Details, credits, errata: We almost called this “Mel O’Drama” and were also considering “Claymore Minds” and “No Relation,” since our wonderful guest is Tyler Huckabee (no relation) and this film’s most famous line—“Every man dies, not every man really lives”—was written by the poet William Wallace, also no relation.
This week’s film is the unbearable turkey Braveheart, a movie that won Best Picture, Best Director, and a ton of other awards it did not deserve. Fargo and Trainspotting, both terrific flicks, also came out this year. Heck, so did Mars Attacks. That should have won the Oscar.
With last week’s episode, this marks our first explicit two-parter, on the subject of the relationship of fundamentalist Christianity to gender roles in the movies. You don’t have to listen to one to enjoy the other, but I personally consider the last episode a helpmeet to this one.
Our image this week is of William Wallace telling the English to get lost from James E. Doyle’s 1864 history book A Chronicle of England, made freely available through Wikimedia commons. You can also read a scan of the full book on Google Books; Doyle both wrote the text and did the illustrations, which were engraved by Edmund Doyle—it’s pretty cool.
Our theme song is Louis Armstrong and His Hot 5’s Muskrat Ramble, made freely available by the Boston Public Library and audio engineering shop George Blood, LP through the Internet Archive. Braveheart is copyright 1996 Warner Bros. Brief audio excerpts are used herein for purposes of review and no other copyright is intended or implied. The lead image on this post is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and used with our thanks. All other material is copyright 2021 Sam Thielman and Alissa Wilkinson.
Episode 28: Dinnae Tread on Me