Podcasts of the Week Ending May 23

All Songs Considered :: Little Richard’s Life in 10 Songs

A tribute to the groundbreaking Rock n’ Roll artist through music.

Fresh Air :: Janelle Monáe

An interview with one of my favorite musicians, actors, style icons, and all around people.

The Politics of Everything :: Is Baseball Safe?

MLB is planning to return for a shortened season, but will it be safe for players, coaches, umpires, and other ballpark employees with the continuing threat of COVID-19?

Radio Boston :: As Mass. Reopens, Are You Ready To Start Riding The T Again?

Decades of disinvestment in Boston’s public transportation creates the conditions where many commuters will not feel they can safely travel while practicing social distancing.

Radiolab :: Speedy Beet

Beethoveen may have composed his music to be played at a much faster tempo leading to his music being seen in a different light.

Snap Judgment :: The Country Doctor

The story of an Islamic doctor who loves serving the community in a small Minnesota town until he learns that most of the people their voted for Trump.

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Running Tally of Podcast of the Week Appearances in 2020

• Anthropocene Reviewed – 2
• Afropop Worldwide – 1
• All Songs Considered – 2
• BackStory – 3
• Best of the Left – 2
• Code Switch – 2
• Decoder Ring – 3
• Fresh Air – 5
• Futility Closet – 3
• Have You Heard – 1
• Hidden Brain – 2
• Hit Parade – 2
• Hub History – 1
• LeVar Burton Reads – 1
• Memory Palace – 2
• More Than Enough – 4
• 99% Invisible – 4
• 60-Second Science – 2
• Planet Money – 2
• The Politics of Everything – 1
• Radio Boston – 2
• Radiolab – 3
• Risk! – 1
• Science Talk – 2
• Smithsonian Sidedoor – 2
• Snap Judgment – 1
• The Thirty20Eight – 1
• This American Life – 1
• This Day in Esoteric Public History – 1
• Throughline – 6
• The Tomorrow Society – 1
• Twenty Thousand Hertz – 4
• Wedway Radio – 1
• What Next – 6

Movie Review: Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot (1957)

Title: Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot
Release Date: March 30, 1957
Director: George Seaton
Production Company: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation | Paramount Pictures
Summary/Review:

For 63 years, visitors to Colonial Williamsburg have been introduced to the Historic Area with this docudrama account of the years leading up to the Revolutionary War in Virginia.  I first saw in 1985 at the Colonial Williamsburg Visitors Center and later on hotel tv loops, and now I got to revisit it on a Zoom presentation from the Williamsburg Regional Library (which included a slide presentation on the making of the film and its restoration).  This movie is short, and a bit corny, but I maintain a stupid love for it that I cannot explain.

A young Jack Lord stars as John Fry, a wealthy plantation owner who serves in the Virginia legislature in the 1760s and 1770s.  He interacts with famous historical figures like Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington as well as less famous historical figures like William Byrd III, John Randolph, and George Wythe.  The movie expertly depicts the series of incidents that precipitated the Revolution and the vote for Independence, and through Fry we see the gradual transition of someone from being a loyal British subject to supporting independence.  The movie also offers an introduction to the many sites in Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area, especially when Fry gives a tour of the city to his family.

The movie does fail from a social history perspective, as views of historical events outside of Fry’s patriarchal, slave-owning planter class are kept to the margins.  Nevertheless, the movie packs in a lot of historical detail in 37 minutes.  And it does it with a score by Bernard Herrmann (of Vertigo, Psycho, and Taxi Driver fame) and in beautiful technicolor.  When I worked at Colonial Williamsburg in the 1990s, I frequently had people ask if I starred in this movie which demonstrates that the movie doesn’t look like it was made 16 years before I was born and that these people did not watch Hawaii 5-0.

Can You Spot the Difference?

Jack Lord

Me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All these years later, Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot remains “ever the best!”

Rating: *****