sutton039

Randall Stephens Scott Hovey, managing editor of the Journal of the Historical Society , points us to the July 12th issue of Time magazine online. In it doctoral student in history at Boston University Matthew Pressman challenges the idea that a "gentlemen's agreement" existed between the press and Franklin Roosevelt regarding the president's disability.  Writes Pressman: The recently discovered film clip of President Franklin D. Roosevelt being pushed in a wheelchair, despite showing neither Roosevelt’s face nor the wheelchair, has become an object of considerable public interest. One reason people find the clip so fascinating is that it seems to represent a radically different era in American political life—one in which the president could rely on the press corps to help him hide from the larger public something so glaringly obvious as the fact that he was a paraplegic from having contracted polio at age 39.  An NBC Nightly News report on the discovery stated that ...

Randall Stephens For about the last five years the historian Alex von Tunzelmann has composed short pieces at the Guardian on history films .  "Reel History," so reads the description, focuses on "classics of big screen history and prises fact from fiction ." D oes the plot square with historical realit ies ?  What about the acting? The costumes ? Do anachronisms abound ?  Here's a bit from her recent piece on Northwest Passage (1940) . Writes Tunzelmann: The search for a northwest passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific has little to do with what's going on in this film. At the end, Rogers announces his intention to find one. This was supposed to be the sequel, and indeed its own title card announces it as Northwest Passage (Book I - Rogers' Rangers). Though it was a hit with audiences, it had cost too much to make. MGM canned Book II – and, just as in real life, no northwest passage was ever found. Verdic t: It's an impressively rough and to...