Beyond the Big Screen

Title: Dangerous History, Made in AmericaDescription: Today we are join by CJ of the Dangerous History Podcast to talk about the 2017 movie American Made starring Tom Cruise. CJ leads us through the really dirty history and background behind this fictionalized account of 80’s drug trafficking in the United States.Learn More About our Guest:Prof CJ’s Dangerous History Podcasthttp://profcj.org/You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:www.atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comClick here to support Beyond the Big Screen!https://www.subscribestar.com/beyondthebigscreenhttps://www.patreon.com/beyondthebigscreenClick to Subscribe:https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyParthenon Podcast Network Home:parthenonpodcast.comOn Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfThePapacyPodcasthttps://twitter.com/atozhistoryMusic Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Image Credits:By https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTUxNzUwMjk1Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNDkwODI1MjI@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,675,1000_AL_.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54231436Begin Transcript:, [00:00:00] this is beyond the big screen podcast with your host, Steve Guerra. Welcome back to beyond the big screen today. I'm very happy to be joined by prof CJ of the dangerous history podcast. We're going to discuss a very interesting bit of history from the 1970s and 1980s through the lens of the movie American made starring Tom cruise released just in 2017.We will discuss a wide variety of topics from the proxy wars in central America to the drug wars, Iran, Contra, and much more. And so thank you very much for coming on the show today, CJ. Oh, you're very welcome. It's great to talk to you before we get started. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your show?The dangerous history podcast? Sure. Yeah. Well, I've been. Teaching college history since I [00:01:00] think 2006, and I started back in 2014, a podcast called the dangerous history podcasts, and you can go to dangerous history, podcast.com and find it all the usual podcast venues, you know, iTunes and so forth. And I've always really been interested in the kind of dark corners of history that.Neglected by a lot of the typical mainstream coverage of history. It leaves out a lot of what I think is the most interesting stuff. And there there's a lot of, lot of history that's hidden in plain sight and it's easily found in a library or these days online, but just nobody knows it. So I would share those sorts of things with my classes, you know, within the, within the context of like an American history class or whatever.But ultimately I decided I wanted an outlet where I can really just dig into all that stuff. So my show covers all sorts of different [00:02:00] time periods and topics. And I always try to kind of dig up the things that people just. I don't know. Yeah. That's why I really love your show. It's when you get into those pieces of history where you're like, wow, that really happened.It gives you a really different perspective on how things went down. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the things that I cover are things that, you know, to the average person, who's never encountered any of these things might strike them as like bizarre conspiracy theories. And I always say that I don't deal in conspiracy theories.You know, if there's something that's not, not proven, I'll maybe mention, oh, there's a rumor of blah, blah, blah. I can't prove it. So who knows if it's true, but the thing is there are so many things out there that are not theory anymore. You know, where, where things have been exposed one way or another, um, over the years that you don't need to be a theorist to have all kinds of bizarre and sometimes funny and sometimes disturbing stories, um, about some of the darker things that have happened.And I think we're going to get into quite a few of those in. [00:03:00] Discuss this movie. Yeah. Yeah. This movie is definitely right up the alley of a lot of the sorts of things I cover on my show. So as I said, this movie was released in the latter half of 2017 and it stars Tom cruise as the character Barry seal, we'll get into him in just a moment.The film isn't directly based on a book or on a particular source. That's a fictionalized story about true events. And interestingly, it's directed by Doug Liman whose father attorney Arthur Liman was chief counsel for the Senate Iran Contra investigation. And also there was a lot more in this story about some connections between the CIA.Can you maybe get into just a little bit about this production? Even the production of this movie has some interesting twists and turns. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I tried really hard, um, two things that I tried to dig up in preparing for this show, um, that I wasn't quite [00:04:00] able to nail down. Um, one was, I was trying to get to see if I could find floating out there on the internet anywhere a copy of the original script, because you know, so sometimes you can do that.You can find just out there posted somewhere as a PDF or whatever, an original script, because as I'm sure lots of people know, um, very often the, the original script for a movie, and then what ends up actually being the final script and getting made as the movie are often very, very, very different. And in this case, um, the original script was actually entitled MENA, a reference to MENA Arkansas, which is where, um, Barry seal eventually makes his headquarters for his smuggling operation.And. Um, I, the, the name of the writer escapes me. Um, and I forgot to, I forgot to jot it down, but the original script from what I've dug up, I haven't been able to find it, but I found some, some articles and things talking about it. And the original script was more about the overall operation itself and [00:05:00] broad focused, more specifically on like the CIA's involvement and all that.And the final script, what was actually made into the movie that's there, but it's not, that's not the focus as much. And instead the actual movie is more focused on seals, personal story. So the focus is different. It's not as focused just on the sort of smuggling Iran-Contra angle though. That's part of it.And also from what I found in the original script, they supposedly showed more, uh, direct contact in various ways between Barry seal and both George HW Bush. And between Barry seal and bill Clinton. So, um, there are a couple of quick scenes where this is brought up and they do, you know, give little illusions to it and things, but they, they apparently the original script had a lot more of those kinds of scenes, including by the way, there was originally going to be a scene [00:06:00] where Barry seal actually meets with bill Clinton in person and Clinton at the time is getting a lap dance.And that scene obviously didn't make it into the film and I'm not sure, you know, why, why did they reduce the amount of showing, you know, contact and perhaps complicity between seal and both the Clintons and bushes when there's a fair amount of evidence out there to show that there was a lot of maybe not always personal face to face contact, but a lot of, you know, people kind of helping protect seal for a number of years while he was doing his thing.And it's possible it could be to limit. How much the film negatively depicts, um, the American political elites. Like they're willing to do a little bit of it, but not too much. I don't know. Um, it also might potentially have been because of legal worries that if they depicted too many scenes of Clinton and or Bush helping out this, this dirty smuggler that, you know, because those are ex presidents who are both still alive that [00:07:00] I don't know, maybe they'd face some sort of, some sort of legal issue.Um, something like that. And just one more thing, interestingly, I think anyway, because who knows how the movie would have been, but I believe when the script was originally sold, Ron Howard was going to make the film and then obviously it ended up being Doug Liman, but who knows, you know, how different of a movie it might've been.If, if Ron, Ron Howard did it now on the, on the other topic that you raised, the topic of was the CIA self involved in actual. The production of the movie in some way, I wasn't able to, to find a clear answer. I did my best. And sometimes you can find this. Sometimes they admit it. Um, this is something that I've been getting more into lately and maybe the last few months, or year or something, I've really come to realize that the amount of direct and indirect influence that [00:08:00] the defense department and the CIA have over Hollywood movies is huge.And I kinda knew it was there. And I knew it was a thing, but it's like bigger and deeper and more profound than I had ever thought when I really started digging in. So the CIA and, and the military in the United States have what they call entertainment, liaison offices, or ELs, and what these offices do is, and that they're heavily connected to Hollywood producers.They, the people who work for these offices, they rub elbows with top Hollywood people all the time and go to parties and things. And the, what they do is they offer movie makers, things like the ability to shoot on a military or CIA facility or. Providing technical consultants and expertise to try to make the movie, um, more realistic or the action scenes more compelling.

Title: Donald and Melinda Maclean, a Traitorous Spy TeamDescription: Join us as Steve talks with historian Michael Holzman about the dynamic duo of deception, Donald and Melinda Maclean. Donald Maclean lived an incredible lifestyle. He traveled in all of the most important circles of the British Foreign Service, until the authorities began circled around him because he was a spy for the Soviet Union. Then Maclean disappeared, only to show up in Moscow where he lived a second life as a Soviet Academic. Learn More About our Guest:Michael Holzman author of:Spies and Traitors: Kim Philby, James Angleton and the Friendship and Betrayal that Would Shape MI6, the CIA and the Cold Warhttps://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Spies-and-Traitors/Michael-Holzman/9781643138077You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:www.atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comClick here to support Beyond the Big Screen!https://www.subscribestar.com/beyondthebigscreenhttps://www.patreon.com/beyondthebigscreenClick to Subscribe:https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyParthenon Podcast Network Home:parthenonpodcast.comOn Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfThePapacyPodcasthttps://twitter.com/atozhistoryMusic Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Image Credits:KEYSTONE-FRANCE/GAMMA-KEYSTONEBegin Transcript:Thank you again for listening to Beyond the Big Screen podcast. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast network. Of course, a big thanks goes out to Michael Holzman, author of numerous books on espionage and the Cold War. Links to learn more about Michael and his books can be found at his author’s page in the Show Notes. You can now support beyond the big screen on Patreon and Subscribe Star. By joining on Patreon and Subscribe star, you help keep Beyond the Big Screen going and get many great benefits. Go to patreon dot com forward slash beyond the big screen or subscribe star dot com forward slash beyond the big screen dot com to learn more.Another way to support Beyond the big screen is to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. These reviews really help me know what you think of the show and help other people learn about Beyond the Big screen. More about the Parthenon Podcast Network can be found at Parthenonpodcast.com. You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen, great movies and stories so great they should be movies on various social media platforms by searching for A to z history. Links to all this and more can be found at beyond the big screen dot com. I thank you for joining me again, Beyond the big Screen.[00:00:00] Thank you again for joining us today, I am very excited to be joined by special guest Michael Holtzman, author of the book, Donald and Melinda McClain idealism and espionage. Michael is the author of numerous books, including James Jesus Angleton, the CIA and craft of intelligence, a biography of guy Burgess, spies, and trends.Kim Philby James Angleton and the friendship and betrayal that would shape my sex as well as a novel packs. 1934 through 41. Michael has been on the show previously to talk about James Angleton, Kim Philby and Klaus Fuchs through his book on. Spies and traders. So I think this will fit in very well with this.So today we're going to talk about another spy trader story, which is related to the others. We have talked about the subject today is the dynamic duo of double crossing Donald and Melinda McLean. Their story's more [00:01:00] complicated though than that's. Um, so I really, I'm very thankful that Michael Holtzman is here today to tell us the rest of this incredible story.Okay. Now, before we delve into the details of Donald and Melinda McClain's life, maybe you can give us a really quick overview of what their story was from the 10,000 foot view to, and then we can start digging into some of us specifics. The story is usually told as the story of the career of Donald claim, Don, the client was.Very successful foreign service officer of the British empire from 1938 or so until 1951. And then had a second career as a, uh, think tank person specializing in political science. And Moscow during his career for the [00:02:00] foreign office, the British foreign office, he was posted in many very important places.Paris London, back in London, New York, Washington, and, uh, made it his practice. To send copies of everything that came across his desk that he thought would be interested in Moscow to Moscow, that a result of that, uh, during that period, as one of his colleagues said, it would have been better if the British hadn't done that they, uh, smelly learned all of the inside details about things like.Carlos an intervention in the winter war, uh, Penland in the Soviet union and crucially, they learned everything there was to learn about policy issues involving the atomic bomb and the plant. Preemptive [00:03:00] atomic war against the Soviet union in the late 1948. What was some of his, uh, Donald Maclean's background?Where did he come from? And what was his early education? Um, a member of was called tenability of the row. He wasn't quite on the rest of it. His father was a member of parliament, uh, something of a self-made man from Scotland. Um, his mother came from a very similar background to that. Uh, uh, they weren't arrested Kratts, but they were very comfortably off and extremely well connected to political.Tunnel. And that claim was sent to Gresham's school in Norfolk, which was considered to be a progressive school. And coincidentally, it was a school that attended by crime grain, and [00:04:00] all of us also Benjamin Britten. He did very well there. He played sports. He was extremely active in a school in those days.And it's quite well-prepared for the university education. He then went to Cambridge and he, uh, lived at Trinity. Which is a remarkable and smart college, certainly by American standards, two or three buildings squeezed in between Trinity and Kings. He imagined in modern languages, you've got a person with the highest possible.Uh, score there. He made many trends. A lot of those friends were on the left and somewhere on the far left and some became was, he was, that was a McLean ideology, ideological and college. Did he get involved in the actual communist party or end these groups or was it [00:05:00] just a, uh, something he was interested in?You became interested in McSwain politics while he was still at Gresham's. Uh, his best friend was a man named James , who was, uh, uh, came from a business background, family business. And James Kligman a very politically conscious, very young age. Um, a claim was politically conscious as father to the member of parliament, who was also a member of the cabinet, came to the school and gave lectures and they.We're oriented towards a world government at that time. Peace so far, uh, when he was at Cambridge, got rapidly, went to the left and was probably we'll have to distinguish here between being a communist and being a member of the communist party. You've as a communist [00:06:00] beliefs in a comedy as ideology. Yeah.As soon as he stepped into canvas, which is fairly ironic, given how privileged Cambridge was, um, whether he joined the communist party or not, we can say John comments, but it's not clear that the communist party thought he was incontinence. That was a bureaucratic issue. So the background of this.Economics that your socioeconomic situation and England at the time, you had a very small really I've been reading the diaries of, uh, Henry Chip's Channon, who was a social blight in this period. And if I can calculate that the aristocracy. Comprised of maybe 2000 adults. This was in a, in a country of 50 million people that most of the, uh, political influence, the political power in the country was through these 2000.And, uh, the associated [00:07:00] people, like a claims father, they had incomes, uh, something like, uh, five to 10,000 pounds a year that would have been $45,000. And the currency of that time and 50 times. Um, and our occurrence, that's a time typical working class families had a hundred pounds, um, and they were starting slowly.We need to talk a little bit to the Cambridge five because somebody like Donna McClain, he didn't come out of nowhere. He was in this group of like-minded individuals. Yes. Uh, I can cross with a Scott and that's not really part of this. He was only associated with it, a memoir. So the, uh, Soviet official, there was, uh, a group of slightly older people and Cambridge, uh, professionals who were kind of theoretical [00:08:00] communes.They had seen, uh, The same situation and they had earlier, uh, decided to that, that made that same decision, the crucial, uh, point, uh, political point, listen to general strike in the early 1920s where, uh, coal miners were, had their incomes cut below the subsistence level by the coal owners. And they went on strike and.

Coming Soon on Beyond the Big Screen!You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:www.atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comClick here to support Beyond the Big Screen!https://www.subscribestar.com/beyondthebigscreenhttps://www.patreon.com/beyondthebigscreenClick to Subscribe:https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyParthenon Podcast Network Home:parthenonpodcast.comOn Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfThePapacyPodcasthttps://twitter.com/atozhistoryMusic Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Title: One Man’s Hero is Another Man’s TraitorDescription: Today, Steve and Jacob Herr try to find something to like about the 1999 film, One Man’s Hero. This film tries to tell the story of the San Patricio Battalion. Does it succeed or is it a nightmare of history in film?Learn More About our Guest:Jacob Herr, actor and historianhttps://www.trendyhistory.org/listing/erin-go-bragh-batallon-de-sa?product=2You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:www.atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comClick here to support Beyond the Big Screen!https://www.subscribestar.com/beyondthebigscreenhttps://www.patreon.com/beyondthebigscreenClick to Subscribe:https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyParthenon Podcast Network Home:parthenonpodcast.comOn Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfThePapacyPodcasthttps://twitter.com/atozhistoryMusic Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Image Credits:By http://www.cinemotions.net/data/films/0315/39/1/affiche-One-Man-s-Hero-1999-1.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22125033Begin Transcript:Thank you again for listening to Beyond the Big Screen podcast. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast network. Of course, a big thanks goes out to Jacob Herr. Links to learn more about Jacob and his history themed merchandise can be found at trendinghistory.com or in the Show Notes. In this episode, we talk about the 1999 film One Man’s Hero based on the history of the San Patricio Battalion in the Mexican American War. In the last episode, Jacob led us through the real history and background of this fascinating story. Listening to that episode only makes this one even better!You can now support beyond the big screen on Patreon and Subscribe Star. By joining on Patreon and Subscribe star, you help keep Beyond the Big Screen going and get many great benefits. Go to patreon dot com forward slash beyond the big screen or subscribe star dot com forward slash beyond the big screen dot com to learn more.Another way to support Beyond the big screen is to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. These reviews really help me know what you think of the show and help other people learn about Beyond the Big screen. More about the Parthenon Podcast Network can be found at Parthenonpodcast.com. You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen, great movies and stories so great they should be movies on various social media platforms by searching for A to z history. Links to all this and more can be found at beyond the big screen dot com. I thank you for joining me again, Beyond the big Screen.[00:00:00] I'd like to welcome back. Jacob heard to beyond the big screen, Jacob has been on to talk about Billy, the kid and film and in history and in the last episode. So I highly suggest you go back and listen to the last episode. He gave us a ton of background and context on the San Patricio battalion from the Mexican-American war.Today, we are going to talk about the 1990. Film one man's hero, a film that dramatizes the events of the San Patricio battalion during the, the Mexican American war. And like I said, I highly encouraged people to go back and listen to our episode on the history of the St. Patrice CEO's. Catholic deserters from the U S army to the Mexican army during the Mexican-American war.I really think you'll enjoy it. But, um, just to set things up for today in this 1999 film, starring Tom Berenger, what's the very short story of the San Patricio. So the [00:01:00] very short, uh, nutshell version of the, uh, San Patricio, they were a group of immigrants. Most of them, uh, associated with, uh, Catholicism, but others just trying to seek new life in America and winding up in the military at the outbreak of the Mexican American war.And. Through the circumstances of the conflict. Many of these immigrants had ended up, uh, deserving the U S army making their way to Mexico and then offering their services to the Mexican military because they found they found a stronger connection. Culturally to the Mexican people then to the United States.Now this film at stars, as we said, Tom Berenger has Sergeant Lieutenant, captain, John Riley. Uh Berenger. He almost makes a, made a career out of playing the grizzled army Sergeant. And this time he does it with an Irish [00:02:00] accent, we have a . De Alameda, he plays Courtine on. I found him as kind of the shining star of the movie for me, even though his part's kind of almost an explicable, but I think that as an actor, he did a wonderful job and, um, de Alomeda is actually a Portuguese actor and a shout out to, uh, a great friend of the show and a personal friend.On Tonio from Portugal who pointed this out to me. And then the other main star, I guess, or the movie you could say is Daniella Romero who plays in Marta. The love interest in this really strange love triangle between Kortina Tom Berenger's, Riley character, and then Marta. And she was a famous Mexican musician of the eighties and nineties, I guess it's really hard to find a place.Dart with this movie, I guess for me it happens. It's one of my first questions of the movie is [00:03:00] really upfront. And the movie Sergeant Riley, he turns on a dime w I, and he desserts from the army. He's pretty cool with the army. If he's putting the, uh, the, as a us Sergeant, he's putting people in their place.He has like one kind of sorta negative interaction with his, uh, commander and then like, boom, bang, bang keys deserted the us army he's and he's fighting for the Mexican army. I have to imagine in history. And we talked about in the last episode, it didn't happen that quickly, but why do you think in the movie it, they did it that quickly.Um, two reasons. Uh, bad writing. And, uh, secondly, uh, when you're trying to take a history that in courses, multiple years and multiple different political and social environments, and you have to put them together into this two-hour movie that you're going to show to the public and try to make money off of it.[00:04:00] There's a lot to cram in. And that's, I think that's one of the big problems when you have this dramatic shift in. Less than 10 minutes into the movie, it comes off as very awkward. And very poorly written and here's, um, anomaly that I found out about the writing of the movie. Apparently the guy who had written the script, his name was Milton S Gelman.He had actually had a history of writing for television, not an exclusively. Fifties, Western television that we had talked about in our Sam Peck and Paul pat Garrett, and Billy, the kid episode, he wrote episodes for tombstone territory, Gunsmoke that entire sub genre of television in the fifties and sixties.Now here's the kicker. He actually passed away in 1990. So he never actually got to see [00:05:00] this script that he created. Turn into the final product. And so it must have just been bouncing around from one studio to another, before it was picked up by the director and the producer, uh, LanSchool. It makes a lot of sense because it does, it has.Taste and appeal of a Western, but not in a good way either. I just, I love to get your thoughts on this because you're an actor and have done stage and probably have a ton more experience and education in this, but it seemed the whole theme of the movie is a tight shot. Everything is zoomed in to an you on these, like.Moments and you miss the whole big picture, like all the action it zoomed in and we'll get into it. But in the battle of Churubusco you get no sense of the battle. It just looks [00:06:00] like there's like 10 guys on each side going at it. And it just seemed the whole movie to me is it's two zoomed in and you get no idea of the big picture.Yeah. And now granted, I have seen some movies where that is actually used to your advantage, where you have very, a very small amount of extras or main characters. And you're trying to encompass a historical battle that had thousands or tens of thousands of people, you know, shooting at each other and hacking each other to death.Um, but when you're trying to capture it on film, Um, one of the ways that you can try to make things look larger than what you really have to work with is that you use the camera almost as if the camera man is like another person in that battle. Um, Sergei Eisenstein did it in Alexander Nevsky and even, uh, I know another famous director had done [00:07:00] it in an independent project.Orson Welles did it in chimes at midnight, 1965. The difference though, is that when you're using cinematography like that, you're trying to get a first person perspective where everything has to be clear, everything you need to have an established sense of what is at stake. And a connection to the characters.We're not connected to these characters because they're so poorly written. They're not characters, they're caricature and because everything is so hectic, we have no idea. What's. I thought that was, I felt like a day Alameda. Kortina almost Telegraph that he made a line while Berenger is Sergeant Riley, he's injured and Marta's rehabilitating him.

Title: Erin Go Bragh and the San Patricio BattalionDescription: Today, Steve is joined by frequent guest Jacob Herr to talk about the history, background and context of a group of mostly Irish, but also other nationality Catholics who deserted the United States Army the Army of Mexico right before and during the Mexican American War. This unit, called the San Patricio Battalion fought bravely during many of the pivotal battles of the war. Learn their fate after this controversial conflict. Enjoy this incredible story on St. Patrick’s Day or any other day of the year!Learn More About our Guest:Jacob Herr, actor and historianhttps://vocal.media/authors/jacob-herrYou can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:www.atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comClick here to support Beyond the Big Screen!https://www.subscribestar.com/beyondthebigscreenhttps://www.patreon.com/beyondthebigscreenClick to Subscribe:https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyParthenon Podcast Network Home:parthenonpodcast.comOn Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfThePapacyPodcasthttps://twitter.com/atozhistoryMusic Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Image Credits:By http://www.cinemotions.net/data/films/0315/39/1/affiche-One-Man-s-Hero-1999-1.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22125033Begin Transcript:Thank you again for listening to Beyond the Big Screen podcast. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast network. Of course, a big thanks goes out to Jacob Herr. Links to learn more about Jacob and his blog can be found at https://vocal.media/authors/jacob-herr or in the Show Notes. In this episode, the real history, context and background on story of the San Patricio Battalion in the Mexican American War. Keep your podcatchers updated for our next episode, where Jacob and I see if Hollywood appreciated or hated history in the 1999 film, One Man’s Hero.You can now support beyond the big screen on Patreon and Subscribe Star. By joining on Patreon and Subscribe star, you help keep Beyond the Big Screen going and get many great benefits. Go to patreon dot com forward slash beyond the big screen or subscribe star dot com forward slash beyond the big screen dot com to learn more.Another way to support Beyond the big screen is to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. These reviews really help me know what you think of the show and help other people learn about Beyond the Big screen. More about the Parthenon Podcast Network can be found at Parthenonpodcast.com. You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen, great movies and stories so great they should be movies on various social media platforms by searching for A to z history. Links to all this and more can be found at beyond the big screen dot com. I thank you for joining me again, Beyond the big Screen.[00:00:00] I would like to welcome Jacob Herbeck to the show. Jacob took us through the really fascinating look at both the real Billy the kid and Billy, the kid has portrayed in popular media. Jacob is going to do it again today with a really intriguing yet not widely known piece of American history. The Mexican-American war is a complicated conflict to discuss there's many moving parts in diplomacy, military, and culture.All under the shadow of a great revolutionary movement sweeping through the world today, Jacob is going to guide us through the history of a group of Roman Catholic, Irish, us soldiers who changed alliances and allegiances from the U S to Mexico. the San Patricio, the sink Patrick battalion. Look out for our next step of sewed where we'll explore the 1999.Featuring the sand Patrice Leo's one man's hero. You don't want to miss either one of these [00:01:00] episodes. Now, Jacob, how did you become interested in the Mexican American war? And then this kind of interesting sub part of the conflict, the San Patricio. I became interested in the Mexican American war. When I was wrapping up a research project that I was doing in college, my junior year, it was about my home state of Indiana during the war of 1812.And then when I started exploring the legacy of these people who were involved in 1812, and then later on with the Texas revolution and the Seminole wars, you see a lot of similar names. And then you discover really, I, it was a deep dive into this conflict that in terms of the public zeitgeists, everybody knows the civil war.Everyone knows the revolution. Everyone knows world war II. Very few people actually either know of the Mexican-American war [00:02:00] or its importance in terms of the story of not. American history, but also Latin American history with Mexico and how we have our border, our international border between the America and Mexico to this very day, it was politically consequential.While at the same time, I was also, I discovered this group, this military group, the sound, but three CEO battalion. It just stuck out like a sore thumb. Because it kind of breaks that good versus evil us and them narrative that we see with a lot of those other wars and this particular group, you begin learning about these people, their story, and they're beginning to end, and it really surprises you.And it creates that gray area, which is a very true reality in the course of. [00:03:00] Our, our history that's still ongoing, but also in military history that it really does show that the gray areas. Is like a fog of war it's confusing and it's not easy to decipher. Yeah. I, uh, I had been doing a little bit of research into this general time period in European history for the history of the papacy podcast.And. I think you get commonly. And especially in my education stuff that was going on in Europe at this time, really didn't have a lot of impact on things that were going on in north America, but there was a ton. And I think that it feeds into this with the, the Irish and the Catholics. And that might be a good place to really start off with is what was changing in the demographics of the United States.During this time, because of some things that were going on in Europe at the time. Some of the things that [00:04:00] were going on at that particular time. At first off, we kind of have to start with what was going on in Ireland at that time, because we think of Ireland today as either geographically, the, you know, the classic Emerald aisle or politically Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is still a part of the United States.For at least centuries. Now we know that Ireland and the Irish people were under the colonial rule of England. Um, and throughout knew there were numerous attempts prior to the 20th century and world war II with the rise of the Irish Republican army to either declare independence or serve as an opening to a foreign invasion against the Britain.There was a rebellion in Ireland in 1798. There was, uh, an Irish Legion that was created by Napoleon. There was the young Ireland [00:05:00] movement in the 1830s, the Fenny and rising in the 1860s to 1880s, both in the United Kingdom and in parts of Canada. And then the creation of the Irish Republican brotherhood at the turn of the century, that would then become Michael Collins is Irish, Republican army that we know today.I saw a little back toilet. It blew my mind that Ireland lost. I think it was about half of its population between starvation. I immigration. And it still hasn't caught up to that population of the 1840s, 1830s, all the way up to this day in 2022. No, it hasn't because the great Irish famine or the Irish potato famine, as we know it in today's time, they, it really was a dire circumstance for these people.Where they were resorting to eating bugs, eating grass, eating [00:06:00] roots of plants, just to survive from one day to another. And there was literally no any type of foreign aid that we see in today's time. Whenever a international famine takes place, the Irish were really out on their own. And rather than starving to death in their Homeland, they had no choice to say we need, we need to find a living somewhere else.And that's why you see this long wave of immigration, not just. Into the United States, but also into Canada and then other parts of the British empire in London, parts of South Africa, India. Uh, but for the most part, north America is the largest hub along with other. Um, European minority groups. The next step in this is the Mexican American war.Now I think back to my high school, into college American history, [00:07:00] the, the Mexican American Moore's almost treated. Thing. It's not in any of those contexts. I didn't get a huge education on the Mexican American war, but it was mostly set up as sort of a prequel to the civil war. And you know, this is where the farm league of the young Lee, a younger.They make their mark and then a couple of deck, a decade or so later, the real show is the civil war. Before we talk a little about the Mexican-American war and where this conflict started, what was the sort of a history historiography you learn? There wasn't really much of a historiography that I learned.

Coming Soon on Beyond the Big Screen!You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:www.atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comClick here to support Beyond the Big Screen!https://www.subscribestar.com/beyondthebigscreenhttps://www.patreon.com/beyondthebigscreenClick to Subscribe:https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyParthenon Podcast Network Home:parthenonpodcast.comOn Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfThePapacyPodcasthttps://twitter.com/atozhistoryMusic Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Title: Gung Ho and the Story of Marine RaidersDescription: Today Steve talks again with Professor James Early, certified American History Fanatic and host of The Key Battles of American History Podcast about the 1943 World War 2 film Gung Ho! This film in a way fairly accurately portrays the events of the Marine Raider Battalion led by Major Evans Carlson. James has a close connection to this movie, so you will want to find out!Learn More About our Guest:James Early host of The Key Battles of American History PodcastKeybattlesofamericanhistory.comYou can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:www.beyondthebigscreen.comClick to Subscribe:https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyParthenon Podcast Network Home:parthenonpodcast.comOn Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfThePapacyPodcasthttps://twitter.com/atozhistoryMusic Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Image Credits:By The poster art can or could be obtained from Universal Studios., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28900379Begin Transcript:Thank you again for listening to Beyond the Big Screen podcast. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast network. Of course, a big thanks goes out to Professor James Early of the Key Battles of American History Podcast and fellow member of the Parthenon Podcast Network. Links to learn more about James can be found at key battles of American history dot com or in the Show Notes. You can also search up James’ group American History Fanatics on Facebook.You can now support beyond the big screen on Patreon and Subscribe Star. By joining on Patreon and Subscribe star, you help keep Beyond the Big Screen going and get many great benefits. Go to patreon dot com forward slash beyond the big screen or subscribe star dot com forward slash beyond the big screen dot com to learn more.Another way to support Beyond the big screen is to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. These reviews really help me know what you think of the show and help other people learn about Beyond the Big screen. More about the Parthenon Podcast Network can be found at Parthenonpodcast.com. You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen, great movies and stories so great they should be movies on various social media platforms by searching for A to z history. Links to all this and more can be found at beyond the big screen dot com. I thank you for joining me again, Beyond the big Screen.[00:00:00] Today we are going to talk about the 1943 masterpiece. Some might say world war II, film gung ho with the movie is very loosely based off of the Carlson Raiders Marine Raiders of the ILN of Macon. And we're joined today by professor James early of the key battles of world war II. I am just fumbling all over myself today.We are joined today by professor James early of the key battles of American history podcast. To discuss this, I guess you might say incredible movie, James. Thanks for coming on while we're probably on your show too. So thanks for collaborating on this great movie. Going, whoa, gung ho gung ho, I guess let's just start off because I'm sure most people are familiar with you, but why don't you introduce yourself?Sure. I am, uh, a part-time or [00:01:00] adjunct professor of us history at San Jacinto college, which is in Pasadena, Texas. That's just south and east of Houston. And I've been teaching for oh gosh, six or seven years now. And I'm just a huge history fanatic. I've been a history level all my life. I started a Facebook group back in 2016 called American history fanatics, and it's grown to about 5,500 people and we have some really good discussions there and posts about all kinds of things related to us history or American history.I also have done a few podcasts. Probably most of the listeners have heard one or more of them, but I've done four limited series with Scott rank who also does the history of unplugged podcast and other great one. We did, uh, let's see presidential fight club in 2017 key battles of the civil war in 2018 key battles of the revolutionary war in 2019 and key battles of world war II in 2020.And then. [00:02:00] Finally says, uh, get out of here, do your own podcast in a polite way, but he gave me the opportunity to have my own solo podcasts. So I did. And of course, uh, one of the first things I did was invite Scott back on to be my partner again, just for awhile. We're, we're, I'm going to work with a partner, uh, but different partners, you know, just kind of mix it up a little bit, get different voices in there.So the, the podcast is called key battles of American history. And my intention is to do several seasons and each season will be either. One particular war or on films. I'm a huge film buffets. I mean, you know that you are too. And so I like to talk about war films or just history related films in Gerald.They don't have to be about war necessarily, but so when I kicked off the key battles of American history podcast, I started with a series called key our world war one on film. And I brought in Sean MacGyver, uh, formerly of [00:03:00] the come and take it podcast. And Sean and I talked about 10 different world war, one movies.Now, as we record this, we're in July of 2021. We, uh, I'm doing a series on the, the Pacific war. So it's key battles of the Pacific theater world war II. And then I'm going to do a world war two on film, Pacific theater, only at least for now series. And this will probably be part of that series. I'll probably run this with that series.So I've been really busy the last several years. Yeah. Let's, let's get this whole thing started by maybe just giving us the broad overview of this, make an island rate, but this film is based upon, okay. I can do that. Let's let's back up a step if I may though. And let's just talk about what we're Marine Raiders in general, not really that many people know anything about the Marine Raiders.The Marine Raiders were America's very first special forces unit. At least I'm going to call them that somebody will probably say, [00:04:00] wait, wait, what about so-and-so? But, but the first major. Special forces unit. They were conceived of actually, as early as the 1930s, there were two men in particular that were the, I guess the fathers of this idea, they were Lieutenant Colonel Marat Edson also called Mike Mike Edson.And even more importantly, Lieutenant Colonel Evans Carlson, uh, both of these men were Marine officers who had served in world war one. And then they had spent time in some of the so-called banana wars in the central American and Caribbean islands during the 1920s and thirties. Uh, they'd served in Nicaragua.Uh, see, I, I think that's the only one Nicaragua I might be wrong. I know Carlson was also in the Mexican punitive expedition when Pershing was down there searching for poncho via, and both men had also been in. And they had observed, although they observed [00:05:00] very different things. The, uh, the well Mike Edson, he was observing the Japanese forces while the Japanese were fighting the Chinese.I mean, he was, he was stationed with the Chinese, but he focused more on Japanese tactics and learning their system. Carlson was very different. Evans Carlson actually hung out with the communists. He was, uh, he actually got to know Moussa dong and some of his top leaders, he hung out, hung out with the eighth rout army.And he was very impressed by the tactics used by the Chinese communist guerrillas to fight Japanese troops from the communist cross and learn the phrase gung ho, which means work in harmony or work together. And Carlson kind of adopted these kind of left wing political views. He was seen by many. Top brass of the Marine Corps is soft on communism.I think that's a phrase that was later brought into a currency, but, but he would have been, they would have applied that term to him. One, one Marine general said [00:06:00] he may be red, but he's not yellow. So both of these men were very interesting and, uh, very interested in taking the tactics that they have to observe and applying them to the Marines and Carlson, especially came up with this idea, uh, that it would be helpful to have highly trained elite, special forces units who could sneak a shore on Japanese held islands because everybody knew even by the late thirties, the war with Japan was very likely.So these guys, they would make raids and gather intelligence about the islands and Japanese forces there just kind of go in search and destroy, blow stuff up, raise as much hell as possible and then get out. And they would be modeled after British commandos. You could also think about today's Navy seals, army Rangers, things like that, but they didn't have those bags.And, uh, there was some opposition to this idea, one very influential Marine commander, general Alexander Vandergrift, who was the overall commander of the invasion of Guadalcanal. He didn't [00:07:00] like the idea of an elite unit within the Marines. He and others thought that all Marines relate forces. I mean, think about the Marines are supposed to be the, the tough guys.

Title: Warren G Harding: A President for the Jazz AgeDescription: Today we are joined by multiple time guest, author Ryan S. Walters to talk about the short, but important presidency of Warren G. Harding. Harding often doesn’t do well in presidential rankings, but Ryan is working to give us a new perspective on a president who was much more impactful than he is given credit for. Ryan lays out the case for Warren G. Harding in his new book: The Jazz Age PresidentLearn More About our Guest:Ryan S. WaltersRyanswalters.nethttps://www.regnery.com/9781621578840/the-jazz-age-president/You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:www.atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comClick here to support Beyond the Big Screen!https://www.subscribestar.com/beyondthebigscreenhttps://www.patreon.com/beyondthebigscreenClick to Subscribe:https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyParthenon Podcast Network Home:parthenonpodcast.comOn Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfThePapacyPodcasthttps://twitter.com/atozhistoryMusic Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Begin Transcript:Thank you again for listening to Beyond the Big Screen podcast. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast network. Of course, a big thanks goes out to Ryan S Walters, author of The Jazz Age President: Defending Warren G. Harding . Links to learn more about Ryan and his book can be found at at ryanswalters.net or in the Show Notes. You can now support beyond the big screen on Patreon and Subscribe Star. By joining on Patreon and Subscribe star, you help keep Beyond the Big Screen going and get many great benefits. Go to patreon dot com forward slash beyond the big screen or subscribe star dot com forward slash beyond the big screen dot com to learn more.Another way to support Beyond the big screen is to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. These reviews really help me know what you think of the show and help other people learn about Beyond the Big screen. More about the Parthenon Podcast Network can be found at Parthenonpodcast.com. You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen, great movies and stories so great they should be movies on various social media platforms by searching for A to z history. Links to all this and more can be found at beyond the big screen dot com. I thank you for joining me again, Beyond the big Screen.[00:00:00] I'd like to welcome Ryan S. Walters back to beyond the big screen. Ryan is an independent historian and frequent guest of the show. Welcome back. And it's great to have you on again. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. I guess I'm a third go around. I think.Oh, it's my pleasure. And Brian is the author of several books, including disaster at NASA book on Apollo one. He is also the author of two books on Grover Cleveland. And you can listen to the episodes on both of these books or all three of these books and go back and, um, buy the books as well. And all of that.Found in the show notes, but today we are going to talk about the 29th president of the United States. Warren G Harding. And Ryan has written a book on Warren G Harding on the jazz age. President Harding was president from March of 1921 to August of 1923. And this is a really [00:01:00] interesting time in American history and political history.Now to set the stage, we talked about Grover Cleveland in one of your previous appearances on the podcast. And Cleveland's presidency was during an age of great change. Cleveland was a Democrat and Harding was a Republican, but there seems to be some similarities that cross over in a lot of respects, what was happening in American politics during that roughly 20 ish years between Cleveland's presidency and Hardings presidents.Yeah. That's, that's something that, that, um, has made a lot of, uh, news and recent years. The, the two parties seem to have switched places, at least on a lot of issues from the 19th century to the 20th. And you're exactly right. Cleveland was a Jeffersonian Democrat, and I call him the last Jeffersonian. He was really the last Democrat president that we had that.Espouse those ideals of limited government states' rights, federalism, low taxes, low tariffs, [00:02:00] no debt, things like that. Non-active government non-interventionist foreign policy. We don't associate any of that with the democratic party today. I mean the democratic party after Cleveland started to go left beginning with William Jennings, Bryan, who was nominated in 1896, and then it went to Woodrow Wilson and FDR.Um, both parties actually had. No conservative and liberal wings. It just depended on which one was dominated. Of course, as I said, the democratic party has just continued to go left a little more. Every time we get another democratic president, but there's the conservative element began to dominate the Republican party beginning with Warren Harding.Before that, uh, the Republicans were more progressive, there was a big progressive elements in the. Uh, the previous Republican presidents were Roosevelt and Taft. They were certainly nothing like Warren Hardy, but now you get this strong, conservative wing that begins to dominate the Republican party beginning with Harding and Coolidge, and kind of went away with Hoover.But Harding [00:03:00] was probably the most conservative, Republican up until one, probably one of the most conservative Republicans we've ever had in the presidential. Can you to set him up just a little bit, tell us a little bit about his early career and his pre presidential career. And he didn't have a lot. He didn't serve a lot of time in the office.He was not really. Career politician, a total of, of all of his years of service. It was only about 15 years. Harding was born on November the second, 1865 a year. The civil war ended, the civil war had been over several months. By the time he was born, uh, interesting fact toy. He was actually elected on November the second, 1920 he's the only president we've ever had that was elected on his birthday.Um, he began his career. Um, again, he wasn't born wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but he, but he got into journalism first as a reporter. And he eventually, as a very young man, um, bought a newspaper, the Marion star, he was in Marion, Ohio. Um, and made it a very profitable [00:04:00] enterprise, then that's sort of what got him into politics because he got press passes, um, to attend political consensus.He actually attended the first national convention. He attended the Republican national convention was in 1884. Uh, interestingly, which is the year Grover Cleveland was elected. So he was at the convening. That nominated James G Blaine against Cleveland before kind of what it is appetite for that, uh, who served a couple of terms in the Ohio state Senate early in the 20th century, he served one term as Ohio's Lieutenant governor, uh, lost a bid in 1910, uh, for the governorship of Ohio, but he came back in 1940.One a us Senate seat, a six year term in the Senate, which would end in 19, he would have to run for a second term, but he was given the presidential nomination that year at the convention. And then of course served 881 days as president of United States. Some of the major issues that were confronting the parties.And, um, just in general, in the U S at that point for the. [00:05:00] The precedent to tackle. And this is something that I spend a lot of time on in the book. This is not a full biography of Warren Harding. I don't go into a lot of his background, but there is some, if you don't know much about him, you can certainly pick that up.But I start the book with the fight over the league of nations in 1918. And you really have to understand Harding and Hardee's election. You have to put them in the proper context. And there's a reason Harding, a man like Harding and his vice-presidential candidate. Uh, Calvin Coolidge was elected because of what was going on in the country.And you really have to go back to the previous 20 years that the country had been. In a progressive tide for the previous 20 years from Teddy Roosevelt TAF. And then of course, Woodrow Wilson, a lot of progressive reforms were going on and it was a lot of change for the people over there. Your period culminating in Woodrow Wilson's crusade in Europe, world war one, a lot of historians tried to say, well, progressive isn't really bad.In 1917, we entered the war. No, [00:06:00] absolutely not. Not opinion. War one was a progressive. Uh, war, uh, it was for, you know, a war to make the world safer democracy, a war to end all wars. Those are progressive ideals. You look at what progressivism was about. We would, we just moved it to Europe. That's all we'd done.And so coming out of the war, you get the treaty of Versailles. You get the fight over the league of nations and Harding was in the Senate. The Senate had to approve that treaty with the league of nations. I go into that story. Woodrow Wilson would not compromise on that. What so ever. The problem is the league had, um, in the league, in the charter, it was in the treaty.

Coming Soon on Beyond the Big Screen!You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:www.atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comClick here to support Beyond the Big Screen!https://www.subscribestar.com/beyondthebigscreenhttps://www.patreon.com/beyondthebigscreenClick to Subscribe:https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyParthenon Podcast Network Home:parthenonpodcast.comOn Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfThePapacyPodcasthttps://twitter.com/atozhistoryMusic Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Title: A Taste of the Future of Law Enforcement: RoboCopDescription: Is RoboCop as relevant today as it was when it was released in 1987? In today’s episode, Steve and Chris examine the movie RoboCop and the sequel RoboCop 2. We talk about science fiction, dystopian fiction and more!You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:www.atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comClick here to support Beyond the Big Screen!https://www.subscribestar.com/beyondthebigscreenhttps://www.patreon.com/beyondthebigscreenClick to Subscribe:https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyParthenon Podcast Network Home:parthenonpodcast.comOn Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfThePapacyPodcasthttps://twitter.com/atozhistoryMusic Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Image Credits:By http://www.impawards.com/1987/robocop.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18685790Begin Transcript:Thank you again for listening to Beyond the Big Screen podcast. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast network. Of course, a big thanks goes out to our frequent guest, Chris. You can now support beyond the big screen on Patreon and Subscribe Star. By joining on Patreon and Subscribe star, you help keep Beyond the Big Screen going and get many great benefits. You can get books, early released and ad free episodes and even becoming a part of the team! Go to patreon dot com forward slash beyond the big screen or subscribe star dot com forward slash beyond the big screen dot com to learn more.Another way to support Beyond the big screen is to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. These reviews really help me know what you think of the show and help other people learn about Beyond the Big screen. More about the Parthenon Podcast Network can be found at Parthenonpodcast.com. You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen, great movies and stories so great they should be movies on various social media platforms by searching for A to z history. Links to all this and more can be found at beyond the big screen dot com. I thank you for joining me again, Beyond the big Screen.[00:00:00] Welcome back to beyond the big screen. We're joined again by Chris. Um, and you'll know Chris from pro meet the S but today we're going to delve in, in a really similar way to another 80 scifi movie Robocop and not just Robocop one Robocop two. We're going to look at w what did this movie, what were some of the big ideas and concepts that this movie was trying to.Dig into and talk about. So it's really much more than an action movie. It's it's really is trying to in an 80 scifi kind of way, tap into some really interesting and complicated social and technological issues. So, Chris, how are you doing? Doing quite well? I, myself, um, yeah, roll Robocop is, uh, it's just a, it's a movie I grew up with all the time.It's uh, Pretty much anytime I get sick, it's the first thing I throw on is Robocop because I get I'll order a pizza or something and just watch [00:01:00] Robocop until I get better in the morning. It's just, I've watched it so many times. I just think it's, it's brilliant. But the basic premise of Robocop, I guess I should lay this out for the audiences.So Detroit is falling apart basically. And this is for both movies, Robocop and Robocop, uh, to Detroit is falling apart. Uh, the criminals essentially are running the streets, um, and the cops are being, uh, killed. Right. They seem to, uh, the police force seems to be really ineffective at, uh, trying to control the, uh, criminality that's essentially running, uh, Detroit.Uh, w I think the reason they pick Detroit is well, because it's kind of what happened to Detroit. It's kind of what's going on in. Now, right. Um, that's just my personal opinion. I think. I don't know for sure. That was the reason the director picked it, the pick the [00:02:00] Detroit, but that's what I think. Um, but in the backdrop of all of it, and this is what makes kind of rural cop stand out from your regular.Uh, dystopian sci-fi action movie from the eighties, you have a company called Omni consumer products and throughout the movie and I, for, for our purposes, we're just going to call it OCP. Now, OCP is a private corporation think a place like Amazon or Google. One of these, you know, big mega corporations, Lockheed Martin at different divisions, but they're in involved in a lot of different things.Yeah. Um, they, from you find out pretty quickly, there's essentially they run the police force and Detroit, a privately owned corporation is running the police force in Detroit because as you'll find later in the second movie, Detroit has no money. They can't pay, they can't pay their own police force. So basically they had to sell it off to [00:03:00] Omni consumer products who, you know, which is interesting because.You wouldn't think like, oh, the police forces, uh, you know, something that you can run for profit, but obviously Omni consumer products has found a way to run it for a profit. Right. We find, uh, so we see later, uh, I, our main character, Alex, murdered. Uh, it was being transferred to Detroit and his first and the job with his partner Lewis, who was a female police officer.So I guess that was, I guess that was pretty progressive at the time. I don't know. Paul Verhoeven, who's the director of the Robocop movie. He always has done those types of things and there's movies. He's like he also directed Starship troopers. He did the movie basic and staying, he did the movie total recall.He's always done like the. I don't know how to describe it. He's always kind of done like this. Uh, he's always had this thing for almost kind of like this gender genderless society, I guess is the sense I can think [00:04:00] of where like, uh, not genderless, like, um, I dunno like the females are just in the arm, like in the police force, just like the males are in, like in the army and they're doing all the same things, right?Yeah. I would say at that time, It wasn't the first batch of women who were really integrated into the police department, but that probably was kind of the cutting edge of it. He it's much more ad it's much more like clear and Starship troopers. Yeah. Murphy is unfortunately brutally killed on his first day of the job also.And it's honestly, probably one of the most graphic by death scenes and eighties action. And from my under, from my reading, apparently it was supposed to be worse, but this studio is just like, no, that's going too far. So I can only imagine. I can only imagine what it looked like originally. So Alex Murphy is killed and he gets.He basically, they [00:05:00] harvest what's left of his body, which is pretty much what they want is his brain. And they use them for what they call the, the, the Robocop program, which is this program of merging, um, the human being with this machine to create like this. Super cop that doesn't have the hang ups of like total AI.So he can think for itself to a certain degree, but it's still like, it can be kind of programmed like a machine it's this weird like hybrid, right. And OCP. Makes the Robocop and, you know, smash success. He goes around and starts, you know, taking care of business and killing all the, uh, the criminals in the second one.Whereas like, whereas Detroit is kind of like a failing state in the first one. And the second one is a completely failed state where literally the there's a drug called, ran by a guy named Cain who is supposed to, he, the guy who plays Kane kind of [00:06:00] plays a model. I give Charles Manson had like an actual, like large, like ran a drug cartel.Uh, he has, he has a drug, uh, called nuke, which is apparently the most addictive drug in the world. It, they, the guy playing cane, this is the, one of the main, one of the better characters I thought in that movie, because I liked the way he played on me. Kind of reminded me of, I'm trying to think of the guy's name, who did the.The, uh, who was, uh, like the leader of the LSD move. Timothy Leary. Yeah. Where he thought like, Kane, thanks. He's like freeing people's minds to new experiences and giving them paradise. Um, but obviously it's doing the exact opposite. You know, the cops are addicted the new, uh, you'll find, you'll see that later in the movie, the whole, the whole city has just gone to crap, basically.It's there's no. It's it's so bad that like, and this is one of the funnier parts of the second one, which it makes it darker. And a lot of ways, the, one of [00:07:00] the main drug Lords he's like the second hand man is a 12 year old kid. He can't help, but laugh, you know, like, could, I couldn't only imagine like that movie getting made a big, big dollar holidays.Yeah. But as a 12 year old kid. Um, and then you find out that you find out later in the movie that from the mayor. Detroit has officially gone bankrupt. And I think I'm in of two movies that, um, and that day and age in the eighties, they really did tie together really well. I think that, you know, they did carry through.