Films like Custer of the West starring Robert Shaw portrayed the general as a gallant hero - but many feel he was a blunderer.
In reviewing Nathaniel Philbrick's The Last Stand, New York Times critic Bruce Barcott comes to the conclusion that General George Armstrong Custer was a bumbler akin to Inspector Clouseau and compares President Grant to Clouseau's perpetually frustrated boss, Dreyfus. Philbrick's biography of Custer sheds a new perspective on the oft-analyzed battle that cost Custer his life and his entire command. Philbrick points out that Custer benefited from a few lucky breaks in his career that resulted in his gaining a reputation as a brilliant strategist- when, in fact, he was merely a reckless fool who lacked any inherent understanding of battlefield tactics. In the wake of his legendary defeat, his widow Libby teamed with notorious liar Buffalo Bill to propagate the myth that Custer was a national hero. As such, Philbrick says, Custer became one of the first artificial American celebrities - someone who gained fame for the wrong reason. (Think Paris Hilton) For more click here
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The
following is an abbreviated excerpt of the Foreword by David Frangioni from his
book, Clint
Eastwood: ICON (reprinted with permission
from Palace Press). The book is a lavish collection of rare Eastwood international movie advertising materials from the author's extensive personal archive.
There are two types of people in the world:
those who collectand those who
don’t.
I’ve found that the group of people that
don’t collect anything really doesn’t “get†how we collectors think, act, or
obsess. So I’ve come to appreciate the collectors of the world, and what makes
us tick. We’re a passionate bunch, inspired by the idea of completion around a
subject—whether its manifestations be art, books, cards, coins, stamps, posters,
toys, or the like—and we devote ourselves to realizing this idea. Driven by
this need for totality (some would say perfection), we pursue our desire to
possess by trying to find everything on our “want list,†not resting until
we’ve achieved the immediate goal of acquiring a particular object—with the
eventual aim of completing our ideal collection. We define ourselves through
this search for rare and unique items and the archive that results from the
pursuit.
And then there’s the high you get from
collecting. Lists and notations aside, collecting is a visceral business, too.
That rush of discovering a rare item is a feeling that all collectors
understand.For instance, I remember
flipping through the Heritage Auction catalog back in 2001 and seeing listed,
for the first time, three Dirty Harry
standees. They were barely even mentioned in the official 1971 Dirty Harry pressbook, and I had never
seen any of them for sale, much less two. Talk about rare! I had a feeling they
were quite special, and knew I had to
have them. If you’re a fellow collector you know exactly the feeling I’m
talking about—and how driven I was to obtain these items! Fortunately, I won
the standees......I’ve never seen their likes again, either for sale or in
someone else’s collection. I still get “that feeling†whenever I take them out
and view them.
You’re probably wondering, though, how I
discovered my passion for movie posters, and particularly Clint Eastwood
memorabilia. It actually started very early on—when I was eight. It was 1975,
and my mother had begun taking me to the twenty-five-cent Saturday matinees at
the Regent Theater in my hometown of Arlington, Massachusetts. The Regent was a
second-run movie house, but the movies were new to me and there was no home
video at the time.
Every Saturday, like clockwork, I’d see a
new movie—and a new movie poster. It was a special form of ritual for me, and
the movie posters with their different styles of artwork became important
features of my weekly pastime. I remember seeing the “Coming Soon†posters
outside the theater and in the lobby and being overcome by a feeling of
excitement. All of the cool, pop-culture graphics would pump me up for what I
was going to see next week or next month. I loved the art, the emotions that they
evoked, and the promise of big-screen excitement that the posters represented.
To me, they seemed an integral part of the filmgoing experience. I didn’t know
it at the time, but I was hooked!