At face value, it would be one of those strange mysteries. But when you dig into the issue a bit, it makes a lot of sense and says a lot about what kind of society we really are as Americans. I’ll admit, I was perplexed as to why any studio would produce a Bob’s Burgers theatrical release. With so many streaming services that are out there these days, why would anybody make a movie of the somewhat popular cartoon on Fox called Bob’s Burgers, which is a version of the typical animated formula that they have made so popular over the years with other offerings like The Simpsons, and Family Guy? I’m not too fond of Bob on Bob’s Burgers; I think of him as a loser. He’s not very ambitious; as a dad, he’s perpetually broke. He runs a little New England burger place in a resort town, and he can barely rub two pennies together.
Most of the episodes are about the problems they have as a family because they never have enough money to do things. And of course, my famous saying to people complaining about not having enough money is just to work and make more. Especially in America, if you want money, you can have it. You may not make all the money you want in 8 hours of work. Forty hours a week may not be enough; you might have to work 80. When I was raising a family, I have told the stories of only having one car, and I rode a bicycle 25 miles a day, so my wife could have the car for the kids and worked two full-time jobs to make the money we needed as a family. So, I can’t relate to Bob in Bob’s Burgers, and I find it odd that young people like the show so much. But, apparently, they do. Enough so that they made a theatrical movie release this year as something they thought was justifiable.
I also had a unique experience while attending various comic cons with my daughter, an outstanding illustrator who does exhibitions of her work at those types of events. As I have said, it’s interesting to watch people cosplay at comic cons, the kind of outfits they want to dress up in, and invest so much of their time to bring characters they enjoy to life in some way. I can understand the various Star Wars characters and those from the Marvel movies. Those are action movies that make you feel good when leaving the movie theater in some way, so it makes sense that people would want to dress up as those characters during Halloween and at comic cons. Bringing fantasy to life is a specific function of the human imagination, a conceptual vehicle that expresses inner values that manifest in mythological impressions during social exchanges. Dressing up as a favorite character is a way to vote for the kind of values that you see in pop culture. Imitation is the ultimate compliment. But while I was at these events, I was just a little shocked to see young people dressing up as characters from Bob’s Burgers, which is hard because they are all cartoons. It’s not easy to bring a cartoon character to life, yet people did, and some were really good costumes. Why? I’ve watched many episodes of Bob’s Burgers, and I just don’t enjoy the show that much. For me, it’s often filler in the background while I’m doing five or six other things. I occasionally watch it because I like the colors of cartoons. But I can’t relate to the characters much at all.
Oddly enough, my wife likes Bob’s Burgers a lot. I’d say it’s her favorite show, so this problem has been something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Yet, in working to understand the current political sentiment of our mass society, I felt something was going on with Bob’s Burgers that was worth noticing, significantly if film executives believed that a theatrical release of a subpar cartoon series on Fox justified its own movie. So the one thing that really jumps out about Bob’s Burgers that is likable is that all the family members like each other. Bob, his wife, and his three children all live in a little dump of an apartment, yet they don’t act like a bunch of losers who are waiting in line with a bottle of booze to buy lottery tickets. They work hard for the money they make and love each other as a family while running the family burger business. Bob is always a few cents short of whatever the family needs, but his wife never talks about leaving him for a better life with a more ambitious lover. The kids are just happy to have mom and dad together in the house. The brothers and sisters aren’t out to kill each other; they go on many neighborhood adventures and solve problems like rational people. They are a very “traditional” family.
And that’s what it is with Bob’s Burgers; like many of the other Fox primetime cartoons, they all have in common a mom and a dad in the home who love each other. That is certainly the case with Family Guy, a very progressive show that features a family that stays together. There aren’t step-parents and step-children in these cartoons. They are all very traditional. Other animated shows have tried to make it with more progressive storylines, but they always fail. The ones that stick around over the years are the cartoons that feature traditional family settings. The Simpsons have been on for decades now, a very long time. And yet, with many hundreds of storylines, Homer and his wife Marge still love each other and work through marital problems together in a way that never ends in divorce or a family breakup. And that was the key to this Bob’s Burgers mystery. Here was a family on an animated show with many problems, and they seemed limited in their ability to solve those problems. But, they enjoy each other as a family. You don’t see Bob running around on the town to cheat on his wife. Or running away from the attention that the kids obviously want from him. He’s a good dad, even if he’s unambitious socially. And his family loves him for it. Obviously, the audiences who can’t say the same about their own families have found a reliable father figure in Bob’s Burgers. In Bob’s Burgers, they see the family they always wanted and never had in the fictional settings. And it has such an impact on them that they even dress up as the characters in cosplay. It says a lot about the true state of our society when those types of fictional stories indicate what people really feel inside. Their vote for the type of entertainment they wish to enjoy says what all people really crave outside of political theater. Most people would give up a lot to have a family like Bob’s Burgers, where at least mom and dad loved each other, and their siblings worked together to help make the family a family. In a world full of disappointments, at least Bob and his animated television family were willing to fight through disappointments for the key ingredient to all happy societies, a good family that might not have a lot of money, but at least they had what all humans crave, a genuine love for each other. And that is worth noting and something that should give us all hope for the future.
I have always looked at box office results as a kind of vote for what the temperature of the political world truly is. As we know now, elections are often rigged, especially regarding the digital machines and ballot stuffing efforts that have been common in big American cities for years. So political votes don’t often reflect what people really desire culturally. But when a person is willing to get out of their chair and go out into a darkened theater and share a movie experience with perfect strangers, which is a discomfort of its own, the kinds of choices people make reflect a lot about their true character. So I have always looked toward box office numbers to understand what’s happening worldwide and the kinds of mythologies the human race responds to. Knowing all that, I was not surprised that Top Gun: Maverick did well at the box office; it looks like it will come in over 1.2 billion dollars for the summer of 2022. It has been remarkably strong for what I consider a typical 80s movie. I grew up in the 80s, so I remember when there was a movie like Top Gun coming out every weekend, and then when you got back in the car to drive home, there was a new top 40 hit on the radio. We had a thriving culture back then mainly because Ronald Reagan, as an actor, knew how to sell America to America, and people felt good about their country. Hollywood rushed to make movies that appealed to them, which was reflected in the movie-making industry.
Obviously, I loved the new Top Gun movie, but as I said, I don’t think the film is a technological masterpiece. It will likely win some awards because the kind of people who pursued careers in movie making are happy that finally there is a movie out there that reflects why they got into the business in the first place, the way Hollywood used to make movies before all the woke ESG rules took over and ruined everything for everybody. While Top Gun has been doing well, another film franchise from Disney, Thor: Love and Thunder, came out over a similar summer season release. It died on the vine by the second weekend because it embraced all the woke ESG garbage injected into corporate America, and the voting movie audience decided they didn’t want any of it. For a film with big intentions to gain a billion dollars at the box office from a global audience, Thor: Love and Thunder quickly fell out of favor, while Top Gun: Maverick continued to be in the top 10 even after two months in theaters. Because of this behavior, there is a massive elephant in the room to talk about that I have heard nobody in the commentary business from entertainment or politics nail down, which is worth discussing because of what it means. What we see with movie audiences is a total rejection of the globalist push for ESG values that will undoubtedly be reflected in society in general, and what has been happening in the movie business will ultimately be reflected in society in general, with restaurants, business commerce, and populist politics. The only way the ESG system was ever going to work was to take away all people’s options for what they really wanted. Top Gun: Maverick shows just how successful breaking the ESG formula can be for anybody who dares to, and now that people have seen the benefits, the ESG attempts will fail miserably.
Considering that Top Gun: Maverick was entirely filmed before Covid came along to destroy its original release date for the summer of 2020, the film was not a conscious effort to push back against the globalist trends toward ESG. It was able to get funding because it had been in the works for many years and had Tom Cruise attached to it, so the movie got made. But the global sabotage with Covid, as I said in the beginning, was more of an attack against American culture in every way and the intent was to destroy American capitalism. Small businesses were meant to be destroyed. Amusement parks bankrupted. And the American film industry was targeted to be choked off, even though the political lefties in Hollywood were kissing the ring of the globalists most aggressively. Those market sectors were intended to be destroyed before the year of 2020 ran out, which was the goal of the World Economic Forum members behind the Covid virus, using China to be the face of the disruption. The world was going to have a Great Reset, and America would come out of it under the fold of global socialism run by health agencies controlled by the United Nations, and that was the end of the story. Paramount Pictures was shrewd to wait out the storm and hold Top Gun: Maverick for another two years to hope the American movie industry would survive and that theater owners would not all go bankrupt. Along the way, Paramount listened to its potential audience, and they decided to tweak the film toward a domestic market and ignore China completely, which many considered to be suicidal. But once the movie was released and movie theaters finally opened into something resembling normal, great things happened, and people were hungry for a non-woke movie without ESG goal posts that told a pro-American story that people could feel good about. And the rest is history.
It’s not that Top Gun: Maverick is a great movie. But it offers a non-ESG story that people are starving for, and they have voted with their feet. There are so many other options now with streaming services that people could easily have just stayed home and watched hundreds of other options. So it says something any time people are willing to go to the theater to see a movie of any kind. But what we are seeing happening with this particular movie is that people are voting against the ESG world that is being imposed on them, and the first real offering of American patriotism since President Trump was removed from office through political upheavals is the true sentiment of the voting public. You can’t fake personal choice. Ballot stuffing and other forms of fraud can manipulate results to look like more people than really do support progressive causes. But the tickets bought for a darkened theater in direct competition with other offerings, like Thor: Love and Thunder, show the true sentiment of the public when choice is the deciding factor. With most movies these days being produced for a global audience, especially from Disney, it had been considered suicide to focus on a domestic release, which is what Top Gun: Maverick boldly did. And the result was that the world came to the doorstep of the movie because they wanted to experience American life with their movie purchase. Not to see the same old ESG political nonsense that all the other films were offering, the same homosexual propaganda, the soft stories without defined heroes, and the noticeable lack of patriotism that was clearly part of the plan for a post-Covid world. Top Gun: Maverick broke all the rules and returned to what worked for years. And because of that success, many other industries and political movements will follow.
Here’s a news flash, we are at war! We are not in a situation where we, as Republicans, are required to play nice with Democrats. No matter what you think about election fraud. No matter what you think about the border. No matter what you think about the cover-up of our political machine helping China develop a bioweapon in coronavirus at the Wuhan lab with NIH funding by Dr. Fauci. We are under attack. Democrats are trying to collapse our system of government, of our country, and we have the means to stop them. It’s not with elections during the midterms. It’s not with the reinstitution of President Trump. It’s actually upon us now, with the vote on the Hill to raise the debt ceiling and refund the government at the end of September. We are already terribly in debt because we’ve played too nice. We let the United Nations sucker us with Covid and trillions of dollars of new debt. What is happening is a classic Cloward and Piven strategy meant to crush the American dollar and America as a sovereign nation. We have domestic enemies who are helping bring it about. Yet, we still have the power in our hands to stop it. We still control the flow of money. We can say no to raising the debt limit, and we can refuse to fund the government past the September deadline. What are you afraid of happening? What could be worse than losing your country?
Look, already, the government has taught people to live without the government. What will the media do when the government shuts down and people can’t go to the National Parks? We already shut down the government during Covid. I went to six National Parks this past year, and most of them had just reopened. At Yellowstone in June 2021, they had only been open a few weeks after the government shutdown over Covid, and honestly, life still went on. Suppose they shut down over a lack of funding. Who is going to care? People will rearrange their plans and get on with their lives. This isn’t how it used to be where Republicans were the first to blink in such shutdowns; they would accept the blame for the whole fiasco. No, we’re in a real new world now. These days, if you stand up to Democrats by throwing all this in their face, you will be rewarded by voters; even illegal immigrants will vote Republican. Because everyone likes a fighter, and everyone wants to see people in power defending the underdog. This is the first time we could have a government shutdown where the Democrats would get the blame. The public won’t care a bit. By taking this leverage away from Democrats now, you will take it from them forever.
And to put an end to the trillions that Democrats want to spend with that communist infrastructure plan they want to pass. Just take away their ability to borrow money. The number one extortion piece that China has over the United States is our debt. Democrats want to feed that power for an overthrow of America. That’s why they are against the Pledge of Allegiance; that’s why they want people to protest the American flag. Do they hate America, isn’t that obvious yet? Who doubts that now? They have virtually come out and stamped their hatred of us right on our foreheads. So why play nice with them? Why shake hands? Why pretend that the Senate is a country club of legislators who all want what’s best for America because they aren’t. Many of them are domestic enemies to our Constitution, and they say it in the open. Why not take them at their word? Why play nice with them? Would you want history to remember you opening the door and letting in the Trojan Horse that destroyed the war?
Many would argue that the Trojan Horse has already been unleashed, that the battle has already been launched, and that the globalists are already marking the war won. That it’s too late. Well, for that to happen, suckers must give them the money like the robbers they are. Like Jesse James holding up a train promising to let all the women and children live if only the train’s occupants would hand over all their money, the Democrats are doing the same with our country. Remember, Jesse James was a staunch slave-owning Democrat, and he was and is just like these modern Democrats. Thieves, radicals, and political insurgents. They do not want to work together for a better country. They want to hold us up, steal our money and our lives, and turn over our country to the globe for a reward in an upcoming insurgent government. So, the robbery is taking place for the naysayers and negative barnacles who think the fight isn’t worth having, but the goods have not left our hands. Raising the debt ceiling and renewing the federal government’s funding is when that takes place, and Republicans would do well to hold tight, even shoot it out with the bandits. But don’t hand it over.
Republicans are talking tough about the upcoming vote. Democrats are threatening to do it all without them, which would be fine. Never put your name next to a loser. The Democrats, through election fraud, have managed to take the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Let them choke on it. Let them be the ones to fund all these ridiculous projects. Let them be on the hook for it. Let them hang on to it and make them pay later. There will be a later if Republicans hold tight. Burn the horse with all the troops in it. Don’t let them in the gate, then go to bed only to slaughter you in the night. Kill it before it gets to you under hidden schemes and actions of aggression intent for other nations, not those of America. It’s all very simple; without the shared guilt of a broken economy, of an outright insurrection, Democrats will be left alone and afraid. They will have nobody but themselves to blame, and when it all comes crashing down, it will be their party that will feel it most.
Then and only then can we talk about reforms. They can’t steal the votes of the Republicans in our republic. They can override the votes, but they cannot steal them from a live person voting on the House floor and talking to the media after. Do not give them the leverage of your acceptance. Leave them alone on this, and ultimately to blame. Americans will back a fighter. They will not support an accomplice who helped rob them of their wealth and country. The power is truly in our hands. Democrats only win if we surrender. At least make them fight for it. Fire back for a change and play chicken with the intent to crash headlong into their ranks. Be willing to take damage from the action. But don’t play nice with them. Playing nice will be a sure way to lose this game, and in losing, we lose our country to the forces obviously against it. And even though it may be scary now, remember, history has a long memory. Finding a little bravery today and standing up to these bandits and insurgents will be worth the memory tomorrow. Yet yielding to them will only pay embarrassment for the rest of your lives and the memory of it in the centuries to come.
Box office numbers are often a good thermometer into what the world is thinking, and I pay attention to them closely, and sadly the new Star Wars movie Solo: A Star Wars Story is falling well short of the kind of numbers its going to need to make. I found it interesting to see how many news outlets were already writing stories on Friday about how dismal the box office numbers were for the new Star Wars movie, like The Hollywood Reporter for instance. Their story was that Solo was bombing big time in China. Well, since when was China the market decider for films, they are communists, more aligned with the villains in these stories? Solo: A Star Wars Story is all about freedom and I’m sure the “state” wasn’t all that happy with the film, and that whether or not people saw the film or even advertised it so that their billion people had access to it is probably a big factor. Asians especially in China are not big on the Star Wars films, but that’s OK, they haven’t been a big part of the box office numbers all this time—who really needs them now? Solo isn’t any different, yet The Hollywood Reporter was almost as happy as a kid on Christmas Day to learn that China was not supporting the new Star Wars picture. There’s a lot going on with this one which justifies a good long discussion. (CLICK HERE FOR MY REVIEW OF THE FILM)
First of all, I don’t think the poor box office numbers so far reflect that Solo: A Star Wars Story is a bad movie. If you took the box office numbers of Infinity War and Deadpool 2 and released Solo: A Star Wars Story on a light release month, such as April I think this Star Wars movie would be on track easily to achieve a billion dollars at the box office, but with some competition out there, it would appear there is only so much money on the table to divide up between all the movies, and that’s not a bad thing for theater owners. I often say that Hollywood has let down all the personal investments that theater owners have to shoulder with less than stout productions that drive their concessions. That certainly isn’t the problem currently, there are a lot of movies released right now, and coming up as the summer unfolds which should help theater owners sell lots of popcorn. Hollywood owes them for always being available to display the Hollywood product to the public. That same public has a lot to do on Memorial Day weekend, that’s when the pools open in the states and people typically have things to do outside. In America Memorial Day weekend was pretty nice except for some flash flooding in the eastern part of the country. Everywhere else it was sunny and hot—and people spent time outside. May 25th may have been a traditional release date for Star Wars, but it’s no longer a great weekend for opening a movie because it’s the gateway to summer and people are often doing a lot of things that involve going outside.
Additionally, there are problems for Star Wars to overcome, the entertainment media is trying to do with Lucasfilm and Disney what the general media is trying to do with President Trump, and that is torpedo anything that they do that’s good, because everyone else is struggling to compete. Disney is going to make a lot of money this summer between the Marvel films and Pixar’s Incredibles 2—many in the entertainment business are very happy to see a Star Wars movie get bad press, because it’s a shot at Disney as a media company they are competing with. It’s like how the rest of the NFL teams around the country enjoy it when the New England Patriots lose a game, or Tom Brady throws an occasional interception. The trade media rushes out to talk about how Tom Brady is too old and is losing it. But the very next week Brady will throw for 400 yards and have a quarterback rating over 100 and the Patriots will win by 24 points over whoever they are playing. Disney and its tent pole of Star Wars is a big presence in the marketplace and the second handers love to see trouble happening in the Star Wars universe.
But then there is the very legitimate problem that I have talked about before and that is the mistake that Kathleen Kennedy and her story group at Lucasfilm has made in throwing out the extended universe of Star Wars and pushing very progressive themes in these new Star Wars movies cramming PC culture down the throats of the fans who clearly don’t want those elements in these movies. To me the Lucasfilm efforts with Solo: A Star Wars Story went a long way to fixing those problems with the fan base where some still want to enjoy new instalments, while others want to boycott the films in hopes that Disney will fire Kathleen Kennedy for messing with the elements that made Star Wars great to begin with. Nobody cared that Princess Leia was a bit of a feminist in the original A New Hope. George Lucas tried to make people happy by putting a black guy in the stories with the character of Lando. But in general, the heroes were white people, especially men and Kennedy has been very active to change that. But while doing so she literally destroyed two of the most popular female characters that fans loved, Jaina Solo, Han’s very strong daughter, and the wife of Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade. Fans who read the books went on a lot of journeys with those characters over two decades and suddenly fans were told that those people didn’t exist in Star Wars anymore, and that has caused a lot of consternation. When The Last Jedi failed to reveal who the parents of Rey were—many people were hoping that she was actually Jaina which would at least explain why she is flying around in Han Solo’s precious Millennium Falcon—a lot of fans stepped away from Star Wars at that point and now this second film in only a year has hit theaters and people are ambivalent about it. The Last Jedi was a very progressive movie that really split the fanbase, from not revealing the parentage of Rey, to the killing of Luke and the obvious progressive messages of feminism and sacrifice where everyone was blowing themselves up instead of taking the fight to the enemy, it’s that which made it so the fans stepped away from Solo: A Star Wars Story.
I have been enjoying the new Star Wars stuff the best I could. I have not been a fan of what Lucasfilm has done. I was a big fan of the Star Wars EU and I think Lucasfilm could have easily have just picked up these stories where the books left off and would have done something really special. However, I think the value of the movies and all the merchandise that is coming from the franchise does far more good than bad. I think Lucasfilm and Disney made a major mistake with Star Wars and that they are trying to remedy that now. For me Solo: A Star Wars Story was a huge step in that direction—of making things right with the fans. But its obvious that the fans are going to make Disney and ultimately Lucasfilm earn back that respect which is where things are today. There was a boycott of this latest Han Solo movie and it had an impact on the final ticket sales. As the word is getting out, because Solo: A Star Wars Story is pretty good—I think its one of the best and is certainly on par with the original films somewhere in quality of story telling between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. But the film is more fun like A New Hope was. I like the prequel films but can admit that Solo: A Star Wars Story is better than those films and it is certainly better than The Force Awakens. But these new young actors are making a name for themselves, the young Alden Ehrenreich is earning his respect from the fans little by little. Many fans have been sitting on the fence with Solo: A Star Wars Story because they weren’t sure how to feel about a new actor taking over for the legendary Harrison Ford. If this latest Star Wars film does anything it shows fans that its possible to have a younger actor playing an old favorite, and because of that I think Solo: A Star Wars Story will have good legs into the future of the franchise, and people will come back to the films and forgive Lucasfilm and Disney for their mistakes with the first three films made since the acquisition in 2012.
Alden Ehrenreich is a smart young actor with a good head on his shoulders, and he likes playing Han Solo in Star Wars. He’s good for the franchise and understands that taking less money for the opportunity to do more films like this makes good business sense because it could place him in Hollywood as the next big demand actor—like Harrison Ford was. With all that under consideration I think Disney certainly put the cards down on the table with this one holding nothing back promotionally. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they spent $500 million on the movie and are worried at this point of making that money back, which I think they will. But they spent the money expecting a billion in return and that could cool them on launching the other projects that are in the pipeline. Hopefully they let Lucasfilm go forward with the budgets on those new films, the Kenobi film, the Boba Fett film, the Rian series, and of course at least two more movies about the young Han Solo—as well as a whole bunch of other films not yet released. It’s not too late to make these films into the kind of successes that were experienced with Marvel—but getting the fan base back on board is the key.
To win back the audience, and this is just my advice, do with it whatever you want Lucasfilm, you have to get Mara Jade and Jaina Solo into Episode Nine as its being directed now with J.J. Abrams. Everyone gets what they want if that happens, Kennedy gets her strong female leads, Luke has a reason for being so distressed in The Last Jedi, and Rey gets a name and a reason for having the Falcon with Chewie as her co-pilot. A new trilogy featuring Jaina could even take things further 30 years after Episode Nine—the possibilities are endless. It took Marvel ten films to build up the kind of anticipation that was seen in Infinity War, Star Wars could do something very similar, but they’ll have to earn back the fans, and Solo: A Star Wars Story was a big first step. Hopefully Disney doesn’t get cold feet after they study these box office results and consider whether fans will support two Star Wars movies in the same year. They will, and they will support three or four a year if Disney will make them and be very profitable with $200 million budgets. But it will take more movies like Solo: A Star Wars Story to earn back that fan trust, not more movies like The Last Jedi or even The Force Awakens. The nostalgia wore off and now reality is there for Star Wars films, going forward, people want to see new ground that pays respect to what they know from the original EU—and fans don’t want to be preached to with gay characters, or black characters, or women. They just want to see a story set in a galaxy far, far away that will endure for centuries—and not fall out of favor with whatever new political movements come in the next few decades. Star Wars fans want their traditions, and they want the long view—and its their money that Disney wants, so it’s up to the giant entertainment company to give it to them.
I think I’ve listened to the new Han Solo theme from the John Powell soundtrack back to back for a solid four days now and I love it, it’s so full of optimism. It reminds me of how it was when Christopher Nolan’s Dark Night series started back in 2008, with a movie that many people didn’t think was needed because at that point Batman had been done so many times. The Nolan trilogy built up a nice audience and earned a reputation by the fans that they trusted and supported. Those films each went on to make over a billion dollars each. Iron Man the first Avenger film also came out that year with a fantastic performance by Robert Downey Jr. The film only grossed around $500 million globally much like I think this new Han Solo movie will make, but it became the glue that built up those next nine Marvel films. Disney purchased Marvel shortly after that film’s release and the rest is now history, and has been very successful. It has allowed Disney to make obscure films like The Black Panther, which I thought was pretty good—which would have never been made unless there was a need for the ever-expanding universe. Star Wars could do better, but the fan base will have to be built and listening to that soundtrack of Solo: A Star Wars Story that new Han Solo theme could serve as a nice light in the darkness for all the Disney executives timid about the next stage of the adventure. The best thing to do would be to support the effort and not panic, there is a lot of good that came out of Solo, and it hints at how things truly could be now that it looks like Lucasfilm is starting to figure out how to make these Star Wars movies without the guidance of George Lucas. The John Williams contribution is absolutely brilliant and I hope that everyone involved can use it to launch something really special, because the opportunity is certainly there.
Everyone knows I’m a huge Star Wars fan—which I view differently from the geeky other types of entertainment exhibitions of public support. When I see the name Star Wars and participate in its products in whatever form, it evokes in me an optimism that is very specific to it that I am very fond of. That’s why my favorite character within Star Wars is Han Solo, because he is the most optimistic character perhaps ever created for film. Nothing is impossible for Han Solo—he’ll try anything under any circumstances because his personality is such that he figures his confidence and sheer will can get him through anything. He is the Donald Trump of science fiction and I’ve felt that way about that character for more than forty years now. On more than a few occasions I’ve dressed up as Han Solo for Halloween events, or other science fiction endeavors, conventions, watch parties, literary events at book stores—just various festive gatherings that celebrate costuming and character reverence—but I’ve never had any kind of official Han Solo clothing. I would just piece together whatever I could find that sort of looked like the popular smuggler from the Star Wars series and go from there. But my five-year old grandson is about to have a big birthday party marking that invisible line of being a toddler to a genuine little boy fully aware of the world around him with the memories that now matter—and my daughters are fashioning it to Star Wars. As I’ve reported before also, these parties my kids do for their kids are not just little events—they go all out in creating a very mythic experience that is almost a theme park occurrence and due to their passion for Star Wars they are going all out. That meant that of course I had to dress up as Han Solo—but this time I wanted to do it for real—as real as possible because of the effort my kids were putting into this party and the eventual impact it would have on the youth in my family attending this thing. So I turned to Amazon.com to see what was out there and was stunned by a world I discovered.
My mom made me a little vest like Han Solo’s when I was in the fifth grade and I sort of kept it all these years even though it was way too small for me. But even a few years ago if you wanted something that looked like a Star Wars character and bought a costume from a place like Party City it always came out looking far from authentic. If you wanted something that looked like the clothing in the movie you had to make it. Back when my kids were little we went to a Star Wars Celebration in Indianapolis and my wife made Jedi robes for my girls and their friends so they could dress up at that convention which occurred right before the movie Revenge of the SIth. The internet at that time had some support—you could get directions from people who built their own costumes but there weren’t suppliers carrying things like that on the shelf. Even though Star Wars was popular there just wasn’t any money in it for costumers to make costumes of all those characters in the movies for a public of all shapes and sizes. The scope of that work was unrealistic. For Han Solo specifically his outfit looks pretty simple yet is really quite complex. For instance, his vest from A New Hope has a series of very complicated pockets positioned just right—and there is nothing like that off the rack at Wal-Mart or Kholes. Han Solo’s pants don’t have pockets and have a very specific pin stripe down the side of them which disappears into knee-high boots that are meant to put the swash in the buckle for the very dashing character. The shirt under the vest isn’t just a white button-up but has a very unique collar and v-nick style that has to fit just right through the shoulders to give the correct effect. Then there is the gun belt which is a thing all its own. So I went looking for these things and I started with the Star Wars Costume exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center—which has been running all summer and will end around the beginning of October before moving on to the next city. It’s a good exhibit, most of which I’ve seen before at the Smithsonian, but for my quest it served its purpose. I was able to get right up to the Han Solo costume and look at things up close so that I could duplicate it authentically. If I couldn’t find the items online, my wife was willing to build them from scratch so we went and took lots of pictures.
To my shook as I started looking now, in 2017 for these very specific Han Solo costume pieces for this epic party my kids were having I discovered that I was able to buy everything at Amazon.com relatively inexpensively. For instance the great Han Solo vest that I figured was the most important part of the costume was just under forty dollars from an outfit in China. I skeptically ordered it expecting it to arrive in a very flawed condition. I expected something that looked like a typical Party City costume that smelled like plastic and rubber. But what came to my front door was an exact replica of the Han Solo vest from A New Hope made out of material that was like that of tactical gear for a SWAT team. It was a very good garment that was legitimate and it fit well the moment I put it on. I was stunned by the quality of it. I then proceeded to order the official shirt, the pants, the boots and the gun belt which as of this writing hasn’t yet arrived, but everything else has and again I was stunned by the authenticity of each item.
At different points in my life I had looked for these things and nobody carried them—as I said, everything had to be made by hand. What’s unique about now from then—and by then I mean like six months ago—is that due to all the COSPLAY that goes on at these Comic Con conventions and now that Disney World is building these amusement parks with Star Wars lands within them there is this big COSPLAY movement that has emerged—where people dress up as characters from their favorite movies to delve into the mythology of these various sci-fi events—and out of nowhere there are all these suppliers who are making these costumes to meet the growing demand. It’s a whole industry of itself that has virtually arrived out of nowhere. I am aware of some of it because I find Comic Cons interesting as well as Gen Cons and other conventions. I also noticed that the plans for the new Star Wars resort coming to Disney World is seeking to tap into this emerging market with a Fantasy Island style of Star Wars experience where they encourage people to show up dressed for the part. Obviously Disney knew all about this culture and were building their business plans around it. I only discovered it because of my grandson’s birthday party—but this was big business!
As I had ordered everything from my home computer and each item arrived one by one to my doorstep without having to go anywhere to search for it I became more and more impressed. Even more shocking was that everything fit nicely, I didn’t have to send anything back. Just by reading some of the reviews I was able to size myself accordingly with no trouble at all. I figured that the risk was low because if the stuff showed up and was junky I figured my five-year old grandson would forgive me. He’d appreciate the effort and wouldn’t get hung up on the details—even though he is a very smart little kid. He surprises me what he notices. He’s already playing the video game Battlefront very well which is about two years before I thought he would. He plays online against other people who are very good—and he’s effective. He knows all the different types of weapons that can be used, how to outfit each character and how to manage the Star Cards which give unique abilities to tactical engagements. So if something wasn’t right, he’d notice. But after getting the parts of my Han Solo costume together it was obvious that I had nothing to worry about. As far as this party was concerned, except for my hairline, the outfit looks just like it would if it was on the actual movie set. That’s pretty stunning for something that was so easily ordered on Amazon.com.
This is all just another example of how imagination is fueling an entirely new industry and due to the excessive and efficient reach of Amazon.com they were able to connect me to suppliers around the world where I could get a very specific items from a forty-year old movie to my doorstep within two weeks. And the quality wasn’t junky but meant to impress even under the scrutiny of the most ardent film geek. In some cases my outfit is better than the movie original on display at the Cincinnati Museum Center. Those costumes were meant for just a few months of filming, these for purchase were meant to last much longer and under the judgment of live audiences. Needless to say, which I have before, we are seeing something new and hopeful from these modern movie enthusiasts which starts with a mythology in the movie theater and extends into real life—what Disney is doing down at their theme parks is tapping into the public need to play out their fantasies and is an expansion of imagination that is very specific to our species as human beings. The need to personify a fantasy experience has deep psychological roots that go far beyond primal necessity. I think the end result is a very positive one that is headed toward an unknown climax. I know I love to see the imaginations of so many people at work to make something like all this possible—but it surprised even me at the extent of it all. And the entity most responsible for the success of this new industry was Amazon.com. They were the middle ground players that connected need with supply and allowed both to get what they wanted at the best price and quality. If they can do that with a simple costume from Star Wars, just think what they can do with real necessities. We are living in a whole new world.
I’m Han Solo—at least that’s what the new Star Wars personality test told me when I took it. A friend of mine told me that The Blaze did a story on a new Star Wars personality test by www.Zimbio.com which was actually more sophisticated than I thought it would be. The questions are involved and pretty good about bringing to the surface the raw nature of a person’s personality as related to the Star Wars film series. For instance, while taking the test I thought I’d come out as Obi-Wan Kenobi—whom I personally admire for his love of wisdom and the philosophic chess matches he tends to play on a galactic scale. But Han Solo has always been my favorite character and that trait emerged during the test even though I was consciously aware of avoiding it. So it was a pretty neat test. At the end of The Blaze article linked below it was revealed that most of the staff at The Blaze including Glenn Beck, Doc Thompson and Skip LeCombe had taken the test and were enthusiastic about their results which they promised to cover on air. I thought this remarkable because it provides insight to all that I have been saying lately about the cultural impact of Star Wars and the future of our society. There are few things which can unite minds quicker than Star Wars does in discussions with other people and it’s not just nerds anymore—but mainstream acceptance. NFL football used to be that topic item breaker that anybody could discuss with any other person in business or other affairs, but quickly Star Wars is overtaking it. It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know about Star Wars who is under 55 years old and doesn’t have an opinion about the film series.
I took the test while on the road at my sister-in-law’s house with many family members present so we all took the test and had a good time with the results. I was surprised how many of them came back as Yoda, and the young men who took it mostly came back as Boba Fett—which was remarkably accurate. There were no Darth Vader’s in our group which says a lot about the quality of our family. That much didn’t surprise me—but the number of Yodas did—my wife included. It could not be ignored how many of our family members instantly understood what the test was and the intent which reflected the response of The Blaze staff. Star Wars is something that touches just about everyone as good memories of their childhoods flood back to them upon the mention of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia.
I remember what it was like to be a kid in the late 70s and early 80s. Star Wars was everywhere—it was on the radio, it was at the stores, it was on television, it was in comics, magazines—it defined popular culture from about 1977 to 1985 when it began to subside just a bit. Even popular films like Back to the Future and ET the Extra Terrestrial made frequent Star Wars references—so it was a huge part of that 8 year period and anybody who was a child during that period knows what I’m talking about. That doesn’t mean that everyone was an open Star Wars fan. Many of the kids in my school made fun of kids who openly loved Star Wars—kids like me who had Star Wars notebooks, wore Star Wars t-shirts, and drew pictures on my homework papers of Star Wars space ships. I didn’t care what other kids said, once I got past the 7th grade, I was never picked on for Star Wars again because I had so many fights at school that kids stopped trying. The more they made fun of me the more I rubbed it in their face. I had a Star Wars shirt for every day of the week—my favorite was a Han Solo shirt that I never got tired of wearing. I wore it so much that it fell apart. I developed a rivalry with another kid in Junior High school at Lakota who was a Star Trek fan and hated Star Wars. We actually had fist fights over Star Wars and which movie was better. It got so bad that I shoved the kid right into the principles office as he was trying to escape me after I was waiting outside his bus in the morning to catch him with a confrontation before class started. He had previously declared during lunch period that Captain Kirk would beat Han Solo any day of the week—so I was going to teach him otherwise. I’d give him some real life Han Solo through me—and as he was running away from he thought he’d get safety inside the principles office—which he didn’t. I took the fight straight there shocking all the other kids in the hallway and the adults alike when I grabbed hold of the Star Trek lover by the back of his shirt and threw him right into the front door with the principle and secretary standing right there. Nobody had been so audacious before—and nobody knew what to make of it. Nobody understood that I loved Han Solo that much because the character represented everything I wanted to become when I grew up—and calling him names was the same as calling me names—and I wasn’t going to stand for it.
My brother and I had so many Star Wars figures that we set up our basement with elaborate hand-made models featuring Star Wars toys. Every Christmas and birthday was an opportunity to increase our holdings for these gigantic Star Wars set-ups. On Friday and Saturday nights our friends would come over and we’d build new Star Wars buildings and ships late into the night staying up until 3 and 4 AM in a world of our own making inspired by Star Wars. My parents couldn’t afford to give me a Millennium Falcon like many of my friends had, so I built my own out of a cardboard box. That creation was destroyed during my late teens—and I never got over it. During the Christmas of 1995 my wife finally bought me a Millennium Falcon when Kenner re-released the old toys with minor updates in anticipation of the Special Editions to the films which occurred in 1997. The world we created in that basement had so much reverence for me that I wanted to do little else but create my own world in the context of that one. We had entire areas around our set-ups in the basement sectioned off with black felt to simulate the darkness of space and on the ceiling was white felt to simulate clouds. We had our own power supply, there were floating asteroids, and epic worlds re-created to model scale. It was the happiest place for me on earth.
I was never shy about my admissions. Star Wars represented limitless possibilities and an escape from oppression and Han Solo was the kind of guy who was full of confidence and a never say die attitude. He was the model of a man who I would grow up and become. Many other kids one-on-one loved my enthusiasm, but would never admit it in the light of day. But privately most of them felt as strongly as I did, they just didn’t show it publicly. I carried this love into my adulthood and it never really subsided. With my children I raised them on Star Wars, and now with the Disney acquisition of Star Wars, my grand children will benefit—and with everything I just described, the cultural impact under Disney’s guidance will far eclipse my experience. There will be more toys, more clothing, more music, video games, posters, magazine articles-virtually everything in our society will be touched by Star Wars and a whole new generation will find solace within the story lines. Unlike me—who had good parents who really cared and behaved in a traditional sense–kids today have broken families, step parents and lack structure as a result of progressive social engineering policies. The strongest thing to a real family a lot of modern kids will have is the characters of Star Wars—which as sad as that may sound—is absolutely true.
The character of Han Solo was never intended to be a hero in the way he turned out. Fans of the films were supposed to yearn for Luke Skywalker, not Han Solo, but I could never relate to Luke’s naïveté. I wanted to grow up and become the space pirate Solo who is more like a character out of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged than any other creation ever put on-screen. A lot of people thought this was destructive, but it has made me into an interesting adult—one who thought I’d be more like Obi-Wan Kenobi than Han Solo as more mature years are now upon me. But upon seeing the test results I was actually relieved to see that many of my core values are still intact after all these years and I can honestly say that I’ve lived my own Han Solo type of life and behaved in a very similar way when pressed. The difference between being a young person and an old person is the experience. People are drawn to certain types of things based on their core personality—something this Star Wars test is attempting to uncover. When I was a kid I hoped that when faced with perilous situations that I would behave with the same valor and skill that Han Solo did in Star Wars. Now as an adult, I no longer have any doubt. With a string of car chases, crashes, narrow escapes, and perilous follies of virtually every type now behind me, I can rest easily now knowing I measure up to the highest hopes I had as a child.
It is for that reason that this Star Wars test is flooding office buildings and places of business with a fury. Most of the adult population had similar hopes for themselves, and they want to know how they measure up after all these years. Now with some of the social stigma of fandom removed, people want to know how far they have fallen from their childhood dreams. For me—not far at all. I would have considered Obi-Wan Kenobi to be a concession—an honorable one—but a concession. Han Solo, out of all the characters in Star Wars was my target, and now as a grown man who has grandchildren of his own—I have hit the bull’s-eye, and for that I am very, very proud. Setting those high standards actually made me a better grown-up than Han Solo—considerably. But under pressure—and when it really counts—it is good to know I’m still more like Han Solo than Obi-Wan Kenobi.
And I was there……………….Han shot first!
Take the Star Wars Test for yourself and see who you are most like. CLICK THE LINK BELOW.
Many industry professionals have cautioned me that due to my Tea Party like beliefs, I will have limited opportunities to work in film, either in front of the camera as a whip consultant, as I have done a time or two, or behind the camera as a writer. My specific attitude toward collective oriented labor unions is the nail in the coffin as today’s Hollywood for the most part has become an arm of the federal government, and the policies of statism advocated there. But there are rare exceptions, and of late Warner Brothers with Legendary Pictures have produced fantastic films like Man of Steel and Dark Knight Rises, while Disney Studios is putting out pictures like Iron Man, the Avengers and now the upcoming The Lone Ranger. It is the Lone Ranger that has me extremely excited because that character as I have mentioned before goes deep into my past. I love the old versions of the Lone Ranger, the old Saturday morning serials that were recaptured by George Lucas when he made Star Wars and Indiana Jones. I love the old serials so much that I have seen many of them, even though they are way before my time. While they lack the polish and sophistication of modern films, they are filled with heart and soul. Many of the film techniques used today in all the popular blockbusters were developed during the period of the popular Republic serials. And of those serials there was none I love more than the 1939 series called Zorro’s Fighting Legion.
For readers of my novel The Symposium of Justice, I pay tribute to that 12 chapter serial in three different ways. The first is that the character conflict of Fletcher Finnegan is much like the fight that Don Diego had with Don Del Oro in Zorro’s Fighting Legion. I even went to the trouble of naming the antics of my protagonist in the novel Cliffhanger’s Fighting Legion. The third is that the restaurant that Fletcher Finnegan worked at as a grill cook so that he could learn the movements of the towns politics behind the scenes was named Republics, after of course the company that produced Zorro’s Fighting Legion. It was Zorro’s Fighting Legion that inspired me to take up the bullwhip to the extent that I have, and make it part of my life, almost as important to me as an arm or a leg on my body. There is a lot of whip work in Zorro’s Fighting Legion and I wanted to learn every single trick, which I did. I came to learn about Zorro’s Fighting Legion because I learned at age 12 while watching a documentary about the making of Raiders of the Lost Ark that the great stunt performed by Terry Lenard during the famous “Desert Chase” scene was first done by the great stuntman Yakima Canutt who I feel virtually built Hollywood on his back. Without the great work of stuntmen like Yakima Canutt and Republic Pictures there would never have been a modern-day Star Wars, an Indiana Jones, or even movie versions of Man of Steel, Iron Man, or Dark Knight Rises.
Hollywood was not always liberal. Communism slowly seeped into the Hollywood movie machines in the late 1930s during The Red Decade, but studios resisted. Hollywood Black Friday is the name given, in the history of organized labor in the United States, to October 5, 1945. On that date, a six-month strike by the set decorators represented by the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) boiled over into a bloody riot at the gates of Warner Brothers‘ studios in Burbank, California. The strikes helped the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 and led to the eventual break up of the CSU and reorganization of the then rival International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) leadership. The Conference of Studio Unions was, at the time, an International union belonging to the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and represented the Carpenters, Painters, Cartoonists and several other crafts working for the Studios in Hollywood.
Seventy-seven set decorators broke away from IATSE to form the Society of Motion Picture Interior Decorators (SMPID) and negotiated an independent contract with the producers in 1937. The SMPID joined the CSU in 1943 and the CSU represented the SMPID in their contract negotiations. After the producers stalled the negotiations for nine months, IATSE questioned CSU jurisdiction over the Set Decorators which led to a further five-month delay as the CSU and IATSE fought over jurisdiction. When the Producers refused to acknowledge an independent arbitrator appointed by the War Labor Board‘s assessment that the CSU had jurisdiction over the Set Decorators in February 1945, it set the stage for the strike
By October, money and patience were running low as some 300 strikers gathered at Warner Brothers’ main gate on October 5, 1945. Temperatures were abnormally warm for the already hot LA autumn. When non-strikers attempted to report for work at 6:00 in the morning, the barricades went up and tensions flared. As replacement workers attempted to drive through the crowd, their cars were stopped and overturned. Hollywood would never again be the same as a gradual erosion of value began to leave Hollywood projects as the labor unions were backed by communist sympathizers with eyes favoring the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Reinforcements arrived on both sides as the picket increased to some 1,000 people and Glendale and Los Angeles Police came to aid the Burbank Police and Warner Security attempting to maintain the peace. When more replacement workers attempted to break through to the gate, a general melee ensued as strikers mobbed them and strikebreakers responded by attacking the strikers with chains, hammers, pipes, tear gas, and night sticks. Warner security rained more tear gas down from the roofs of the buildings adjoining the entrance. Warner firefighters sprayed the strikers with fire hoses. By the end of the day, some 300 police and deputy sheriffs had been called to the scene and over 40 injuries were reported.
The picketers returned the following Monday with an injunction barring the police from interfering with the strike while Warner retaliated with its own injunction limiting the number of pickets at the gate. Although the violence would continue through the week, national exposure forced the parties back to the bargaining table and resulted in an end to the strike one month later but the CSU victory was a Pyrrhic one, where contentions over wording dictated by an AFL arbitration team would lead to further questioning as to CSU and IATSE jurisdiction on the set.
Zorro’s Fighting Legion was created during this turbulent period but was still free of unionized influence. That makes it much more special to me for the sheer fact that the foundations of American story telling were built upon these Republic serials. It was film projects like this one that helped slow the erosion of communism in America with the western that so proudly articulated American values of justice, and Zorro’s Fighting Legion is certainly that type of film collection. I see the Republic serials as Hollywood’s response to the growing tension forming ahead of the Cold War between the communism of the Soviet Union and the capitalism of America. The struggle of this philosophical debate is all over the story of Zorro’s Fighting Legion, and has resonated with me for decades. One of the greatest days in my life was when the emergence of DVD technology allowed me to purchase the entire series to own for myself to watch over and over again, which has only been possible in recent years. But even better than that, Zorro’s Fighting Legion is now available on YouTube, so to share this unique treasure with my readers here, and to share my vision of what Hollywood is all about in celebration of the upcoming Lone Ranger by Disney, please do enjoy all twelve episodes shown below. They are kind of slow and boring compared to today’s entertainment, but try to watch them the way I do, for their purity of purpose, simplicity in design, and sheer bold stunt work by the great Yakima Canutt. Mixed through the rest of the article between the episodes is information that is needed to compliment the films.
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Zorro’s Fighting Legion is a 1939 Republic Picturesfilm serial consisting of twelve chapters. It features Reed Hadley as Zorro. The plot revolves around his alter-ego Don Diego’s fight against the evil Don Del Oro.
A trademark of this serial is the sudden demise of at least one native informant in each episode. The direction was identical for each informant’s death, creating a source of unintentional humor: each informant, upon uttering the phrase, “Don Del Oro is…”, is shot by a golden arrow and dies before being able to name the villain’s alter ego. The serial is also unusual in featuring a real historical personage, Mexican President Benito Juárez, as a minor character.
The mysterious Don Del Oro (“Lord of Gold”), an idol of the Yaqui Indians, has emerged and attacks the gold trade of the Republic of Mexico, planning to take over the land and become Emperor. A man named Francisco is put in charge of a fighting legion to combat the Yaqui tribe and protect the gold, but he is attacked by men working for Don Del Oro. Zorro comes to his rescue, but it is too late for him. Francisco’s partner recognizes Zorro as the hidalgo Don Diego Vega. Francisco asks Diego, as Zorro, to take over the fighting legion and defeat Don Del Oro.
Republic Pictures was an American independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1935 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action.
Born Enos Edward Canutt in the Snake River Hills, near Colfax, Washington; he was one of five children of John Lemuel Canutt, a rancher, and Nettie Ellen Stevens. He grew up in eastern Washington on a ranch near Penawawa Creek, founded by his grandfather and operated by his father, who also served a term in the state legislature. His formal education was limited to elementary school in Green Lake, Washington, then a suburb of Seattle. He gained the education for his life’s work on the family ranch, where he learned to hunt, trap, shoot, and ride.[1]
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He broke a wild bronco when 11. As a 6-foot-tall (1.8 m) sixteen-year-old he started bronc riding at the Whitman County Fair in Colfax in 1912 and at 17 he won the title of World’s Best Bronco Buster. Canutt started rodeo riding professionally and gained a reputation as a bronc rider, bulldogger and all-around cowboy. It was at the 1914 Pendleton Round-Up, Pendleton, Oregon he got his nickname “Yakima” when a newspaper caption misidentified him.[2] “Yakima Canutt may be the most famous person NOT from Yakima, Washington” says Elizabeth Gibson, author of Yakima, Washington.[3] Winning second place at the 1915 Pendleton Round-Up brought attention from show promoters, who invited him to compete around the country.[2]
“I started in major rodeos in 1914, and went through to 1923. There was quite a crop of us traveling together, and we would have special railroad cars and cars for the horses. We’d play anywhere from three, six, eight ten-day shows. Bronc riding and bulldogging were my specialties, but I did some roping,” said Canutt.[4]
During the 1916 season, he became interested in divorcee Kitty Wilks, who had won the Lady’s Bronc-Riding Championship a couple of times. They married on July 20, 1917 while at a show in Kalispell, Montana; he was 21 and she 23. The couple divorced about 1922.[2] While bulldogging in Idaho, Canutt’s mouth and upper lip were torn by a bull’s horn; but after stitches, Canutt returned to the competition. It wasn’t until a year later that a plastic surgeon could correct the injury.[2]
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World’s champion
Canutt won his first world championship at the Olympics of the West in 1917 and won more championships in the next few years. In between rodeos he broke horses for the French government in World War I.[5] In 1918, he went to Spokane to enlist in the Navy and was stationed in Bremerton. In the fall he was given a 30-day furlough to defend his rodeo title. Having enlisted for the war, he was discharged in spring 1919. At the 1919 Calgary Stampede he competed in the bucking event and met Pete Knight.[2]
He traveled to Los Angeles for a rodeo, and decided to winter in Hollywood, where he met screen personalities.[4] It was here that Tom Mix, who had also started in rodeos, invited him to be in two of his pictures.[2] Mix added to his flashy wardrobe by borrowing two of Canutt’s two-tone shirts and having his tailor make 40 copies.[4] Canutt got his first taste of stunting with a fight scene on a serial called Lightning Bryce [6]; he didn’t stay, and left Hollywood to play the 1920 rodeo circuit.
The Fort Worth rodeo was nicknamed “Yak’s show” after he won the saddle-bronc competition three years in 1921, 1922 and 1923. He had won the saddle-bronc competition in Pendleton in 1917, 1919, and 1923 and came second in 1915, and 1929. Canutt won the steer bulldogging in 1920, and 1921 and won the All-Around Police Gazette belt in 1917, 1919, 1920 and 1923.[2] While in Hollywood in 1923 for an awards ceremony, he was offered eight western action pictures for producer Ben Wilson at Burwillow Studios; the first was to be Riding Mad.
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Actor
Canutt had been perfecting tricks such as the Crupper Mount, a leap-frog over the horse’s rump into the saddle. Douglas Fairbanks used some in his film The Gaucho. Fairbanks and Canutt became friends and competed regularly at Fairbanks’ gym. Canutt took small parts in pictures of others to get experience.[2] It was in Branded a Bandit (1924) that his nose was broken in a 12-foot fall from a cliff. The picture was delayed several weeks, and when it resumed Canutt’s close shots were from the side. A plastic surgeon reset the nose, which healed, inspiring Canutt to remark that he thought it looked better.[2]
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Stuntman
When his contract with Wilson expired in 1927, Canutt was making appearances at rodeos across the country. By 1928 the talkies were coming out and though he had been in 48 silent pictures, Canutt knew his career was in trouble.[5] His voice had been damaged from flu in the Navy. He started taking on bit parts and stunts, and realized more could be done with action in pictures.[2]
In 1930 between pictures and rodeoing, Canutt met Minnie Audrea Yeager Rice at a party at her parents’ home. She was 12 years his junior. They kept company during the next year while he picked up work on the serials for Mascot Pictures Corporation. They married on November 12, 1931.[2]
When rodeo riders invaded Hollywood, they brought a battery of rodeo techniques that Canutt would expand and improve, including horse falls and wagon wrecks, along with the harnesses and cable rigs to make the stunts foolproof and safe.[4] Among the new safety devices was the ‘L’ stirrup, which allowed a man to fall off a horse without getting hung in the stirrup. Canutt also developed cabling and equipment to cause spectacular wagon crashes, while releasing the team, all on the same spot every time.[4] Safety methods such as these saved film-makers time and money and prevented accidents and injury to performers. One of Yakima’s inventions was the ‘Running W’ stunt, bringing down a horse at the gallop by attaching a wire, anchored to the ground, to its fetlocks and launching the rider forwards spectacularly. This either killed the horse, or rendered it badly shaken and unusable for the rest of the day.[4] The ‘Running W’ is now banned and has been replaced with the falling-horse technique. It is believed that the last time it was used was on the 1983 Iraqi film al-Mas’ Ala Al-Kubra when the British actor and friend of Yak Marc Sinden and stuntman Ken Buckle (who had been trained by Yak) performed the stunt three times during a cavalry charge sequence.[7][8]
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It was while working on Mascot serials that Canutt practiced and perfected his most famous stunts, including the drop from a stagecoach that he would employ in John Ford‘s 1939Stagecoach. He first did it in Riders of the Dawn in 1937 while doubling for Jack Randall.[2] In his 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Speilberg paid homage to Canutt, recreating the stunt when a stuntman, Terry Leonard, (doubling for Harrison Ford) ‘dropped’ from the front of a German Army transport truck, was dragged underneath (along a prepared trench) and then climbed up the back and round to the front again.[9]
John Wayne
While at Mascot, Canutt met John Wayne while doubling for him in a motorcycle stunt for The Shadow of the Eagle in 1932. Wayne admired Canutt’s agility and fearlessness, and Canutt respected Wayne’s willingness to learn and attempt his own stunts.[10] Canutt taught Wayne how to fall off a horse.[11]
“The two worked together to create a technique that made on-screen fight scenes more realistic. Wayne and Canutt found if they stood at a certain angle in front of the camera, they could throw a punch at an actor’s face and make it look as if actual contact had been made.”[10]
Canutt and Wayne pioneered stunt and screen fighting techniques still in use. Much of Wayne’s on-screen persona was from Canutt. The characterizations associated with Wayne – the drawling, hesitant speech and the hip-rolling walk – were pure Canutt.[12] Said Wayne, “I spent weeks studying the way Yakima Canutt walked and talked. He was a real cowhand.”[13]
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In 1932, Canutt’s first son Edward Clay was born and nicknamed ‘Tap’, short for Tapadero, a Spanish word for a stirrup covering. It was in 1932 that Canutt broke his shoulder in four places while trying to transfer from horse to wagon team.[2] Though work was scarce, he got by combining stunting and rodeo work.
In 1934, Herbert J. Yates of Consolidated Film Industries combined Monogram, Mascot, Liberty, Majestic, Chesterfield, and Invincible Pictures to form Republic Pictures, and Canutt became Republic’s top stuntman. He handled all the action on many pictures, including Gene Autry films; and several series and serials, such as The Lone Ranger andZorro. For Zorro Rides Again, Canutt did almost all the scenes in which Zorro wore a mask, and he was on the screen as much as the star John Carroll.[14] When the action was indicated in a Republic script, it said “see Yakima Canutt for action sequences.”[4]
“There will probably never be another stuntman who can compare to Yakima Canutt. He had been a world champion cowboy several times and where horses were concerned he could do it all. He invented all the gadgets that made stunt work easier. One of his clever devices was a step that attached to the saddle so that he had leverage to transfer to another moving object, like a wagon or a train. Another was the “shotgun,” a spring-loaded device used to separate the tongue of a running wagon from the horses, thus cutting the horses loose. It also included a shock cord attached to the wagon bed, which caused wheels to cramp and turn the wagon over on the precise spot that was most advantageous for the camera.”[15]
In the 1936 film San Francisco Canutt replaced Clark Gable in a scene in which a wall was to fall on the star. Canutt said: “We had a heavy table situated so that I could dive under it at the last moment. Just as the wall started down, a girl in the scene became hysterical and panicked. I grabbed her, leaped for the table, but didn’t quite make it.” The girl was unhurt but he broke six ribs.[5]
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Ramrod
Canutt tried to get into directing; he was growing older and knew his stunting days were numbered. Harry Joe, Canutt’s second son, was born in January 1937. Joe and Tap would become important stuntmen, working with their father.
In 1938, Republic Pictures started expanding into bigger pictures and budgets. Canutt’s mentor and action director for the 1925 Ben-Hur, Breezy Eason was hired as second unit director, and Canutt to coordinate and ramrod the stunts. For Canutt this meant hiring stuntmen and doing some stunts himself, but laying out the action for the director and writing additional stunts.[4]
“In the five years between 1925 and 1930, fifty-five people were killed making movies, and more than ten thousand injured. By the late 1930s, the maverick stuntman willing to do anything for a buck was disappearing. Now under scrutiny, experienced stunt men began to separate themselves from amateurs by building special equipment, rehearsing stunts, and developing new techniques.” – fromFalling: How Our Greatest Fear Became Our Greatest Thrill by Garrett Soden.[16]
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John Ford hired Canutt on John Wayne‘s recommendation for Stagecoach, where Canutt supervised the river-crossing scene as well as the Indian chase scene, did the stagecoach drop, and doubled for Wayne in the coach stunts. For safety during the stagecoach drop stunt, Canutt devised modified yokes and tongues, to give extra handholds and extra room between the teams.[4] Ford told him that whenever Ford made an action picture and Canutt wasn’t working elsewhere, he was on Ford’s payroll.[2] Also in 1939, Canutt doubled Clark Gable in the burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind; he also appeared as a renegade accosting Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) as she crosses a bridge in a carriage driving through a shantytown.
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Second Unit Director
In 1940, Canutt sustained serious internal injuries when a horse fell on him while doubling for Clark Gable in Boom Town (1940). Though in discomfort for months after an operation to repair his bifurcated intestines, he continued to work.[2] Republic’s Sol Siegel offered him the chance to direct the action sequences of Dark Command, starring Wayne and directed by Raoul Walsh. On Dark Command, Canutt fashioned an elaborate cable system to yank back the plummeting coach before it fell on the stuntman and horses; he also created a breakaway harness from which they were released before hitting the water.[17]
It was in 1943 while doing a low-budget Roy Rogers called Idaho that Canutt broke both his legs at the ankles in a fall off a wagon.[2] He recovered to write the stunts and supervise the action for another Wayne film In Old Oklahoma. In the next decade Canutt became one of the best second unit and action directors. MGM brought Canutt to England in 1952 to direct the action and jousting sequences in Ivanhoe with Robert Taylor. This would set a precedent by filming action abroad instead of on the studio lot, and Canutt introduced many British stuntmen to Hollywood-style stunt training.[2]Ivanhoe was followed by Knights of the Round Table, again with director Richard Thorpe and starring Robert Taylor. Canutt was again brought in for lavish action scenes in King Richard and the Crusaders.[18]
Canutt directed the close-action scenes for Stanley Kubrick‘s Spartacus, spending five days directing retakes that included the slave army rolling its flaming logs into the Romans, and other fight scenes featuring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis and John Ireland.[19]
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Ben Hur
For Ben-Hur, Canutt staged the chariot race with nine teams of four horses. He trained Charlton Heston, (Judah Ben-Hur) and Stephen Boyd, (Messala) to do their own charioteering. He and his crew spent five months on the race sequence.[20] In contrast to the 1925 film, not one horse was hurt, and no humans were seriously injured; though Joe Canutt, while doubling for Charlton Heston, did cut his chin because he did not follow his father’s advice to hook himself to the chariot when Judah Ben-Hur’s chariot bounced over the wreck of another chariot.[21]
Anthony Mann specifically requested Canutt for Second Unit for his 1961 El Cid, where Canutt directed sons Joe and Tap doubling forCharlton Heston and Christopher Rhodes in a stunning tournament joust. “Canutt was surely the most active stager of tournaments since the Middle Ages” – from Swordsmen of the Screen.[18] He was determined to make the combat scenes in El Cid the best that had ever been filmed.[21] Mann again requested him for 1964’s The Fall of the Roman Empire. Over the next ten years, Canutt would continue to work, bringing his talents to Cat Ballou, Khartoum, Where Eagles Dare and 1970’s A Man Called Horse.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Yakima Canutt has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street. In 1967, he was given an Honorary Academy Award for achievements as a stunt man and for developing safety devices to protect stunt men everywhere. He was inducted into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (Hall of Fame).
1985 – Yakima appeared as himself in “Yak’s Best Ride” directed by John Crawford. Produced by Clyde Lucas and Ed Penny
Now you might understand why dear reader that I feel the way I do. The kind of Hollywood, and adversely the kind of America I want is the one that made movies like Zorro’s Fighting Legion which were populated by men like Yakima Canutt. My admiration for George Lucas is that he kept this type of America alive for the world by paying direct tribute to the old Republic serials, particularly Zorro’s Fighting Legion with his creation of Indiana Jones. Like Republic Studios, George Lucas’ Lucasfilm made movies with the same level of independence which fashioned the Republic serials to be so important in American storytelling.Raiders of the Lost Ark, not to take anything away from the visionary story of placing a globetrotting archeologist in a high adventure setting which has advanced science in so many wonderful ways, borrowed heavily from the old Republic serials and because it did, made me aware of their existence across time and space. And now you too dear reader have seen one, the best one in my opinion. One of the big fears that many current day Star Wars fans has is that Disney will ruin the Saturday morning serial feel to the films that mean more to people than even modern religions can duplicate. The reason is that the stories have values that are not provided in modern society, and movie fans are hungry for films with value. But Disney, even though it is a large company has not forgotten where it came from. It knows what Uncle Walt told them from beyond the grave and Star Wars is in good hands. The evidence is in The Lone Ranger which Disney is producing to re-invent the western the way they re-invented the pirate stories. But it cannot be forgotten that what came first, was the great Republic serials like Zorro’s Fighting Legion where truth, justice, and the American way were plot points of value not avoided by a growing consensus toward world-wide communist domination.
The Don Del Oro of our time is all those statist lovers who would destroy all who attempt to stand for goodness. They reside among us in reality with masks hiding their true intentions from behind the desks of union leadership, political office, even movie studio heads. But not everyone is playing by the rules, and like Don Diego from Zorro’s Fighting Legion there are film producers like George Lucas who kept the old serials alive for a new generation, and Jerry Bruckheimer who is making the modern version of The Lone Ranger possible. But more importantly, it is the work of men like Yakima Canutt, and Terry Lenard who gave wings to the ideas of freedom, which motion pictures have traditionally stood for, and still do in isolated cases like Disney’s The Lone Ranger, and Warner Brother’s Man of Steel.
It is worth taking a day or two to watch all these clips. So make up some snacks in the kitchen and take some time to enjoy the foundations of American film and the heroic ideals that accompany them.
Ahead of Disney’s new Lone Ranger film they are running a promotion for all fighters for justice to receive an advance screening of their new film prior to its July 3rd release. Given the kind of readers who frequent Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, there are more than a few such people in Southern Ohio who deserve a ticket.
Nominate a local hero or agency who rides for Justice in your community to receive the Lone Ranger Ride for Justice Award and an advance screening of Disney’s The Lone Ranger. Post your nominations to @LoneRanger on Twitter with the #LRRideforJustice and your city of residence, to honor your local heroes.
It looks like there will be a Man of Steel part two film after all with a Justice League film coming shortly thereafter. As reported by Forbes at the link below, Man of Steel has made over $125 million during its opening weekend, which was the required amount to get the ball rolling for the DC Comics series of films that have been much talked about.
Of a particular interest is the speculation that the Forbes article makes about the next Superman villain, Lex Luther:
The big question is of course which side of the critical divide audiences end up on, since the film doesn’t just need to make money but establish excitement for Man Of Steel 2 coming summer 2015 (starring… uh… Chiwetel Ejiofor as Lex Luthor?) and the eventual Justice Leaguefilm coming summer… 2018? But for the moment, Man Of Steelhas reaffirmed DC Comics as a viable brand for big-scale tent poles just as Marvel did with Iron Manfive years ago. So far, so good…
Chiwetel Ejiofor would be a good pick. For those who saw Man of Steel, did you notice the LexCorp vans being destroyed during the big climax?
Plus, I was looking at the Superman comic #703 yesterday………the one that takes place in Cincinnati, Ohio………………and took note that the story line between Batman and Superman was a compelling one. I would expect to see a film between those two characters just ahead of Justice League.
Every year I look forward to the Star Wars weekends at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It is one of the wonderful opportunities for philosophy, fantasy, ingenuity and the best aspects of human nature to converge at a palace of capitalism and celebrate the existence of one of the greatest stories of all time. I love the energy, optimism, and opportunity that Star Wars offers individuals and families everywhere. Many die-hard Star Wars fans converge every year in the middle of May to attend the fabulous Star WarsWeekend events. For those who cannot attend, I offer these clips from the spectacle taken during the opening day ceremonies on Friday, May 17, 2013.
Sit back, grab a snack and enjoy the fun and pleasure of entertainment shown in the videos below!
The Gunfighter's Guide: 