Posted on 04/06/2014 9:42:14 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
The new AMC series Turn, which premieres April 6, is bewildering at first.
We’re dropped smack in the middle of British-occupied New York. The year is 1776, and Abraham Woodhull (Jamie Bell) is scraping by as a cabbage farmer and sometime innkeeper in Setauket, Long Island. He’s husband to Mary (Meegan Warner), and father to a young child. His father, Richard (Kevin McNally), is a local magistrate loyal to George III.
Then the scene shifts. We’re now in New Jersey. A stunning overhead shot reveals a sprawling field of bluecoat rebel bodies lying next to a pool dyed red with blood. It looks like a John Trumbull painting. A man, dressed in rags, stalks across the field, impaling the bodies with a bayonet. He approaches a corpse and raises his bayonet when—suddenly—the bluecoat flips over and shoves a dagger deep into the executioner’s throat, emitting a geyser of blood. Before you can chant “U-S-A!”, a pro-British militia is chasing the man through the woods, showering him with musket balls.
These men are the Queen’s Rangers, a ragtag Loyalist military unit led by Robert Rogers (Angus Macfayden, best known for backstabbing Mel Gibson’s character in Braveheart). The man returns to his battalion and addresses his superiors:
“These were not Tory militia or regulars… these were Queen’s Rangers.”
“Are you saying there’s a breach within our ranks?”
“I’m saying they have spies… everywhere, Sir.”
So, the rebels seek to give the Brits a taste of their own medicine and, on orders from General George Washington, establish a covert courier system from New Jersey to occupied New York.
~snip~
The cast...is aces all around and Turn, with its occupied territory setting, ex-lovers reuniting for a common cause, awe-inspiring staging and cinematography, and rah-rah patriotism, is ...well worth your time and/or DVR space.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Lots of British actors in this show too.
But doesn’t this movie series take place during the American Revolution?
Yes. This series is based on a different book — not Kilmeade’s.
I first heard about this more than 10 years ago from an article in The Smithsonian that identified one of the women spies as a Quaker lady. The Tories took over her house, and he older son had volunteered with the Colonials, despite their Quaker religion.
According to the story in The Smithsonian, she would lie on her bedroom floor at night and listen through a knothole to the British officers gathered around her dining room table. Then she would write the information on a piece of muslin (troop movements) and make a covered button with the cloth and sew it on the clothes of her younger son
The younger son would head to market with his fatherthe following day and take a detour to visit his brother in Washington’s camp where Washinngton would cut the button off of the chil’s clothes and unwrap it an know where the British troops were planning to fight the next day.
The Smithsonian knew herr name, but I’ve forgotten it.
Use the top link. Sometimes one of them doesn’t work.
YES! That’s the name. Not the same member of the spy ring whom they claim is “unidentified”?
Anyhow, I loved that article in the Smithsonian. My mother (who is 100 years old) used that story in a skit she wrote about lady spies. I helped her do the research and produced the finished product. She is a retired school teacher who used to write a little play a year for the retired teachers until she was 98.
Apparently Wikipedia does not buy the story about the child and the home-made button. Their account is even more interesting.
Loved the vignette about mom!
Don't miss it, the first 90 minutes were quite excellent.
I will watch it after all!!!11!
Okay, THAT got my attention!! I'll definitely watch, now ;) This series does sound intriguing.
My favorite American Revolution spy is still Nathan Hale.
Benjamin Tallmadge was a classmate of Nathan Hale’s at Yale and his best friend. It has been said that Hale’s hanging (near present day 63rd and 3rd Ave in NYC) provoked Tallmadge to start the spy ring.
It was up against “Game of Thrones” so I DVR’d it. I’ll watch it tonight.
We recently toasted a pint in honor of Geo Washinton and Nathan Hale at Fraunces Tavern, in Manhattan.
“With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you....” and adding, “I have but one regret, that I only have one life to give for my country”.
Yes, but Queen Elizabeth I reigned in the 1600’s. Incidentally, I saw the pilot, and it was VERY good. Sorting out characters was a bit difficult right at first, but it promises to be quite interesting.
That. Is. GORGEOUS. Thank you!
Your Obdt & Humble Svt.
P____y
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