Free Republic

Classic flick about the clash between emotional anti-gun war widow and a WW2 veteran (Sterling Hayden) who is sheriff of a small town where the POTUS is set to pass through. A psycho (Frank Sinatra) is planning to beat the odds and take him out. Grand old character actor James Gleason plays the lady's father-in-law, and has the honor to deliver the line: "When the old boys wrote those words 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' they sounded mighty nice -- but they wouldn't've been worth a plug nickel if somebody hadn't made 'em stick."

The Aviator on National Review Online E-mail Author Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version February 25, 2005, 3:14 p.m. Howard Hughes's Last HurrahWhat The Aviator misses. by John Meroney Fifty-three years ago this week, Howard Hughes found himself locked in a battle against powerful political forces he believed were bent on undermining the free-market system. The billionaire industrialist, airplane manufacturer, and filmmaker became so passionate about the fight that he summoned all his emotional and physical strength to overcome a crippling fear of the public so he could make his case for what he saw as...

Starting sometime in June, Pinellas County residents will, for all intents and purposes, be compelled to ingest a product used in rat poison which will be added to their domestic water supply. The addition of fluoride to the water supply is not meant to make the water supply safe to drink, but rather, will be added to the water supply because some folks in government have taken it upon themselves to make a medical decision ... This forced ingestion of an identifiable substance for its alleged health benefits would appear to violate what Michael Schiavo’s lawyer might claim is a...

In December, some big dates passed in relative obscurity. One was December 7th; the other was the 12th, Frank Sinatra’s (1915-1998) birthday, the only showbiz birthday I know by heart. I remembered the Chairman of the Board by ordering the VHS of an obscure movie he made in 1954, Suddenly. (But don’t you order it – the sound quality is horrible. Fortunately, the movie is often broadcast on TV.) Just two years before he made Suddenly, Frank Sinatra thought he was finished. His vocal cords hemorrhaged, and “The Voice” almost fell silent. Movie producers were no longer interested in making...