Hello!

We’re a day late due to some website issues — but Charlie Largent says it’s safe to publish … reviews, anyway

Mark Throop of the indispensable Movies ala Mark found this site, which has been around long enough to be familiar to lots of film fans (except uninformed me). It’s called Reel History and is run by Dr. Jared Frederick. He does a good job of analyzing movies about ‘true’ historical events, and comparing them to known historical reality.

It looks like most of the films discussed are about war or battles, at least the ones at the top of Reel History’s menu. We watched part of an illustrated video on John Wayne’s 1960  The Alamo and were impressed … the good doctor managed to relate the discrepancy between Wayne’s film and the historical record, without calling the picture an outright fraud.

I’m interested in a second video article because it’s about the Spielberg / Milius / Gale & Zemeckis  “1941”. Dr. Frederick rightly calls the epic comedy a mess, yet he has many interesting observations regarding its re-creation of / exaggeration of the real event of 1941, in which some Angelenos seem even more stupid than the characters in the movie.

Actually, it’s hard to find an article with four consecutive words that discuss “1941” in any context other that its box office success or lack thereof. I liked it. Maybe I should write an unexpurgated ‘Making of 1941’ sometime. Maybe not. From witnessing much of the filming, I have a wonderful recall of second-hand gossip, and scores of skewed subjective personal observations.

Being reported from all sides is TCM’s schedule for April, which will set aside its Friday nights for a month-long tribute to producer-director  Roger Corman. They’ll be showing numerous Corman films, the films of some of the famed directors he helped get started, and a biographical documentary or two.

The news can be glommed at leisure, at the pages for  Warner Bros. Discovery,  All Hallows Geek and  Conskipper,

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson