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one thing always leads to another
May. 18th, 2013 11:54 amSomething, I've now forgotten what, tipped me off to Gentleman's Agreement, a 1947 film directed by Elia Kazan and starring Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire. It's a movie about a journalist writing an article about antisemitism for a major news magazine who decides that he can get "a new angle" by living as a Jew and experiencing prejudice firsthand.
In one of the early scenes, the commissioning editor says that he doesn't want just another story full of "facts and figures" or a piece about "the crackpot factor", but a story about the wider effects of antisemitism, focusing on people without overt prejudice, "people who would never give a dime to Gerald L. K. Smith."
Now, obviously that reference was supposed to be instantly recognizable to a 1947 audience, but it meant nothing to me. Obscure asides like that are, for me, like waving a feathery toy in front of an energetic cat, so it was off to Wikipedia for info.
Gerald L. K. Smith, it turns out, was a nasty piece of work. A Wisconsin minister, he moved to Louisiana for his wife's health and became involved with Huey Long's Share Our Wealth movement (SOW). After Long's death, he continued running SOW and moved ever rightward, allying first with the odious Father Charles Coughlin and later with the American Nazi William Dudley Pelley. Smith spent time in prison during Word War Two for an espionage conviction. He ran for president three times in the 1940s and 1950s, receiving about 1,800 votes (1944), 80 votes, (1948), and 8 votes (1956).
He retired to Arkansas in the 1960s, where he planned to build a life-size recreation of ancient Jerusalem as part of a religious theme park. Though the park was never built, its centerpiece, a giant statue of Christ, was completed, as well as an amphitheatre when Smith produced a passion play modeled on those of medieval Germany (first staged in 1968, the play still runs every year from May to October).
All this from an aside in the tenth minute...
ETA: And here's another forgotten racist that gets mentioned: John E. Rankin.
And another: Theodore G. Bilbo.
In one of the early scenes, the commissioning editor says that he doesn't want just another story full of "facts and figures" or a piece about "the crackpot factor", but a story about the wider effects of antisemitism, focusing on people without overt prejudice, "people who would never give a dime to Gerald L. K. Smith."
Now, obviously that reference was supposed to be instantly recognizable to a 1947 audience, but it meant nothing to me. Obscure asides like that are, for me, like waving a feathery toy in front of an energetic cat, so it was off to Wikipedia for info.
Gerald L. K. Smith, it turns out, was a nasty piece of work. A Wisconsin minister, he moved to Louisiana for his wife's health and became involved with Huey Long's Share Our Wealth movement (SOW). After Long's death, he continued running SOW and moved ever rightward, allying first with the odious Father Charles Coughlin and later with the American Nazi William Dudley Pelley. Smith spent time in prison during Word War Two for an espionage conviction. He ran for president three times in the 1940s and 1950s, receiving about 1,800 votes (1944), 80 votes, (1948), and 8 votes (1956).
He retired to Arkansas in the 1960s, where he planned to build a life-size recreation of ancient Jerusalem as part of a religious theme park. Though the park was never built, its centerpiece, a giant statue of Christ, was completed, as well as an amphitheatre when Smith produced a passion play modeled on those of medieval Germany (first staged in 1968, the play still runs every year from May to October).
All this from an aside in the tenth minute...
ETA: And here's another forgotten racist that gets mentioned: John E. Rankin.
And another: Theodore G. Bilbo.
