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Reviews
Wagon Train: The Ah Chong Story (1961)
Looking at the 1960s Through Modern Eyes.
I love watching re-runs of Wagon Train on INSP. The writing and story lines are better than what you see today.
However, as others have mentioned in their reviews, seeing this particular rerun from the 1960s, through our 21st century eyes, is as painful as it is embarrassing.
It was the days when the Philadelphia Mummers would march up Broad Street on New Year's Day in blackface; the role of native Americans in Westerns would be played by white actors like Michael Landon, Ed Ames or Michael Ansara speaking broken English while wearing ruddy makeup.
So why should we be surprised when New York City comedian Arnold Stang is assigned the role of "Ah Chung", the fill- in Chinese cook on the wagon train. You can see his strong European features and hear his raspy strong city accent under his faux broken English.
My thoughts are not to criticize the past, but to recognize the progress we have made in respecting our great diversity the past 60 years.
Rustin (2023)
A Man Kept Invisible in History
We've just come back from seeing an early preview of "Rustin" in West Chester, PA. Where Bayard Rustin was born, raised by his Grandmother, went through school and attended Quaker meeting. His younger and surviving partner, Walter Naegle spoke before the preview saying that like Hollywood films, there were inaccuracies. But he sang the praises of Colman Domingo who played Rustin saying, "Colman does an excellent job of portraying Bayard."
Personally, I found the film to be electrifying, starting with the driving soundtrack of jazz, period Motown, Blues and Gospel. It dramatized a time I lived through as a young child, but never fully understood.
It illuminated how Bayard Rustin unified diverse factions in Black organizations who were at odds within themselves as well as over-riding the all powerful NAACP to accomplish the impossible - a peaceful march of 250,000 on Washington DC at the Lincoln Memorial in the late summer of 1963.
The movie shows why Rustin, openly gay in the 1960s, was kept in the background despite his organizational genius.
I found the movie to be riveting from the opening scene to the closing credits.