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  4. @Edgar G. and Walter Slezak as the villain. Everybody turns out to be or to become the opposite of how they first appear. Maureen O’hara is also heroic. Her finish to the film – combined with the score – always reduces me to tears. Amazon Prime Video has it, not sure if availability is a regional thing.

  5. @Edgar G. Douglas Fairbanks, jr. was my favorite swashbuckler when i was a boy. Casablanca was never my favorite either even though I like all the actors very much. Of the genre, same year – 1942/3 – as well, my favorite is “This Land is Mine” Charles Laughton, Maureen O’hara, George Sanders, Una O’Connor. Directed by Jean Renoir, son of the painter. Also, the only one that mentions the persecution of Jews if only in passing. Takes place in Vichy France in 1940. In fact Laughton’s climactic speech made it into the best monologues series of that year. Great bildungsroman story of a timid school teacher and how he evolves into a courageous, inspiring, and self-sacrificing anti-Nazi hero.

  7. SEBASTIEN-

    I saw Gielgud many times always excellent, but can’t recall the one you mention. Claud Raines ALWAYS first class, especially in chillers, -and as the police chief in Casablanca. Another actor I liked, a bit obscure..Guy Rolfe. And of course, Ida Lupino, wonderful.

    Talking of Casablanca, although I don’t think it’s such a great film, as everyone else does. (always disliked Bogart immensely-ruins a flick for me his phony, intense love scenes, I read that his breath stank,) the caste was tremendous. Likely the best ever group of actors combined in one film. Many would be the stars in other movies, like Sydney Greenstreet and Paul Henreid, for instance. Sakall was the same old SZ. a Yiddler in fact.

    A huge number of well known actors were even “unaccredited.:

    The 50 year Decline and Fall of Hollywood, by Ezra Goodman, a wonderful book, says little about Casablanca, but a lot about almost everything andn everyone else.
    It tells of a situation when Errol Flynn was giving a dinner, and came from the kitchen himself dressed in an apron and chef’s hat, with the main dish on a platter held in front of him. The main item, well gsrnished with herbs and greenery was his PENIS laid across the platter.

    He dared every moral limit in Hollywood and that was almot endless. I was living in Vancouver when he died there. I saw his motor yacht.

    I liked him….in movies. a second Fairbanks -as a swashbuckler.

  9. HONEYBEE-

    Thenn make sure he’s not an Arab masquerading nas a Jew. You know what they use one of their thumbs for…..I hope. At least..

    As a Texan I’d assume your coffee to be so strong that it couldn’t be stirred. The kind that floats horseshoes -as the old Texas saying goes.

    Max Brand and Ernest Haycox are unimpeachable resources on this. I could give many more.

  15. @Edgar G. Good one! My Yiddish is limited but I got that. OK, I owe you one but it has to be witty and you set the bar high with that one, though it should have been ‘an’ not ‘a’ but who’s counting. Alas we are not living in the age of Disraeli and Gladstone, Lincoln and Douglas, much less that of Johnson and Boswell, Addison and Steele, or Churchill and Shaw Apropos of nothing, I just saw a terrific film about Israeli starring John Gilgud, “The Prime Minister” (1942). Best job of a young man playing an old man I can recall. Man, he was good.

    I read his autobiography many years ago and was startled to learn that Claude Rains had been his acting professor from when Gilgud was young, in the ’20s.

    See, Gilgud was still acting in movies when I was young and he was old but they never showed his early films when he was young. Rains on the other hand, was in his 40s when he went to Hollywood and looked older than he was. In the movies I saw, Claude Rains was middle aged and Gilgud was elderly but in real life, Rains was 15 years older than Gilgud and look even older than that compared with the young Gilgud.

  17. HONEYBEE_

    I’m only Irish by nationality, by accident you could say. \no desire to “fight\” for them..NONE. I should have been American, but for a crooked Fishing Boat captain. Born a few years earlier I’d have been a shtetl product.

    He’s more than a professional New Yorker, he’s a Multi religion expert. like Michael S, but turned out the other way, and doesn’t advocate “turning the other cheek…T.G.A red hot Zionist…as he should be, being a JEW.

  18. @HONEYBEE-

    Congrats..Mazaltov…when is the chupa. Do they have a place in Texas for a alter Viola Player/stand-up comic.

    Whadda ya want for a present..I’m out of sets of “silver” tea spoons….???

  21. @Honeybee Again with the Texas obsession. Texas, Ireland, in Michael’s case, Jesus of Bethlehem (he was allegedly born in Bethlehem, wasn’t he? What’s with Nazarus, the Nazarene schtick?) Nobody persecutes you for being Texan. But misplaced jealousy of Jews has always led to violence.

    “Rabbi Altmann and his secretary were sitting in a coffeehouse in Berlin in 1935. “Herr Altmann,” said his secretary, “I notice you’re reading Der Stürmer! I can’t understand why. A Nazi libel sheet! Are you some kind of masochist, or, God forbid, a self-hating Jew?”
    “On the contrary, Frau Epstein. When I used to read the Jewish papers, all I learned about were pogroms, riots in Palestine, and assimilation in America. But now that I read Der Stürmer, I see so much more: that the Jews control all the banks, that we dominate in the arts, and that we’re on the verge of taking over the entire world. You know – it makes me feel a whole lot better!” 😀

    – Jewish Humor/Wikipedia

  24. @Michael I also played in African-American churches and orchestras for many years and they made me feel welcome. But, what if I had said in a loud voice…

    (Again, not that I wanted to.)

    You get my drift?

  25. @Michael I played in Korean churches for many years and they made me feel welcome. But, what if I had said in a loud voice,
    ” hey, how come so many of the sermons talk about Koreans? And Jesus? ” Not that I wanted to.

    😀

    But, That’s what your remark reminds me of. Especially amusing considering you have lived in China.

    Apropos of nothing, Kane West lived in China as a boy when his mother taught there. He spoke fluent Mandarin. No one should give this bigot a pass for being uneducated.

  27. @Michael
    You are digging your hole deeper..

    Some people here love to spend their times pondering their navels, and worrying what other people think of them. I give them my permission to do so; but frankly, I’m tired of it.

    Everyone, just blubber on about people saying not-nice things about Jews. Time moves on.

    I listened carefully to this monologue and found it to be balanced and historical and educational. So I posted it.

    Why do you give a shit that I posted it?

  28. Ted, I think Honeybee gets my drift better than you do. If I had produced exactly the same video as the OP, I would have been run out of town on a rail fro bringing up “antisemitic memes”.

    Some people here love to spend their times pondering their navels, and worrying what other people think of them. I give them my permission to do so; but frankly, I’m tired of it.

    I have REAL problems on my table, beyond fretting over and over and over again, things that happened in my parents’ generation. My son-in-law is visiting us, trying to get matters in order so my daughter and grandchildren can come here from China — away from the Moscow-Beijing-Tehran axis you so admire, which wants to wage an all-out war against my country.

    Everyone, just blubber on about people saying not-nice things about Jews. Time moves on.