignant, that that’s that’s more gives, actually, the end of the interview before that, he he looks up into the camera and says, we’re looking we’re hoping to find more enemies so we could kill him. And as those exact words, the other interview is much more emotional. He talks about his losing his men and and just talking about the American fighting soldier that he has just witnessed fighting in their first major battle of Vietnam. He’s actually almost, in a way, telling the American people how hard, how proud the American soldier is fighting here in Vietnam their first major battle. And he, you can see the pride in his eyes, so much so he actually gets emotional. And he says, You’ll have to excuse me for my emotion right now. But it’s not even he that he’s, you could tell it’s anguish and pride, all wrestling inside of him. And he, you know, he just doesn’t know quite what to what to do. So two very stark interviews that he gives towards the end of the battle. But yeah, the the reporters wanted the big story at that point, Thome said that’s, that’s definitely, you know, not too far from the truth there, that he always wanted to know what happened. And again, this was a big story. And of course, Joe Galloway, being a reporter for UPI, he had a a bird’s eye view and a rifle in his hand on top of it. So, yeah, well,

Dan LeFebvre  1:19:02

you mentioned it. I want to ask about Joe Galloway. We haven’t really talked about him much throughout. You have mentioned him a few times, but Barry Pepper’s character in the movie, and he is there with the seventh Calvary. He’s done officially a part of the seventh Calvary. He’s reported there. He’s a war journalist. He puts down his gun for the camera type thing, and at the end, he and Colonel Moore have a very touching conversation about how to tell the story of what happened. And while this isn’t in the movie itself, you’ve mentioned it a few times. There is the movie is based on the book called We Were Soldiers once and young. That book is co authored by Hal Moore and Joe Galloway. Would you say that the movie did a good job portraying Galloway’s role throughout the movie? Yeah,

Joshua Donohue  1:19:40

I do. I really do. I thought Barry Pepper’s portrayal of Joe Galloway in the film was remarkable. Yes, pepper, of course, God got his major screen debut in Savior Private Ryan as the private Daniel Jackson the company sniper, and his scenes in that film are unforgettable. One of my favorite scenes from the film. Is when, when Galloway flies into I drink at night, when he first gets on the helicopter, and he sees the tracer zipping by the helicopter, when that camera zooms in on his face, and you see the intensity, almost the fear he’s wrestling. That’s such a great scene and, and it’s that glare that he hasn’t seen in Private Ryan. It’s still there, you know. So from what I understand, pepper tried to imitate Galloway, right down to smoking the same cigarettes that he smoked in Vietnam. Wore the same clothing, more the same gear, all that stuff in the 2017 Ken Burns document the Vietnam War, Galloway is interviewed extensively, and he gives some great insight to the formation of the air mobile units, and he does it. He has that real matter of fact way about him, so that real deep Texas accent that he has. So Galloway again, was right then and there at CP, what happened with Jimmy Nakayama. He actually taught some of the interactions with with Plumlee are great. And in the movie, you see it too, and you can tell that Plumlee has this disdain for Galloway, especially dropped in the middle of the seventh Calvary predicament. And it was so shocking. You can even hear yourself think in this moment, and all of a sudden, you know, reporters dropped in the middle of this thing, and you got to take care of this guy on top of everything. So he tells a great story. He was laying on the ground all of a sudden, he felt the toe of the combat boot in his ribs. Looked up and saw his plumbing looking down at him and says, sonny, you can’t take no pictures, laying down on there on the ground. And you see it in the film as well. And he actually tells quite a heartwarming story about plumbing. And you see it in the film as well, towards the end, where plumbing is walking to the wounded soldiers, you know, making sure they’re comfortable looking almost like a father figure. He says that for an hour and a half until the shooting started, until he remembers that Plumlee in the middle of Firestorm. He remembers him kneeling down, putting a poncho ladder over Galloway and treating me like he was his son, like a grandchild, almost. And and I thought that was particularly poignant, you know, because I love Sam Elliott’s betrayal of Plumlee in the film, another great actor. Oh, man, great, yeah, and Plumlee was really attached to their family. When Plumlee died, Sam Elliott was right front center at the funeral with the family. Yeah, he was right there, and Gibson was at Hal Morris funeral back in those 2017 he passed away. So Galloway wouldn’t be his first time in an active battlefield. He went to a war at 49 years old, rotting the tanks of the 24th infantry division into Iraq, into the Euphrates River Valley. And almost 50 years old, wife, kids at home, the whole nine yards, jumped right on and went with, you know, into the into the the bowels of Iraq.

Dan LeFebvre  1:22:52

Wow, wow. He’s testing the the parachutes himself almost. I’m getting the sense that, like you have to have this sense of, I mean, there’s more that parachute testing, and then you have a snake in the helicopter pilot, and Galloway, like, you just have to have this. I don’t want to, I don’t saying crazy sound is, is derogatory or negative, perhaps. But just this, this sense of, just this is what I need to do.

Joshua Donohue  1:23:16

He brought that sense of balance to the battlefield. He really did, you know, he witnessed all of these things. He had to pick up the rifle and defend himself. And he really tells the story in such a way that’s just very, just visceral, just very real, and right down to, you know, that’s the great thing about Moore and Galloway, two primary sources that brought us the this incredible account of the battle. And I thought that, you know, Randall Wallace, it translated it well to the big screen. Because, like I said, compared to those other films, you know, full metal jacket, I love that film. It’s great. It gives you the boot camp perspective, you know, for the most part, realistic coronavirus, you know, but in all those other running themes we talked about, right? You know, prostitution and sex and insubordination among the soldiers, and drug use, all these things, this focused strictly on the combat, a real event, real men who were there and I wanted to and kind of go into a story about another soldier who was under Morris command. Certainly worth mentioning. His name is Rick risco. He was a lieutenant under Morris command. Ed I drank, Commander first platoon, one of the most famous images of the battle, even the whole war. If you look at the cover of the of the Bucha soldiers, he’s on the cover that’s him with his M 16, with his bayonet took during the battle. So riskola survives the battle and later worked for corporate security. He was in the South Tower of the World Trade Center during the 911 attacks. So what. North Tower was struck, Riley grabbed the bullhorn, a walkie talkie in his phone, and he knew he actually they did a program about him called the man who predicted 911 um, he knew that something big was going to happen when the first attack happened in 93 and when he knew it, when as soon as the first plane hit the North Tower, he knew to get the people, get the people out. He was last seen on the 10th floor trying to get people out. He was killed. He cleared a bottleneck on the 44th floor of the South Tower to keep people away from elevators. He was credited with saving the lives of 2700 people from Morgan Stanley that morning, and he lost his life. Wow,

Dan LeFebvre  1:25:36

wow, yeah, wow, yeah. That’s the kind of story that should be a movie, if for another reason, then, just to put the spotlight on it, I mean, that’s that’s a story that should be told, yeah, for sure, pretty remarkable. Wow, wow. At the very end of we were soldiers, we see Mel Gibson as Mel Gibson at panel three east of the Vietnam Memorial. And we see the names of some of the men whose stories told in movies, some of the names, we haven’t really talked about all of them, but some of them we’ve mentioned here and there. There’s, you know, private Willie goldboltz mentioned there. He’s played by Ed memorial in the movie John Gogan. You mentioned him. He goes by Jack in the movies, played by Chris Klein. Also mentions, like 58,000 other names to their left and right, Brothers in Arms, right? But the movie doesn’t really do a good job. I don’t think of putting the story into the overall picture, which makes sense, because it’s telling this one story. But can you give us an over? We could do a whole show on just the Vietnam War, but could you just give an overview of the events that we see in the movie The Battle of idring? How does that fit into the overall story of the Vietnam War after

Joshua Donohue  1:26:44

this? Well, I rang is really the first true pitched battle between United States and the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong and again, as I mentioned, you know, they we had gone through an advisory phase up until that point. And as you start to see more and more Americans being killed in the advisory roles again during the Kennedy administration, Kennedy sort of torn what to do in Vietnam. He He wants to commit more troops there, and he does, and he’s being asked by the press whether he’s being transparent about what’s going on. Walter Cronkite is asking him questions all the time about Vietnam, and of course, Kennedy’s assassination, you’re always left. What would she have done? Would he have gone forward and right, right before he was killed, the president of South Vietnam, no zin Diem is actually assassinated in a coup that is staged by the administration the CIA, and it goes awry. And again, the what the American people didn’t really understand was how dire the political situation in Viet and South Vietnam was at that point, in comparison to the north, they were united. They united under the flag of communism, Ho Chi Minh general plays one. They had the goal in mind, the one goal to reunify Vietnam, no matter what the cost and the situation with the advisors, the politics being involved, there’s actually a great scene at the end. Actually, there are a number of deleted scenes for We Were Soldiers. There’s about eight of them. One of them is a scene that actually did sort of happen the way it did. Mel Gibson’s character Hal Moore, after the battle, meets with a character who plays General Westmoreland and a character who plays Secretary Robert McNamara, and they asked him about the battle, what happened? And McNamara says, Boy, oh boy. You know 400 guys again, and you guys killed 1800 to 2000 men. You know this is going to really bolster support for this war in so many words, and the two of them are trying to get a positive vibe out of Moore, and Moore grabs a diary from the ones the Vietnamese soldier who tries to kill him at X ray, and reads the parts of the diary, and you get that sense. And this was actual quote that someone posed to West to McNamara. McNamara was the student of quantum physics and analytics. He was running the Ford Motor Company. He he had all he had tried to quantify the Vietnam War with numbers, with body counts, right? So that’s was the theme of the war. And someone said to him, You’re forgetting one thing in this equation. He says, what the feelings of the Vietnamese people? And he just looked at him, didn’t really understand what he was saying. That’s what really dooms are involved in Vietnam. Things would only really get worse, obviously, from that point, I had two uncles who fought there. My uncle Mim, who was there, he drove an APC in 19 from 1968 to 1969 Mind, he lost his best friend. There was friend read over a mine was killed. Jerry Ewing, he’s on that wall. And I think what at the end of the at the end of the day, the film itself is a tribute, which I think the other films never did, that apocalypse. Thou doesn’t do that. Platoon doesn’t really do that full metal jacket. They’re singing, you know, Mickey Mouse at the end of the movie, and while everything’s in flames, right? And so you don’t really get a realistic portrayal of a battle minute by minute and in real character, real you know, based on real people, real events, you know, as you’re seeing them. But I think that Wallace, you know, obviously, you know, the end of the film with the bayonet charge aside, does a good job, for the most part, more so than a lot of the average war movies do, I would say, in terms of accuracy,

Dan LeFebvre  1:30:52

make Yeah, no, that makes sense. Since you mentioned Wallace there, he was. Randall. Wallace directed and also wrote the adaptive screenplay from the from the book. If you were in his position, you were in charge of the screenplay, directing the movie, what’s one of the biggest changes that you would make?

Joshua Donohue  1:31:08

Well, I think that in order to really give a more fair and balanced sort of a explanation to the battlefield, maybe include what happens at Albany, right? Because it doesn’t, you know, leaving it off where X ray, I mean half of the book. We Were Soldiers and young covers. What happens in Albany? You mean almost the entire second half of the book? The first half is, I drank. The second half is Albany. So maybe I would have included some of that, maybe a little bit more raw footage of what happens with the French involvement at the time. Little bit more background, a little bit more perspective there. I thought they did, you know, a pretty decent job of that, but maybe a little bit more to give the audience a better understanding of the maybe the politics involved. You know that not enough light has been shed on the beat and me side of thing. And that’s one of the things about the film ethic, is does a great job. Is that you see the the quote, unquote enemy there were, there are real people. They have families, they have lives, they have loved ones, all of that. And I think that’s one thing that, you know, we were so focused on killing, killing, killing all the time, and it’s no these guys fought hard. They fought for their country, they fought for their independence. They viewed the Americans the same way that they viewed the French. We were occupiers, and they wanted us out of there. And, you know, it sort of gets lost in the whole Cold War, you know, puzzle, right? It’s just another piece on the chessboard. You know, again, as I mentioned, that Gallup’s quote where he says, not a real place of people, or a culture or history or anything like that. So again, I think the film gives you and the viewer understands a little bit more about some of the politics involved. You know, not just the military stuff. I wouldn’t change a thing about the ground combat they did. I mean, right from the firearms that the Hueys, the Broken Arrow scene, they did just militarily, they really nailed it. I thought they really did a great job. As far as the accuracy is concerned, all that stuff. I know there’s a lot of people saying, Oh, the uniform that’s not right, and the end of the muzzle is that right, and all that stuff. But for the most part, I think they did a think they did a really good job. I think it really stacks up well in amongst the other films. I kind of did a little bit of a comparison. Not that box office numbers really make a difference in terms of the overall success or failure of a film, but some of the films that did actually better than I thought were Good Morning Vietnam, the the film with Robin Williams, that’s, I believe that’s still to this day, that one of the highest grossing Vietnam films, also the film I’m trying to think of. Remember, it was that one and born of the Fourth of July with Tom Cruise, which is about, more about, you know, some great, great scenes in their Oliver Stone movie. And does the more so the what happens to the when you’re injured. He was Ron covid, was paralyzed, was wounded. To Vietnam, and, of course, the anti war movement that was covered pretty extensively that and that that’s a very important part of Vietnam, I think a lot of people needed to see, and they talk about that quite extensively in the Ken Burns series, is they were going to the gates of the White House and throwing their combat medals over the over the fence. I mean, that’s how devoted they were to the cause. And there was that whole other side of what was happening in America, the protests, the Kent, you know, Kent State, losing the four students there, and the country was tearing itself apart. You had RFK is assassination one. Luther King’s assassination. Now, 1968 the Tet Offensive, that particular year, was the turning point of the war, and all that that happens there. So it’s it’s a foreshadowing, but it’s also a good tribute to not only the American side of the equation, but also to the to the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong because, again, they fought a hell of a war. They they they showed us, they told us a lot of lessons that that we went back afterwards and dusted ourselves off and said, Man, we can’t get ourselves involved in another war like that again. But history, history repeats itself as

Dan LeFebvre  1:35:37

as it does. As you were saying that I was reminded of something that you mentioned earlier, when you mentioned Flags of Our Fathers. And it almost sounds like what you’re saying is it would be great to almost do a companion and give Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, where Clint Eastwood did the American side and the Japanese side. It sounds like that would be a great somebody needs to do that with the Vietnam War, like the American side and the Vietnamese side to see the two.

Joshua Donohue  1:35:59

Yeah, because you know what it is. It’s just the running narrative always, you know. You talk about the American loss, 58,000, you know, 200 and and you think about, you know, no one ever thinks about the losses that were in the millions on the North Vietnamese. And, of course, the South Vietnamese suffered, you know. And no, no one more than civilians. Civilians suffered, you know, every war, civilians always suffer the most between displacement, you know, your loss of loved ones. Vietnam was that type of war where innocent people, you know, you’re trying to win the hearts and minds of the people, you burn their bomb their villages, and next minute, they’re your enemy. So that’s the type of war. It was that we couldn’t quantify the war by body counts or anything like that. But the film itself, I think, really stacks up well compared to others, compared to platoon, compared to Apocalypse Now, compared to Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill. I would say the closest movie out of all those is Hamburger Hill, in terms of the sheer violence of the film, and that you really didn’t get, you got a more realistic and even the way it was shot with with the tall grass, and they actually the soldiers who had eye drank that had reminded them a national park here in America. It wasn’t like the jungle you know, that you see in platoon and other it was there’s different parts and different geography and different climates and all different terrain. Of Vietnam was a very diverse place in terms of of the surrounding area, the environment itself, that the enemy knew much better than we certainly did.

Dan LeFebvre  1:37:34

Thank you so much for coming on the show to help us separate fact from fiction, and we were soldiers before I let you go and shift gears to World War Two. We’ve talked about Vietnam more and World War Two, kind of together, and you have a new article coming out soon about World War Two. Can you share a sneak peek so our wonderful viewing audience at home can learn more about your work? Yeah, it’s

Joshua Donohue  1:37:53

it’s actually about a little known aspect about the attack on Pearl Harbor. There’s a little marine airstrip that was located a few miles just to the west of where the main activity where the battleships were being struck along Pearl Harbor, Battleship Row and hickenfield. It’s about the Marines who fought at Eva mooring mast field was an old airstrip that was actually meant for zeppelins. This Navy added Z craft back in the 1920s and 30s, but none of this happens ever made it out to Hawaii. They all crashed by the time the station was ready, so they converted it to a marine airfield in support. There were a number of other other airfields around the island of Oahu, who’s real early. It was Kaneohe bellows and a few others, but the Marine Station at everfield was attacked by multiple waves of Japanese fighters that morning. And It delves into just the events of the attack, the through the eyes of the CEO, a man named Colonel Paul Claude Larkin, I should say. And it also delves into a bit of a mystery, bit of intrigue. There was a Marine who lost his life that morning, one of the four Marines who lost their weapon station by the hands of his own Marines. And I kind of go into the mystery of that and shed a little bit more light that hadn’t really been shed on it in previous written pieces in history. So I’m able to actually solve the mystery of it. It was one of those some type of fog of war, type of incidents that takes place there. So that should be coming out, probably by the end of the year, if not early next year. And I also have an article that I wrote in 2017 about the Battle of Wake Island that was in World War Two quarterly magazine that was out in spring 2017 fantastic.

Dan LeFebvre  1:39:38

I’ll make sure to add a link to those in the show notes. Thank you again, so much for your time, Josh thank

Joshua Donohue  1:39:42

you so much. I enjoyed it, and look forward to seeing again.

September 10th, 490 BCE. Marathon, Greece.

We’re kicking off this week with the movie 300: Rise of an Empire, and as soon as the opening credits are over, Lena Headey’s character, the wife of the Spartan King Leonidas from the first 300 movie.

Lena Headey’s character is Queen Gorgo, and to start Rise of an Empire, she’s addressing many of the Spartan soldiers who fought with her late husband. These soldiers are all carrying spears, shields, and, of course, the impressive physique of bare-chested six packs that we saw the Spartans have in the first 300 movie.

Sixteen Spartan soldiers surround Queen Gorgo as she addresses them, but there are more like 36 or 37 spears visible, suggesting even more soldiers behind those we can see as they hear their queen speak.

She tells them her husband, Leonidas, their king, and the brave 300 are dead.

As she continues to speak, she moves among the men showing even more soldiers beyond the numbers I just mentioned, but it’s nearly impossible to count them as the camera shifts angles. As the camera changes, though, we can see sails above Queen Gorgo’s head. We can hear the creaking of a wooden ship, which tells us they’re all on a ship.

She tells them it was King Darius who came to take our land ten years ago when youth still burned in our eyes. Ten years ago, this war began as all wars do: With a grievance.

Then, the movie takes us back to ten years earlier.

Mud is being kicked up by feet running in slow motion. The particles of mud and dirt flung high into the air just hanging as time moves at a snail’s pace. As we see more bare-chested men wearing helmets, blue robes on two men leading the charge to the right side of the screen, all with the round shields and weapons: Swords and spears.

Queen Gorgo’s voiceover continues, saying King Darius was annoyed by the notion of Greek freedom and has come to Greece to bring them under submission.

As thunder claps and lighting strikes, the camera changes yet again. Now we can see a vast mountainous landscape, on a dark and stormy night. In the foreground, numerous ships can be seen, some still in the waters, and other right along the shores. All of them have their sails put up, suggesting the ships are disembarking onto the beach beyond.

And on the beach beyond, tiny black dots can be seen. It’s nighttime so impossible to see all of them individually, but each dot is a soldier from one of the ships, giving the overall scene an enormous size. The beach they’re all on leads to a pathway between right mountains, right in the center of the movie’s frame, and in the distance are even more black dots: Greek soldiers charging at Darius’ men as soon as they arrive on the Greek shores.

Queen Gorgo’s voiceover confirms this as she says Darius made landfall at the field of Marathon with an invading force which outnumbered the Greek defenders 3-to-1.

Rain continues to pour down in slow motion as the camera zooms in on the same Greek soldiers we saw in slow motion earlier, this time they’re coming over the muddy horizon and charging directly toward the camera. A bolt of lighting and the loud thunderclap in the stormy sky behind the advancing soldiers suggests even the sky is angry.

She says at dawn the hopeless Athenians do the unthinkable: They attack.

We see King Darius turn around, looking in the direction of the Greek soldiers coming over the horizon. Other soldiers are taking off belongings from the ship. Sure, they’re all soldiers, too, but none of them are ready to fight.

And Queen Gorgo’s voiceover also confirms this, as she says the outnumbered Greeks attacked the weary Persians as soon as they landed after their month-long trip at sea gave them shaky legs. We see some of the Persian soldiers grab spears and swords in haste and start to face the approaching enemy.

Then, the camera cuts to the architect of this mad strategy: A little-known Athenian soldier named Themistokles. The camera focuses in on a single soldier as Gorgo says he gives the Persians a taste of Athenian shock combat.

Sullivan Stapleton is the actor who plays Themistokles in the movie.

The very stylized movie was still going in slow motion this whole time, but now as the Greek and Persian armies clash time speeds back up to normal pace as the sound of swords clanging, and the sound of two fighting armies can be heard against the thunder and rain.

It looks like a bloodbath.

The Persians are caught off guard, and the Greeks run right through most of them. Slicing his way through the Persians is Themistokles, who we can tell now was one of the soldiers wearing a blue robe. That conveniently makes him a lot easier to pick out among the two forces fighting each other in the rain and mud.

Shifting between real-time speed and slow motion, Themistokles fights his way to the shores and the Persian ships. Wasting no time, he runs right up one of the ship’s ramps, slashing and killing everyone on board.

The camera cuts to show King Darius in one of the ships just off shore. He’s watching the chaos unfold in front of him, clearly enraged at what he’s seeing. Back to Themistokles, and he jumps back onto the beach, leaving the ship he was on. There must be no one left to kill on that one.

He races along the beach, killing more and more Persians. An arrow slices at his arm. More arrows hit his shield. Throwing his sword to kill one of the archers, Themistokles charges at the other. Another arrow, this time he turns his head to let it glance off his helmet as he tackles and kills the archer.

Queen Gorgo’s voiceover has returned, saying all of this was for a crazy Greek experiment called democracy. A free Greece.

Slamming the archer to the ground, Themistokles seems to have reached the end of the beach, but he takes off his helmet to look out at the Persian ships still in the waters. On one of those ships is King Darius, still watching the slaughter in front of him. For a moment, Themistokles and King Darius stare directly at each other from across the water between them.

Finally, Darius turns away as if to say the Persians are about to leave—at least for now.

Queen Gorgo’s voiceover says through the chaos, a moment appeared. And Themistokles took advantage of that moment. We see him pick up the bow from the archer he just killed. Then, pulling back an arrow, he lets off one shot.

Back on the Persian ship, Darius has his back turned now and doesn’t notice the arrow coming toward him. But someone else on the ship does. Another man on the other side of the ship runs in slow motion as he screams, “Nooooooo!”

Queen Gorgo says this is the moment that will ring throughout the centuries and make Themistokles a legend.

The camera follows the arrow he shot as it flies across the water, aimed directly at King Darius. From the other side of the boat, the running man reaches Darius just in time the arrow hits him in the chest, knocking him backward into the other man’s arms. He glares at Themistokles with a burning hatred that tells you there will be vengeance.

Then, Queen Gorgo tells us who this other man is: Darius’ son, Xerxes.

She goes on to say that for all the praise that would be heaped upon Themistokles, he knew he made a mistake. Xerxes’ eyes had the stink of destiny about them. He knew he should’ve killed that boy.

But, instead, after delivering the fatal arrow to King Darius, we see Themistokles simply turn and walk away.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie 300: Rise of an Empire

As immersive as the fictional portrayal is, as we begin separating fact from fiction, let me start with a blanket statement that I’m sure you already know but it’s still worth saying: 300: Rise of an Empire is the sequel to 300, which itself was based on a comic book of the same name.

That’s why it shifts between slow motion and real-time speed, and gives unrealistic streams of blood flying around the scene as soldiers swing their swords.

Even once we separate ourselves from that side of things, another major caveat we have to keep in mind is that we’re talking about something that happened 2,514 years ago. Do we know if Themistokles and King Darius had a stare down across the water like we see in the movie? That’s not the kind of thing that gets documented so of course we don’t know for sure. But, I bet if you had to guess how realistic that sort of moment is, I bet you would come to the same conclusion that I would and guess that’s not very realistic at all, haha!

With those major caveats aside, there really was a major battle at Marathon between the Greeks and Persians that happened 2,514 years ago this week.

Lena Headey’s character, Queen Gorgo, really was King Leonidas I’s wife. He was, of course, famous for the Battle of Thermopylae that was told in the movie 300—which we looked at on episode 5 of Based on a True Story.

Another element of truth the movie shows correctly is the timeframe between the events. We hear Queen Gorgo talk about Leonidas and the 300 being dead, and also how it was ten years ago that Darius brought the fight to our shores at Marathon.

The legend of the 300 at Thermopylae happened in 480 BCE, while the Battle of Marathon was ten years earlier in 490 BCE.

But here’s where the movie takes some creative license, because even though the timeline means Queen Gorgo was alive during both battles, we don’t really know how involved she was with the army to travel with them on ships and telling the story of Marathon to soldiers like we see her doing in the beginning of the movie.

It’s certainly plausible. Especially because we do know she held a position of importance in Greek society at the time, not only because of her husband being king, but also because she was in her own right an intelligent woman. For example, a lot of what we know about her comes from an ancient Greek historian named Herodotus, and even though he didn’t write about women often, one story he told was how Gorgo helped decipher a hidden message warning the Greeks of a Persian invasion. That makes her one of the first female cryptanalysts in recorded history.

Back to the movie’s version of the Battle of Marathon, though, one of the things Gorgo mentions in her voiceover is that the Persians outnumbered the Greeks 3-to-1.

And that’s about right. Historical estimates put the Greeks at about 11,000 soldiers while the Persians had somewhere between 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers carried by 600 or so ships called triremes. So, of course, the movie uses the higher number to make the contrasts between forces seem even greater.

So, it is true that the Greeks here heavily outnumbered.

Did they attack as soon as the Persians landed in Greece to help overcome the mismatch in numbers?

No, they didn’t. That part of the movie is not true.

And now it’s time for the part of the true story that maybe you’ve heard before from a very different legend. After all, you’ve heard of the long distance run of 26.2 miles, or 42 kilometers, being called a marathon. As the legend goes, that’s the distance the Greek messenger Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens to inform them of the victory at Marathon. So, obviously that would’ve happened after the battle if he informed them of the Greek victory.

While that is the legend, according to Herodotus, that run actually happened before the battle…and he didn’t run from Marathon to Athens, but he ran the 150 miles, or 240 kilometers, from Athens to Sparta to ask for their help for the impending Persian invasion. Actually, that’s how we know it happened this week in history, because the historical records tell us the Spartans couldn’t march until after their holy day.

Oh, and as a fun little bit of trivia, as of this recording the world record holder for a marathon is Kelvin Kiptum from the 2023 Chicago Marathon where he had an average speed of about 13 mph, or 21 km/h. Of course, that’s a 26.2 mile marathon. It’s said that Pheidippides did his 150-mile run from Athens to Sparta in two days. That’s an average pace of 4.7 mph, or 7.5 km/h. A runner named Yiannis Kouros holds the ultramarathon record of 150 miles in 22 hours, 52 minutes, and 55 seconds in 1984. That’s an average pace of 6.6 mph, or about 10.6 km/h.

Meanwhile, I’d probably pass out from exhaustion way back by the starting line so I’m glad they sent Pheidippides instead of me haha!

Back to the Battle of Marathon, though, the reasons for the Greek’s ultimate victory is still something historians debate, but as with most things in history there’s not likely to be just one thing; there were a number of factors that went into the final Greek victory at Marathon.

But let’s start breaking it down by looking at something the movie doesn’t show: Their armor.

While the actors in the movie are obviously in such great shape they can use their six packs as armor, it’s probably not a surprise that the real Greek army actually wore more armor than we see in the movie.

At least, sort of.

Here’s where the true story really gets more complex than the fictional one from the movie, because the Greek army consisted of a lot of citizen-soldiers called hoplites. After all, ancient Greece wasn’t really unified into the country of Greece that we think of today. It was made up of city-states that banded together when they needed to fight off shared enemies like the Persians. That’s why you’ll find references to the Athenians, the Spartans, and so on…they’re all Greek, but they’re also independent city-states.

On top of that, because Greek hoplites were essentially civilians called into military service when needed they often weren’t trained well and they usually wore whatever armor they could afford.

“Usually” is the key word there, because the Greek general in charge of the force that went out to face the Persians at Marathon had all his men equipped as hoplites for what many say was the first time in Greek history.

Oh, that general’s name was Miltiades and he isn’t in the movie at all.

Even though the armor the Greek hoplites wore was quite different than the lack-of-armor we see in the movie, the Greek’s armor was a lot lighter than the Persian’s armor. That was a major tactical advantage, because that let the Greeks move a lot faster than the Persians.

So, even though the Greeks didn’t charge the Persians as soon as they landed on shore, they did charge at the Persians. That wasn’t a common fighting tactic back then, so it was unexpected by the Persians. But, of course, simply charging your enemy isn’t going to overcome 3-to-1 odds on its own like the movie shows.

Speaking of what the movie shows, in her voiceover, Lena Headey’s version of Queen Gorgo says the architect behind the Greek’s decision to run out to meet the Persians before they could establish a foothold is a soldier named Themistokles.

While Themistokles really was someone who fought at Marathon, the commander of the Greek armies was the general I mentioned before: Miltiades.

Other Greek generals weren’t sure if they should attack the Persians or wait for them to attack them at Athens. After all, then they’d have the benefit of defensive positions in the city to help them fight against overwhelming odds.

As fate would have it, the Greeks found out the Persian cavalry happened to be away from the Persian camp. He took advantage of that situation, and ordered the attack on the Persian infantry.

That made the odds a little more in the Greek’s favor with the 11,000 Greeks attacking about 15,000 Persian infantry. On top of that, since the Greeks were the ones attacking they had more control over where the battle would be fought and they chose to attack on a mountainous and marshy terrain. So, the movie is correct to show mountains and mud…that helped ensure the Persian cavalry wouldn’t hear about the attack and return to route the Greeks while they were fighting the Persian infantry.

Of course, the Greeks were still outnumbered by the Persian infantry alone. That brings us to yet another reason for the real reason the Greeks won at Marathon: Phalanxes.

Basically, with long spears and large, bronze shields, the Greeks packed together so tightly that the Persians couldn’t penetrate with their shorter swords. General Miltiades also employed a tactic that proved to help the Greek victory, too. As the battle raged on, the center of the Greek forces collapsed to allow Persians to advance. Then, the wings of the Greek forces would collapse into the center so all of a sudden the Persians would find themselves surrounded.

While we don’t know for sure exactly how long the battle lasted, most historians believe it only took a few hours for the Persians to be routed and flee back to their ships. In that time, estimates place about 6,500 Persians killed while fewer than 200 Greeks lost their lives in the battle.

What of King Darius himself?

The movie got that wrong, too.

Darius I did not die at the Battle of Marathon. In fact, most historians say he wasn’t even there. Two generals named Datis and Artaphernes led the Persian forces. So, the movie’s plot line of Darius’ son Xerxes wanting revenge for his father’s death isn’t what happened.

In the true story, Darius I dead four years after the battle from natural causes. That’s when his son Xerxes took the throne. He did continue fighting the Greeks leading to a second Persian invasion of Greece that culminated in the Battle of Thermopylae the legend of the 300. But that wasn’t revenge for his father’s death. That was continuing the expansion of the Persian Empire that many consider to be the first global empire in history.

Something else we hear Queen Gorgo’s voiceover talk about in the movie is the idea of a Greek experiment called democracy.

That’s actually true, the ancient Greeks are often credited with what was at the time a new system of governance that was radically different than the monarchies, oligarchies, and tyrannies of the time. More specifically, it was the Athenians who laid down the foundations around 508 BCE.

So, when we take a step back from the Battle of Marathon itself and look at the bigger picture, you can see why so many point to Marathon as being a single day in history that changed the course of history.

Many of the founding figures of Western philosophy such as Socrates to Plato, Aristotle, came from Greece in the years, decades, and centuries afterward. If the Persians had wiped out the Greeks at Marathon, it’s not hard to imagine us living in a very different world today.

If you want to see how the Battle of Marathon is portrayed on screen, hop into the show notes to find where 300: Rise of an Empire is streaming now!

September 11, 2001. Herndon, Virginia.

Just saying that date, I’m sure you can guess what our next event is…although the location might throw you off. The reason for that location is because seven minutes into the 2006 movie called United 93, there’s some text on the screen to tell us we’re at the National Air Traffic Control Center in Herndon, Virginia. The camera follows a man into a room filled with screens and people—it looks a lot like what you’d expect an air traffic control center to look like.

As the man walks into the room, there are some claps and we can hear someone saying, “Congratulations on the promotion, Ben!”

That’s how we know the man is Ben Sliney. Others continue to clap or offer a congratulatory handshake as he makes his way further into the room. He smiles, thanking them, says “good morning” and jokes that he’s glad everyone is awake.

Standing in front of a bank of monitors, Ben talks to some of the other guys about the current situation. One of them says there’s a small system in the southwest, nothing much too big. Another system moved off to the east, so we have clear skies. Ben replies to the weather report saying that’s good, it’ll be a good day on the east coast.

The other guy points to something on the monitor. They can all see what it is, but from the angle the camera is facing Ben Sliney, we can’t see the monitor. But we don’t really have to, because the guy explains that the President is going to be moving to Andrews, so we’ll have restrictions in place around that. Pretty much standard ops. Ben doesn’t take his eyes off the monitor as he nods his approval.

Then, he smiles, and thanks them for their reports. They go back to work while Ben moves onto another area of the room. He looks at the monitors. Everything seems to be pointing to just another day.

The true story behind that scene in the movie United 93

We’ll stop our movie here because, as you might imagine, the entire movie is centered around the same day—and also because I’ve already done a deep dive into this movie over on episode #113, so if you want to learn more about the whole movie that’ll be linked in the show notes.

For today, though, the movie is true that September 11^th, 2001, started off as just another normal day at the National Air Traffic Control Center. But, as I’m sure you already know, it was not just another day.

The movie was also correct to suggest the President traveling to Andrews, referring to Andrews Air Force Base just outside Washington, D.C., where then-President George W. Bush was flying in from Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

And the movie was also correct to show a reason for Ben Sliney to be congratulated when he entered the room that day. September 11, 2001, just happened to be Ben Sliney’s very first day as the FAA’s National Operations Manager.

While the scene I just described takes place in Virginia that’s just because that’s where the control center is based. Officially known as the Air Traffic Control System Command Center for the Federal Aviation Administration, but since the government loves its acronyms that’s the FAA’s ATCSCC.

What we didn’t talk about in this segment were the four planes hijacked that morning. American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center. American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

The fourth plane was a little different, though, because it didn’t hit the hijacker’s intended target.

After it was hijacked, United Airlines Flight 93 was headed toward Washington D.C. with an intended target of crashing into the U.S. Capitol building. But the passengers on United 93 revolted against the hijackers, and the plane crashed in a field near Stonycreek Township in Pennsylvania.

During the course of his first day as National Operations Manager for the FAA on September 11^th, 2001, Ben Sliney made the decision to land every plane in the air over the United States. That was the first time in U.S. history that’s ever happened.

Oh, and in the movie, Ben Sliney is played by…well, Ben Sliney. That’s right, the real person played himself in the movie.

Obviously, there’s a lot more to the true story, if you want to learn even more, queue up BOATS episode #113 linked in the show notes for as soon as you’re done watching the movie this week.

September 14, 1814. Baltimore, Maryland.

For our third event this week, we’ll pull a dramatization segment from a Smithsonian documentary.

The sky is gray and dreary. It almost looks like fog or some mist. In the foreground, a massive American flag riddled with holes is flapping in the wind.

The camera cuts to three men now. One of them is wearing a uniform, but he’s more in the background. The focus is on one of the two men not in military uniform—in particular, one of the men seems to be pacing around nervously as he’s looking off in the foggy, gray distance.

With a slightly different camera angle now, we can see the three men are standing on the deck of a ship. The pacing man is running his hand through his hair now, as he continues to look off frame.

The camera backs up to further away now, and we can see there are four ships. The closest one fires its cannons, followed by another blast from one of the ships further in the distance. Now the camera cuts back to the American flag flapping in the hazy sky.

The true story behind that scene in the movie A Star-Spangled Story

That short sequence comes from a documentary called A Star-Spangled Story: Battle for America, and event it’s showing is when Francis Scott Key got his inspiration for a poem called, “The Defence of Fort M’Henry” after seeing the flag on Saturday this week.

You probably know his poem by another name: “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Francis Scott Key is the guy who I mentioned pacing and running his hands through his hair in the movie. In the true story, Key was a lawyer who went to the British along with another man named Colonel John Stuart Skinner to ask for the release of Key’s friend who had been captured by the British in late August.

Key and Skinner took a ship out to the British fleet that was near the city of Baltimore, Maryland. While they successfully negotiated for the release of Key’s friend, a man named Dr. William Beanes, the timing wasn’t great because the British were just about to launch an attack on Baltimore.

So, Key, Skinner, and Beanes were forced to watch as the British unleashed a 25-hour long bombardment on the American soldiers at Fort McHenry. At dawn on September 14^th, Key saw the huge American flag flying over Fort McHenry and started writing the poem. He didn’t write it all that day, though.

He jotted down a few lines, then completed it a few days later after the three men, Key, Skinner, and Beanes, were released from the British fleet. Most people are only familiar with the first verse of the poem that would go on to become “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Francis Scott Key wrote four verses:

O! say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there —

O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze o’er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines on the stream —

‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave

O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havock of war and the battle’s confusion

A home and a country should leave us no more?

Their blood has wash’d out their foul foot-steps’ pollution,

No refuge could save the hireling and slave,

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their lov’d home, and the war’s desolation,

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land

Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto — “In God is our trust!”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Key’s poem, “The Defence of Fort M’Henry,” was published almost immediately along a notation that it goes to the tune of a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith called “Anacreon in Heaven.”

That was the official song of a club of amateur musicians in London called the Anacreontic Society.

Together, the words from “The Defence of Fort M’Henry” along with the tune of “Anacreon in Heaven” combined to become “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which was an immediate hit in America. It wasn’t for over a hundred years, in 1931, that “The Star-Spangled Banner” was officially adopted as the national anthem of the United States.

So, now you know the phrase “by dawn’s early light” in “The Star-Spangled Banner” is talking about this week in history: The dawn of September 14^th, 1814.

If you want to learn more about the true story, check out the documentary from the Smithsonian called A Star-Spangled Story: Battle for America. We started our segment at about ten minutes in, but as you can tell from the title the whole thing is about the story of the song, so this is a good week to watch it all!

Historical birthdays from the movies

It’s time for the birthday segment, about historical figures from the movies that were born this week in history.

On September 12^th, Henry Hudson was born somewhere in England. Maybe in London, and maybe in the year 1525, but as you can probably guess a lot about his early years aren’t known for sure. He was an explorer who is best remembered through some of the discoveries he made: The Hudson River in New York, or Hudson Bay in Canada. While there haven’t been a lot of movies about him, probably because we know so little about his early years or even his disappearance in 1611, there was a movie in 1964 called The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson if you want to watch something about him.

On September 13^th, 1660, Daniel Defoe was born in London, England. He was a writer who is perhaps best known for the 1719 novel called Robinson Crusoe. He was played by Ian Hart in the 1997 movie about the novel, also called Robinson Crusoe.

On September 15^th, 1254, another explorer was born in Venice: Marco Polo. Although perhaps you best know him as the namesake of the swimming game version of tag, the real Marco Polo made his mark on history by traveling along the Silk Road in Asia in the 1200s and returned to Europe and publicized the great wealth and size of the Eastern empires such as China, the Mongol Empire, Persia, India, Japan, and many more. Until Marco Polo’s book about his travels around 1300, most of Europe didn’t know much about the Asian countries. Netflix had a series about him simply called Marco Polo that ran for two seasons where Marco Polo is played by Lorenzo Richelmy.

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

Today is the 19^th anniversary of the release of the supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson that claims to be ‘based on a true story’ called The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Set in the modern era of when the movie was released in the 2000s, the storyline revolves around the trial of Father Richard Moore. He’s played by Tom Wilkinson in the movie, and in the movie, Father Moore is a priest charged with negligent homicide following the death of a 19-year-old college student named Emily Rose.

As you might’ve guessed by the title of the movie, Emily died during an exorcism performed by Father Moore. According to the movie, she’s a devout Catholic college student who begins experiencing terrifying symptoms that she believes are signs of demonic possession. Her symptoms include severe seizures, hallucinations, and physical contortions. Despite medical intervention and a diagnosis of epilepsy, her condition deteriorates, leading her and her family to seek help from the church. Father Moore believes them and agrees to perform an exorcism.

In the movie, the exorcism itself is where we really get into the supernatural horror elements. Emily starts speaking in different languages, has unbelievable strength, and her body moves in unnatural ways. Despite Father Moore’s best efforts, the exorcism does not work, and Emily passes away in the process.

That leads us to the courtroom, where we see the trial of Father Moore after Emily’s death. On one side, you have the prosecution, which is led by Campbell Scott’s version of Ethan Thomas, insists Emily had a medical condition and Father Moore’s exorcism denied her the treatment she needed. For the defense, Laura Linney’s version of Erin Bruner, argues that Emily actually was possessed by a demon. She argues that it was the demon that killed Emily, not Father Moore.

The movie is an interesting clash of religious faith, science, and the law—you know, the kind of things everyone agrees about all the time.

And in the movie, even the jury can’t seem to agree. Their verdict is to declare Father Moore guilty, but also to ask Mary Beth Hart’s version of Judge Brewster to give Father Moore time served. Judge Brewster agrees, and Father Moore is allowed to go free despite the guilty verdict.

The true story behind The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Shifting to the fact-checking, let’s start with the most obvious of inaccuracies in the movie: The title.

Instead of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a more historically accurate title for the movie would be “The Exorcisms of Anneliese Michel.”

That’s because the real person the movie is based on is a 23-year-old German student teacher named Anneliese Michel, and in the true story, Anneliese had 67 exorcisms before she died on July 1^st, 1976.

Which brings up another inaccuracy in the movie: The timeline.

The true story happened in the 1970s, while the movie makes it more contemporary to when it was released in the 2000s.

So, with all of that said, it’s probably not too much of a surprise for me to say this movie is stretching the term “based on a true story” to its limits. But, to play devil’s advocate to what I just said, that doesn’t mean the concept of the movie is completely fictional.

What I mean by that is if you look at the people, places, timeline, and the location of the movie, sure it’s made up. However, the basic gist of a woman having an exorcism that led to her death and the Catholic Priest involved being put on trial for her death…that is true.

Born in 1952, and raised in a devout Roman Catholic family, Anneliese Michel was a deeply religious woman. Her childhood wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but all that changed in 1968 when, at the age of 16, Anneliese started having some severe convulsions.

Naturally, she went to a doctor first and before long she was diagnosed with epilepsy and depression. Once she was diagnosed, she started receiving treatments with little to no effect. Of course, even that isn’t all that uncommon…people can get misdiagnosed or have medical treatments that don’t help with whatever ails them.

For the deeply religious Anneliese, whatever ailed her started giving her some uncommon symptoms, though. She heard voices, and perhaps most terrifying of all, saw hallucinations that included demonic faces. Of course, when it comes to symptoms like that, it’s not like you can show other people the hallucinations you’re having, so that’s where those around Anneliese started to splinter into two different beliefs about what was happening to her.

On one side, you had the doctors and medical staff trying to help Anneliese through scientific methods while on the other side you had Anneliese and the Michel family. As the medical treatments failed to help, and Anneliese only grew worse, they started to believe more and more that this was beyond anything medical.

Or, in other words, I suppose you could say they lost faith in medicine and returned to their religious faith. So, they went to the Catholic Church to ask for help. At first, they were rejected. After all, the Catholic Church also tends to default to a medical explanation before jumping to a spiritual one.

And, as I alluded to before, Anneliese had been diagnosed by medical professionals with temporal lobe epilepsy, which has been known to cause many of the symptoms Anneliese had like the seizures and hallucinations.

Earlier, I mentioned Tom Wilkinson’s character in the movie, Father Moore. He’s not a real person for all the aforementioned reasons of time, place, people changes, etc. but Father Moore’s character in the movie is based on two Catholic priests named Father Ernst Alt and Father Wilhelm Renz.

Father Alt was the local priest for the Michel family, so he likely spent the most amount of time with Anneliese, and as such he was crucial in helping convince the Catholic Church to change their mind. Eventually, in September of 1975, Bishop Josef Stangl approved the exorcism under the condition that Father Alt and Father Renz adhere to strict secrecy about the whole matter.

On an average of a couple times a week from September of 1975 until June of 1976, Father Alt and Father Renz performed exorcisms on Anneliese. That’s why there were so many exorcisms performed on her. It wasn’t a one-and-done thing. And the movie is correct to suggest some of the things like speaking in multiple languages, abnormal bouts of strength, and strange contortions of her body.

While there’s no footage of the real exorcism of Anneliese publicly available that I could find to compare with what we see in the movie, I think it’s safe to say the movie does what movies love to do and exaggerate things a lot.

We know Catholic priests used the 1614 Rituale Romanum, because that’s basically the Catholic Church’s instruction manual for priests performing exorcisms. As the name implies, that’s from 1614, so I don’t think the exorcisms they actually performed were anything like what we see in the movie…although, again, I’ll have to play devil’s advocate to myself, because the Catholic Church updated that 84-page document for the first time in 1998.

So, from 1614 until 1998, the rite of exorcism remained the same. And since the movie takes a true story from the 1970s into the 2000s, I suppose they’d be using the updated version. And while my Latin is rusty to the point of non-existence, all my research suggests there wasn’t a lot changed. Just some minor things like updating descriptions of what Satan looks like since now the Church teaches Satan is a spirit without a body.

Unfortunately, even the exorcisms couldn’t help Anneliese.

In her final months, she stopped eating. She stopped drinking. In addition to everything else she was going through, Anneliese started to suffer from severe malnutrition. Then, on June 30^th, 1976, Father Renz performed yet another exorcism…one that would be her last.

Anneliese Michel died on July 1^st, 1976.

The movie is also correct to show a trial after her death. Father Alt and Father Renz were charged with negligent homicide just like we see Father Moore charged with in the movie. In a 1978 article from The Windsor Star newspaper, Father Alt said he never thought Anneliese was “dangerously ill.”  In the same article, Father Renz said he didn’t call a doctor because, “the exorcism ritual expressly states that clergymen should not burden themselves with medical matters.”

I’ll add a link to the article in the show notes if you want to read it, because it also talks about how the Michel family sued the five doctors who helped treat Anneliese because they drew up a report of her case—something the Michel family said was a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality.

In the end, the verdict in the true story was the same for the two priests as it is in the movie for Father Moore: Guilty. The sentencing was not the same as the movie, though, because in the true story the priests were sentenced to six months in prison, with three years of probation.

And now you know a little more about the true story behind The Exorcism of Emily Rose!

September 5^th, 1666. London, England.

The entire final episode is set on September 5^th, but we’re going to fast forward further into the day. At 39 minutes, we’re in the city streets of London.

We’re in the city streets of London, and although we can’t see any fires in this shot, the air is thick with an atmospheric haze. In the foreground, tents and makeshift stalls line both sides of a narrow, dirt pathway, with awnings draped over them to provide shade and shelter. The scene is filled with activity as various townsfolk go about their business.

Emerging from the haze in the background is Jack Huston’s character, King Charles II. He’s riding a white horse that reminds me of Shadowfax, but it’s really the plumed hat on his head that stands out against the smoky background. Behind the king’s horse, a handful of soldiers march along—it looks like a couple of the soldiers are also on horseback, but mostly the soldiers in the king’s entourage is on foot. Among the crowd we can hear people announcing the king is coming, as everyone turns to watch him make his way through the busy streets.

The camera cuts to a jail cell as we see a woman bound and tied up as a couple other women strip off her red dress to reveal tattered white undergarments. We can tell from the actress, that this is Rose Leslie’s character, Sarah. She looks as if she’s exhausted, or hungry, or in some sort of a daze as she can barely stand on her own power—but she’s forced to be standing because of the chains hanging from the ceiling with handcuffs clasped around her hands.

Charles Dance’s character, Lord Denton, is in the room as well. He’s just looks at Sarah for a moment, before leaving her alone in the room and closing the door behind him.

Back in the street, the crowd is gathering around the king’s horse now as he addresses them all.

He starts by saying there’s been a conspiracy in our city that the great fire was some sort of a Catholic plot to ruin us all. Then, speaking about Sarah, the king mentions how she’s being held captive right now on the accusations of intentionally starting the fire.

Someone in the crowd yells out that they should burn the papist bitch—speaking of Sarah, a woman we can assume this random person in the crowd has never even met. Nevertheless, it showcases the anger and desire for holding someone accountable.

Just then, another man on horseback enters the frame, telling the king that the breaks are holding. We’ve gotten the better of the fire. We can tell from the actor of this new character that it’s Oliver Jackson-Cohen’s version of James, the Duke of York.

The crowd turns on James, saying he’s one of them—he’s a Catholic, too! Burn every Catholic who started this fire, they should all pay!

King Charles speaks over the crowd, where does that end? My queen? My mother? Where does the death and destruction end, he asks? We have the better of the fire, now. This is a time for reflection. We’ve already lost so much, why should we lose more lives?

Then, he says something that makes the crowd quiet down. He says, do we really see our enemy? Isn’t fear our enemy? And it’s fear that’s making us start these rumors and conspiracies of plots and uprisings? Haven’t you sacrificed enough without seeking scapegoats for our anger in the Catholics or foreigners?

Matter-of-factly, the king states the city stands. We will rebuild. Those who lost homes will be compensated, those who are hungry will be fed. Fear has not defeated us.

The crowd cheers, “Long live the king!”

In the next shot, we can see Sarah released from prison. She returns to what’s left of their home with Thomas and the children. The building is all but gone, with little more than charred remains where the walls used to be. And there it is. The oven that started it all. I suppose it makes sense that it survived the fire. It is, after all, designed to be fireproof. When you close the door, of course.

And so, at the end of the series it comes full circle as we see Hannah opening the same oven door that she forgot to close a few days earlier. Together, the family accused of starting it all helps in the rebuilding process as they bake bread to feed their neighbors who lost everything.

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

That’s was about five minutes of screen time from the series, and let’s start similar to how we did when we learned about the start of the blaze: The people.

Some of them we learned about last time like Thomas Ferriner, so I won’t repeat that. But, a couple characters we didn’t see then that we do now are, in order of their appearance in this segment: King Charles II, Sarah, Lord Denton, and James, the Duke of York.

King Charles II really was the King of England in 1666. Shadowfax was not his horse, though, sorry—I didn’t really mean that—I just said that because anytime I see someone riding a beautiful white horse, I can’t help but think of Gandalf’s horse from The Lord of the Rings.

As for the other characters, both Sarah and Lord Denton are fictional characters, but the Duke of York was a very real person. He was the brother of King Charles II, and would eventually go on to become King James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland. But, for our story today, it is true that Charles asked his brother, James, to supervise something that hadn’t really existed before: A fire brigade.

Now, I know we’re talking about the great fire here, so this isn’t something we don’t see in the series at all, but in the true story the Great Fire of London was not the first disaster that King Charles II had to deal with.

Just the year earlier, in 1665, up to 7,000 Londoners a week were perishing from the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague. History remembers that event as the Great Plague of London, which spanned from 1665 to 1666 and claimed the lives of about 100,000 people. That’s about a third of the entire population of London at the time—which was about 350,000 people. So, you have that happening, then just as that starts to subside, this huge fire breaks out and causes even more destruction.

You can start to understand why Londoners were angry, frustrated, sad…exhausted.

In the series, we see this frustration turning into a call to burn the Catholics or casting the blame on the very vague term foreigners. If you think about it, we still see this sort of thing today—just look at politics anywhere, and they’re blaming foreigners or some vague “other” group of people as the enemy to blame for their troubles.

And the Great Fire of London was no different.

Do you remember the story of King Henry VIII and the Church of England? We’ve covered that more with episodes on movies like The Other Boleyn Girl which I’ll link to in the show notes, but in a nutshell, when the Pope refused to annul Henry’s marriage so he could replace his then-wife Catherine with another woman named Anne Boleyn, Henry took matters into his own hand. To get the annulment of Catherine’s marriage to go through, he broke the entire country of England away from the Roman Catholic Church and established the Church of England with himself as the head. That let him annul the marriage legally so he could replace his wife.

That was in 1534, and this split from the Roman Catholic Church caused a ton of upheaval in England between Catholics and Protestants. There’s a lot of complexity once you get into religious theology, of course, but basically you can think of Protestants as being any of the Christians who aren’t Catholics.

Fast forward from 1534 to 1666, and in those 132 years, generations of Londoners witnessed or took part in countless acts of violence between Catholics and Protestants. Probably the first big one is what we now know as the Pilgrimage of Grace, which has a deceptively peaceful sounding name. That was a revolt to Henry’s break from the Catholic Church that saw tens of thousands of people revolt until King Henry VIII’s side win and many of the revolt’s leaders being executed. That was two years after Henry’s break from the Catholic Church, but it was hardly the last. The Marian Persecutions from 1553 to 1558, the Northern Rebellion in 1559, the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 that saw Catholics attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament—remember, remember, the fifth of November—even the English Civil War from 1642 to 1651 saw religion being a major factor in the violence.

With that context in mind, perhaps now it makes a little more sense why Londoners in 1666 jumped to the conclusion that this was a Catholic plot to oust Protestants from England. After all, it does seem to be in line with some of the other acts of violence over the past hundred or so years.

Part of King Charles II’s speech in the series mentions more than Catholics, though, it also mentions foreigners. And that little detail is historically accurate because at the time of the fire, England was at war with both France and the Dutch Republic—today, that’s the Netherlands.

So, those are the “foreigners” referenced in the series, and it is true that Londoners thought they might’ve been behind the fire. If it wasn’t the Catholics, it must’ve been foreigners. Someone was to blame, and it certainly wasn’t the person in the mirror.

Although we don’t hear the name mentioned in the series, in the true story, a lot of English blamed a French watchmaker named Robert Hubert. Why him? Well, because he confessed to throwing a fire grenade into the bakery to start the fire. And it probably didn’t help that Thomas Farriner signed a document accusing Hubert of starting the fire.

They executed Hubert almost immediately, despite the confession being coerced under duress and substantial evidence that he wasn’t even in London when the fire started. Today, it’s accepted knowledge that Robert Hubert’s accusation was false.

The series is also correct to show King Charles II being the one to squash those conspiracies of the fire being arson at the hand of Catholics or foreigners. I highly doubt it happened in a speech from his horse like we see in the movie, but his official stance was that it was an act of God. He pointed out that it was an extra dry summer. There were strong winds that fueled the flames.

And today, that’s what most people think was the real culprit: Almost a perfect storm of conditions, so if it didn’t start with a spark from a bakery then it’s likely something else would’ve started a blaze.

You see, in 1666, they simply didn’t have fire standards in buildings. They were made of wood, they used an extremely flammable substance called pitch for the roofs, and the buildings were packed together so tightly that some buildings were hanging over others—making it extremely easy for flames to fall from one building to another and keep spreading the fire.

If you listened to the starting episode of this miniseries a few days ago, I mentioned the name Samuel Pepys as being someone whose diary has taught us a lot about what really happened. Well, since that was just his personal diary that happened to capture this momentous time in history, he also talked about what things were like in London before the fire.

And even he made note of how unusually dry it was that summer. He commented on how dry the wooden buildings were because of it. So, you essentially have drought conditions in a city made of wood and pitch.

Throw in some strong winds and it’s no wonder the fire spread as fast as it did.

I mentioned the fire brigade before, and that’s another element of the “perfect storm” of conditions. None of this is shown in the series, of course, but to get some more historical context, there simply wasn’t a central firefighting service in place. When a fire happened, local volunteers were called upon to help fight it. Usually what they did was destroy the buildings around the fire, so it had nowhere to go. Then, sometimes they’d throw water on it—but they only had leather buckets or what they called a fire squirt. That’s the precursor to the modern fire engine, but that’s where the comparison ends because squirting water is an appropriate term. Squirts could only hold between half and one gallon of water. That’s about six pints, or 3.4 liters.

Imagine getting a squirt gun and trying to put out a burning building, and that gives you a pretty good idea why they weren’t able to slow down the fire.

In the series, we do see James telling King Charles they’ve finally gotten the better of the fire. And, that is true.

I know at the end of the last minisode, we weren’t sure if the fire would burn down the entire city, but it did not. That’s because the same winds that helped spread the fire started to die down. That, coupled with James, Duke of York’s fire brigades tearing down buildings in the fire’s path finally managed to get the fire under control exactly 358 years ago today.

As a little side note, while it might seem odd to tear down buildings, even with better fire safety standards today, that’s actually a common firefighting tactic. They’re called firebreaks and more commonly today you’ll find natural firebreaks like rivers or sandy areas where there’s no vegetation to burn, things like that. Firefighters today will mimic that sort of thing by clearing out trees or anything else the fires might use to spread as a way of slowing it down. In a dense urban city, that can mean demolishing buildings just like they did back in 1666.

The last thing to point out is that sometimes you’ll find the date of September 6^th as the end of the fire, but the TV series we watched today mentions September 5th—just like I did in this minisode, too. The reason for that is simply because fires aren’t light switches. You don’t just turn them off. So, September 5^th is when they got the fire under control. But, on September 6^th, they did go around and put out the remaining fires that were still burning around the city.

And then, of course, just like we see in the series, began the long process of rebuilding that which was lost.