Richard Rush, film director.
He doesn’t have a lot of IMDB credits, but two significant ones: “Freebie and the Bean”, which I’ve seen described as “the first buddy cop movie” (citation needed), and “The Stunt Man” (which I remember as being a very good movie I’d love to watch again).
He also directed “Color of Night”, which I have heard is a completely ridiculous film with Bruce Wills full frontal nudity.
I started out doing police training videos, but those have become thin on the ground. So when a new one shows up in my feed it is a cause for celebration.
Especially this one. I believe it is called “Out Numbered” and dates to 1968 according to the notes. Those same notes also point out that it features “Martin Milner of Adam 12 Fame”.
I want to point out that, while a lot of people knew Mr. Milner best from “Adam-12” (and I include myself in that category) he had a much broader and more interesting career beyond one cop show: “Route 66”, “Sweet Smell of Success”, both “Dragnet”s (the 1950s one and the late 1960s-early 1970s one)…
Bonus #1: totally unrelated to police work, but something I found kind of cool. This is a vintage (1969, maybe) promo film by Canadair for their CL-215 water bomber.
Bonus #2: “Testing a $600 survival tool”.
$600? At that price, not only should it include a tent, but it had better be setting up that tent for me automatically. And making me breakfast in the morning and dinner at night.
An 18-year-old professonal bowler converted a 7-10 split on TV today for the first time in 30 years. pic.twitter.com/4Qfhy546fr
— Bryan Armen Graham (@BryanAGraham) April 11, 2021
I kind of enjoy watching pro bowling, when I can catch it on TV. I feel like I can sit down in front of it, and just completely turn off all my higher brain function. Sometimes you just need that.
Hattip to Lawrence on this Twitter thread:
Today is Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday.
Here are reasons why Thomas Jefferson is my favorite nerd.
— TRHL™ (refollow here) (@TheTRHL) April 13, 2021
One thing that’s missing from that thread: he wrote this.
[Emphasis added.]
I thought today, for Military History Monday, I’d do a couple of videos at the intersection of survival and military history. For reasons.
Short-ish: Have you ever asked yourself, “Self, how do I escape from a sinking submarine?”
If so:
“Submarine Escape” from 1953.
Long: there are actually two versions of this on the ‘Tube. I’m picking the longer one because the shorter one seems to be cut off. The longer one seems to be a little chopped as well, but not as dramatically.
“Survival in the Arctic Tundra”. In which the crew of a C-119 bails out and has to survive…in the Arctic tundra.
The Saturday Night Movie Group recently watched “Island in the Sky“, one of William Wellman’s two great John Wayne aviation films. (The other is “The High and the Mighty“.) “Island” is in large part about the crew of a downed aircraft trying to survive in the Arctic, and in equally large part about the interpersonal relationships between transport pilots, and how everyone unites when a crew is in trouble.
Both movies get my thumbs-up seal of approval.
Also, I kind of like the C-119.
In the previous post, valued commenter “Jimmy McNulty” made the observation:
This is absolutely true, and I have no argument with Mr. McNulty.
But it did get me thinking.
It has been (mumble mumble) years (soon to be mumble mumble plus one) since I was a Boy Scout. But my recollection of Boy Scout first aid training at the time (as well as the Red Cross first aid training I went through) was that: you should never ever ever use a tourniquet to stop bleeding.
Am I misremembering? Is there anyone else who was a Boy Scout back in the day, or took Red Cross first aid training, and remembers being told tourniquet = bad?
I know medical knowledge grows and changes. I remember the wisdom on snakebite treatment has changed over time as well. I’m just wondering when and why this changed.
This might be one of those discussions I need to have with some authority like Ambulance Driver over a couple-three beers if we’re ever in the same place at the same time.
John Clabburn, television director in Australia. He was 52.
I note this here to make a point: not a political one, but a safety one.
Clabburn was trimming hedges with a new power saw at his home when he cut his hand. He fell ten feet from his ladder and was soon discovered by his wife. He had just bought the chain saw that day.
His death was attributed to cardiac arrest from the blood loss from his slashed hand.
“When I went out to the back garden, he was crawling on the ground on his stomach, said Clabburn’s wife, Melissa, speaking to the Daily Telegraph. “There was so much blood, he was clutching his torso.
“I kept getting towels to stem the flow, but the blood wouldn’t stop.”
“All he said was, ‘Call an ambulance now,’” she said. “One minute we were admiring how straight the hedge was looking and what a great job he had done — he was so meticulous, he had a great eye for detail — the next, John was in an ambulance. He kept it together for me, but I know he would have been in incredible pain.”
Science Sunday!
I’ve got another NASA film lined up today, but this isn’t space science.
“Flight to Tomorrow” is a 1967 film about NASA’s supersonic aircraft research, including the SST, hypersonic transports, and noise abatement.
Bonus #1: I thought it might be interesting to post this: “The M2-F2 Crash” from the Dark Footage folks.
Why? Well, some of you may recognize the M2-F2. Some more of you may recognize some of the footage in this documentary. Otherwise, stay to the end, when all will be revealed.
Bonus #2 and #3: The history of the M2-F2 and the NASA lifting bodies led me to this.
“Today, Tomorrow and Titan III”, part one of “Man In Space”. I know I’m sort of fudging here, but I really do view lifting bodies and supersonic/hypersonic transport as being a different category of science than the manned space missions.
Part 2: This also covers Bill Dana and the X-15.
Bonus #4: Just one more, because it is short. The Martin Marietta X-24B lifting body.
James Hampton. He was “Hannibal Dobbs”, the bugler on “F-Troop” and knocked around movies and TV quite a bit: “The Rockford Files”, “Sling Blade”, “The Longest Yard” (the original)…
…and, yes, “Mannix”. (“Hardball”, season 8, episode 24, the very last episode.)
Ramsey Clark, attorney general under LBJ.
He went beyond lawyering. In 1972, with the war in Vietnam dragging on, Mr. Clark met with Communist officials in Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, and publicly criticized American conduct of the war. That began a pattern: In 1980, months after Iranian revolutionaries had attacked the United States Embassy in Tehran and taken Americans hostage, he went to that city with nine other Americans, in violation of a travel ban, to help resolve the crisis and participate in a conference in which he criticized the United States for having supported Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi before he was deposed.
Six years later he met with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya and denounced United States airstrikes against that country.
In November 1990, as the United States prepared for the Persian Gulf war, Mr. Clark, who had criticized the American deployment of forces in the gulf, consulted with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The next year he filed a complaint with the International War Crimes Tribunal accusing President George Bush of war crimes.
In 2011, he condemned NATO’s bombing campaign against Qaddafi’s government. In 2013, he said Iran had no intention of building a nuclear bomb and denounced sanctions against that country. Later, he protested lethal attacks by unmanned American drone aircraft on other nations.
Martina Batan, NYC contemporary art dealer. But there’s a bit more to the story than that.
Her brother was murdered at 14. His death devastated Ms. Batan: the case has never been solved.
Does anybody remember “Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?” George Segal? Jacqueline Bisset? Death by duck press?
“Diego Masciaga of Waterside Inn Restaurant Prepares Canard a la Presse”.
(Wow. Ted Kotcheff, the same guy who directed “Chefs” also directed “First Blood”. And “Weekend at Bernie’s”.)
Bonus #1: Made from the best stuff on Earth.
No, not Snapple. Scrapple. “Old fashioned scrapple making! A Pennsylvania Dutch specialty!”
Bonus #2: Okay, you were turned off by the scrapple, and you weren’t wild about the duck. How about “Beef en Croute with Sauce Bearnaise”?
Time for some more true crime. Or “crime” in this first case.
At the end of WWII, some of Hitler’s SS men made off with an estimated $130 million in Nazi gold.
“SS Bank Heist – Berlin 1945”.
Bonus #1: Well, this is interesting. Somebody posted a full episode of the series “FBI: The Unheard Music The Untold Stories” (with Pernell Roberts) to the ‘Tube.
“The Hijacking of TWA Flight 541”. I picked up on this because it is one part of a story I find kind of interesting. Back in 1978, a 17-year-old girl named Robin Oswald hijacked a plane. Why? She was trying to get her mother’s boyfriend, Garrett Brock Trapnell, out of the Federal prison in Marion.
Why didn’t her mom do it? Because her mom was dead: Barbara Ann Oswald tried to break Trapnell out of Marion by hijacking a helicopter. When the chopper landed in the prison yard, the pilot grabbed the gun and killed Ms. Oswald.
The whole Garrett Trapnell story is really kind of crazy. Beyond the helicopter escape, he was a bank robber, con man, aircraft hijacker…and bigamist. There’s a book about him that I’d love to find: The Fox Is Crazy, Too (no affiliate link, because Amazon prices are insane).
(And for those of you concerned about me exploiting a 17-year-old: she was tried as a juvenile and did minimal time. Robin Oswald actually appears briefly in shadow talking about Trapnell’s hold over her, and how she was a dumb kid at the time: Roberts mentions that she’d led a “productive life” since then.)
I miss this series. It was tight and informative: I find “The FBI Files” to sometimes be a little on the long side. Somebody needs to release this series on DVD, or get streaming rights.
Bonus #2: I miss the series so much, how about another episode? This one is about one of those product tampering scares from the 1980s. But there’s a twist…
For the historical record: Prince Philip. BBC.
Anne Beatts, one of the early SNL writers.
Not embedded here because it is in the obit.
Travel Thursday!
How about South America?
“Invitation to South America”. According to Periscope Films, this was co-sponsored by Pan Am and American Express, though it isn’t in the “Wings To…” series.
Bonus: I don’t think we’ve done Florida in our tour of the United States, so let us fix that.
“Fun, Sun, Sand And Sea”. This is an episode of the old “America!” TV series.
Sgt. Charles H. Coolidge (US Army – ret.), Amercian badass. He was 99.
Sgt. Coolidge was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. He was the oldest living MoH recipient. (The current oldest is now Hershel W. Williams, who is 97.)
Edited to add: throwing some backlinks Lawrence’s way.
I’m just feeling very random today.
“Vintage Tiny Home on Wheels – 1976 GMC Motorhome Tour”.
I really like that form factor in a RV. I also like the fact that it has an internal shower and toilet. They don’t make these any more, but I think if i was going to adopt the RV lifestyle, I’d look for something similar to this.
Random related crankery: the GMC motorhome was also the basis for Mack Bolan’s “War Wagon” in the “Executioner” books.
Bonus #1: We did “Worker and Parasite” earlier. How about the American response?
“It’s Everybody’s Business”, a 1954 film from the US Chamber of Commerce.
Bonus #2: trolling, trolling, trolling, got to keep on trolling…
“Flugzeuge am Haken” from 1969, featuring the favorite plane of Lawrence, RoadRich, and WCD. (Yes, it is dangerously close to military history, and in German. But it’s less than three minutes long.)
Bonus #3: I swear that early in the life of this blog, I posted someone’s blog entry about their purchase of a fire truck, and what to look for when you’re buying a used fire truck. But I can’t find that post now.
“I BOUGHT A Legit FIRETRUCK From The Fire Department”.
You know, $3,000 is almost in my price range, if I wanted to mess around in a used fire truck. Then again, my local gun shop has a nice Colt Combat Commander modified by Clark Custom for $2,500, and I wouldn’t have to worry about parking the .45.
Car talk!
Great and good FotB RoadRich sent this one over: “Master Hands”, a 1936 documentary about the Chevrolet manufacturing line: “from foundry to finished vehicles”.
Not only is this another fine piece of work from the Jam Handy folks, it is also on the Library of Congress National Film Registry.
Bonus #1: “Rare 1970 Plymouth Superbird unrestored”. I was out driving to an appointment a while back, and drove past one of the local auto repair shops. This one has some interesting and exotic stuff from time to time: that day, they had a Superbird in this exact color scheme (but seemingly restored) parked out front. I don’t think it was there for repair or restoration: I think someone was showing it off, and I nearly stopped to ask permission to take a photo. But I was running behind schedule…
As I’ve said before, I’m not a Mopar guy, but there’s something about the Superbird that grabs me.
Bonus #2: I’ve done Plymouth/Chrysler. I’ve done Chevy. How about Ford?
“The Hunt for Little Red”.
Breaking news, by way of Lawrence, and only from two sources at the moment: Alcee Hastings. Miami Herald in readable form.
Gloria Henry, most famous as the mother on the “Dennis the Menace” TV series.
Ritter was best known in the U.K. in recent years for playing the family patriarch in long-running Channel 4 comedy Friday Night Dinner, but was a recognizable face across numerous films, TV shows and stage plays, landing both Olivier and Tony nominations.
After his debut performance on famed police procedural drama The Bill in 1992, Ritter starred in films such as Son of Rambow, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Quantum of Solace. Ritter was recently seen in the Sky/HBO mini-series Chernobyl portraying Anatoly Dyatlov, the supervisor who was blamed for not following safety protocols leading to the nuclear disaster, and is set to appear in upcoming WWII drama Operation Mincemeat.
Arthur Kopit, playwright. Noted here because of his most famous work: “Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad”. Among his many other works: the book for “Nine”.
Malcolm Cecil, synthesizer guy.
Military History Monday strikes again! And today I’ve got two kind of odd ones for you.
“The Small Boat Navy”, a 1968 Navy propaganda film about shallow water Navy ops in Vietnam. The odd part? This is narrated by Steve Martin Perry Mason Chief Ironside Raymond Burr.
Bonus: this is a little on the short side, and just has overlaid background music, but I wanted to include it for the odd factor. Video of test flights of the prototype two seat Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II trainer jet aircraft from the 1970s.
What’s odd about this? Two things: this is the only one of these aircraft ever built.
Thing #2: The guy flying in the second seat is…Barry Goldwater. Yes, the Senator from Arizona.
Science Sunday!
I’m thinking a little bit of space science today.
First up, a nice little historical video direct from NASA about the Mercury Control Center.
That covers Mercury. How about Gemini?
“The 12 Gemini”.
Apollo? Well, would you settle for a vintage Rocketdyne promo video on “Large Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines”, like the F1 engine used in the Saturn V?
Last one, and it is a long one. But today is Sunday. “Engineering Space: The Mighty Saturn V”.
I thought I’d dabble in some real history again today. These are also long, but it is a Saturday. Also, this is advertising to some extent: I am not getting any compensation for this, but I like the idea, and heartily endorse this product and/or event.
When war broke out in Sudan towards the end of the 19th century, Winston Churchill wanted to be there. He managed to get himself attached to the 21st Lancers: he also managed to get himself a contract to write articles about the war for one of the newspapers.
In 1899, Churchill published The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan, his second book. The original edition was an elaborately put together and illustrated two-volume set.
After becoming a member of Parliament, Churchill edited it down to one volume (and removed much of his criticism of senior officers, especially General Kitchener), and subsequent reprints have pretty much been based on the one volume abridged edition. The original two-volume edition is very rare.
“Lessons from Churchill’s ‘The River War'”, a lecture at Hillsdale College by Dr. James W. Muller .
Longer bonus: this is only a few days old, too. Dr. Muller at America’s National Churchill Museum. “Churchill This Day #7: The River War: Churchill at War on the Nile”.
The advertising portion of this: Dr. Muller has been working on a new, two volume, unabridged and annotated edition of The River War. It is currently available for pre-order from Chartwell Booksellers, the Churchill specialty bookstore (who are very nice folks), with an estimated shipping date of early to mid-June.
Today through Sunday are going to be busy, so there’s probably going to be a strong dose of random.
I haven’t done anything with food in a while, so how about a seasonally appropriate recipe?
“Erich Shows us How to Make Hasenpfeffer”.
Another version from AlmazanKitchen:
Now I know why I don’t post more food videos: I’m hungry. So let’s switch gears.
Here’s another historical video from the AT&T Tech Channel: “The Thinking Machines”.
As I generally do, I’ve set this up to skip the intro.
Travel Thursday!
In honor of the late G. Gordon Liddy, how about a tour of the Watergate Hotel?
Bonus #1: I’m kind of bending one of my own rules here, but I’m thinking of this less as military history and more as “also inspired by current events”.
The Battleship New Jersey folks put up a video the other day about transiting the Suez and Panama canals.
Bonus #2: What the heck, let’s do some more ships. From the “Great British Royal Ships” series, “RMS Queen Mary”.
Man, one year of this. And I haven’t missed a day of being a lazy, shiftless blogger.
I thought today I’d do a sort of call back to the video that started it all, but from a different time – the 1980s – and a different source – the US Air Force. Even though it is an Air Force video, I consider it to be closer thematically to “Vehicle Ambush: Counterattacks”.
“Terrorism: A Survivable Threat”.
Bonus #1: “5 Police Cars Most Police Wish They Still Drove”.
Bonus #2: I’m not a huge fan of Jay Leno’s Garage, but since I’m doing cop stuff, and since I’ve written some in the past year about the California Highway Patrol, I thought I’d put this up: “Classic California Highway Patrol Cars”.
Most people don’t have a favorite Watergate conspirator.
G. Gordon Liddy was mine. WP in archive format so you can actually read it.
As a leader of a White House “plumbers” unit set up to plug information leaks, and then as a strategist for the president’s re-election campaign, Mr. Liddy helped devise plots to discredit Nixon “enemies” and to disrupt the 1972 Democratic National Convention. Most were far-fetched — bizarre kidnappings, acts of sabotage, traps using prostitutes, even an assassination — and were never carried out.
But Mr. Liddy, a former F.B.I. agent, and E. Howard Hunt, a former C.I.A. agent, engineered two break-ins at the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate complex in Washington. On May 28, 1972, as Mr. Liddy and Mr. Hunt stood by, six Cuban expatriates and James W. McCord Jr., a Nixon campaign security official, went in, planted bugs, photographed documents and got away cleanly.
A few weeks later, on June 17, four Cubans and Mr. McCord, wearing surgical gloves and carrying walkie-talkies, returned to the scene and were caught by the police. Mr. Liddy and Mr. Hunt, running the operation from a Watergate hotel room, fled but were soon arrested and indicted on charges of burglary, wiretapping and conspiracy.
…
…
Disbarred from law practice and in debt for $300,000, mostly for legal fees, Mr. Liddy began a new career as a writer. His first book, “Out of Control,” (1979) was a spy thriller. He later wrote another novel, “The Monkey Handlers” (1990), and a nonfiction book, “When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country” (2002). He also co-wrote a guide to fighting terrorism, “Fight Back! Tackling Terrorism, Liddy Style” (2006), and produced many articles on politics, taxes, health and other matters.
In 1980, he broke his silence on Watergate with his autobiography, “Will.” The reviews were mixed, but it became a best seller. After years of revelations by other Watergate conspirators, there was little new in it about the scandal, but critics said his account of prison life was graphic. A television movie based on the book was aired in 1982 by NBC.
…
His IMDB page. In addition to “Miami Vice”, he also did a guest shot on “Airwolf”.
…
But he was better known later as a syndicated talk-radio host with a right-wing agenda. “The G. Gordon Liddy Show,” begun in 1992, was carried on hundreds of stations by Viacom and later Radio America, with satellite hookups and internet streaming. It ran until his retirement in 2012. He lived in Fort Washington, Md.
Mr. Liddy, who promoted nutritional supplements and exercised, was still trim in his 70s. He made parachute jumps, took motorcycle trips, collected guns, played a piano and sang lieder. His website showed him craggy-faced with head held high, an American flag and the Capitol dome in the background.