In this case I cannot do my usual playing with papal names and invented adjectives; some of my faithful followers might like to read about ‘Julian Popes’, as…
Category: History of the Cinema
Further thoughts on Thomas Becket, martyr and saint
Thomas Becket, or Thomas à Becket as he was called by my teacher of History, was not a Saxon. He was a son of a wealthy Norman merchant…
That’s Hollywood!
During the 1980s and 90s of the last century a giant crop of young, or very young male actors began appearing in major films made in Hollywood, or…
The dry martini cocktail
The history of this cocktail is not without incident. It is a potentially lethal mixture of a raw spirit – gin – with a distillation of the vine,…
Further thoughts on Edward I of England
On the afternoon of 7th July, 1307, the Plantagenet king of England Edward I died on his way north with a huge army. His intention had been, again,…
The real Sir William Wallace
Some years ago the anglophobe film star and director Gibson made a Hollywood-backed movie called Braveheart. This tasteful work of art purports to be the story of a…
What was ‘The March on Rome’?
(a) The end of Rome as an empire. (b) An asssault by angry unelected popes. (c) An attempt to seize power by the fascists of Mussolini. Those of…
A Swedish royal dynasty (1523 – 1818)
The Vasa dynasty provided monarchs for Sweden, with only two exceptions, from the beginning of the sixteenth century to just after the end of the Napoleonic Wars (q.v.)….
What was the ‘Wild West’?
It was a term used, mainly by Americans, to describe frontier society in the second half of the nineteenth century. Before the eighteen fifties the huge area between…
The Occupation of the Rhur
The valley of the Rhur, which would become famous enough for a major film to be made of the bombing of its dams during the Second War, was…