Name the only film, based on a work of fiction, blessed by a pope! Good luck!
We watched it (again) just a couple nights ago.
One of America’s great Conservatives.
I don’t think you can really appreciate this movie till you get in your 40’s.
You really have to experience loss and disappointment.
In 1899 William O. Cushing and Ira Sankey devised the following hymn, which is based on Psalm 91:
UNDER HIS WINGS
Under His wings I am safely abiding,
Though the night deepens and tempests are wild,
Still I can trust Him; I know He will keep me,
He has redeemed me, and I am His child.
Under His wings, under His wings,
Who from His love can sever?
Under His wings my soul shall abide,
Safely abide forever.
Under His wings, what a refuge in sorrow!
How the heart yearningly turns to His rest!
Often when earth has no balm for my healing,
There I find comfort, and there I am blessed.
Under His wings, under His wings,
Who from His love can sever?
Under His wings my soul shall abide,
Safely abide forever.
Under His wings, oh, what precious enjoyment!
There will I hide till life’s trials are o’er;
Sheltered, protected, no evil can harm me,
Resting in Jesus, I’m safe evermore.
Under His wings, under His wings,
Who from His love can sever?
Under His wings my soul shall abide,
Safely abide forever.
So here’s a proposal:
Who can we get to write a screenplay for “It’s a Wonderful Constitution,” to be produced and showing in theatres by midsummer? Can you see it now? A young man just trying to help people (think healthcare) is thwarted by the unconstitutionality of his dramatic plan of action. He is angered and disgusted by what he sees as selfish, self-righteous conservatives standing in the way by standing on their “constitutional rights” and it leads him to extreme despair, disparaging the Constitution as no more than an old, worthless piece of paper, as he sets out to end it all in the river below.
Then he encounters an angel (not Palin - too over the top) who must help him resolve this life crisis. He does so by sending him into an alternate universe where the American Constitution was never written, where the American colonials never got past their small-minded bickering because, by a quirk of alternate history, someone convinced King George he could keep the colonies in line if he just enslaved them at a kinder, gentler, slower pace. The revolution had no trigger, never took place, and while Jefferson and Franklin had some great tavern conversations, no one ever had the impetus of crisis sufficient to set down those words that have for so long been the guardian of American freedom.
So, as our protagonist ventures into this alternate world, he encounters a strange, unsettling culture where the protections of the Constitution were simply not there to protect him and the people he cared about from the many harms people inflict on each other, where the government had become this large, faceless machine that treated humans as commodities to be bought and sold at will by the privileged class. No freedom to speak. No freedom to gather with like-minded people. No freedom to practice one’s own religion. No due process. No equal protection. No warrant needed for the government to invade any home. On and on it goes. Adventure yes, action aplenty, but with an ever diminishing hope of final escape, a slowly growing sense of suffocation. .
Toward the end, he further learns there is nowhere else in the world he can go where freedom still reigns, because there was no America, as he had known it, to step in and help the other peoples of the world fight off their respective tyrannies. All had fallen, in the end, to the petty interests of small men.
Finally, as he approaches the apex of this dark terror, our hero has the epiphany that the lost dignity of man in this future horror show turned on a singular event, the absence of a decision by a relatively small group of extraordinarily thoughtful people to respond to a crisis of impending tyranny by putting down on paper a system of government which, by it’s power to limit government, could actually succeed in protecting the inalienable rights of all who must live under the power of that government. Yes, he says, that is the answer. If only it had not been lost, the opportunity not missed.
At which point the young man is returned to his own time and place, full of relief, to be sure, but also amazement and gratitude that he was privileged to live in a place that, however imperfect, had that wonderful old piece of paper known as the US Constitution, to stand as the timeless defender of his and everyone else’s inextinguishable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Good movie? Or not? What do y’all think? And what about casting? All (beneficial) ideas welcome.
I miss Jimmy Stewart and all the other G-dly, decent people who used to be so visible in the entertainment media. All we have now is the slime at the bottom of the barrel.
I was always surprised by the life of Gloria Grahame - who plays the blond bombshell Violet in the film.
In real life she was married four times. Okay, that’s not too shocking for a Hollywood actress, but her last husband was her STEPSON from her second marriage! And she had children with both Nicholas Ray and his son, Anthony Ray.
Apparently she started having an affair with Anthony when he was 13.
Not a fan of Frank Capra. Not a fan of Jimmy Stewart’s acting, either. The voice was just annoying.
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