Reviews

I first saw "The Remarkable Andrew" on television during my senior year in high school in 1967. I had been studying the Blacklist era, particularly since our beloved teacher, John Stewart, had been targeted by innuendo and nearly lost his job. I remember thinking how strange that this was evidence of Dalton Trumbo's communist conspiracy. It is full of the love for America and its ideals. I am glad that the new film, "Trumbo" is helping to set the record straight and to illuminate the ugliness of the HUAC. As Paul Robeson said to them, "You are the un-Americans". The other twist is that we owned the 78 RPM "Ballad For Americans", sung by Robeson and used to sing it as a family. Another communist or "fellow traveler", singing such a patriotic song?

I came across the posted comments and remember the plot very well from fifty years ago! Harpo has a number of lock-picks and they break into a variety of stores steal the policeman's uniform, lights, wire, hand tools, paint, a ring salami and a bagel. They paint a stolen car to resemble a black-and-white, wiring lights to the roof and using the salami to draw the circular police department logo and the bagel to dot the 'i' in police. Harpo pulls off the robbery, Chico, the cop, arrests him, taking the jewelry as "evidence". They are tripped up when they pull up to another, real cop, who notices that the police department logo is reversed, white on black instead of black on white. This one deserves to be released again.

I used to work for a Los Angeles-based savings and loan company. Their pitch to retirees was to host "Golden Days of Television" personal appearances by 50's TV actors, including their spokesman, Harry Von Zell of Burns and Allen fame. I walked into the Alhambra, CA branch and spotted Marvin Miller holding court! I rushed over and asked the then-ultimate trivia question- "Who played John Beresford Tipton?" "Paul Frees" was the answer. He then whipped out an already-printed "check" from "The First National Bank of Silverstone", in the amount of "$1,000,000.00 in Good Wishes", signed it "Michael Anthony" and handed it to me. I've kept it for 30 years, hoping to cash it some day. As an additional bit of trivia, the establishing shot of "Silverstone" is the mansion at the corner of Orange Grove and Green Streets in Pasadena, now the headquarters of Ambassador College and built, as a winter residence, by a late president of U.S. Steel.

This film is based on an actual event, the Mann Gulch Fire, documented by the late Norman MacLean in his deeply moving book, "Young Men and Fire", where a team of smoke jumpers landed, confidently, on a hillside but were suddenly confronted by a firestorm, chasing them up a steep hill. One of the group, the team leader, lit a grass fire, jumped into the ashes, and survived. All but two of his comrades were burned to death in their futile attempt to escape.

MacClean wrote his book in his last years. He actually saw the Mann Gulch fire as a younger man, I would recommend this book to anyone. There are no braver people in the world than smoke jumpers.