After this post and the comments it provoked, I vowed to get this one up before the end of the Fourth of July weekend. Twenty-five is an arbitrary number, and I mostly picked it because of time considerations. I’m also going to restrain my comments regarding the choices to a few sentences, at least for today. I may expand on them later.
Before compiling this list, I checked several others online with a similar theme. None made any sense to me, and all were, at their core, left-biased, anti-American, and, frankly, ignorant. My favorite line from the Rolling Stone list: “American culture is driven by Black culture and queer culture. Full stop.” After a statement like that, I couldn’t care less what films are on the list. The Guardian thinks “Don’t Look Up,” a really bad, unfunny satire, tells us anything about America other than how climate change hysteria has infected Hollywood. The woke Hollywood Reporter’s list includes the anti-white racist horror movie “Get Out,” which tells me that this list can’t be trusted either. And, of course, all the lists include “The Godfather,” a great movie that is an allegory for American culture only if you don’t like and admire America. I do. You won’t find “Godfather” 1 or 2 on the Ethics Alarms list.
One more point: it is hard enough getting the list down to twenty-five without trying to rank them, so I won’t. The numbering is just to keep track. Here you are…
Ethics Alarms 
After a really nice conversation over breakfast with Jack back in mid May where Jack mentioned some of these, I’ve now watched everyone on that list except for one, at least I don’t remember watching it, 19. “Inherit the Wind”. With an outstanding cast like that, it’s not likely that I didn’t see it at some point in time but I’ll have to find it and watch it to make sure.
P.S. The Terror of Tiny Town was a hoot!!
Inherit the Wind is (another) good example of one of a series of films that intend “cultural engineering”. Stanley Kramer, though he did not write the play it was based on, used the film as an ‘attack portrayal’ of the retrogressive South of the northern imagination. I assume (it seems likely) that the portrayal of the South as backward, bigoted, stupid and anti-American to the version of A New America being crafted by intellectuals, many with Marxist leanings. The movie had very little to do with the actual Scopes Trial and yet could only be taken as such by the viewing audience.
The movie is quite anti-Christian in fact, and that of course is a major part of its propagandistic, social-engineering function. It is interesting to note that HL Mencken, the reporter who reported on the actual Scopes Trial, was himself a Niezschean and quite a “hater” of all religious notions. It is not hard to understand why so much contempt for Christianity was generated, given the simplistic, literalist interpretations of it, but it must be recognized that along with the rejection of the simplistic Genesis model of creation, the attack was far more broad and it continued into the later 1960s as a general attack on established moral hierarchies. In this sense (my own opinion is) that this sort of film has to be seen as Marxian praxis: the function being to undermine Conservative social ideals by attacking at the “foundations”. The process is one of ‘demoralization’ by way of artistic production, academic instruction, advertising and propaganda, in a general process of reengineering the culture for a range of purposes.
It seems to me that the “attack on the South” by way of negative portrayal is a ‘trope’ established in the context of the pist-Civil War remolding and reconstruction of America into the newer form, and of course that virulent Americanism which functions at a sub-conscious level as religious conviction. It is curious to consider the thought of sociologist Robert Bellah who worked in the arena of ultra-progressivism and wrote quite interestingly on “America’s civic religion’.
All of this fits into a ‘picture’ if you will, an interpretation, of late Americanism that bred the radicalism of our present, and DEI, and the destructive processes that work incessantly to undermine important hierarchies (the general thesis of Robert Bork). The weirdest aspect is that “modern American Conservatives” are not in any sense Conservatives, but in fact cultural radicals who drive a little slower on the same, determined freeways …
Alizia wrote, “I assume (it seems likely) that the portrayal of the South as backward, bigoted, stupid and anti-American to the version of A New America being crafted by intellectuals, many with Marxist leanings.”
You wrote, “I assume”?
Am I correctly inferring that you are critiquing a movie that you have not seen?
That’s not a rhetorical question; it requires nothing more than a yes or no answer.
You are incorrect since I watched the film last night. Since when I was posting on Jack’s blog years ago, I have paid attention to all movie recommendations by Jack and others here. I intend to watch all the ones on this recent list that I’ve not seen because, well, it fits very well with my ‘project’ of analyzing Americanism in its new forms.
So many different ideas were expressed in my post. Is your only question and interest only if I watched the movie?!
BTW, would you describe yourself as a) fallen angel 😇 or b) ascending ape 🦍?
😎
Alizia Tyler wrote, “So many different ideas were expressed in my post. Is your only question and interest only if I watched the movie?!”
Yes Alizia, my only question and interest, at this time, is whether you watched the move or not.
Use a bit of logic Alizia.
I haven’t watched the movie (that I can remember), so since all of your opinion is somehow related to the movie, how can I support or refute any of what you wrote?
Why would I engage in debate of any kind under those conditions?
“ITW” is not an attack on the South. I’ve been in the play and I’ve seen all filmed versions of it. The Scopes Trial took place in Tennessee, and the portrayal of the residents of Dayton is, if anything, milder in the the play’s fictional town than the real thing. It’s a fictionalized history that understates Clarence Darrow’s contempt for devout Christians, which the real Darrow went out of his way not to hide during the trial. He was trying to lose the case, after all, because the ACLU hired him to get the anti-Evolution law to the Supreme Court. Those details were left out of “ITW’ because the whole episode was confusing and a legal debacle.
My view is different, and it fits with my interpretation and perception that contempt and distain (and ridicule) of the South and Southerners is a ‘trope’ that is expressed quite regularly and predictably in many films. I cannot speak of the play (I only read the Wiki page about it) but the movie is filled with contemptuous sentiments. The post I wrote very clearly expresses my view.
Jack wrote, “He was trying to lose the case, after all, because the ACLU hired him to get the anti-Evolution law to the Supreme Court.”
I just finished the 1999 version of this movie with Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott. Good movie and very interesting story. I’ll see if I can find the 1960 version sometime. What Jack wrote about the ACLU wanting to get it to the Supreme Court makes perfect sense and puts a new perspective on what I saw in the movie.
Attacking the south, nope, I don’t think so. I think it was a relatively accurate portrayal of the pulpit pounding, fire and brimstone, everyone is going to Hell, nature of the Southern Baptist and most of the other Baptist churches I ever attended.
I found myself reflecting back to my Grammar School days in the 1960’s in Chattanooga, TN and the way over-the-top Southern Baptist churches my family attended. My father was actually a Baptist minister for a while, he later became a Methodist minister. I grew up with people that were very much like those portrayed in that movie including the narrow minded pulpit pounding pastor in almost every church we attended back then.
Over my lifetime, the big difference I noticed between the Baptist church population in the south and the northern is that the southerners wore their religious beliefs like a huge cultish chip on their shoulders that they used to bludgeon everyone into submission, when you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail; on the other hand, the northerners exercised their faith like a useful tool designed for a specific job, when you see a nail you grab a hammer.
I never went back to another one of those “everything looks like a hammer” pulpit pounding Baptist churches as an older teen or as an adult. I’ve had some very pointed conversations with Baptist pastors and Catholic priests throughout the years, I’ve told more than one of them that much of their religious doctrine is either cherry picked or a bastardization of Christianity.
The 1960 edition is free on YouTube (but perhaps because we pay a monthly fee to not be subject to advertising). I doubt that either you or Jack read what I write with one of those ‘open minds’, and obviously what I think and write is shunned. Likely because I critique the American Conservative, who is, as I state, actually a radical linked to the same base tenants as the dreaded Progressive Leftist. Here is what it comes down to so that I am clear: Speak too directly to those indoctrinated into the ideology of Americanism, and you arouse contempt & hatred. It is defended like a religious ideology. And that is why I have wound up in such trouble. I am seen as not sharing valid, considerable ideas worthy of thought and conversation, but “screeds” of “anti-Americanism”.
With that said allow me to clarify what you, if you were not so prejudiced, would have been able to easiky understand had you read my post with a bit of generosity: the “trope” of bashing the South and the Southerner is a common one in American films. And it is picked up by those employing Marxist praxis to attack the pillars of former Americanism and to favor and encourage a New American ideology that coalesced in the 1960s. You might consider what I am saying in light of the discourse of Yuri Bezmenov (his videos are easy to find on YouTube). I used the term ‘demoralization’ as a tool of Marxist praxis:
Demoralization is the first stage of ideological subversion, and it involves the systematic undermining of a society’s moral and ethical foundations. Bezmenov explained that this process typically takes 15–20 years, roughly the time needed to educate one generation.
You might be able to understand the concept and process of this demoralization of American society and culture if you actually tried. You and Jack and 3/4 of the writership here constantly complain about “Democrats” and their Evil Plans and actions, but you seem not to understand the full scope of how and why things have come to this state. My focus is understanding causation and trying to see through that ideological indoctrination that rules in our present. I repeat: that rules in our present.
The 1960 version, as well as Stanley Kramer’s other films (like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and even Ship of Fools) are works arising in an age of the beginning of ‘remodeling’ of attitude (social engineering) that have led, step by step, to the bizarre present. I draw a correspondence between the trop or attitude of the conquering and destruction of the South in the 1860’s, and the continuation of this mood of reconstruction. (And I choose, BTW, to remain ‘unreconstructed’ even though I am American by adoption).
Again, I come with ideas relevant to genuine Conservatism and these ideas involve pointed critiques of supposed Conservatism which, as we say, does not preserve anything.
The movie does not bash the South. Full Stop. It is performed as often in the South as anywhere else. “Ship of Fools” is tied with “Judgment at Nuremburg” as Kramer’s finest movie. There is no just reason to attack either on a substantive basis unless one is reflexively anti-Semitic.
I wonder: How many times must I repeat it? (And still be misunderstood). It is part of a ‘trope’ that has become part-and-parcel of the present American psyche. Take into consideration the totality of what I have expressed.
I think you confuse non-religious and often Jewish influenced social progressivism (more often tinged with Marxist ideas and praxis) as universally representing both Jews and Judaism? So, any critique of this (sort of bastardization?) you can only take as “anti-Semitism”.
In my view a clear distinction must be drawn. Kramer, like many social progressives, involved themselves with great force in those cultural engineering processes in the Sixties and post-Sixties. That literally defines a whole generational period.
You are again using terms and labels as a means to inhibit clear thinking. That’s your prerogative of course. But not mine …
Alizia wrote, “American Conservative, who is, as I state, actually a radical linked to the same base tenants as the dreaded Progressive Leftist.”
You writing absurd things like this is what drives people away from reading your screeds, which sometime read like you’re trolling to start arguments. Those kinds of comparisons are like saying you are like Hitler because you both put your pants on one leg at a time.
Almost anytime anyone replies to you, the conversation goes straight down a rabbit hole into an absurd alternate universe.
What Jack wrote about the ACLU wanting to get it to the Supreme Court makes perfect sense and puts a new perspective on what I saw in the movie.
If one takes seriously that activity and process of “demoralization” seriously, then the effort to undermine or to thwart the expression of Christian-based ethics in the schools and in public display, can be seen in a negative light.
I am not defending an attitude of close-mindedness toward scientific theory such as evolution, but only noting that the undermining of even that narrow-minded Christianity has myriad consequences (or has had myriad consequences) in our society.
The notion of “demoralization” of a people by way of attack on ‘metaphysical solidities’ is what I am talking about. Once people, or a people, have abandoned ‘belief in’ those orienting metaphysical ideas, they can only become ‘horizontal’ because the vertical’ dimension is no longer understood to be ‘real’.
The processes by which people lose that vertical dimension, and then have no alternative but mechanical materialism is what draws me (and many factions among the Dissident Right) to explore ‘a metaphysics of restoration’. A non-metaphysical materialism is the perfect domain for unrestrained Marxist idealism, which manifests — as in our present — in ever more bizarre forms.
Oh please. The law was a flat out First Amendment violation. Not even a close call.
I do not disagree, of course. I am talking about and I am interested in a larger and consequential process of demoralization.
I lawyerly manner, you always focus on portions or elements that you can attack with some ease, but do not respond to the totality of what I bring out.
I’ll repeat what I wrote above; almost anytime anyone replies to you, the conversation goes straight down a rabbit hole into an absurd alternate universe.
Stop deflecting like an internet troll.
Talk about what you think that ‘rabbit hole’ is. What precisely do you mean?
It is a negative term, evidently, but what do you mean? Do you know?
The “rabbit hole” is referencing the story Alice in Wonderland, but you already knew that, so this was just more of your trolling to extend the conversation.
You really should change your icon from the fleur-de-lys to a graphic representation of the Alice in Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts, it would better represent the Alizia we’ve come to know.
Fin.
Alizia wrote, “American Conservative, who is, as I state, actually a radical linked to the same base tenants as the dreaded Progressive Leftist.”
Steve responds: You writing absurd things like this is what drives people away from reading your screeds, which sometime read like you’re trolling to start arguments. Those kinds of comparisons are like saying you are like Hitler because you both put your pants on one leg at a time.
Almost anytime anyone replies to you, the conversation goes straight down a rabbit hole into an absurd alternate universe.
What you label, subjectively, as an ‘absurd alternate universe’, the realm of dissident critique of Conservatism, you reveal and describe your own prejudices. You have every right to do that, please understand , but I do not think it wise to do so.
What drives people away from considering the ideas I present has a great deal to do with people stuck in an outmoded way of seeing things. It seems like convention, like bias and prejudice, and also sheer stubbornness. This blog has about 10 people who contribute! It could be, and it should be, a far larger group and it should allow and encourage new perspectives.
You simply cannot see, and will not consider, that the so-called Conservatism you-plural are involved with, is foundationally non-different from that of the Progressive Left. They have simply taken it further! There are books published on the Dissident critique of American Conservatism. It is a real category and it (they, we) have had and are having effect through our influence. To dismiss it as “alternate universe” is non-intelligent.
I am not trolling, that is your interpretation, but I am definitely interested in provoking conversation. Always civilly, always politely.
Steve burped up: “The “rabbit hole” is referencing the story Alice in Wonderland, but you already knew that, so this was just more of your trolling to extend the conversation.”
You misunderstood. I certainly know where the metaphor cones from, myvquestion is: Define what, precisely, the rabbit 🐇 hole is that you see me going down into or inviting you. What do you mean? I wager that you cannot!
You really should change your icon from the fleur-de-lys to a graphic representation of the Alice in Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts, it would better represent the Alizia we’ve come to know.
That is simple denigration and it carries no weight. When pressed you cannot defend your thinking. Because there is so little of it!
I know the list was hard enough to make, but maybe some honorable mentions.
Forrest Gump.
The SandLot (I like this one a lot more than I like Field of Dreams).
Second Hand Lions.
Independence Day.
Breakfast Club.
True Grit.
Maybe…We We Soldiers.
Last night, my family and I went to see the fireworks at Fort Jackson in South Carolina. I’ve lived in the state for the past three years. The last time I was here before that was in 2002, when I went through basic training at Fort Jackson. I can’t be completely certain, but I’m fairly sure that the younger version of me sat in that same field, watching a similar fireworks show, fully aware—however dimly—that I might one day go to war.
Within six months, I would receive my orders. Three months after that, I would be on a plane to Kuwait. A month later, I would be in Iraq. Twelve months after that, most of us would come home—except one. He lost his life in a cowardly attack against our convoy.
In the field, I turned to my wife and asked where she thought she had been at sixteen (we’re two years apart). My youngest, thirteen, sat beside us looking up at the sky, while my oldest, fifteen, talked with nearby recruits. Over the past year, he has become heavily involved in JROTC, even going so far as to graduate from officer camp just three weeks ago.
“Oh, I think I was doing something similar,” my wife said. “Probably in a field in Ohio, maybe with my mom and dad, listening to my brother complain.”
I figured as much. We were both in fields at the same time, living completely different versions of the same age. I bring this up, because if you want to see American Exceptionalism on July 4th, look at it through the eyes of a soldier.
Consider this part at the of Mel Gibson’s movie.
“We who have seen war, will never stop seeing it. In the silence of the night, we will always hear the screams. So this is our story, for we were soldiers once, and young.”
Sixteen-year-old me never considered it. Eighteen-year-old me saw it on the horizon. Now forty-two-year-old me lives with it almost every day—and all the nightmares it has given me over the years. Still, I wouldn’t change a thing. I wouldn’t be the man I am, I wouldn’t have the life I’ve lived, and I wouldn’t have been part of the greatest experiment in the history of this country if I hadn’t sat in that field twenty-four years ago.
There are much better stories than mine, (which is hardly worth mentioning). Still, family is safer because I did my part. One day, I know my grandchildren will be too, because my son is already willing to do his. That’s a story I very much look to seeing.
Remember, these aren’t my favorite movies (though I like all of them) or even ethics movies. They are movies that reveal a significant part of the American character and culture.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks Forrest Gump is a contender. My alternative movie choices are more niche stories and more recent history. Bottle shock, Lords of Dogtown, Ford Vs Ferrari, The Pursuit of Happiness, Sarah Plain and Tall, Places in the Heart, A League of Their Own, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and October Sky come to mind.
Thank you for sharing your own story and your service. It’s interesting how perspectives shift over time. Most of my July 4ths have been in a wheat field or providing meals for the harvest crew. We sometimes stopped early to get to the fireworks, sometimes not. Recently, the fire danger has been high and they’ve canceled them completely. This year I went to a time capsule ceremony in my hometown.
I like the “Forrest Gump”, of course, and know it contains several historical touchpoints. But does the movie really teach us anything about American culture beyond the familiar underdog succeeding story? Bottle Shock and Ford v.Ferrari were close to making the list. I rejected “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” in the end because it’s just such an annoying movie and picked a better Poitier performance, “In the Heat of the Night,” instead.
I agree about Forrest Gump and the touchpoint to historical events more than being overall character of the US, but the other characters, the angry disabled vet, aggressive black panther, the following people get for a cause, the lost girl, there are a lot of snapshots into ordinary people. As someone who didn’t live through any of it but the AIDS crisis, and I was little then, it’s interesting, the characters Forrest, as the narrator, engages with. Sidney Poitier is one of my favorite actors, the first movie I watched with him in it was The Bricklayer. I agree about Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner as well. It was a tedious movie, but as someone who didn’t live through the civil rights movement, it definitely makes you realize how far we really have come. Same with Hildago, (another niche film instead of an overall cultural piece) its perspective shows how unique our culture truly was on the world stage at the time.
Still is, don’t you think? Maybe more than ever.
Inherit the Wind is interesting. It’s got Mr. Roper (Norman Fell) and Darrin from Bewitched, so that’s a nice touch to the good cast. Anyway, the real William Jennings Bryan was not the crazed buffoon the movie makes him out to be. A big part of his objection wasn’t “evolution offends my faith” — it was that the textbook actually used in the Scopes case, Hunter’s Civic Biology, presented eugenics and racial hierarchy as scientific fact alongside evolution, explicitly ranking races and floating things like sterilization of the “unfit.” Bryan was genuinely alarmed that Social Darwinist ideas were being taught to children as settled science. But the movie was written as an allegory to McCarthyism, so they buffoonized (my word, sorry) Bryan beyond repair. Not a bad movie at all, and not the greatest either in my opinion. But you should watch it for sure, Steve Witherspoon.
Yes, Brady is a parody of the real Bryan, who also did much better in his duel of wits with Darrow than “ITW” has it. Read “Summer of the Gods” about the real Scopes trial and how it related to “ITW.”
Lawrence and Lee (writers) used the script to “make a point,” which is often a red flag for quality. The movie lost the chance to show two intellectual titans, who actually agreed on many social issues, breaking apart over a philosophical shift in America. Hollywood rarely trusts audiences with that level of raw intellectual complexity. Anyway, thanks for the post.
Yes. But it’s a good play for high schools to do (I played the Mencken character in mine–type-casting) and gets the intellectually curious to read more about Darrow, Bryan, Mencken and Darwin. I did, anyway.
Cast Charles Laughton as WJ Bryan and give him full reign to be true to the man he’s playing and the arguments he’s making. That’s a film for the ages — and it would still satisfy you in high school. (Not everyone, of course, but you it would I think.)
FYI, this wordpress normally defaults me to kawaii65… but once in a while it accepts pt109 — not that it matters, but I’m the same person (I think…).
A big part of his objection wasn’t “evolution offends my faith” — it was that the textbook actually used in the Scopes case, Hunter’s Civic Biology, presented eugenics and racial hierarchy as scientific fact alongside evolution, explicitly ranking races and floating things like sterilization of the “unfit.” Bryan was genuinely alarmed that Social Darwinist ideas were being taught to children as settled science.
How very much more interesting is the real case, and the real concerns involved, and how different the message of the Kramer film which, having seen it, serves other purposes.
But Bryan wasn’t defending a law that banned the teaching of eugenics, so I don’t see how this is relevant. And Darrow, whose mother ran a stop on the Underground Railroad, would be the last one to defend a racist text.
ITW was dumbed down as a political allegory, and they threw Bryan under the bus, and I’m not sure why it is stands with some of the other great movies like 12 angry men. In my view, it shouldn’t.
It’s still about a real trial, and the only credible representation of Clarence Darrow on screen. And a lot of the dialogue is from the transcript. It may be the best play for schools of all. A good teacher could use it for many fascinating lessons.
Henry Fonda in the 1974 movie about Clarence Darrow, and I think Orson Wells played Darrow in Compulsion (which was not a good film in my view). Spencer Tracy was great, but not necessarily a great Darrow. Yes, as a teaching aid I’ll give you ITW! But I learned more as a kid from 12 angry men. The fragility of the legal system reflecting the fragility of people, all against the backdrop of the most severe and permanent forms of justice: capital punishment.
Since I cannot finally decide what is the proper attitude and outlook to take about the interpretation of America and the construction of a virulent Americanism in the Postwar, and therefore cannot decide where my own proper ‘ethical commitment’ should be, I find myself constantly in conflict, not only inside myself personally, but (obviously) on Jack’s blog — which seems to be populated only by agreers, since disagreement gets one in big trouble, and shunned by the group.
You know it is a curious thing about “America’s civil religion’ that it requires belief similar to religious belief. This came up when I noticed Lincoln on the list. Spielberg is, in my view, a con-artist of a movie-maker. And I might also say that he is a sort of ‘ideological engine’ of this thing I call ‘the New America’. Not only is the Progressive Left deeply involved in this construct, which demands praxis is the Marxist sense, but so to, and very much, are the so-called Conservatives. They accept all the same basic tenants, but the Conservatives are simply 10 maybe 20 years behind the wave. American Liberalism, that morphs into Hyper-Liberalism soon enough, is a disease of the mind and spirit. It is irrational, emotionally driven, and a creation of mass propaganda and Public Relations. If I see this, if I say this, does that mean I am on the Devil’s Team?! I do not think so.
I thought Lincoln was pretty amazing, if only for the portrayal of Lincoln and his wife). There is one scene that made me want to vomit and it was the one in the camp of war when Lincoln is associating with his troops and the two White boys and the two Black boys, and Spielberg deliberately humiliates his White audience by portraying the two Whites as dullards and the two Blacks as “astute followers of culture” because they recited the Gettysburg Address verbatim!
The actual hypocrisy is pretty startling. Not in that fictitious, politicized, anti-American portrayal (favoring a New American Ideology of the Postwar and polished and perfected in the 1980s and 1990s and hyper-intensified in the 2000s) but in a real historical fact: the man Lincoln certainly hated slavery, no doubt about it, but he advocated and worked for the removal of Blacks from the States. (There were 3 locations chosen for removal: Chiriqui Panama, Haiti, and Lincoln Liberia).
So the line in the film by Lincoln “I’ll get used to you” is a complete lie and a revisionist enactment infused with (Spielbergian) ideology. You see? This is not really quite cinematic art but cultural engineering. But there. I said ”cultural engineering” and the reference is cynical or contrarian. I guess I must really be Satan’s child.
No, sorry, I am not going along with all of it. Not so much about this one instance, but with the invention of New America as a massive cultural engineering project overseen by both huge business interests in collusion with big, central government, and not to leave out intelligence agencies which (according to some historians and critics) were deeply involved in the manufacture of New Americanism in the Postwar.
What does this perspective (and the inclusion of ‘forbidden’ bits of information) make me? Friend? Enemy? Ethical? Unethical?
“Summer of the Gods” is excellent and should be required reading after the kids are made to watch “Inherit the Wind”.
Best line and biggest laugh from our Class of 1973 fiftieth college reunion official reminiscence: “We thought ‘Animal House’ was a documentary.”
It wasn’t that far off….
The “Reel History” guy posted an analysis of “1776” over last weekend. (As a Pennsylvanian himself, he thought the portrayal of Dickenson was unfair; however, most of his comments about the rest of the film were positive.) A previous commenter suggested “True Grit” as a possible addition to the list — but would the original John Wayne version or the later remake be a better candidate for the list?
As a Western film aficionado who is extremely fond of both “True Grits,” I don’t see either as particularly revelatory of US culture any more than many other Westerns. If I had to pick one, it would be the original, because John Wayne’s iconic character is itself part of US culture, and that movie was that character’s apotheosis.
A wonderful film, by the way.
That line “She reminds me of me!”
The only movie I have seen in a theater more than twice. Loved it, and told everyone why I loved it. When John Wayne won the Oscar, I got phone calls from all over the country.
We agree on something. I will treasure this moment always. 🌞
We watched Hoosiers last night and liked it.
Also an excellent ethics movie. A majorleadership moment: the coach insists of total obeisance from the team, but when his best player challenges the coach’s call for the crucial last play and says: “I’ll make the shot,” the coach trusts him, and changes the play. Good leaders recognize when a subordinate is at the point when he or she knows best. When they are willing to take all the responsibility and show that level of confidence, trust them.
I just watched the 1960’s version of “Inherit the Wind” and I think they did a great job! Gene Kelly really has a really hard time hiding his natural smiling eyes, him in that role was a bit of a stretch for me but he did a fine job. Claude Akins just didn’t work for me as the Reverend. Harry Morgan’s has a natural voice of authority and he uses it in his roles very well. Spencer Tracy and Fredric March were absolutely outstanding, the acting chemistry between them was absolutely perfect. I like the 1960 black and white version of the 1920’s better than the 1999 version, it’s a really good period movie and I now completely understand why you added it to your list.