New Lusitania specials

[George L. Lorton]

>>I read your article Jim and the only thing I saw about the elevators were that you stated that accounts said that people had been trapped in them.<<
Seriously
Only James Leary's Flamboyant 1917 account gentlemen do we have people trapped in Elevators. He's starting to sound like Mrs. Cassebeer. Don't ask just go to search recent posts. That Lady or Walter Lord has lead me on a very fine dance indeed. This isn't the first time I've been seduced by the darkside just hope it the last.

 

[Brian O'Dell]

I still think it happened. Mrs. Playboy might have tried to rescue everyone. Maybe it was someone else, or maybe no one did. It's an interesting question.

I just wish we could swap people and go back in time to the body of Mrs. Playboy and see if it really did happen. Lol.

 

[Jim Kalafus]

>A feature film, properly funded, researched and acted, is surely long overdue. I don't believe that either directors or audiences would be deterred by a violent representation of the sinking itself.

Hi Martin: On a more serious note than my last two posts. I've vacillated between sharing your opinion and not sharing your opinion regarding a Lusitania film the last few years. Here is where, I think, the problem lies. Private Ryan ( a film I detested except for the opening sequence) and Schindler's List (BTW- check out Carole Lombard's 1942 To Be Or Not To Be. They use an insert shot showing a page from the Nazi villain's date book and the name written directly over Carole's character's is O. Schindler!) dealt with events that still resonate and, at the time, had world shaking effects. The Lusitania, particularly in the U.S., faded away after a lot of newspaper outrage, to be replaced by even more dismal atrocities.

The Lusitania story does not "exist in the present" the way that The Holocaust and D-Day do. The frame of reference that most film goers would have, and the prejudice against a serious film they would carry into theaters, fall squarely on Titanic (1997). WW1 historians and liner disaster buffs would accept (and welcome) a serious film but, alas, the average moviegoer would be put off by it after expecting "Romance," "Spectacle," "Tacky shots of ships sailing off into their final sunsets," "Evil First Class Passengers and Noble Peasants," and "A Bad Guy Who Gets His in the End." I suspect that what we would see is a film in which A) The Germans twirl their mustaches and plot evil, to the outrage of the noble English or the English plot evil and twirl their mustaches ot the outrage of the noble Germans B) a stupid doomed-to-fail-for-o-so-many-reasons affair between The Poor Girl and Vanderbilt, who is depicted as either A Nice Guy Oppressed By His Money and Lineage who during the course of the film Finds True Love and Self Worth Only To Die, or A Rapist, C) A tacky shot in which an animated fogbank suddenly lifts, revealing an animated Lusitania against a beautiful blue sky and Hills of Ireland background, D) a Child Too Good To Die who actually dies and a Child Too Good To Die who opens here eyes and lives again while the audience goes "YAY!" E) a Queenstown mortuary sequence in which dead passengers are shown clutching reminders of their former lives so audience members can go "Awww!" F) a Schweiger 'haunted' by his conscience, to soften his character up, and last and certainly least, a hero and a villain both sharing the same fate of being trapped in a stalled elevator.

So, I'd rather see this film left unexplored.

 

[Martin Owen Cahill]

"So, I'd rather see this film left unexplored."
like wise. It is not what I would envisage.

As for Private Ryan, I saw that off 70mm stcok in a grand old resatored cinema.
The first 30 minutes was shocking to someone raise around 60's-70's war movies that were by comparison sanitized.

I came out of the cinema very quiet and thankful my father missed out on that experience. I think the Lusitania story is very relevant to us.


regards

Martin

 

[George L. Lorton]

Brian
I was thinking along those lines my self about going back in time to find out.

Jim
>>and last and certainly least, a hero and a villain both sharing the same fate of being trapped in a stalled elevator.<<

ha ha. But if they showed people stuck in an elevator we'd be back to square one on this post Jim.

Martin
I think we need Steven Spielberg to direct or produce to get it done accurately if it were made in Hollywood.

 

[Jim Kalafus]

>Private Ryan, I saw that off 70mm stcok in a grand old resatored cinema.The first 30 minutes was shocking to someone raise around 60's-70's war movies that were by comparison sanitized.
I came out of the cinema very quiet and thankful

What shocked me about Private Ryan was that, first thirty minutes or so aside, it was a rather pedestrian effort that seemed like a two hour long anticlimax to a graphic opening. Since one didn't actually KNOW any of the characters in the opening scene, except in the most general sense as human being and Allied troops, the impact of the sequence was considerably blunted from what it might have been. The film makers were no fools. If time had been taken to develop actual characters, and had the D-Day footage come 3/4 of the way into the film so that the audience actually KNEW some of the people storming that beach, the impact would have been devastating (on both the audience and potential box office take) and quite an atypical statement for a war film. And people would have hated it. This version of war was not so much "sanitised" as it was offensive through its use of "distancing." One sat through a long and very disturbing sequence, but at the same time one could only engage on a very general level with what was going on, and could only think "this is a more artfully done, more graphic variation of the same old 'see how many cardboard extras we can kill off in one sequence' 1980s commando-film mentality." Followed by a fairly mundane story that ended just as one knew it would. The sequence, although shocking, was not necessary to the film. If it was removed, the rest of the film would still function exactly as it did. The film did not build up to an obvious climax, but ran away from it. That, in short, it was just more violent death presented as entertainment, but better presented than usual. All Quiet on the Western Front (original version)was not a cowardly film in this respect and, alas, Private Ryan was.

Violent Death as Entertainment marred Titanic, (that little animated man bouncing off of the propeller) and is EXACTLY what I fear would ruin Lusitania the Movie: if one used distancing techniques, the film would be reduced to "kill 'em off fast so no one calls this a chick flick" and if one did NOT use distancing techniques, so that people knew who Mary Hammond was before she was thrown out of the lifeboat and killed, the audience would hate the film.

 

[Martin Williams]

I confess, I envisage this production as a nigh-on impossible fusion of two very different approaches to film-making. The first three-quarters would be in the style of Merchant-Ivory - fantastic actors and scripting, exquisite sets and costumes and, above all, a SENSITIVE and INTELLIGENT exploration of the social, political and historical conditions of 1915 and how the individuals aboard the liner on her final voyage responded to them.

The final quarter - the sinking - would be an all-out, Cameronesque recreation of the great ship's demise with no attempt to either 'dress it up' or 'water it down'. True, several characters the audience would come to care for might perish. But, as I said in one of my posts above, the sinking of the 'Lusitania' was an act of wanton and indiscriminate evil. If women and children are seen to die - well, so be it. That was how it was. An attempt to engineer any kind of 'happy ending' would be directly contrary to the spirit in which MY film would be made!

 

[George L. Lorton]

My Idea of a happy ending is a survivor getting on with their life with minimal damage.

 

[Stanley C Jenkins]

There have already been comments about the recent BBC’s revisionist docu-drama “Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic”, which portrayed the British as bad guys and the Germans as thoroughly decent chaps. The following observations were made by A.A.Gill, the TV critic of the Sunday Times, who on 3 June 2007 commented:

“The sinking of an unarmed passenger ship in broad daylight off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat, with the loss of almost 1,200 civilian lives, including those of thirty infants, was obviously the fault of the British Navy, the Admiralty and Winston Churchill. The Germans were plainly heartbroken at being forced to fire a torpedo that they rightfully thought would just bounce off, because of the wholly illegal blockade of Hamburg by the perfidious Brits, who were unfairly fighting the horrid First World War against them. Mark my words, we will live to see the revisionist docu-drama of 9/11. That’s the great thing about history. It’s like kids’ TV. It’s just there to annoy”.

 

[George L. Lorton]

>>That’s the great thing about history. It’s like kids’ TV. It’s just there to annoy”.<<

Hello Stanley,

History can be used this way. I think both sides are equally guilty. America wasn't as blameless as she appeared. We said we were neutral but our ties at the time were mostly with Britain because of our shared culture. Woodrow Wilson's mother was English. We were also earning a pretty penny making weapons for the British. We love the almighty dollar in this country. Money does talk. So I think all three nations were guilty in the same degree.

 

[Jim Kalafus]

I have, for a long time, had questions about the supposed shortages and famine brought on by the British blockade. Does anyone out the have a 1910 almanac handy? I ask because I do not, and find myself wondering just how much food Germany was importing just before things began going all to hell. I dont deny that there WAS a famine, but would like to clear up lingering doubts that maybe, possibly, it was induced by the military diverting food away from the civilian populace to feed its own, and not by the blockade. So, if anyone can tell me, and us, how much food Germany imported in 1910 and how much she produced for the domestic market, it would be quite illuminating.

> but our ties at the time were mostly with Britain

An iffy proposition. Prior to the Lusitania incident, and in truth for some time afterward, the consensus on who was "right" and who was "wrong" varied regionally. Places like Baltimore, Hoboken, the outer boroughs of New York City, Milwaukee, and much of Texas were German-and-proud-of-it. Other places less so. The Lusitania sinking, moral issues aside, was a major blunder for Germany because after May 1915 one began to see a slight erosion of support in places that had previously been overwhelmingly pro-German. Some places that had been bastions of pro-German sentiment became among the most rabidly anti-German after 1917, a facet of the US Great War experience that needs to be better explored than it has been.

>Woodrow Wilson's mother was English.

Woodrow Wilson lost relatives in the 1917 torpedoing of the Laconia. I've always felt that he was remarkably restrained before that occurred.

>We love the almighty dollar in this country.

As opposed to the sense of altruism, restraint, non-materialism and self-denial currently sweeping rest of the globe?

>We were also earning a pretty penny making weapons for the British.

One occasionally wonders how much we sold to the Germans through third parties prior to 1917. I know that Lusitania victim George Vernon died completing a private arms deal with Russia partially engineered by his wife, Inez, a classical violinist with social ties to the Romanovs (One of the final acts of that particular monarchy was to pay a $300,000.00 commission for the rifles to the estate of Inez Jolivet Vernon, in early 1917) and one wonders how many similar back room deals between the US and Germany took place.

One would ALSO like to read a good translation of ALL of Schweiger's logbooks. One feels a sense of post-production bullsh t in the passages about "the mass of humanity struggling to save itself" and would like to determine if he was ever before (or ever again) so florid, poetic and gosh-darned Human after killing random strangers, or did the Lusitania strike a responsive chord that none of the other ships he sank managed to. In short, at some point between 1915 and the end of the war might the logbook have been "sweetened" to put a better face on what some were calling an atrocity? Would like to read all of his logs to see if the tone is consistent.

 

[George L. Lorton]

>>In short, at some point between 1915 and the end of the war might the logbook have been "sweetened" to put a better face on what some were calling an atrocity? Would like to read all of his logs to see if the tone is consistent.<<

I always wondered myself. That particular log you mentioned appeared different from the other logs of Schweiger's Logbook. Maybe the German feared prosecution for war crimes so they doctored it. Of course it would make no sense as far as I can see for them to do so.

Restrained u-boat war far after torpedoing of Lusitania. If the German Navy hadn't allowed the Kaiser to restrain the unrestricted U-Boat campaign Germany might of been in a better position and maybe held on longer. It was only in 1917 that they returned to unrestrained U-boat warfare. Of course this was what sent the U.S.A. into the war. I should state this is all coming from what I remember reading and I don't have any source material with me at the moment but this is how I remember it. So if anyone out there fells I've missed something or stated a fact wrong feel free to comment. Is it me or did the Kaiser come off as kinda loopy.

 

[George L. Lorton]

I know that Lusitania victim George Vernon died completing a private arms deal with Russia partially engineered by his wife, Inez, a classical violinist with social ties to the Romanovs (One of the final acts of that particular monarchy was to pay a $300,000.00 commission for the rifles to the estate of Inez Jolivet Vernon, in early 1917) and one wonders how many similar back room deals between the US and Germany took place.

Did Inez Vernon Shoot herself in guilt over sale of weapons?
Inez Vernon's Estate got money after her death from the sale she and her husband made of
rifles. She lost her husband to a weapon(Torpedo) and he was going to complete deal she helped make about weapons. She shot herself with a gun. Was it over guilt she might of had that with this sale of rifles a lot more women were going to be widowed as she was. That she might of thought of herself as a murderess. Or was it just grief over the loss of her husband. Is this just me or is this freaky. Food for thought here. What do you all think? Did George's Grandma read him to many Hercule Poiret Mysteries or is he on to something here.

 

[Jim Kalafus]

Well, Inez seemed in good spirits- as good spirits as someone recently widowed can be- when she returned to New York in June 1915. She was planning on returning to London, where her parents lived and where she was when she got the news of George's death, and went to her NYC apartment to close it up. The last weekend of her life was spent shopping, purchasing her return tickets (on the St. Louis, I believe) and visiting with friends in New Jersey. She returned to her apartment early Monday morning. Was not seen again, and was not missed because it was assumed that she had vacated the apartment. The building super found her on Thursday, while showing the apartment to prospective tenants. The discovery must have been particularly appalling because this was New York in mid-July and pre-airconditioning. She was kneeling beside her bed, in a prayer position, with her hands over her face and the gun under her clothing, with a bullet wound through her temple. If she left a note, the details were never made public, although when she returned to her apartment she found an "urgent-bad news" telegram awaiting her. What the bad news was, is lost to history, but it was assumed to have been the motivating factor in her suicide.

I doubt Inez would have thought herself a murderess. Why would she? She had used her social connection to Nicholas II's brother Michael to engineer a deal that generated $300,000.00, which is not a feat that most women in 1915 could have pulled off. She had not done anything illegal, and the person who arranges for the sale of rifles is not in any way linked, morally or otherwise, with the person who eventually pulls the trigger.

Her $300,000.00 passed on to the Jolivet family, and I can't help but suspect that a large portion of the $250,000.00 budget of Rita's self-produced Lusitania movie, Lest We Forget (filmed, in part, aboard one of the impounded German liners) came from Inez's estate.

Oh, about the peculiar position of her body. Some have speculated that since she was kneeling on top of the gun, and had both hands over her face, she was murdered rather than a suicide victim. After all, how can one shoot one's self through the temple if both of one's hands are covering one's face? Shot execution style? Possibly. But, food for thought- one detail that was consistent in all of the 1915 reports was that Inez used a "Lady's gun," (a small, handbag friendly single shot model) for her final exit. I asked my father, NYC homicide officer, for insights into what may have happened, and he speculated that the bullet may have killed Inez by blunt impact trauma rather than by penetrating her brain. In short, the small calibre bullet may have given her a massive skull fracture that allowed her enough time to really wish she hadn't done what she did. And, also, would hit men have been careless enough to successfully eliminate Mrs. Butler (Vernon was George's professioanl name) and then leave the gun at the scene?

 

[J Kent Layton]

George,

quote:
Restrained u-boat war far after torpedoing of Lusitania. If the German Navy hadn't allowed the Kaiser to restrain the unrestricted U-Boat campaign Germany might of been in a better position and maybe held on longer. It was only in 1917 that they returned to unrestrained U-boat warfare.
--------

What the Germans were carrying out beginning in February of 1915 was not, technically speaking, unrestricted U-boat warfare. Bailey & Ryan really did their homework on this point; only in 1917 did the muzzle really come off.