Friday Flicks: Hitler – Dead or Alive

There was a little pre-discussion about bad movies over on the Friday [Fornicate]-Off Thread at It Comes in Pints? (language alert, obviously), so I thought I'd toss in a demonstration of true celluloid badness.

Yes, I know it was wartime. Yes, I know propaganda movies were an important part of the war effort. All I can say is that in order for guys like Ward Bond and Warren Hymer to be willing to appear in this stinkeroo, they must have really, really loved their country.

The plot is silly enough on the surface. An American businessman offers a million-dollar reward for the abduction of Hitler (hence the title). His offer is accepted by a group of low-key gangsters, who join the Canadian air force, hijack a plane, and parachute into Germany behind the lines. It gets progressively more ludicrous from there. I hesitate to give away any more plot, because you actually have to see it to believe it. It's not boring, at least. Nor, mercifully, is it overly long at an hour and ten minutes. But if you can get out of it without cramping up your cringe muscles, you've got a higher threshold than I do.

This is not a movie with camp value, like Plan 9 from Outer Space. It's unintentionally funny, like Plan 9, but it's so straight-faced that it's hard to make enough fun of. If it were a person, it would need to be institutionalized for its own good.



As always, if you watch even some of this, leave a comment. If I'm to watch this bilge, I hate to do it alone.

A note of additional weirdness: Apparently this turkey was inspired by an actual reward offer. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are turned into schlocky B-flicks.

My son, the stereotype

It seems all those assumptions about video game fanatics have a certain basis in truth.

This is what makes me proud of my country

Well, one of the things.

The governing military junta in Myanmar has agreed to allow a single U.S. cargo aircraft to bring in relief supplies for victims of a devastating cyclone, Bush administration officials said Friday.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the United States welcomed the go-ahead to land a U.S. militaryC-130 in the country on Monday. He said he hopes this is the beginning of continued aid flowing into the country from the United States and other nations and international relief agencies.

Earlier Friday, Ky Luu, director of the U.S. office of foreign disaster assistance, had said that skilled aid workers were being forced to sit on the sidelines as victims of last week's cyclone die. His comments reflect the mounting frustration among the United States and other countries as they wait for permission from the military-led government to begin trying to help.


Said Johndroe: "We will continue to work with the government of Burma to allow other assistance. We hope that this is the beginning of a long line of assistance from the United States to Burma."

"We are very concerned about the people of Burma," he added.

Johndroe also said that while the U.S. still has limited leeway to help, "One flight is much better than no flights.

This is a country whose government hates us, and what are we doing? We're jolly well begging them to let us come and save their lives. We've got nothing to gain from this. There's no profit potential, no political capital to be won. We're simply humbling ourselves and asking to be allowed to give away some of what God's blessed us with. Why?

Because we're Americans, and this is what Americans do. Remember that the next time some loud-mouthed pissant starts ranting about all the evil we unleash in the world, or shouts "God damn America" from a pulpit. When people are hungry, or homeless, or in danger, Americans are the first ones to step up to the plate. We are, by and large, some of the most generous people on the planet. Even to countries that treat us like dung. Notice that when the story first broke and President Bush called for sending aid, he didn't use the press conference to badmouth the Myanmar junta. (And if ever a government had some badmouthing coming, this is it.) Say what you will about his policies, the president understands what it is to be American. How many of his detractors would have left politics out of the equation?

I'll salute the flag and sing the national anthem. I'll cheer when soldiers go by on parade. I support our military endeavors, whether or not I think a particular operation is a good idea. But the time I'm proudest of my country is when we're handing out food and saving lives.

God bless America. And then may He help us bless the rest of the world.

Steeplechase!*

A guest blogger at Internet Monk seems to have solved the denominational problem, albeit at the cost of a lot of gas and more stress than the Sabbath should warrant:

First, I will attend the early service at my local evangelical megachurch, New Life Excitement Amazing Church Franchise #165. About half an hour into worship (maybe 1/4 of a worship chorus), I will inevitably convert to Catholicism. I will hurry over to mass at Our Lady of Dubious Likenesses in Quesadillas, but find myself so irritated by the idea of the actual mass that I will indignantly march over to Biblical Family Principles Baptist Family Family Church. With any luck, they will be well into the sermon. Since this is an election year, I’ll only have to listen for a few minutes before the blatant politicization and unbearable law sends me over to St. Oprah’s Episcopal. I’ll enjoy the sonorous liturgy right up until the sermon, which will help me finally understand that there is no God and all religion is evil. I’ll head out to my car, where I’ll do devotions with Richard Dawkins. It usually takes around 17 or 18 pages before, out of spite, I go to a mosque, or more likely Extremely Greek Orthodox church, which is just down the road. I know I won’t be able to take communion, of course, but I’ll be able to get the priest’s blessing and tell everyone about my coming home story. The self-congratulation will be enough to propel me happily back to NLEAC #165 where I’ll be able to catch maybe the last 15 minutes of the closing song, having made peace with evangelicalism until next Sunday.

The only flaw I can see is that I’ll never get to take communion, but if my wife and I order rolls and a glass of merlot at lunch, we can decide that’s what Jesus really had in mind and be emerging for a few minutes. Problem solved!

*With apologies to Steve Taylor.

I'm a little proud of myself

I'm not as out of practice as I thought. I only had to look up one word to get this. (In honesty, though, it was a pretty crucial one.) The Wittenburg Door's Latin Joke of the Day:

Cum Bob expiscit is reciperet fortunam ubi suum patrum aegrum interiit, decrevit invenire mulierem quam fructa sit copiam cum eo.

Ita, uno vespere iit ad tabernam caelibum ubi conspexit pulchrissimam feminam quam visus esset umquam. Nativa pulchritudo feminae exanimavit eum.

"Videor quasi sum modo vulgaris vir," Bob dixit ubi ambulavit ad eam, "sed in septum diebus modo, meus pater interibit, et hereditatem sestertiorum viciens accipiam."

Inculcata, femina ivit ad domum cum eo illo vespere, et, post triduum, noverca eius facta erat.

Feminae sunt tantae intelligentiores quam vires.

How and why I learned Latin to begin with is a story for another time. I had no idea then I'd ever be Catholic.

Daughters Two and Three are studying Latin in their homeschooling. Let's see if they can get this one.

A soft answer turneth away wrath

Dear woman at the next desk:

I know you're overworked. It must be terribly draining to keep such close watch on the doings of other departments, while simultaneously operating two side businesses on company time. So when you make a screw-up that forces me to miss a deadline I worked all last weekend to meet, then bray about how this wouldn't have happened if you'd just micromanaged me a tad more, I quite understand. I mean, who could expect you to do your job when you have so many other things to do?

So I would like to invite you, in a spirit of cordial professionalism, to hurl your sorry, useless, squawking self into a pit of rabid weasels, there to take your place as queen of the repulsive rodents. After all, you've earned it.

Thanks ever so much.

The question of personhood

This gets a little grody, but it's 200-proof distilled truth.

Personhood is an excuse. If one wishes to work one's will upon the weak and helpless, one first removes their humanity in thought. Call the Jews sons of Pigs. Call the Negroes sub-human. Call the worthless old folk bread gobblers or vegetables. Called the unborn any name by what they are: human offspring. Babies.

Tell me honestly. If I said I had a mare who was carrying a foal in her womb, do you think anyone (anyone not deliberately arguing about abortion) could correct my language, and tell me my mare cannot be carrying a foal, because an embryo is not a member of the species 'horse'?

Does anyone talk that way? Does anyone say a horse is not a horse just because it is still in the womb?

Let us take this hypothetical one step further. Suppose I were an faithful Hindu, forbidden by my laws to eat beef. Could I eat the veal from an unborn calf on the grounds that he was not a cow, not a member of the species, cattle? Suppose I were an observant Jew, forbidden by my laws to eat pork. Could I eat the bacon from an unborn piglet on the grounds that he was not a swine, not a member of the species, pig?

Would anyone be persuaded by the beef-eating Hindu or the pork-eating Jew if their diet consisted only of animals taken half a second before birth from their mother's wombs?

Let us take the hypothetical one step further. Suppose I live in a country where unborn homo sapiens are not considered human. Suppose my laws forbid the eating of human flesh, on the ground that it is cannibalism. I go to an abortionist, find a baby who is only halfway out of the womb, coming out feet first. The abortionist drives a pair of scissors into the babies fragile skull, and suctions out this brains. I take the rest of the flesh home and cook it up for a meat sandwich. Michael Valentine Smith and Hannibal Lector come by and eat with me. A little tiny perfectly formed baby hand sticks out of one side of my sandwich as I wolf it down.

Is my action legally not an act of cannibalism, on the grounds that what I ate was not a human?

If anyone can think of a pro-abortion answer that holds water, I'd be interested in hearing it. I can't come up with one.

Akubra tip to Paragraph Farmer.

All you need is bodily fluids and an insane desire for attention

As usual, Iowahawk has the best take on the Yale abortion-art hooraw.

Lord, hear our prayer

Or for Protestant readers, can I get an "amen?"

Dear Jesus,

Please do not create any more stupid people. We are full up, here.

Love,

Nina

No contest whatsoever

In an immediate compromise of the post below, I have to pass this on. You've probably seen it already, but I can't stop chortling over it.

A comment from Denmark on the upcoming U.S. Presidential elections

'We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an election.

On one side, you have a b*tch who is a lawyer, married to a lawyer, and a lawyer who is married to a b*tch who is a lawyer.

On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a woman with a large chest who owns a beer distributorship.

Is there a contest here?'

I'll go along with it

Back in the 90s, when conservatives were finding conspiracy theories in every corner of the Clinton White House, and finding no charge so ludicrous that they wouldn't level it against him, I went unheard in saying that it would come back to bite us in the butt when a Republican was elected. I turned out to be right, as the frequent outbreaks of Bush Derangement Syndrome demonstrate. So I'm pleased to see this relayed by A Boy Named Sous:

The Conservative Non-Derangement Pact
If Obama is elected:
1. We won’t convert the conservative blogosphere into a shrill, psychotic echo chamber consisting primarily of profanity-laced invective.
2. If anyone kills themselves in the White House, we will assume it isn’t murder until proven otherwise.
3. We won’t be so strident in our hatred of Obama that we push moderates into his corner.
4. We won’t start up another raft of conspiracy theories involving the Illuminati.
5. We WILL fight our political battles red of tooth and claw, but smile while doing it.

I'll sign. One side has to be gentlemen, and it should be the side that can say the word without spitting.

Today she's on the plane.

Of the entire cast of the greatest movie ever made, there is now only one cast member still alive. Joy Page, who played the sweet young thing Annina Brandel, now travels in elephants.

Annina was the sweet young bride who is prepared to sacrifice her wifely virtue to the slimy Renneau for exit visas for her and her husband. Rick, we all know, intervenes and lets him win a bundle at roulette, so the girl can leave Casablanca without her husband ever knowing what she was ready to do for him. It's one of the best scenes in the film, a counterpoint to the cynicism and drama that surrounds Rick himself. It also shows that the idea of women in the 40s as decorative but passive is hooey. Annina is (as she puts it) older than her husband, even though she's presumably got fewer years. (In fact, the actor who played Jan was seven years older; he died in 1982.) It also gives Rick a chance to show that he's not as hard-bitten as he comes across. It's kind of a build-up to the drunk-and-weeeping scene, where we see his pain poured out into a glass. Women, it says, can indeed be good people; it's only Rick's bad luck that he was so badly burned. (Show em a divorced or otherwise dumped man who doesn't immediately identify with that scene, and I'll show you onne who was never really in love.)

Joy Page makes you want to smile sweetly the first time she comes on camera, looking up at the plane to Lisbon and saying, "Maybe tomorrow we'll be on that plane." There's an innocence about her that shines like an aura. In this crazy world, people like her are the ones that do matter a hill of beans. They're the reason a war should be fought.

So the last surviving cast member (that IMDb can verify) is the aptly-if-ungrammatically-named Madeleine LeBeau, who plays Yvonne the French trollop. If Annina was a wistful smile, Yvonne was a lecherous and slightly indulgent grin. Watching her at the bar with the Boche, and then with tears on her face singing La Marseillaise at the top of her lungs, shows the sort of balancing act people had to do in wartime.

Joy Page, interestingly enough, was one of only three American-born actors in the cast. Many of the others were actual refugees from either the war or Nazi-controlled countries. She was cast to begin with because she was Jack Warner's stepdaughter, but she was the perfect choice.

Good idea, bad application

This guy's promise to speak to any group sounds like an excellent one ... in theory. Alas, his mileage varied:

U.S. Congressional candidate Tony Zirkle is facing criticism from one of his primary opponents, and a host of people on the Internet, for speaking at an event over the weekend that celebrated Adolf Hitler's birthday...

The Crown Point Republican spoke in front of about 56 "white activists" at an event honoring the birth of Hitler. The German leader was responsible for the genocide of millions of Jews and others during World War II.

Zirkle said the group asked him to speak to discuss the effect of pornography and prostitution on young, white women and girls.

Zirkle is running against Republican Luke Puckett of Goshen and Joseph Roush of Plymouth in the May primary. He lost twice before in primaries to former U.S. Rep. Chris Chocola and has made doing away with pornography and prostitution his top campaign plank.

"I told (Channel 16, WNDU in South Bend) in the beginning that I'd speak to any group that wanted me to speak," Zirkle said Monday. He said he's also recently spoken on the subject to a pair of black journalists.

"I'm keeping my promise. I'll speak to any group. (The National Socialist Workers Party) was interested in the targeting of white people for prostitution."

He says he'll address the Black Panthers or the Jewish Zionists the same way, although something tells me they won't be inviting him to anytime soon. It's a good concept - treating all groups equally whether you agree with them or not. A good concept that just guaranteed that a retarded possum could beat him in the primary.

And they say Republicans aren't inclusive.

A tip of the Akubra to Kathy Shaidle.