Tripoli (1950)

During the Tripolitan War, Marine Lt. Presley O'Bannon (John Payne) of the USS Essex volunteered for a mission against the city of Derna.  Together with General William Eaton (Herbert Heyes), O'Bannon, Navy Lt. Tripp, and 8 Marines traveled to Minya on the Nile.  There, they met the exiled Pasha Hamet Karamanly (Phillip Reed), the rightful ruler of Tripoli who was usurped by his brother.  Eaton arranged a treaty with Hamet that would put him back on the throne.  Hamet signed.  With agreement in hand, Eaton and O'Bannon planned a rendezvous on the coast near Derna.  Eaton left to join the fleet while O'Bannon marched across the desert with his handful of Marines, Hamet's Arab soldiers, and Captain Demetrious' Greek Mercenaries.  Can O'Bannon get this ragtag army to the shores of Tripoli despite sandstorms, ruined waterholes, mutiny, intrigue, and Countess Sheila D'Arneau (Maureen O'Hara)?

Payne is quite good as a wisecracking, supremely confident O'Bannon.  His clashes with the countess cannot help but lead to a growing attachment between the two.  Of course, the countess's goal was to marry Hamet, who was immensely wealthy despite his exile.  However, this handsome and manly Marine is hard to resist.  As the director, Will Price, was married to Maureen O'Hara during filming, the love scenes between Payne and O'Hara must have been particularly awkward.  Howard Da Silva is a scene-stealer as Captain Demetrious.  His good-natured demeanor and witty commentary are great fun.  Though he is supposed to be Greek, he felt like the most pro-American character in the film.

The movie is generally correct about the history, but changes have been made.  In fact, William Eaton was in charge of the march.  Though played by 60-year-old Hayes, Eaton was only 40 at the time.  Why not have Eaton as the main character and O'Bannon take over for the fictional Lt. Tripp?  Tripp is a stand-in for Eaton, who was a Navy Lieutenant at the time.  Eaton had an impressive career starting in the US Army before becoming a consul, then General and Commander in Chief of the Derna Campaign.  He was more accomplished than O'Bannon, whose only claim to fame is Derna.  However, it was O'Bannon who charged into the fray at Derna and raised the American flag on foreign soil during wartime for the first time in the nation's history.  The movie proposes that Hamet plotted to betray the Americans when it was the other way around.  The US negotiated a treaty with Hamet's brother and no longer needed him.  Eaton was quite upset at that turn of events.  US forces withdrew from Derna and left the city to the mercy of the Tripolitans.

Good popcorn fun.  Recommended.

The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

It is 1950.  Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) is a wealthy businessman who has concocted the most extraordinary venture that will be hugely profitable.  However, there are those who want him to fail.  Thus, a bomb blasts a hole in the side of his plane.  Even so, he survives the crash.  This is the 5th or 6th plane crash he has survived.  Mostly.  He briefly visits the afterlife each time.  Determined to have his plan carried out in the event of his death, he summoned his daughter from a nunnery.  Liesl (Mia Threapleton) is not interested in being the heir but accepts the post temporarily.  Korda is a man of learning and hires a tutor for his kids - he has 9 sons in addition to Liesl.  Bjorn (Michael Cera) is a mousy fellow with a Swedish accent.  Korda also assigns Bjorn to be his administrative secretary when they travel.  And so begins the travels.  The deal is not yet complete.  There is a gap in the funding.  At each stop, Korda attempts to fill the gap, but it instead grows bigger.

Like all Wes Anderson films, it is quirky.  All the lines are delivered in monotone.  The camera moves in very specific ways and the scenes are meticulously formatted.  This man loves his blocking.  However, the story just isn't there.  Is this a story about a father reconnecting with his daughter?  Probably.  Is this a mystery in which a murderer is uncovered?  Not really.  Is Korda out to find the person or persons who have been trying to assassinate him?  Not intentionally.  Is this a story of how a rich businessman is going to get even richer?  Not at all.  Is this just a random series of events where quirky lines can be delivered by famous actors?  Yes.

It is an all-star cast.  Everyone wants to be in a Wes Anderson film and many of these actors have become Anderson regulars.  Tom Hanks, Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham, Billy Murray, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, and Benedict Cumberbatch each have small roles.  Cumberbatch looks ridiculous as the Rasputin-like Uncle Nubar.

The best line in the movie is repeated several times by Korda: "Myself, I feel very safe."  This became funnier with repetition.  Michael Cera's transformation from bookish Professor Bjorn to American spy was also quite funny.  Even with the cigarette and mustache, he still looks unimposing.

It has its moments, but it is a below average Wes Anderson film.  Obviously a must watch for his fans but I'd go with Moonrise Kingdom or The Life Aquatic instead.

Gentlemen Broncos (2009)

Ben Purvis (Michael Angarano) is an awkward young man who likes to write science fiction stories.  He has recently completed Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years.  His mother, Judith (Jennifer Coolidge), rushed him out the door and drove him to catch a bus.  He was headed to a young writers' camp which was hosting Ronald Chevalier (Jermaine Clement), a giant of science fiction.  In addition to meeting Chevalier, he befriends Lonnie and Tabatha, more socially awkward people.  Though Chevalier has been successful, he is currently in a rut.  His publisher is threatening to dump him and has refused his latest work.  Desperate, he modified Yeast Lords and submitted it to his publisher.

The movie occasionally flashes to the world of the Yeast Lords.  Bronco (Sam Rockwell) is the last of the yeast lords and in the hands of his enemies.  He escapes to join with an awkward brother and sister who assist him in raiding a yeast factory, overcoming cyclopses, turrets, and surveillance does.  Depending on who is reading the material and editorial decisions, the appearance of the world and characters change.  Funny.

There are some directors where the look and feel of a film marks them.  Wes Anderson is the most recognizable of these, but Jared Hess falls in there too.  This has a look and feel like Napoleon Dynamite.  It is a world where everyone is awkward, even the cool kids.  There is always a desire to look away so as not to witness the characters' embarrassment.  Either that or laugh at them.

Just okay.

Landman

Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton) managed a small oil company in the Permian Basin of West Texas.  He was a landman, which is another title for an oilman.  The series opened with an unpleasant interaction with drug runners.  Such was just part of the job in the modern world.  His daughter, Ainsley, came to stay with him during Spring Break.  She brought a handsome football player with her, much to Tommy's consternation.  Tommy's son, Cooper, just dropped out of college to work as a "worm" on a crew of four men. A worm was just the new guy.  On Cooper's second day, a derrick exploded from a gas leak, killing the rest of his crew and putting him in the hospital.  So it was that Angela (Ali Larter), Tommy's ex-wife, came to Midland.  Angela decided to stay, which further complicated Tommy's already hectic life.  Monty (Jon Hamm) owned M-Tex Oil and kept in frequent contact with Tommy.  Tommy's housemates, Dale and Nathan, were none too keen on Angela and Ainsley moving into the house.  To make matters worse, Rebecca Falcone (Kayla Wallace) was hired to resolve legal issues.  She and Tommy quickly clashed.

This is a standard drama with all the standard dramatic twists and turns.  What makes it special is that it defends the way the world works.  Where most shows offer lip service or even encourage green energy, this hammers the point that oil runs the world and it isn't changing any time soon.  Tommy's monologues regarding this are the magic ingredient that makes this show fun.  This is the anti-woke show.  Tommy speaks his mind, damn the consequences.  Who else would threaten a cartel thug while bound to a chair with a gun to his head?  This is a man who has no Fs to give.  Let's hope season 2 can keep this up.

Highly recommended.

Tecumseh: The Last Warrior (1995)

October 1813, Canada. Tecumseh's band treks away from Detroit.  The situation is bleak but Tecumseh (Jesse Borego) is confident that they will defeat the Long Knives (Americans) tomorrow.  His sister, Starwatcher, is less confident.  She soon recollects what had brought them to this place.

March 1768, Ohio.  Tecumseh was born as a star streaked across the sky.  This was a great omen and his father named him for the Panther in the Sky.  All agreed he had a great future as a warrior.

October 1774, Ohio.  Tecumseh's father has gone to fight the Long Knives in Virginia.  While his father is away, Tecumseh has a nightmare/vision in which his father is killed.  He sees the face of his father's killer and it stays with him.

Some years later, Tecumseh's mother departs to the west, leaving her children.  Tecumseh will not go, as his father told him never to surrender land to the Long Knives.  In time, he is old enough to go to war with his older brother, Chiksika.  Though he fled in fear from his first battle, Tecumseh proved to be a natural warrior in his next.  As the years progress, Tecumseh becomes a respected warrior who fights beside Chiksika and Blue Jacket (Holt McCallany), a white man who didn't want to live among the whites.  They fight on the side of the British during the American Revolution

1794, The Battle of Fallen Timbers.  Before the battle, Tecumseh viewed General Wayne through a looking glass.  They would shoot this general during the battle.  However, he also saw another man who had the face of his father's killer.  The night before the battle, Chiksika declares that he will be killed and Tecumseh should carry on.  As prophesized, Chiksika died.  Worse, Blue Jacket signed the Treaty of Greenville.

Tecumseh had lived long enough to see the way of things.  Each time the Indians signed a treaty for peace, it promised only a few such years before more encroachments led to further treaties that surrendered more land.  The Long Knives played the tribes against each other.  He must unite the tribes to resist further encroachment.  It would require years.  His younger brother, Tenskwatawa, had become a prophet and drew others to him.  Here was the glue that might bind the tribes into a great confederacy.

William Henry Harrison (David Clennon) saw the threat of Tecumseh's plan.  To him, America must expand and Tecumseh was an obstacle to be overcome.  When the two met, Tecumseh saw the face of his father's killer in person.  Though the two conversed and nearly came to blows, they could resolve nothing.  A war was the only path forward.

The movie is surprisingly faithful to history.  The dates and events are generally correct.  Chiksika died two years before Fallen Timbers.  Harrison was indeed an aide to General Wayne during the Fallen Timbers campaign but was only an infant when Tecumseh's father was killed.  Clearly, this was just a vision to tie the long running conflict together at the end.  The man who claimed to have killed Tecumseh, Richard Johnson, gets a brief cameo.  The movie shows that only Tecumseh's band faced the American army at the Battle of the Thames.  In fact, 700 British troops were also present, though the red coats and the Indians formed up separate from each other.  Tecumseh's forces were stationed in marshy woods, not open fields.  As shown, dragoons and mounted riflemen would have trampled the Indians.

Too much time is covered in the film, giving only brief glimpses of his life as the years pass.  This covers a 45-year period!  How about starting with the meeting of Tecumseh and Harrison in 1810 and concluding with the Battle of Thames in 1813.  Yeah, that compresses things nicely and shows Tecumseh at his peak.

Entertaining and educational.  Recommended.

Archibald Gillespie, USMC

In Dream West, Marine Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie arrived at John C. Fremont's camp in Oregon to relay verbal orders from the president.  Moments later, he was killed in an Indian attack.  This is a rewrite of history.

Gillespie was born in New York in 1812 and joined the Marines in 1832.  In October 1845, President Polk provided him with secret messages for Commodore Sloat of the Pacific Squadron, US Consul Thomas O. Larkin (based in Monterrey, California), and John C. Fremont.  He sailed to Vera Cruz, arriving on December 10th.  His efforts to cross the country were hindered by the latest uprising.  However, he crossed the country and arrived in Mazatlán.  In late February, he was picked up by an American ship on the west coast of Mexico and made his way to Monterrey, California.  Having delivered his messages to both Sloat and Larkin, he then went in search of Fremont.

Fremont had been ejected from California by General Castro and was near Kamath Lake in Oregon, which is where Gillespie found him.  No sooner had Gillespie arrived with his secret message than Fremont marched back into California.  Little did they know, the war had begun with the Thornton Affair almost 2 weeks earlier.  The Bear Flag Revolt took place on June 14th and Commodore Robert "Fighting Bob" Stockton raised the US flag on July 18.  Los Angeles surrendered on August 13th, thus concluding the initial conquest of California.

Captain Gillespie was named military commandant of the southern district.  He had 48 men to hold Los Angeles.  This might have been fine if he had not imposed martial law.  The locals soon rose in rebellion.  The American forces were soon under siege at Fort Moore Hill.  By the end of September, Gillespie surrendered and marched to the coast, leaving Los Angeles to the Californios.  An initial effort to retake the city with the help of the US Navy failed.  The Navy transported Gillespie and his men to San Diego.

In early December, news arrived that General Kearny was nearby.  Stockton sent a detachment under Gillespie to escort him the rest of the way to San Diego.  Gillespie arrived with 40 men and a field gun.  After his long march, Kearny was itching for a fight.  He had traveled from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to California without a shot fired.  So it was that the weary Dragoons charged to battle against fresh Californio lancers who knew the terrain much better and whose lances were not rendered useless by the rain.  The Californios recognized Gillespie from his tyrannical rule in Los Angeles and targeted him.  He was lanced in the chest, puncturing a lung.

Despite the disastrous battle, the column arrived in San Diego on December 12th.  Despite his injuries, Gillespie was well-enough to ride north the following month.  He was again wounded during the battle to retake Los Angeles.  On January 10, 1847, Gillespie was called upon to raise the US Flag, the very one he had hauled down in September.

Gillespie remained with the Marines until 1854.  He died in San Francisco in 1873.

Though most of this falls outside the story that Dream West tells, Gillespie should not have been killed off.  Though Fremont's party was attacked by Indians and also 'got even' with them soon after, Gillespie was not one of the fatalities.  Gillespie should have been yet another cameo, like Jim Bridger or Tom Fitzpatrick.

Stephen Watts Kearny

In Dream West (1986), Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny is cast as the villain.  In the first episode of the miniseries, an animus is established between Kearny and Fremont.  Fremont requested a cannon for his expedition, which Kearny reluctantly provided.  In conversation, Kearny asked what year Fremont graduated West Point.  Fremont did not attend West Point.  Kearny clearly looks down on him for this failing.  That is peculiar since Kearny was not a West Point graduate either.  In fact, though both had attended college, neither managed to complete their degrees.  In the second episode, Kearny and Fremont clash about who is in charge in California.  In the final episode, Kearny is a witness at Fremont's court martial, a court martial instigated by Kearny.  His final appearance in the series is to plead for forgiveness from Jessie Benton Fremont before he died from Yellow Fever.  Kearny deserved better.

Stephen Watts Kearny was born in 1794.  He dropped out of Columbia to join the Army when the War of 1812 began.  He was captured at the Battle of Queenstown.  His bravery at that battle earned him the rank of Captain.  After the war, Kearny stayed with the army and was posted on the frontier.

In 1819, he was part of the Yellowstone Expedition.  The expedition failed spectacularly, getting bogged down in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  The following year, he was part of another expedition, this one exploring and mapping the territory between Council Bluffs and Fort Snelling (Minneapolis, MN).

In 1825, Major Kearny was part of General Atkinson's Rocky Mountain Expedition.  Nearly 500 troops traveled from Fort Atkinson (Omaha, NE) up the Missouri River, replicating Lewis and Clark's travels.

The following year, he supervised the building of Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri, where none other than William Clark lived.  Kearny courted and married William Clark's step-daughter, Mary Radford.

In 1833, Lt. Colonel Kearny was made second in command of the newly formed 1st Dragoon Regiment, based in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  In 1836, he rose to Colonel and became the commander of the 1st Dragoons.

With all this western experience, it is unsurprising that Brigadier General Kearny was made commander of the Army of the West when the Mexican-American War was declared.  His westward march was surprisingly uneventful.  He captured Santa Fe, New Mexico without firing a shot.  He then set out for California, unaware that Commodore Stockton and Lt. Col. Fremont had already captured it.  He learned of those events when he met Kit Carson on the road.  Based on Carson's reports, Kearny sent two-thirds of his men back to Santa Fe and continued to California.  By the time he arrived, the state was in rebellion.

The Battle of San Pasqual

Having learned of a band of Californios in the area, Kearny decided to attack.  However, his men were poorly mounted; they had just suffered a trek across the southwestern deserts.  The rain made the gunpowder damp and surprise had been lost.  The Dragoons charged in a ragged line.  By contrast, the Californios had excellent horses and were armed with lances.  The Dragoons were no match and only the presence of a cannon saved them.

Kearny thus arrived in San Diego with a pitiful and beaten force.  Compared to Fremont's California Battalion and Stockton's sailors and marines, Kearny was all bark and no bite.  He conceded command to Stockton and joined in the retaking of Los Angeles.  When Stockton sailed away and Commodore Shubrick took over the Pacific fleet, Kearny made his move for command.  The Mormon Battalion and New York volunteers arrived to give him the biggest army in California.  He had been sent to take California and he outranked Fremont.  Fremont continued to balk and earned himself a court martial.

Fremont's court martial lasted 3 months, concluding in February 1848.  Afterwards, Kearny was sent to Mexico as military governor of Vera Cruz and then Mexico City.  He contracted Yellow Fever and was sent home.  He died in St. Louis in October, 1848.

Fremont put Kearny in an impossible situation.  Should he have just endured insubordination?  Certainly not.  In the best of times, Kearny was known to be difficult.  He was a harsh man who made few friends.  This is not the sort of soldier to forgive and forget.  On the other hand, Fremont was a national hero.  President Polk attempted to split the difference by nixing the punishment while affirming the verdict.