Category Archives: Movie

This week in the War, 14–20 October 1940: The Great Dictator

Posted on October 18, 2012 by secondbysecond

          To quote Charlie Chaplin: “Dictators are comic. My aim is to make people laugh at them.” This week in the war, on 15 October 1940, the movie The Great Dictator, premiered in New York City. Chaplin starred … Continue reading →

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This week in the War, 16–22 September 1940: ‘Hope & Glory’, and the City of Benares

Posted on September 16, 2012 by secondbysecond

As a boy, I loved Saturday matinees at the ‘pictures’—the ‘movie house’ as Americans would say. Give me a bag of sweets and I was all set for a couple of hours of Hopalong Cassidy. John Boorman’s movie Hope and … Continue reading →

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In the news: Silver galore!

Posted on July 22, 2012 by secondbysecond

Last week, according to the British newspaper The Telegraph, hundreds of bars of silver were retrieved from the cargo ship SS Gairsoppa, which was sunk by a German U-boat in 1941. The ship went down off the coast of Ireland and … Continue reading →

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Book review: Fifty Shades of Grey, plus two more

Posted on July 15, 2012 by secondbysecond

Anastasia Steele is bright, witty, and beautiful—in the eyes of her boyfriend Christian Grey, who’s no dog himself as far as looks go. To boot, he’s not badly off. Think Daddy Warbucks and scale up by a few powers of … Continue reading →

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In the news: Ghosts of Olympics past

Posted on June 15, 2012 by secondbysecond

With this year’s London Olympics fast approaching, the topic of previous Olympic Games has garnered much attention in UK newspapers. An article in yesterday’s Guardian by Alex von Tunzelmann focussed on the Berlin Olympics of 1936 and the movie Olympia, … Continue reading →

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This week in the War, 27 May–2 June 1940: The Snow Goose

Posted on June 1, 2012 by secondbysecond

The Snow Goose, Paul Gallico’s coming-of-age novel, is set in the lonely marshlands of Essex during World War II. A young girl named Fritha finds a injured snow goose and she and a surly lighthouse keeper nurse the bird back … Continue reading →

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In the news: Bohuslav Kimlicka–One of the Few

Posted on May 27, 2012 by secondbysecond

Bohuslav Kimlicka flew with the Czech air force, defending his country from the Nazi invasion of 1938. Afterwards, he fought with the French, attempting to stem the 1940 German Blitzkrieg , and then with the Royal Air Force. His descendants … Continue reading →

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In the news: Kittyhawk’s Sahara crash site found after 70 years

Posted on May 11, 2012 by secondbysecond

Seventy years after Rommel’s Afrika Korps and Monty’s Eighth Army were battling for control of North Africa, an RAF fighter plane belonging to Britain’s Desert Air Force was found in the Sahara Desert. According to the British newspaper The Telegraph … Continue reading →

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This week in the War, 29 April–5 May 1940: Let the games NOT begin

Posted on May 2, 2012 by secondbysecond

This week in the war, on 1 May 1940, the Olympic Games that were originally scheduled to be held that fall in Tokyo were officially cancelled by the International Olympic Committee. They would not resume until 1948. In stalag XIII-A, … Continue reading →

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In the news: Resistance hero Raymond Aubrac dies at age 97

Posted on April 14, 2012 by secondbysecond

Resistance leader Raymond Aubrac died recently (10 April 2012) at the age of 97 in a French military hospital in Paris. Aubrac was predeceased by his equally famous wife, Lucie, who died in 2007 at the age of 94. Lucie was … Continue reading →

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