[Magdalen] The Election

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

And Salieri is actually a very good composer. As in so many things, PR is
everything.

The Movie Allegheny Uprising is based on the life of one of my ancestors
(played by The Duke in his first major motion picture), and the forensic
evidence at the trial is about the only thing they got right in the film.
Well, and that the folks Jamie Smith was fighting were from the UK. Movies
can't be expected to get details right. They have a story to tell. Facts
don't sell tickets, but a good story might.

By the way, much of the impetus for the movie comes from a fine book, _The
First Rebel_ by Neil Swanson.  Its title is due to the fact that Jamie
Smith arguably fired the first shot in the Colonial War when his group took
a fort from the Blackwatch (that is true!!). It's all nicely reported by
Swanson (who used surviving reports and records to verify the story), but
hardly any of it gets into the film.

Jamie Smith, I'm told, could have been as big as Dan'l Boone, but he didn't
have the PR Boone had. Anyway, in the book chronicling the lives of the
famous Jim Smiths of the world, Jamie gets his own whole chapter. He would
be amused.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Marion Thompson <marionwhitevale at gmail.com>
wrote:

>  Accuracy?  Doesn't matter really to me in this context..
>
> The music was sublime and  the cinematography wonderful.
>
> Marion, a pilgrim   ... today my sail I lift ....
>
>
> On 10/19/2016 1:39 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen wrote:
>
>>
>> In a message dated 10/19/2016 11:19:39 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>> oppenheimerjw at gmail.com writes:
>>
>> "Vote  Salieri." <pause> "Paid for by Minor Composers For a Better
>> Vienna.">>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>       My friend, the late Mason Martens, chant consultant for the '82
>> Hymnal,
>> was a Mozart expert.  I was interested to hear what he had to say  after
>> seeing the movie, "Amadeus."
>>   He said that about the only thing accurate about Mozart in the film  was
>> Mozart's bizarre infatuation with female derrieres.
>>             David S.
>>
>>
>