From Congo Bill to Zorro, they were fertile ground for a youngster's imagination as we waited for next week's derring-do
Because my lifelong affair with the movies began at the tail end of the film serial era, I missed most of what’s been described as the genre’s golden age. But I did experience the thrill of watching a story evolve week to week. It was great stuff, or at least that’s how it appeared at…
The process should help uncover the blemishes in a candidate – providing the other choices shine through
Jeb Bush recently suggested that someone ought to run against U.S. President Donald Trump in next year’s presidential primaries. It would, in Bush’s estimation, be good for the Republican Party. The underlying logic is simple. Rather than being a real Republican, Trump is an interloper who executed the political equivalent of a hostile business takeover.…
Force-feeding economic modernization is a tricky business, even for a Father of Confederation
After leading the 1940s movement to bring Newfoundland into Confederation, Joey Smallwood went on to win six consecutive elections and served as the province’s premier for just shy of 23 years. It’s not the longest run for a provincial premier – Nova Scotia’s George Murray, Alberta’s Ernest Manning and Ontario’s Oliver Mowat edge Smallwood on…
At the heart of the decision to join Confederation was Joey Smallwood’s use of sectarian politics
March 31 marks the 70th anniversary of Newfoundland joining Canada, a significant historical milestone in and of itself. It also facilitated the ascendancy of one of the 20th century’s most colourful Canadian politicians – Joey Smallwood. Newfoundland took a pass on the original 1867 Confederation, opting to remain with the arrangement that had been in…
The debate is perhaps just a reflection of our modern obsessions and fails to put events in their proper historic perspective
England’s most famous medieval monarch, Richard the Lionheart, died 820 years ago this April. Wounded while besieging a castle in western France, he succumbed to gangrene. Strangely, though, despite his being the most famous European warrior of his time, one of the major modern talking points about him pertains to his sexuality. Specifically, was he…
The story of Cuchulainn is one of heroism. But it has also become a cultural touchstone and a political rallying cry
With St. Patrick’s Day almost upon us, it’s appropriate to write something with an Irish theme. And what better subject than the greatest hero of Ireland’s mythical past – Cuchulainn. As the word is derived from old Irish, a bit of phonetic assistance would help. The variation familiar from my childhood is “Coo Cullen.” It…
Were Lord Palmerston alive today, he’d most certainly be a Brexiteer
For devotees of the TV series Victoria, the introduction of foreign secretary Lord Palmerston was a season three highlight. And given Palmerston’s dominant role in British foreign policy between 1830 and 1865, his introduction was historically apt as well as dramatically interesting. Purists, though, might take issue with the casting. Although Laurence Fox’s performance is…
Comedy masters Laurel and Hardy are the subject of a new biopic that tells a story of triumph and despair
Laurel and Hardy’s Hollywood heyday was before my time. I started going to the movies in the early 1950s, by which point their cinematic status had been eclipsed by other comedy duos like Abbott and Costello and Martin and Lewis. Still, the new biopic Stan & Ollie strikes nostalgically resonant notes. One of the more…
The Comanches were very adaptable and formidable. But nature, politics, economics and immigration eventually undid them
It’s easy to think of the European arrival in North America as an unremitting story of Native American retreat. But as Finnish historian Pekka Hamalainen explains in The Comanche Empire, reality was more complicated. Empowered by the European introduction of the horse and the gun, the Comanches did very well for a long time. In…
The made-in-Canada jet interceptor certainly had its problems. But the manner in which it was killed raised serious questions
On Feb. 20, 1959, the Canadian government cancelled the Avro Arrow. Some people still refer to the day as Black Friday. Growing up in Ireland, my teenage awareness of Canada was limited. Other than occasional news snippets in my father’s weekly edition of Time magazine, Canada meant snow, the RCMP, Paul Anka and Yvon Durelle,…
Buddy Holly died 60 years ago, but his music has not faded away – even if the nature of rock tours has changed dramatically
To quote Don McLean’s song American Pie, Feb. 3 marks the 60th anniversary of the day the music died. The reference, of course, is to the 1959 plane crash that killed rock ’n’ roller Buddy Holly, two other performers and the pilot of the four-seater plane in which they were travelling. I remember the event…
The ties that bind aren’t what they used to be – at least for some of us. For others, they are increasingly intense
I’m old enough to remember when nationalism was viewed as a good thing. And I’m not just referring to my Irish childhood. In the Canada of 40 to 50 years ago, many high-profile progressives self-described as nationalists. People like former finance minister Walter Gordon, journalist Peter C. Newman and the luminaries gathered around the Committee…
Woodrow Wilson failed to accept the limitations and checks explicit in the American democratic system
When the Paris Peace Conference opened on Jan. 18, 1919, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson seemed to be at the top of his game. America’s entry had played a critical role in ending the First World War and Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points were acclaimed as the blueprint for a just settlement and a future world where…
With ambitions far beyond what you’d expect from a rip-and-run raider, he apparently believed he was more than a mere mortal
In the summer of 1956, my father took myself and my younger brother to see Richard Burton play the title role of Alexander the Great. It wasn’t my father’s idea. Alerted by a Dell Comics adaptation, I’d made a pitch for educational value. The movie was, in retrospect, something of a clunker. Replete with blonde…
Pierre Trudeau lost favour with voters and ended up with a minority government. A similar fate may await his son
There are obvious similarities between the political situation of Justin Trudeau in 2019 and that of his father in 1972. In 1972, Pierre Trudeau’s personal magic wasn’t as alluring as during the heady days of 1968’s Trudeaumania. The same can be said for today’s prime minister vis-à-vis 2015. The 1972 election caught people by surprise.…