Top 5 Best Performances as The Count

On this day; all Hallows' Eve; I bring you my Top 5 picks of the best performances of the famous man in the black cloak from Transylvania.

Who can forget this 1980's character who was as famous as Tony the Tiger, unfortunately the cereal taste like soggy sofa cushion stuffings.

Count Chocula

Hands down the best performance and creepiest rendition.

Max Shreck-Nosferatu 1922

I put this selection ahead of Oldman's not because it was the most athentic portrayal of Stoker's character, but because it gave birth to a ledgend that will be never forgotten.

Bela Lugosi 1931

Lugosis' Dracula was the modern adaptation with the cloak and the campy movements and dialogue, Oldman brought the character back to its dark Victorian roots and provided the purest rendition.

Gary Oldman 1992

Christopher Lee was the genesis for Oldmans' count. Portraying the count as the romantic rather than the monster.

Christopher Lee 1958

And as a bonus, who could forget this classic pop culture icon, "The Count" from "Sesame Street" Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!

Count from Sesame Street.

Have a happy Halloween, me I'm off to the plant for another afternoon shift.

Later,
Kenaz

My Top 30 Best Horror Films

When I sat down to put this list together I thought long and hard to define the criteria for this list. Although its called the best 'horror' films, I didn't want a list full of today's slasher, shock movies the likes of 'Saw'. This type of film has no appeal to me. I decided to include any film that created an emotional stimuli that caused feelings of not only shock(that wow! Jolt feeling as Candyman comes through the medicine cabinet) but a more deep emotional impact. Like the feeling of repulse when the Frankenstein monster through the girl into the water or the adrenaline rush you got as you tried to anticipated the next move of the killer in Se7en. I've even included a movie like the Raven, which can be considered a farce rightfully so, but because it includes so many performances by masters of the macabre it had to be considered. I hope you enjoy my list. I know for each selection I made I've left another off that is as probably as worthy depending on a particular taste. Enjoy.

1.THE EXORCIST(1973)-Those who had a definitive belief in Heaven and Hell, of Good and Evil, of Jesus as The Savior and Satan as the epitome of pure evil were affected by The Exorcist far more than those who were agnostic or just never had a strong belief in spiritual matters.The Exorcist caused many to reconsider how they felt about their faith. The Exorcist made the prospect of Satan being alive and well and a life of eternal damnation a very uncomfortable prospect. The fact that the author claims his book and screenplay were based on a true story seemed to give the film even more credibility.

2.THE SHINING(1980)-The Shining is, without doubt, one of Stanley Kubrick's undisputed masterpieces and a true classic in horror cinema. It is a film that, over the course of the years, has managed to scare the living hell out of its audiences.

3.THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS(1991)-Foster's performance is absolutely brilliant. While Anthony Hopkins receives most of the (well-deserved) praise for his chilling portrayal of incarcerated serial killer `Hannibal ‘the Cannibal' Lector', it is Foster's performance that holds the movie together. The fear she shows just behind her eyes makes Clarice's outward courage all the more interesting and vulnerable.

4.TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE(1974)-Chain Saw isn't about storyline and plot; it's about creating an experience, a sensory overload. There are scenes and images that are raw and powerful and ultimately, against all expectations, beautiful. Leatherface's travesty of motherly domesticity as he prepares dinner, his child-like dance in the dawn light, the open door at the gas station, the van making it's slow turn off the road towards the derelict and ivy clad Hardesty residence are all images that burn themselves into your consciousness after just a single viewing.

5.AMITTYVILLE HORROR(1979)-The real 'star' of the movie is the house! The building is both attractive and sinister - truly gothic in the importance of the setting.

6.ROSEMARY'S BABY(1968)-"Rosemary's baby" is a perfect film to me. Scary in a way that makes you breathless. You're thinking and feeling throughout the film. One of the many sides of Polanski's genius is to suggest. And what he suggest is so monstrous that we don't want to believe it, hell on earth, but we do. The characters are so perfectly drawn that there is no cheating involved.

7.SE7EN(1995)-According to Se7en, our culture is drifting through darkness. The prophecy comes from Somerset, a literate man who also happens to be a detective, a man who can read a clue ("This isn't going to be a happy ending") or Dante's Inferno with equal understated bravado. He even provides the film's final thematic statement with a quote from Hemingway.

8.THE OMEN(1976)-The premise behind THE OMEN is frightening: the Antichrist is unwittingly adopted into an American political family. The movie is a loose interpretation of the book of Revelations, the implication being the cinematic depiction of the end of the world.

9.THE SIXTH SENSE(1999)-All your worst childhood nightmares: the noises in the attic, the intruder in your house, that cold breath that makes your hair stand on end are here and then some.

10.THE EXCORCISM OF EMILLY ROSE(2005)-The movie offers a plethora of food for thought, regarding existentialist issues of perception vs. Objective truth, and social issues of liability and responsibility.

11.POLTERGEIST(1982)-Poltergeist, the story of suburban California family that discovers the darker side of the American Dream when their youngest daughter, Carol Ann, makes contact with evil spirits through the family television set. "They're here", never fails to send chills down my spine.

12.WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE(1962)-The story itself is about two elderly sisters. One, Baby Jane, (played by Bette Davis) was a child star in the early part of the century. She was hugely popular on the vaudeville circuit. Backstage she was a spoiled brat. Later on in life the other sister, Blanche (played by Joan Crawford) became a popular Hollywood movie star, overshadowing her now 'has-been' sister. A supposed car accident leaves Blanche crippled during the height of her popularity and a crazed Jane is left to care for her.

13.PSYCHO(1960)-Most modern-day horror films make the killer to be an absolutely inhuman, grotesque, unimaginable monster in order to scare the audience out of its wits. Most of the time, however, these stereotypes create a generic murderer a raving, ranting, clearly demented psychopath. Instead Anthony Perkins' skillfully crafts his performance as Norman Bates, a subtle, creepy, cool, and unsettling assault on your psyche.

14.THE HOUSE OF USHER(1960)-Roger Corman's brilliant adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's chilling tale is one of the greatest achievements in cinematic horror. It's hard to pick one of Corman's Poe adaptations as the best, but this, the first, might be it.Vincent Price turns in one of his finest performances.

15.VIDEODROME(1983)-Videodrome is film that manages to repulse and intrigue simultaneously. It is horrific and contains numerous science-fiction motifs, but, unlike the horror and special effects driven pictures of today, Videodrome, has a philosophy. Videodrome is not about mind-controlling cable shows; it is about our un-healthy consumption of visual media.

16.WHEN A STRANGER CALLS(1979)-Carol Kane plays Jill, a babysitter who receives ominous phone calls all night long from psycho (Tony Beckley) who repeatedly asks her if she has 'checked the children'. This goes on until the cops are finally called to the scene - just 21 straight minutes of well-crafted suspense.

17.CARRIE(1976)-Based on Stephen King's first full-length published novel, also the breakthrough film for director Brian DePalma. Sissy Spacek makes a lasting impact as Carrie White, an awkward and ostracized teenager whose classmates can't stand her merely because she's shy and "different". She is finally pushed over the edge at the climactic school prom, unleashing her telekinetic abilities in revenge.

18.HALLOWEEN(1978)-Brutal, emotionless Michael Myers stabs his sister to death at age six on Halloween night in 1963; on October 30, 1978, he escapes from a mental institution and institutes a new reign of terror in his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois. He is pursued the whole time by a psychiatrist (Donald Pleasence) who knows just how evil this young man is. It opens with a bang, and sets up a genuinely suspenseful and atmospheric chiller that is actually superior to the many slasher pictures it helped to inspire.

19.THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL(1959)-The legendary Vincent Price is in his element here as the cynical millionaire trapped in a loveless sham of a marriage, and Carol Ohmart, is a knockout as his tough as nails "better half". Haunted party guests round out the cast.

20.CANDYMAN(1992)-A strong contender for the title of best horror film of the 1990's, Bernard Rose's "Candyman" is a very faithful (and therefore truly scary) adaptation of Clive Barker's skin crawling short story. This film features a very rare and successful combination of both creepy atmosphere and visual ingeniousness. Whereas most movies (especially during the 90's) can hardly focus on any of these essential horror elements, Bernard Rose masterfully succeeds in stuffing his film with genuine tension as well as shocking gore-images.

21.NIGHTMARE ON ELMSTREET(1984)-John Carpenter defined the horror genre in the late 70's, early 80's, Wes Craven re-defined it with A Nightmare On Elm St and Freddy Krueger, the definition of a bastard son. Up until this point, horror was very predictable, most films adhered to the 'rules' of horror' (the 'virgin' survives, if you have sex, you die, if you drink or get high, you die and never say, "I'll be right back" cause u won't). In 1984, this little film came out about a murderer who killed you in your dreams.

22.WAIT UNTIL DARK(1967)-One of the best Hitchcock film that Hitchcock never made. Most of the film is shot within this basement apartment unit. And the thriller is so great because of Hepburn being blind and these three bad guys freely walking into her unit and introducing themselves as her husband's friends, or police, or some neighbour. But they all forget one thing: She uses her ears like no regular person does, she doesn't need eyes. But that is where the thriller kicks in.

23.CAPE FEAR(1991)-A fabulous remake of the 1962 noir classic and it keeps the viewer on the edge right through until the closing credits. Robert De Niro (in yet another brilliant teaming with Scorcese behind the camera) plays Max Cady, a psychopathic rapist who was sent to jail 14 years earlier for such crimes. He leaves prison with vengeance. Not for his victims or his prosecutor, but his defence councillor, Sam J. Bowden, played by Nick Nolte. It seems Bowden did not defend Cady to the best of his ability. Cady knows this and wants some payback.

24.DELIVERENCE(1972)-A bit of odd choice for a horror list but this film is worthy because the film's theme. Nature, in the wild, can be violent. How appropriate that the setting should be the American South. Very few places in the U.S. are, or have been, as violent as redneck country. In a story about Darwinian survival of the fittest, the film conveys the idea that humans are part of nature, not separate from it. use local people, not actors, to portray secondary characters. The locals provide the film with a depth of characterization unequaled in film history. In thus creating the best bunch of villains other films could only wish to create.

25.THE BIRDS(1963)-The movie is still pretty terrifying, even if you've seen it again and again. You know what bad, brutal scenes are coming and don't want to see the carnage again, but can't help yourself. It's ominous as the crows flock tighter and tighter, always more and more, attacking the kids on the schoolyard Monkey-Bars.

26.THE RAVEN(1963)-Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff are a total treat to watch in this tale loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's poem.

27.James Whales FRANKENSTEIN(1931)-The best presentation of the classic story by Mary Shelley. The film was presented in such a way that makes you feel as though you are watching a stage play rather than a film.A creature is given the complicated thing called life.His large,overpowering human form,coupled with the limited capacity to grow,and learn,turn out to be very deadly indeed.He is,basically,a very large baby,who does not understand the world around him.He wreaks havoc on those who he feels are out to hurt him.I have seen the completed version of this film,complete with the disturbing sequence involving the little girl with the flowers,which was cut out of the film for many years.It is indeed shocking,and once you see it,you will understand why this was done.

28.NOSFERATU(1922)-The count is a perfect distillation of evil, that of a vain, narcissistic, absurdly self-confident to the point of machismo, married man largely indifferent to a wife he abruptly leaves to make the fortune worthy of a man of his merits. He ain't afraid of no ghosts, nor robbers. So, the image he sees in that mirror is one of wholeness, perfection - I am Hutter, I command all I see, my unity of identity is linked to my power in body. To the viewer, however, the effect is the precise opposite. The framing of the scene is fragmented, with the outer frame, the window and the mirror; Hutter himself is doubled - the 'real' Hutter and his reflection, or shadow. All the assumptions smilingly embodied in Hutter will thus be destroyed in conventional horror terms.

29.BRAM STOKERS DRACULA(1992)-This film is a very rich gothic telling of a story that has become watered down greatly with the many different versions of stories with the characters. Here the basic plot follows the tale from the creation of Dracula, his love and his confrontation with Van Helsing and the various suitors of the lovely Lucy. The story is told with a real respect for the source.

30.THE WOLFMAN(1941)-The key to a good monster movie is its atmosphere and interesting characters and the Wolfman delivers on both accounts. The story revolves around Larry Talbot who returns to his hometown after having been away for many years. He takes a liking for this girl who works in an antique shop, and while they go out for a walk in the night, he is attacked and bitten by a werewolf. Lon Chaney's performance is excellent as a tortured man, and through no fault of his own is turned into a killing murdering monster.

Later,
Kenaz

Ma and Pa Kettle

"Excerpt from Back on the Farm (1951) Ma and Pa Kettle teach their own brand of math."
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I remember watching these films as a kid on the weekends with my mom and dad. "Ma and Pa" along with "Laurel and Hardy" where classic examples of the naive fool that makes the "situation comedy" so appealing. These golden classics paved the way for future characters the likes of "Jack Tripper" of "Threes Company" and "Joey" of Friends.

Ma and Pa Kettle were the featured characters in a series of popular light comedic movies in the 1940s and 1950s. The movies revolved around the absurd misadventures of the Kettle clan, a large but loving family of country hicks.

Pa (Percy Kilbride) was a gentle but slow-speaking, slow-thinking and lazy man. His only talents appeared to be avoiding work and winning contests. Ma (Marjorie Main) was larger, raucous, more ambitious and smarter than Pa, but not by much, and could easily be fooled. She was content with her role as mother to a small army of children on the Kettle's ramshackle farm. (Later in the series the Kettles moved into a modern home that Pa won.)

Much of the humor came from the preposterous situations the Kettles found themselves in, such as Pa being mistaken for a wealthy industrialist or being jailed after he accidentally set a series of events in motion that resulted in race horses at the fair eating feed laced with concrete.

The Kettles first appeared in supporting roles in The Egg and I, starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert. After that they starred in a series of their own movies. Main was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1948 for her role in The Egg and I.

Kilbride retired after making the "Waikiki" movie; the Pa Kettle character did not appear in The Kettles in the Ozarks. In The Kettles on Old MacDonald's Farm, the last Kettle movie, Parker Fennelly played Pa Kettle.

The eight Kettle films starting Kilbride and Main are The Egg and I - 1947,Ma and Pa Kettle - 1949, Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town - 1950, Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm - 1951, Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair - 1952, Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation - 1953, Ma and Pa Kettle at Home - 1954, Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki - 1955, The Kettles in the Ozarks - 1956 and The Kettles on Old MacDonald's Farm - 1957
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Percy Kilbride (July 16, 1888 - December 11, 1964), born in San Francisco, California, was a popular character actor. Despite being raised in a big city, he made a career of playing country hicks, most memorably as lazy Pa Kettle in the Ma and Pa Kettle movie series.

Kilbride began working in theater at the age of 12 and eventually became an actor on Broadway. Ironically in light of his most familiar roles, he first played an 18th-century French dandy in A Tale of Two Cities.

His film debut was as Jakey in White Woman in 1933. He left Broadway for good in 1942.

In 1947 he and Marjorie Main played the supporting parts of Ma and Pa Kettle in The Egg and I, starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert. Those were followed by the popular Ma and Pa Kettle series with Kilbride and Main playing the main characters, during which time he also played in other movies.

Kilbride retired after making the 1955 film Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki He did, however, take a small role in Son of Flubber in 1963.

He died in Los Angeles, California, after having been struck by a car while walking near his home with a friend.
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Marjorie Main was born in Acton, Indiana as Mary Tomlinson. She attended Franklin College, in Franklin, Indiana and adopted a stage name to avoid embarrassing her father, who was a minister. She worked in vaudeville on the Chautauqua and Orpheum circuits, and debuted on Broadway in 1916. Her first film was A House Divided in 1931.

Marjorie Main began playing upper class dowagers, but was ultimately typecast in abrasive, domineering, salty roles: her distinct voice was like chalk upon a blackboard. She repeated her stage role in Dead End in the movie version of 1937, and was subsequently cast repeatedly as the mother of gangsters. She again transferred a strong stage performance, as a dude ranch operator in The Women, to film in 1939. She made six comedies with Wallace Beery in the 1940s.

She played Ma Kettle in The Egg and I in 1947 opposite Percy Kilbride as Pa Kettle. She was nominated for an Academy Award for the role, and repeated it in nine more films.

Later,
Kenaz

Banned Cartoons

Here is a collection of vintage cartoons that have been banned from mainstream broadcast and distribution. This collection is for historical and educational/ archival purposes and to preserve some of the lost art of great animators and musical performers in entertainment history and in no way meant to offend. Censorship is the wrong way to go. These works of art need to be shown and explained to every new generation in an effort to stop the growing tide of racism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1nGFid_Yw4&search=banned%20cartoonsA Banned World War Two Cartoon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdoLNjcslRo&search=banned%20cartoonsThe 1937 Friz Freleng Banned Cartoon that borrows from the 1937 film "The Green Pastures".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdN3FFx4mZI&search=banned%20cartoonsPorky Pig Swears

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMWsLOLcFuU&search=banned%20cartoonsUNCLE TOM'S BUNGALOW (1937)-An early Tex Avery parody of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Banned, 1937

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdsyZDEHzWE&search=banned%20cartoonsTHE ISLE OF PINGO PONGO (1938)-Tex Avery's first travelogue parody. Banned, 1938.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vs8dFyTm2c&search=banned%20cartoonsCONFEDERATE HONEY (1940)-Banned 1940 Civil War Cartoon by Friz Freleng.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziAyY_SQSOw&search=banned%20cartoonsFRESH HARE (1942)-Popular 1942 cartoon by Friz Freleng with banned, uncensored ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaAPXfsRVPQ&search=banned%20cartoonsRUSSIAN RHAPSODY (1944)-WWII cartoon by Bob Clampett. Banned, 1944.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z9Rg_cnhZQ&search=banned%20cartoonsSEEIN' RED, WHITE 'N' BLUE (1943)-WWII Popeye cartoon by Dan Gordon. Banned, 1943.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5CgqLhEsOs&search=banned%20cartoonsYOU'RE A SAP, MR. JAP (1942)-WWII Popeye cartoon by Dan Gordon. Banned, 1942.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur6KYq48gJ8&search=banned%20cartoonsTHE DUCKTATORS (1942)-WWII cartoon by Norm McCabe. Banned, 1942.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ51DYzaS-Q&search=banned%20cartoonsWHICH IS WITCH? (1949)-Banned 1949 cartoon by Friz Freleng.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCyCOLuTiZA&search=banned%20cartoonsTHE SPIRIT OF '43 (1943)-WWII Propaganda cartoon by Jack King. Banned, 1943.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZuZwDfLYWI&search=banned%20cartoons
INKI AND THE MINAH BIRD (1943)- Extremely rare Chuck Jones cartoon featuring the character "Inki". Banned, 1943.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6NlIf57ZFM&search=banned%20cartoonsCAVEMAN INKI (1950)-Rare Chuck Jones cartoon featuring the character "Inki". Banned, 1950.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-qWHyBYAM0&search=banned%20cartoonsINKI AT THE CIRCUS (1947)-Rare Chuck Jones cartoon featuring the character "Inki". Banned, 1947.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEzM1lMzbOY&search=banned%20cartoonsAll This & Rabbit Stew banned 1941 cartoon-1941 cartoon that has been pulled out of circulation due to racism(not intended here)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twfl2X_7xq4&search=banned%20cartoons
AMOS & ANDY: THE LION TAMER (1934)-Amos and Andy's "The Lion Tamer" cartoon short.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIxHfwhckcs&search=banned%20cartoonsBanned Cartoon-Betty Boop-Classic Betty Boop cartoon that was banned from TV due to racist assumptions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLUwLF301GA&search=banned%20cartoons
1943 Banned Cartoon Bugs Bunny "Nips the Nips"-Banned for violence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x68WFyG0av4&search=banned%20cartoonsBanned Disney Cartoon - Donald Duck - "Der Fuehrer's Face"-A once banned Disney cartoon featuring many things about Nazis and Hitler... and Donald Duck...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeYsT4GT8q0&search=banned%20cartoonsFlintstones Cartoon Winston cigarettes add-
Flintstones Cartoon Winston cigarettes add Banned from TV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grgwyj7rL4Q&search=banned%20cartoons
Banned Cartoon -Tex Avery - Droopy's Good Deed - Uncensored-This is the rare uncensored version of Tex Avery's 1951 Cartoon "Droopy's Good Deed". The cartoon iself is aired often and has been included in several anthologies, but always with two black face gags cut, even in the so-called complete laserdisc collection (btw the cut scenes occur approx 3:30 and 5:15 into the cartoon)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ty7-i0uyN0&search=banned%20cartoons
Banned Cartoons - Betty Boop - Snow White-banned because in this and in "Minnie the Moocher" Cab Calloway appears as a ghost. A "Spook" was a derogatory term for a black person.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUEwF7DuonA&search=banned%20cartoons
Banned Cartoons - Disney - The Vanishing Private- This cartoon mocks the american army of that time, makes them look like the buffoons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdyPzUUJYDo&search=banned%20cartoonsPopeye - Spinach Fer Britain-have no idea for the ban

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJ9eQkwT9M&search=banned%20cartoons
GOLDILOCKS AND THE JIVIN' BEARS (1944)-Banned 1944 Cartoon by Friz Freleng featuring a jazzy parody of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrcobcsly1M&search=banned%20cartoonsBanned Cartoons - Felix The Cat - Felix Saves The Day-Felix does his best to get a white minor league player out of jail, so that he can beat the Tarheels. A team composed entirely of black face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqPTaoZnkNE&search=banned%20cartoons
Banned Cartoons - Betty Boop - Minnie The Moocher-This was banned for slight Italian Sterotypes, and it probably scared the hell out of kids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS0kfydmDxI&search=banned%20cartoons"Tokio Jokio"-Racist towards the Japanese during WWII.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oNKMKU0vL0&search=banned%20cartoons
Banned Cartoons - Looney Tunes - Fresh Hare-Bugs Bunny "Wanted Dead or Alive" posters are up everywhere in the forest. Bugs, being his usual humourous self, vandalizes these posters. On one of them, he draws himself as Hitler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFUQ7AgvgJU&search=banned%20cartoons
Donald Duck-Commando Duck-
This cartoon it portrays Donald going into Japan on the plane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhTfCz255U8&search=banned%20cartoons
HITTIN' THE TRAIL FOR HALLELUJAH LAND (1931)-Banned 1931 early Merrie Melodies cartoon by Harman and Ising.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF6rRxwt8sQ&search=banned%20cartoons
Banned Cartoons - Castle Films - Little Black Sambo-Black stereotypes, via blackface

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_ZknzziPfY&search=banned%20cartoonsJUNGLE JITTERS (1938)-Banned 1938 Cartoon by Friz Freleng.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlZBxGx1unc&search=banned%20cartoons
COAL BLACK AND DE SEBBEN DWARFS (1943)-Banned 1943 Cartoon by Bob Clampett featuring a jazzy parody of "Snow White".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-bhWVozgjI&search=banned%20cartoonsBanned Cartoons - Looney Tunes - A Coy Decoy-Daffy Duck is the Ugly Duckling, who takes adventures through other books. In one of these a blackface stereotypical black mother is ridden like a horse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyWozg9bESg&search=banned%20cartoons
SUNDAY GO TO MEETIN' TIME (1936)-Banned 1936 Cartoon by Friz Freleng.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucvRsq5lTGU&search=banned%20cartoonsFRAIDY CAT (1942)-Fairly common cartoon by Joseph Barbera and William Hanna with the original voice track of "Mammy Two-Shoes" by Lillian Randolph. Her audiotrack was re-recorded years later to be more politically correct.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkJmU2MA4dE&search=banned%20cartoonsEDUCATION FOR DEATH (1943)-1943 WWII Propaganda cartoon by Clyde Geronimi (who also directed Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyW5NnP_hAE&search=banned%20cartoonsAMOS & ANDY: THE RASSLING MATCH (1934)-Amos and Andy's "The Rasslin' Match" cartoon short.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxzlZdQ3xTA&search=banned%20cartoonsMISSISSIPPI HARE (1949)-Uncut 1949 cartoon (including banned scenes) by Chuck Jones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WV8TmxcjNY&search=banned%20cartoonsTIN PAN ALLEY CATS (1943)-Banned 1943 Cartoon by Bob Clampett featuring a caricature of Fats Waller as a cat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcEHd0nGNuo&search=banned%20cartoons1942 cartoon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jbA437FHFU&search=banned%20cartoonsEducation for Death- Hitlers Children-Walt Disney cartoon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5XvjW8Hm5Y&mode=related&search=banned%20cartoonsDer Führer's Face-A cartoon made by Disney about Nazism in Germany during World War II, it was banned because of it's contraversial content.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaJv3JPklG4&mode=related&search=banned%20cartoonsSOUTHERN FRIED RABBIT (1953)-Popular 1953 cartoon by Friz Freleng with banned, uncensored scene of Bugs in blackface.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_md-UGLwuYAPRIVATE SNAFU: GAS (1944)-1944 WWII cartoon by Chuck Jones.

Later,
Kenaz

Escape From Sobibor (1987)

Directed by Jack Gold

starring
Alan Arkin
Joanna Pacula
Rutger Hauer
Hartmut Becker
Jack Shepherd

There are those rare occasions in which real world events dictate the way its dramatic version needs to be made, no dressing-up. No melodrama, no adornment. You simply re-enact and point the camera. The burden of suspension of disbelief is no longer on the filmmaker, because these things happened. He simply tells the story, and plain simplicity is adequate, because the onus is now on the viewer to find a way to take what occurs on screen. If the Nazis had not existed, they would be completely unbelievable as fictitious villains; they were and are far beyond what any storyteller would craft from the whole cloth and ask his audience to accept.

Escape from Sobibor is a movie which portrays, in some small part, events whose monstrous enormity render all the words said about it trivial, but I will try to do this gem justice.

This movie concerns the Polishbased Nazi death camp of Sobibor, which was, on October 14, 1943, the site of the only successful camp revolt during World War 2. This information is given to us helpfully by narrator Howard K. Smith, who was a foreign correspondent during the war.

The camp at Sobibor is already well populated by the time our story opens, composed entirely of Jewish men and women whose trades have made them marginally valuable to their SS overseers. Leon (Alan Arkin) has somehow become a nominal leader, a man to whom almost every prisoner defers, though when a trio on gardening duty tell him their plan to escape today, Leon is powerless to stop them. He can only listen from afar to the gunshots as the three men make it past the barbed wire, and the explosions as they try to cross the minefield.

Working their trades for the Nazis is onerous enough, but the men of Sobibor have an even worse duty. They stand at the edge of the railroad and help the new arrivals off the train while Strauss plays gaily over the loudspeakers, remaining silent and downcast as men are separated from the women and children; as those with a useful skill such as seamstresses, shoemakers, tailors, and, in this case, goldsmiths, are called out; as those without any ability that the Nazis wish to exploit are calmly told that their stay in Sobibor will begin with a hot shower; as the lines of men and women march unsuspectingly to the showers which lead only to gas chambers and incinerators.

This latest trainload yields three seamstresses, Luka (Joanna Pacula), Bajle (Judith Sharp), and Naomi (Sara Sugarman); one shoemaker, Itzhak (Jack Shepherd), who anxiously waves goodbye to his wife and child as they are herded to the showers, and Schlomo (Simon Gregor) and hs younger brother Moses (Eli Nathenson), goldsmiths who bid their father and mother farewell in the same way.

Itzak finds out the truth that night, after learning his job duties, when he starts asking around for his family; Leon and his friend Samuel (Emil Wolk) tell him where the showers really lead. Schlomo and Moses have it even harder; Moses is ordered to pick up a gold coin from an SS officer who wants it worked into his whip handle, and in so doing enters the courtyard in which the newcomers are shepherded from the building in which they lose their possessions and come out naked, to the building from which they come out stacked carelessly on a cart.

The new women have no such attachments and no such revelation; but Naomi has managed to smuggle her baby into the sewing shed, and it isn't long before their SS overseer finds out. He is first in a generous mood, and intends to spare the woman's life as he takes the baby off to the showers; but when Naomi spits full in her face, he simply shoots first the mother and then the baby in the head, in the midst of the other seamstresses.

Leon has long entertained plans of escape, for maybe ten or twenty of the 600 prisoners. But the extent to which that plan would be disastrous is shown the following day, when two men bringing water for those on woodcutting detail manage to overpower their overseer and escape. The thirteen other woodcutters try to follow suit, but are caught by the barbed wire, and brought back to the camp center as an object lesson. There, they are sentenced to die. But not just them. Each of them is forced to choose another prisoner as their "partner in death," or else the officers will simply shoot 50 Jews at random.

Realizing that a similar toll will be exacted if he and his group escaped, Leon backs away from such small-scale plans. The only escape plan he will now support is one that frees all of the prisoners of Sobibor. All six hundred of them.

As they're beating their brains to come up with a plan that can get six hundred people past sixteen SS officers and 125 Ukrainian guards, the dynamic of the camp changes suddenly. A group of Russian solders is tossed into the camp, separated from their comrades-in-arms destined for a real P.O.W. camp because they're Jewish. Their leader is Lt. Sasha Pechersky, as played by Rutger Hauer-surprisingly good here, considering he hasn't a jewish bone in his body.

But he clicks immediately with Leon; Sasha will provide the tactical forethought and the muscle of his trained men, and Leon will provide the will and the drive among the prisoners. And the plan they eventually come up with is an audacious one: To have any chance of escape, they will have to quietly kill all sixteen SS officers within the space of one hour.

Schlomo and Bajle decide to gather them rosebuds while they may; Itzhak finds solace of a sort with a similarly-widowed prisoner. The most obviously cut subplot involves Sasha and Luka; to placate the guards' suspicion as to why Sasha hangs out around the Polish Jews' quarters every evening while planning, Leon assigns Luka to act as his "girlfriend." She takes to the role with great sincerity, and because Sasha is also playing along, he doesn't realize that Luka comes to inhabit her role more fully than he. It comes as a shock and a blow to her when she finds out that he's only been going through the motions with her, that he has a wife and child back home in Russia to whom he is very devoted.

I don't think it's any great spoiler to tell you how the escape turns out; thanks to the necessary logistical complexity of silently killing sixteen men in an hour, things go awry, and it's every man/woman for him/herself as they break down the gates and dash across the minefield, sporadically returning fire toward the disorganized Ukrainian guards. Of the 600 prisoners, the historical record shows that almost half died in the attempt.* But that means that more than 300 made it to the woods, to safety, leaving the soldiers behind them without leadership and with severed telephone lines. Leon's last charge to them before their mad dash is a familiar one: to "bear witness," to let the world know what had happened there.

Note* All in all, only approximately 50 Jewish prisoners who escaped Sobibor on 14 October 1943, survived the war. Following the revolt, the Nazis closed the extermination camp. Between spring 1942 and fall 1943, 250,000 Jews were murdered in Sobibor.

Click on the title link to read a transcript of an interview with Thomas (Toivi) Blatt is a Holocaust Survivor, Sobibor Camp Escapee, and Author of Sobibor: The Forgotten Revolt and From the Ashes of Sobibor.

Later,
Kenaz

John Wayne

Born Marion Morrison, the son of pharmacist Clyde Morrison and his wife Mary. John Wayne is arguably the greatest motion picture star of all time.

Katherine Hepburn once remarked about the legend, "As an actor he has an extraordinary gift. A unique naturalness. A very subtle capacity to think and express and caress the camera - the audience. A secret between them." Legendary producer Hal Wallis was more concise, "No film actor had greater integrity or stature. He represented the American folk hero at his best."

Stagecoach - 1939
Wyoming Outlaw - 1939
Conflict - 1936
The Dawn Rider - 1935
Westard Ho - 1935
Randy Rides Alone - 1934
Man From Monterey - 1933
Men Are Like That - 1931
The Big Trail - 1930

After making some 130 films, John Wayne graduated from B-movie actor to A-list action star with the release of Stagecoach in 1939, directed by the legendary John Ford. Over the next decade he went on to star in hits like Seven Sinners, Flying Tigers, Back to Bataan, They Were Expendable, Dakota, Fort Apache, Red River and Sands of Iwo Jima.

Sands of Iwo Jima - 1949
Wake of the Red Witch - 1949
3 Godfathers - 1949
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon - 1949
Red River - 1948
Fort Apache - 1948
Angel and the Badman - 1947
Dakota - 1945
They Were Expendable - 1945
Tall in the Saddle - 1944
The Spoilers - 1942
Lady for a Night - 1942
Shepherd of the Hills - 1941
The Long Voyage Home - 1940

John Wayne was the biggest box-office attraction in 1950, 1951 and the third most popular star of 1952. And no wonder, those three years brought Hondo, Flying Leathernecks, Operation Pacific, Rio Grande and other triumphs to the big screen.

By the mid-fifties, the number of actors under contract to the major studios fell by two thirds but Wayne was wisely co-producing his own films for Republic Pictures since 1946. To maximize his independence after the triumphant release of The Quiet Man (also directed by John Ford), Wayne left Republic in 1952 to start his own production company, Batjac.

Rio Bravo - 1959
The Horse Soldiers - 1959
Barbarian And The Geisha - 1958
The Wings of Eagles - 1957
The Searchers - 1956
The Conqueror - 1956
The High and the Mighty - 1954
Island In The Sky - 1953
Hondo - 1953
Trouble Along The Way - 1953
The Quiet Man - 1952
Flying Leathernecks - 1951
Operation Pacific - 1951
Rio Grande - 1950

At the same time, he was wrestling with a messy divorce trial attracting headlines across the nation. Chata Wayne, an earthy Latin drunkard, did everything she could to destroy her husband publicly, hurling unfounded allegations that he manhandled and beat her during drunken rages.

Duke denied it, emphatically saying, "In fact, I was woman-handled. On many occasions I had to protect myself from her temper."

Chata charged her husband with punching her in the nose and other acts of physical cruelty, accusing him of "clobbering" her in exotic locales all over the world. Wayne denied everything until the judge grew so sick of hearing their salacious accusations that he forced the couple's lawyers to come to terms with no further trial.

"Our marriage was like shaking two volatile chemicals in a jar," John Wayne admitted to the public.

Chata Wayne obtained her divorce and her big money settlement. She fled the country, only to be discovered dead a year later, broke and alone in a Mexico City hotel room, "surrounded by empty liquor bottles." Duke married his third and last wife actress Pilar Palette in 1954.

TELEVISION

Outside of minor cameos on shows like This Is Your Life in 1952 and Climax! in 1954, John Wayne avoided making many television appearances during the early-fifties; he had a film career with a remarkably consistent audience base and didn't see the need for small screen exposure. At least not at first.

Besides, John Wayne was already a major TV star by default. Local stations, desperate for any content to fill their days and nights, began running his 1930s and 1940s westerns because the major movie studios wouldn't license their product to TV. Republic, on the other hand, was eager to do so.

In 1953, John Wayne waded into the television pool with his first major guest role on The Milton Berle Show. It was not a happy experience. "The idea was that I keep sayin' 'I am not going to be one of these movie stars that goes on television just to get publicity for his latest movie,'" Wayne told TV Guide, "and then have this big electric sign on my back and every time I turn around I press the button in my pants and it flashes HONDO."

It got the desired laughs, but Wayne was left feeling foolish - because of that experience, he reasoned he "didn't belong in television." That didn't stop the networks from approaching Duke with series and anthology proposals. He turned them all down.

Wayne briefly considered starring in a western series for the fall of 1955 - playing Marshall Dillon on CBS's Gunsmoke. The network offered him a sweetheart deal with a two million dollar guarantee.

While it's true this radio to TV transplant would have been a sure thing for both parties, he opted instead to recommend one of his co-stars for the role - James Arness. To help launch the series, John Wayne filmed an introduction for the first episode.

Gunsmoke initiated a wave of 'adult' westerns on television and ran for twenty years in primetime. It's fortunate for moviegoers that he passed on the role, think of all the great films (like The Searchers in 1956) that wouldn't have been made had Wayne taken that role.

MAKING PEACE WITH TELEVISON

Recognizing the potential TV had to reach into middle America - and therefore boost his box office - Duke chose to kick off the 1955-56 season of I Love Lucy (his favorite TV show). In that famous two-part episode, Lucy steals John Wayne's footprints from the sidewalk in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater - giving Wayne a chance to plug his latest motion picture, Blood Alley, on the nation's top-rated program.

Next up on TV was a dramatic role on Screen Director's Playhouse airing December 7, 1955, directed and introduced by his mentor John Ford (who helmed many of Wayne's best films). The teleplay, entitled Rookie of the Year, was shot at the Hal Roach Studios with Duke as reporter Mike Cronin; the program also featured Ward Bond and son Patrick Wayne as a young baseball player.

Apart from reruns of his old movies, John Wayne appeared on the tube in commercials for Camel cigarettes in the mid-fifties, speaking highly of the product: "Mild and good tasting pack after pack. And I know, I've been smokin' 'em for twenty years."

Truth in advertising - at that time Wayne was a five pack-a-day smoker of unfiltered Camels and had been for over thirty years. He also advertised Gillete razors on screen with his son Patrick.

Duke was a presenter on the 30th and 31st Academy Award telecasts in 1958 and 1959 but by this point, his box office drawing power was in serious decline after years on top. With the exception of the brilliant Rio Bravo, it looked like John Wayne might be on his way out to pasture as the sixties unfolded.

John Wayne produced, directed and starred in the 1960 film that he intended to be his epic masterpiece - The Alamo.

Nearly a decade in the making, over budget and plagued with myriad production delays, Duke broke Hollywood rule number one and put up his own money - and every dollar he could borrow - to make the film. "I have everything I own in this picture - except my necktie."

His reasons for making The Alamo were heartfelt and patriotic, "This picture is America. I hope that seeing the battle of the Alamo will remind Americans that liberty and freedom don't come cheap. This picture, well, I guess making it has made me feel useful to my country."

This was similar to what Mel Gibson risked to make The Passion of the Christ in 2004.

This activity coincided with the discovery that the star had been ill advised (if not blatantly ripped off) by his financial advisor. John Wayne was very nearly broke.

"I suddenly found out after 25 years I was starting out all over again," Wayne confessed to The Saturday Evening Post. "I would just about break even if I sold everything right now."

The Alamo was the biggest budgeted movie of the day. The New York Times wrote, "Few Hollywood films, even the great biblical spectacles, have had such extensive preparation for production."

In an all-out effort to promote the film, John Wayne stepped up his TV appearances. In 1960, Wayne was seen in a TV documentary (The Spirit of the Alamo), poked fun at his rock solid image on The Jack Benny Show, and presented the Best Director award at the 32nd Annual Academy Awards.

The Alamo lost millions in its initial run but earned six Oscar nominations.

After his spectacular showing in The Searchers, Wayne's trusty costar / cohort Ward Bond (one of director John Ford's favorite supporting players) launched a hit western series of his own in 1957, Wagon Train.

True Grit - 1969
Hellfighters - 1969
The Green Berets - 1968
El Dorado - 1967
Cast A Giant Shadow - 1966
The Sons of Katie Elder - 1965
McLintock! - 1963
The Longest Day - 1962
Hatari! - 1962
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - 1962
The Comancheros - 1961
North to Alaska - 1960

John Ford despised television. He complained that Ward Bond was a "prostitute" for taking the series, openly ridiculing Wayne's idea to do a small part on Wagon Train in 1960 as "idiotic."

"I've given up on Bond, the big, ugly, stupid gorilla," Ford told stuntman "Bad Chuck" Roberson. "But I thought Mr. Wayne had a bit more intelligence."

That bluster didn't stop Ford from going along with Wayne to direct the Civil War themed episode of Wagon Train. In the storyline, entitled The Colter Craven Story, John Wayne (credited as Michael Morris, his real name) appeared briefly as Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman.

This would turn out to be the last ride for longtime friends Ward Bond (seen right), John Ford and John Wayne. Bond collapsed from a heart attack just days after the filming, midway through the 1960-61 season of Wagon Train.

In 1961, John Wayne was guest host of The Dick Powell Show for an episode called Third Side of the Coin.

Duke always preferred working with people he had a history with, especially on TV. Another example of this was Wayne's appearance on Alcoa Premiere's broadcast of The Flashing Spikes, a comedy costarring Jimmy Stewart, Harry Carey, Jr., and son Pat Wayne.

Again directed by John Ford, Wayne played a boisterous umpire in the small screen production about a scandal-plagued former Major League pitcher who mentors a rookie phenom. It aired in October, 1962.

John Wayne's box-office receipts might have been sagging in the early sixties, but many of his motion pictures continued to be genuinely exciting, even if it sometimes looked like they were edited with a tomahawk.

Thanks to the success of How the West Was Won in 1962 and McLintock in 1963, John Wayne was back on top - just in time to face his most serious crisis.

I´m McLintock Watch Video Clip

In the 1963 western comedy 'McLintock', John Wayne plays the role of cattle baron George Washington McLintock, which has been arguably proclaimed one of his finest movie performances.

McLintock - She´s Got Great Biscuits Watch Video Clip

When John Wayne starred in the comedy western, 'McLintock' he showed a comedic side many were skeptical of. But his comic timing in several scenes filled with slapstick humor proved he was capable of such a role.

In 1964, Duke was diagnosed with lung cancer; he was 57 years old.

In Hollywood, perception is everything - and at that time, lung cancer in any form was tantamount to a death sentence. That's why John Wayne tried to conceal the truth from the press at first; the official story was that he was in the hospital treating an old football injury.

After two six-hour operations that left him with a 28-inch gash across his chest, Doctors removed Wayne's left lung.

In a true act of bravery, Duke decided to come clean in an interview with journalists, announcing, "I've had lung cancer, the big C. But I've beaten the son of a bitch. Maybe I can give some poor bastard a little hope by being honest. I want people to know cancer can be licked." While this was far from certain, that statement served two goals - it got him back to work and gave hope to millions of Americans suffering with the same affliction.

"My advisors all told me that the public doesn't want its movie heroes associated with serious illness like cancer, that it destroys their image," Duke told the press. "Well, I don't care much about images, and, anyway, I would have thought there was a lot better image in the fact that John Wayne had cancer and licked it."

When reporters asked if he was up to resuming his line of work, he replied, "I'd better be. I didn't get famous for making drawing room comedies!"

Less that four months after the operation, still having considerable trouble breathing, John Wayne embarked on one of his most strenuous roles ever, gunfighter John Elder in The Sons of Katie Elder. It was a part that required Wayne to ride hard, fall off horses and repeatedly dive into frigid mountain waters.

"On location in Durango, Mexico, he amazed me," the film's producer Hal Wallis stated in his autobiography. "Even though he was functioning on one lung and had a terrible scar running down his back (sic), he showed no sign of illness or weakness. He did this own riding, roped in steers, rounded up cattle, and handled the fight scenes without a double. Only occasionally, in high country, was he short of breath."

Back at full strength, John Wayne resumed starring in one or two films a year for the rest of the decade but was reticent to do TV again until he appeared on the second episode of The Dean Martin Show in 1965.

He was reluctant to do the Martin show at first, but Duke and Dean had become close friends when they costarred in Rio Bravo and The Sons of Katie Elder. Needing to kick off his series with all the star power he could muster, Martin asked him to do the show as a favor.

Here's an exchange from that show:

Martin: "You know, one of the biggest kicks of my life was our first picture together."

Wayne: "Yeah, Rio Bravo. He played the part of a drunken sheriff who had lost his nerve - and during the picture I rehabilitated him."

Martin: "And I'll never forgive you for that."

The taping went so well it changed Wayne's viewpoint concerning television from that point forward. He even made time for two major sitcom appearances (on the highest-rated shows, of course) - starring as 'himself' on The Lucy Show in November, 1966 and on a very funny episode of The Beverly Hillbillies in 1967.

Merv Griffin traveled to the set of War Wagon in 1967 to film an interview with a drunken Duke down in Mexico. There was a lot of chatter about Wayne's hard drinking on location, but he played so many inebriated, debaucherous characters it hardly mattered if he was smashed or not.

"I drink for comradeship," Wayne stated plainly, "and when I drink for comradeship, I don't bother to keep count."

One of Wayne's most popular releases, Hondo (1953), was made into a one-hour weekly series in the fall of 1967 with Ralph Taeger starring as Cavalry scout Hondo Lane.

The series also featured Kathie Brown, Noah Berry, Jr. and Buddy Foster (Mayberry RFD). Michael Pate returned in the role he played in the original film, Chief Vittorio.

Hondo's dog Sam, who ended up on the wrong end of an Indian's lance in the movie, was resurrected in the TV version which was cancelled after only three months. Two episodes were edited together to make a feature film, Hondo and the Apaches.

By the mid-sixties, John Wayne had taught two generations of rednecks (and just plain folks) what it meant to be a man with his steely-eyed pronouncements, terse responses, rugged individualism and a tendency to play absentee fathers who kept their guns and dogs close at hand; men for whom a fist-fight seemed a reasonable way to get acquainted.

"When I started I knew I was no actor and I went to work on this Wayne thing," Duke told a reporter in 1962. "It was as deliberate and studied a projection as you'll ever see. I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn't looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. It was a hit-and-miss project for a while, but it began to develop."

Besides being serious about his craft, John Wayne was unapolgetically patriotic. "Sure I wave the American flag," he told the press in the mid-sixties. "Do you know a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with all her faults. I'm not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be."

One of the sixties' most outspoken conservatives and a vocal proponent of the war in Vietnam, Wayne characterized his pro-war stance this way - "Nobody's enjoying this war but it happens to be necessary. We gave our word." His take on antiwar protesters could be harsh, "As far as I'm concerned, it wouldn't bother me a bit to pull the trigger on one of 'em."

Despite his hawkish position, John Wayne never served in the military. A lack of involvement in World War II was something that troubled him for years; Wayne intended to enlist but his career was on the rise in the early-forties, so he felt he wasn't able to join contemporaries Jimmy Stewart, John Ford, Robert Montgomery and other major Hollywood players who joined the armed forces.

On the other hand, Duke was politically involved in the film industry for decades, serving as president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals - trust me, this was no left-wing organization.

When fellow actor and friend Ronald Reagan was struggling in his bid for the California govenorship in 1966, Wayne was called on to voice his support, which he did gladly.

"Duke always said family came first, career second, and his interest in politics third," Pilar Wayne wrote in her book My life with The Duke. "In fact, although he loved the children and me, there were times when we couldn't compete with his career or his devotion to the Republican Party."

After Reagan's election, Duke was exiting a victory celebration when he was asked by police not to leave the building - a mob of 300 angry antiwar demonstrators were waiting outside. As you might expect, instead of cowering indoors, John Wayne confronted the demonstrators head on.

When protesters foolishly waved the Viet Cong flag under his nose, Wayne grew impatient. "Please don't do that fellows," Duke warned the assembled. "I've seen too many kids your age wounded or dead because of that flag. So I don't take too kindly to it."

The demonstrators persisted, so he chased a group of them down an alley - wouldn't you just love to have seen that?

Because of his high recognition factor, members of the Republican Party naturally approached Wayne to run for public office. "I can't afford the cut in pay," was his reply. "Besides, who in the world would vote for an actor?"

Eventually the press confronted the actor about rumors that he might run for higher office.

"Bullshit!" was his one word reply.

"C'mon Duke," one reporter persisted. "Are you going to run? Give us a useable quote."

"I just did. You can quote me. Bullshit!"

Like his on-screen characters, John Wayne was a gambler who loved a good card game or professional challenge (he once won the original Lassie in a poker game). In 1968, despite the fact he couldn't get any major studio to sign a distribution deal, Duke decided to direct, produce and star in the first motion picture with a pro-Vietnam war stance - The Green Berets. This was reminiscent of what he went through to get The Alamo made - once again out on a limb due to the courage of his convictions.

He appeared on nine episodes of Laugh-in (the number-one show in the nation) between March and September of 1968 to peak the public's interest in his latest project.

The Green Berets was released to vicious reviews overall - which may have reflected the public's growing hostility towards the war, but in all fairness, it was a pretty lousy movie. The critic for The New York Times wrote, "The Green Berets is a film so unspeakable, so stupid, so rotten and false in every detail that it passes through being fun, through being funny, through being camp, and becomes an invitation to grieve, not for our soldiers in Vietnam (the film could not be more false or do a greater disservice to them) but for what has happened to the fantasy-making apparatus in this country."

This time his gamble paid off - The Green Berets ended up one of the year's highest-grossing movies.

By 1969, Wayne was earning a million dollars a picture along with a third of the profits, so it was in his best interest to hit the TV talk show circuit with each new release.

Although he was unhappy with how his films looked on TV (the aspect ratio was wrong - the vistas that were so much a part of his movies were lost on a tiny square box), that didn't stop Wayne's films from easily garnering a 30-40 share whenever they were broadcast in primetime. It was one of the few surefire programming decisions a network could make. Three years after theatrical release, his movies hit TV as a big event, that's why the nets were paying over a million dollars an airing for the latest John Wayne release.

If John Wayne appeared on a television show, you could be sure his fans would tune in, huge ratings were assured. Using TV appearances as a means to promote his films was a sharp strategy, as a result he never wore out his welcome.

Since one of the costars of True Grit was Glen Campbell, it was only natural that John Wayne turned up on The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on February 19, 1969. Duke pulled out all the stops in the summer and fall of 1969 to push True Grit and bolster his Academy Award chances.

While filming True Grit, Duke was trying to keep weight off with drugs - uppers for the day, downers to sleep at night. Occasionally, he got the pills mixed up, and this led to problems on a Dean Martin Show taping in 1969. Instead of taking an upper before leaving for the filming, he took a downer - and was ready to crash by the time he arrived on the set.

"I can't do our skit," Wayne reportedly told Dean when it was time to preform. "I'm too doped up. Goddamn, I look half smashed!"

Naturally, Deano didn't have a problem with that. "Hell Duke, people think I do the show that way all the time!" The taping went on as scheduled.

In November, 1969 he dropped in on The Red Skelton Show to celebrate Duke's forty years in show biz and spoof a number of his best-known films, with Red playing the lead roles and Wayne as his sidekick. Appearances like this meant John Wayne was well on his way to becoming a television institution.

A short time later, Wayne filmed a public service message for the National Cancer Society. "Get a checkup," he challenged TV audiences. "Talk someone you like into getting a checkup. Nag someone you love into getting a checkup. And while you're at it, send a check to the American Cancer Society. It's great to be alive."

Because of this spot, ordinary Americans began making donations to the American Cancer Association in large numbers - and they're still giving because John Wayne made it mainstream.

"Even after losing one lung to cancer in 1964, he had not quit smoking," daughter Aissa Wayne wrote in her 1980 memoirs. "Oh, he stopped smoking Camels, but he started chewing tobacco, then he infrequently smoked cigars, then he was smoking cigars all the time."

John Wayne stepped up the pace of his TV appearances in the seventies to bolster the box-office receipts for his latest detective dramas and rope operas.

The Shootist - 1976
Rooster Cogburn - 1975
Brannigan - 1975
Cahill, United States Marshal - 1973
The Cowboys - 1972
Big Jake - 1971
Chisum - 1970

As a return favor for Raquel Welch adding a some sizzle to the True Grit premiere, John Wayne showed up as a guest on her TV special, Raquel!, which aired on April 26, 1970.

On the program, Wayne gave Raquel lessons in gunfighting for a sequence shot on a western backlot, interspersed with clips from some of Duke's famous shootouts. They also toured the Our Little Brothers and Sisters Orphanage, a charity Wayne and his wife Pilar supported.

On the 42nd Annual Academy Awards telecast in 1970, John Wayne was presented with the Oscar for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, his first and only win for Best Actor. He also presented the award for Best Cinematography on the telecast.

On November 29, 1970, Wayne was front and center for an NBC special sponsored by Budweiser. Swing Out, Sweet Land became one of the top-rated television events of all time, reaching into more than 30 million homes.

It was also the most expensive TV special to date, budgeted at a staggering $2 million. The 90-minute production was a Hollywood parade of stars - Red Skelton, Tom Smothers, Lorne Greene, Dean Martin, Bob Hope, Rowan & Martin and others lined up to praise the good old USA in historical sketches and patriotic songs.

In a segment starring John Wayne, Red Skelton and Tommy Smothers, conservative and liberal messages converged in a recitation of Benjamin Franklin's definition of what it is to be an American.

One can't help but think Franklin's words (on the importance of freedom of speech and the right to protest) might be considered too controversial for primetime today: "For, when dissent becomes a crime, hope becomes despair. Dissent, but dissent honorably," Franklin wrote. "Speak out for what you believe in at least as loudly as you speak against the system. For gentlemen, if ours is a generation to say democracy will not administer to the people, let it be a conscious decision arrived at only after every opportunity for man to rule himself has failed."

That same year, John Wayne appeared on the small screen in several TV documentaries including Harry Jackson: A Man and his Art (Jackson was known for his spectacular bronze sculptors of western scenes) and CBS's The American West of John Ford with Henry Fonda and James Stewart. On the latter, Wayne and Ford traveled to the Monument Valley, scene of some of their greatest triumphs, to film recreations of their unique working method.

Wayne appeared on another televised tribute to his favorite director in 1971, this time produced by the American Film Institute. Directed by John Ford was narrated by Orson Welles and directed by Peter Bogdanovich.

On a lighter note, Duke turned up on The Super Comedy Bowl (January 10, 1971) hosted by Lucille Ball and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Jack Benny But Were Afraid to Ask (also in 1971) with George Burns and Lucille Ball.

He was the special guest on The Glen Campbell Show recorded September 2, 1971 at CBS Television City for airing September 14th. The highlight of the show was yet another riff on True Grit, along with a lighthearted filmed segment with the two costars touring the John Wayne Theater at Knotts Berry Farm, where Wayne's latest picture Big Jake had its premiere. Props and costumes from a lifetime of work were displayed there.

When asked by Campbell what his favorite project was, Duke replied, "Well, you like... each picture for... a different reason. But I think my favorite will always be the next one."

Naturally, Wayne was expected to participate in the silly comedic banter that was the backbone of TV variety shows:

Campbell: "Well, Duke, I can't tell you how flattered I am that you're here to do my opening show."

Wayne: "Well, I was happy to be here. I'm beginning to like TV. I want to thank you for going on that special for me this last year."

Campbell: "Hey, that was fantastic, and what a rating. I guess everyone in America was watching it that night- except for my family, of course."

Wayne: "Why, didn't they see it?"

Campbell: "Well, no. You see, it was on opposite my show, and there's a rule at my house, you know, when daddy's show's on, everybody watches daddy's show... or else."

Wayne: "That's funny, 'cause your kids wrote me a fan letter."

Campbell: "Well, two people definitely didn't see it then, my wife and I."

Wayne: "No? Well, she phoned me and said she liked it."

Campbell: "I guess I'm the only one that didn't see your special. I mean, I didn't see all of it. Aww, let's face it, I saw all of your special."

Wayne: "Glen, your mom and dad liked it too."

Campbell: "Well, it just goes to show you. You don't know what lonely is until you've been opposite a John Wayne special."

John Wayne sat down for an intimate, one-on-one interview with David Frost in 1972, on September 10, 1972. He was one of the presenters in a Salute to TV's 25th Anniversary where he told the story of getting Jim Arness the role of Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, and he appeared on the '72-73 season opener of Laugh-in in a ridiculous bunny suit, filming segments over a two day period that would be spliced in at various times during the year.

By now, television was generating millions for Wayne and his company, Batjac - True Grit alone cost ABC over four million dollars for one primetime airing. Wayne did so much promotion around the film's release and at Academy Award time that when True Grit was first broadcast in 1972, nearly half the TVs in the nation were tuned in.

"I don't know if I love it or hate it," John Wayne said about television in 1972, "but there sure has never been any form of entertainment so... so... available to the human race with so little effort since they invented marital sex."

On New Year's Day 1973, Wayne served as Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade. The theme was Hollywood and the movies.

Glen Campbell hosted John Wayne on an NBC special which explored The Musical West on March 8, 1974 along with Burl Ives and Michele Lee and Duke turned in a memorable performance on Maude (Maude Meets The Duke, September 9, 1974) where his conservative ideals clashed with the outspoken liberal Maude. It was a seminal television moment that Wayne played with relish.

Meanwhile, another of John Wayne's films was turned into a TV series for the fall of 1974 - The Cowboys. This time, there were four original cast members brought over from the film but the weekly TV western format was a relic of the past by the mid-seventies. The show was cancelled within a few months.

Perpetually on the promotion circuit, John Wayne joked around with Don Rickles' on his 1975 special. On the show, he tried to get Don to read a cue card he had prepared:

Wayne: "Read it, Don!"

Rickles: "OK, Duke. But gee whiz, you're not right for the jokes, Duke. Boy, anything you say. I don't want to upset you..."

Wayne: "Well then, go ahead and read it."

Rickles: "OK (reads) John Wayne's new picture, Branigan, which will soon be showing all over the country... wait a minute, this is no joke."

Wayne: "You bet your life it's no joke, it's bread and butter for me."

While filming a 1975 Bob Hope Special (where he played a western Archie Bunker in a skit, then complained about having to play Bob's father), Wayne, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope surprised Tonight Show guest host Don Rickles by walking out on stage unannounced, sending the shocked audience into hysterics.

In 1976, John Wayne dropped out of the box-office top ten for the first time in 25 years while at the same time generating tabloid headlines that screamed - 'John Wayne Madly In Love With His Secretary!' In fact, Wayne had spilt with his wife Pilar and was dating his much younger assistant, Pat Stacy.

His health failing, Wayne limited his TV appearances mostly to narrations and tributes like Chesty: A Tribute to a Legend, a 1976 documentary partially directed by John Ford (before he died in 1973), celebrating the life of General Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, the most decorated man in the US Marines. He also released a patriotic recitation of The Pledge of Allegiance as a 45 single to celebrate the bicentennial.

ABC mounted an All-star Tribute to John Wayne with a litany of major celebrities saluting the legendary actor. Frank Sinatra, Maureen O'Hara, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Stewart, Ron Howard, Lee Marvin, Bob Hope and others gathered at the Warner Bros Burbank studio on November sixth to hear Wayne deliver a special message to his fans - "And to all you folks out there, I want to thank you for the last fifty years of my career. And I hope I can keep at it another fifty years - or at least until I can get it right."

As for what Duke thought of all of these trophies and tributes he claimed somewhat facetiously, "You can't eat awards. Nor, more to the point, drink 'em."

In 1976, John Wayne starred in his last motion picture. The plot closely mirrored his current situation - both he and his character in The Shootist were dying of cancer, only Wayne didn't know it yet. (Or maybe he did subconsciously - he insisted the screenwriter be more graphic about what would happen to his character when the cancer took over.)

To support The Shootist, Wayne was interviewed on Backlot USA, a 1976 summer show hosted by Dick Cavett, the Donahue show, and the film was the subject of an episode of NBC's Big Event. The movie stiffed at the box office despite excellent reviews.

More tribute show appearances followed like America Salutes Richard Rodgers: The Sound of His Music and CBS Salutes Lucy: The First 25 Years airing November 28, 1976. A few weeks later he traded jokes on Bob Hope's Comedy Christmas Special.

Although he actively supported Ronald Reagan's failed presidential bid in 1976, Duke paid a visit to the White House as a guest of President Jimmy Carter for his inauguration. "I'm pleased to be present and accounted for in this capital of freedom to witness history as it happens - to watch a common man accept the uncommon responsibility he won 'fair and square' by stating his case to the American people - not by bloodshed, beheadings, and riots at the palace gates. I know I'm a member of the loyal opposition - accent on the loyal. I'd have it no other way."

Putting partisan politics aside again, he adopted a controversial stance on the Panama Canal Treaty. He favored the turnover of the canal to the Panamanian people, an issue that Ronald Reagan used as a political wedge against the incumbent in his successful run for the presidency in 1979. As with Vietnam, it came down to the nation giving its word.

John Wayne filmed some TV commercials in the Monument Valley (site of Fort Apache and The Searchers) for a 1978 product launch - Datril 500 pain reliever. He didn't particularly enjoy the experience and offered up his own concept for a future campaign - "We'll show the meetings, the discussions with the attorneys and ad executives, all the chaos I went through. And then I'll step before the cameras and say, 'This really gives you a headache. Take Datril 500. It's strong medicine!'"

In August, 1978, Wayne rode up on horseback in full western garb to film the first of several 30-second commercials for Great Western Bank. Filmed in Grants Pass, Oregon, the spots were broadcast in the California TV market. A magnificent, full sized bronze statue of the actor still stands on Wilshire Boulevard in front of the bank's former Beverly Hills branch.

In 1978 a TV-movie, True Grit: A Further Adventure, aired with Warren Oates cast as Rooster Cogburn with Lee Meriwether (Time Tunnel) as Annie Sumner. This was a pilot for a weekly series that didn't sell, Wayne was not involved.

Duke delivered a testimonial for the American Film Institute Salute to Henry Fonda in 1978 then, after recovering from heart surgery, hosted General Electric's All-star Anniversary special, which featured luminaries like Jimmy Stewart, Lucille Ball, Penny Marshall and Bob Hope saluting the venerable corporation with a long history in broadcasting (GE owns NBC).

Henry Fonda also taped a segment for that special and candidly stated, "He seemed to be the same old Duke. He was thinner, which isn't bad except he hadn't got his clothes to fit his new weight yet, sort of loose at the collar. But he was in marvelous spirits."

Wayne was on hand to salute another network in 1978; on ABC's Silver Anniversary program, he looked back on the alphabet net's western series from the past twenty-five years and posed for an historic picture with the lead actors from Maverick, Kung Fu, Big Valley, Cheyenne, Rin Tin Tin and other shows.

Thanks in part to thirty years of constant TV exposure, John Wayne scored number one in the 1978 Performer Q rating which measures the popularity of well-known people.

THE END

On November, 4, 1978 Wayne filmed a Perry Como Christmas Special in historic Old Williamsburg. He was experiencing severe stomach problems throughout the shoot; after the holidays, doctors discovered cancer once again. The day before he was to undergo a major operation to remove his tumor-ridden stomach, John Wayne appeared on a Barbara Walters Special on March 13, 1979.

Walters had a habit of catching major celebrities for their last interviews. Duke touched briefly on his mortality, "Listen, I spoke to the man up there on many occasions and I have what I always had; deep faith that there is a Supreme Being. There has to be, you know; it's just to me, that's just a normal thing, to have that kind of faith. The fact that He's let me stick around a little longer, certainly goes great with me, and I want to hang around as long as I'm healthy and not in anybody's way."

Three months after the nine-hour operation, Duke made his last public appearance on the April 9, 1979 Oscar telecast. Before announcing the Best Picture winner, Duke spoke to the assembled, "Believe me when I tell you I'm mighty pleased that I can amble down here tonight. Oscar and I have something in common. Oscar first came to the Hollywood scene in 1928. So did I. We're both a little weather beaten, but we're still here and plan to be around a whole lot longer."

With that Oscar appearance and the Barbra Walters interview (recorded before the procedure but broadcast immediately after the awards show), the viewing public could believe that John Wayne was on his way to beating the 'Big C' one more time. It was not to be. Desperately ill at the Oscar ceremony, he barely made it through the experience.

He died just weeks later, on June 11, 1979.

John Wayne was eulogized by President Jimmy Carter. "He was bigger than life. In an age of few heroes, he was the genuine article. But he was more than a hero. He was a symbol of so many of the qualities that made America great. The ruggedness, the tough independence, the sense of personal courage - on and off screen - reflected the best of our national character."

Other video clips

Sagebrush - You´ll Be Seeing Me Watch Video Clip

A young John Wayne stars in the 1933 western Sagebrush Trail as John Brandt, a man wrongly accused of murder. After escaping the law, he infiltrates the gang of robbers he believes is responsible for the murder.

McLintock - Pilgrim You Caused A Lot of Trouble Watch Video Clip

There's nothing quite like the 'Duke' John Wayne calling someone 'pilgrim'. In this clip from the 1963 westerb McLintock, hear the Duke use the classic line when confronting a trouble maker.

Sagebrush - Somebody Pulled A Fast One Watch Video Clip

Trying to beat a gang of stagecoach robbers to the prize, John Brand played by legendary John Wayne comes up with a clever way of sneaking his way onto the coach in the 1933 western Sagebrush Trail.

John Wayne - Angel and the Badman Watch Video Clip

Hailed as John Wayne's best early western, this 1947 feature pairs the Duke with sultry leading lady Gail Russel. In this film Wayne is an outlaw who gets turned from a life of evil by the beautiful Quaker girl, Russel.

John Wayne - Lawless Frontier Watch Video Clip

A baby-faced, 26-year-old John Wayne stars in this 1934 feature. Wayne rides down the bad guy and tackles him off his horse in a dramatic chase typical of early westerns. Look for an appearance by Gabby Hayes as Dusty.

Back in the days when people actually went to movie theaters, other activities went on besides actually watching the film. This short was created to play in theatres where they were collecting for the Will Rogers fund, and is hosted/narrated by John Wayne and probably played before/with the trailers.

Dean Martin and John Wayne sing 'Everybody Loves Somebody'

Famous quotes from the Duke

"There've been a lot of stories about how I got to be called Duke. One was that I played the part of a Duke in a school play, which I never did. Sometimes, they even said I was descended from royalty! It was all a lot of rubbish. Hell, the truth is that I was named after a dog!"
- John Wayne

"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I require the same from them."
- John Wayne in The Shootist

"A man's gotta do
what a man's gotta do."
- John Wayne

"Courage is being scared to death - and saddling up anyway."
- John Wayne

"Talk low, talk slow,
and don't say too much."
- John Wayne on his acting style

"I ain't had a drink since breakfast! And I only wear this coat in your court. It was always good enough when you needed what was in it."
- Rooster Cogburn (1975)

"Speaking of politics, where we're going there are only two parties, the Quick and the Dead."
- Dakota (1945)

"We can't turn back! We're blazing a trail that started in England. Not even the storms of the sea could turn back those first settlers - and they carried it on further, they blazed it on through the wilderness of Kentucky. Famine, hunger, not even massacres could stop them. Now we've picked up the trail again and nothing can stop us, not even the snows of winter north peaks of the highest mountain. We're building a nation, but we've got to suffer. No great trail was ever blazed without hardship. And you've got to fight, that's life. And when you stop fightin',that's death. What are you going to do, lay down and die? Not in a thousand years! You're going on with me."
- The Big Trail (1930)

"It isn't always being fast or even accurate that counts. It's being willing. I found out early that most men, regardless of cause or need, aren't willing. They blink an eye or draw a breath before they pull a trigger. I won't."
- The Shootist (1976)

"Alright, we've seen what you can do with a boy. How are you when they come a little bigger?"
- The Cowboys (1972)

"Now you'll show up at my place first Monday after school at 5 AM, and come with grit teeth, because, gentlemen, that's when school really begins."
- The Cowboys (1972)

"I'm lookin' at a tin star with a drunk pinned on it."
- El Dorado (1967)

"Well, I know those law books mean a lot to you, but not out here. Out here a man settles his own problems."
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

"There's no land anywhere worth a hoot, till it's flowed with good honest sweat."
- Three Faces West (1940)

"I taught you what to do when the snow comes, how to survive in a blizzard. I taught you how to deal with men, but women, nobody knows what's on a woman's mind."
- The Undefeated (1969)

'Duke' Trivia

His production company, Batjac, was originally to be called Batjak, after the shipping company owned by Luther Adler's character in the film Wake of the Red Witch (1948). A secretary's typo while she was drawing up the papers resulted in it being called Batjac, and Wayne, not wanting to hurt her feelings, kept her spelling of it.

He was offered the lead in The Dirty Dozen (1967), but went to star in and direct The Green Berets (1968) instead. The part was eventually given to Lee Marvin.

Upon being cast by Raoul Walsh in Fox's The Big Trail (1930) the studio decided his name had to be changed. Walsh said he was reading a biography on General "Mad" Anthony Wayne and suggested that name. The studio liked the last name but not the first and decided on "John Wayne" as the final rendition.

Arguably Wayne's worst film, The Conqueror (1956), in which he played Genghis Kahn, was based on a script that director Dick Powell had every intention of throwing into the wastebasket. According to Powell, when he had to leave his office at RKO for a few minutes during a story conferance, he returned to find a very enthused Wayne reading the script, which had been in a pile of possible scripts on Powell's desk, and insisting that this was the movie he wanted to make. As Powell himself summed it up, "Who am I to turn down John Wayne ?"

Just on his sheer popularity and his prominent political activism, the Republican party in 1968 supposedly asked him to run for President of the USA, even though he had no previous political experience. He turned them down because he did not believe America would take a movie star running for the President seriously. He did support Ronald Reagan's run for governor of California, though.

Eagerly sought the role of Gen. George S. Patton in Patton (1970), but was turned down by the producer.

During the filming of The Undefeated (1969), he fell from his horse and fractured three ribs. He couldn't work for almost two weeks. Then he tore a ligament in his shoulder and couldn't use one arm at all. The director, Andrew V. McLaglen, could only film him from an angle for the rest of the picture. His only concern throughout was not to disappoint his fans, despite being in terrible pain.

Regretted playing Temujin in The Conqueror (1956) so much that he visibly shuddered whenever anyone mentioned the film's name. He once remarked that the moral of the film was "not to make an ass of yourself trying to play parts you're not suited for."

He made several films early in his career as a "singing" cowboy. His singing voice was supplied by a singer hidden off camera.

In 1977 he had a script commissioned for a film called "Beau John" in which he would star with Ron Howard, but due to his declining health it never happened.

Of his many film roles, his personal favorite was that of Ethan Edwards from The Searchers (1956). Wayne even went so far as to name his son Ethan after that character.

Turned down the role of Marshal Dillon on "Gunsmoke" (1955) because he did not want to commit to a weekly TV series. He recommended his friend James Arness for the role, and gave the on camera introduction in the pilot episode.

He turned down Dirty Harry (1971) because he felt the role of Harry Callahan was too far removed from his screen image. When he saw the movie he realized it wasn't so different from the roles he had traditionally played, and made two cop dramas of his own, McQ (1974) and Brannigan (1975). Director Don Siegel later commented, "Wayne couldn't have played Harry. He was too old. He was too old to play McQ which was a poor rip-off of Dirty Harry."

Later,
Kenaz