Today in Supreme Court History: July 20, 1990

7/20/1990: Justice William Brennan resigns.

Justice William Brennan

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Califano v. McRae, 434 U.S. 1301 (decided July 20, 1977): Marshall turns down request to stay the Court’s previous order allowing the Medicaid abortion ban to go into effect; movants are essentially asking a rehearing of two recent Court decisions allowing states to have their own bans on public funding for abortions, and Marshall dissented in those cases; Marshall points out that a request for rehearing must be directed at a judge who voted in the majority (so that means you can’t ever move for a rehearing if the judge for your Circuit happened to be a dissenter?)

Hedrick v. Kelly, 548 U.S. 928 (decided July 20, 2006): denying stay of execution (Stevens and Ginsburg would grant the stay); Fourth Circuit had rejected ineffective assistance of counsel claim, and on procedural grounds rejected Brady claim (failure of prosecutor to turn over exculpatory material) and Atkins claim (executing “mentally retarded” is “cruel and unusual”), and substantive claim that he was “mentally retarded”. Hedrick, after an evening of smoking crack and drinking, had kidnapped 23-year-old Lisa Crider, whom he knew to be a crack dealer’s girlfriend and was probably carrying crack, robbed her and raped her, and then shot her in the face to avoid retaliation from the boyfriend. Hedrick was executed the same day the stay was denied.

[Dilan Esper]

Marshall points out that a request for rehearing must be directed at a judge who voted in the majority (so that means you can’t ever move for a rehearing if the judge for your Circuit happened to be a dissenter?)

That's not right. You could petition the Court as a whole for rehearing. What Marshall is saying is that a dissenting Justice isn't going to enter a shadow docket order that contradicts the mandate of the Court's decision- you need to take THAT request to a member of the majority if you seek to do it on the shadow docket.

Modern procedure moots this- the Circuit Justice would just refer the shadow docket motion to the Court anyway.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks!

[Dan Schiavetta]

It’s hot as blazes here so today’s movie review is the best version of Dickens’s “Christmas Carol”, namely Scrooge, 1951

This is a movie that’s better than the book, because of the material added to fill out the running time. Apparently it was not a big hit when it first came out. It was criticized as too dark — but this is a ghost story, and it all takes place during the darkest month (of various years). There are some things that one notices, viewing this as an adult.

First, Scrooge may be greedy, but he’s not dishonest. (“Scrooge was good for anything he chose to put his name to . . . “) Also one finds some sympathy with him when he says: “A man has enough to do with his own business without getting into other peoples’. Mine occupies me constantly.”

Fred may have not married for money, but he’s not poor; he and his wife can afford a reasonably nice dwelling with a piano in it and hire a (cute as a button) maid.

Why doesn’t Fezziwig agree to Jorkins’s “very large” buyout offer? He knows his business is doomed. It seems not like honor but stupidity.

Fanny’s death scene is a real tear-jerker. But why does she want Scrooge to take care of her boy? Is she unmarried??? (In Dickens, unwed mothers are victims of their own disgrace.) The (younger) Scrooge passes by a man one imagines to be her husband. Why does she place the responsibility on Scrooge and not him?

Speaking of death scenes, mothers dying while giving birth was unfortunately common in those days. In the movie we learn that Scrooge's father is cruel to him because his mother died giving birth to him. This seems like too easy an explanation for why Scrooge is the way he is.

One of my favorite scenes is where Jorkins is found out as an embezzler. The outrage by Mr. Snedrick & co. at the theft, and further outrage as they realize they have to agree to Scrooge and Marley taking over the company. (I’m amazed that a stenographer armed with just a quill pen can take down all that fast talking — and strike Jorkins’s speech from the record!)

Corny as Dickens often is, there are many fine touches. The scene where bells announce the approach of Marley’s ghost is scary even though all you see are still shots and sound effects. The coordinated slowness as the Cratchit children drink a toast to Scrooge’s health. The scene of the dead businessmen trying to throw their money at the homeless mother and child doesn’t quite work visually but one could imagine it done better with today’s technology. Bob Cratchit is a stock Dickens character, good-hearted, not very smart, put-upon, and his relationship with his wife (where she wants him to fight for his interests but he either can’t or doesn’t know how) is something I’m familiar with. Also notice how the image of the Ghost of Christmas Past gets fainter and fainter as we approach the present day.

Also there are historical details from 1843 that British audiences in 1951 would probably have understood but we don’t. There are references to “the machines” and “the vested interests”. Dickens viewed the Industrial Revolution and capitalism as evil monsters, enabling greed and creating misery. Also at the end, when it looks to Mrs. Dilber that Scrooge has gone nuts, he says she doesn’t have to “call for the beadle”. A beadle was a minor church official whose job it was to maintain public order (this was before there were any police, in the sense that we understand the term). (In “Oliver Twist”, Mr. Bumble was a beadle.)

So many peripheral characters are fleshed out with only a line or two (for example, Fred’s friend Topper and the girl who fans herself while denying interest in him, the undertaker and the pawnbroker, the coughing girls in the background, the kid in the street who is asked to buy the turkey).

And when Alistair Sim gets “the Christmas spirit”, he really gets it. The audience shares in his giddiness.

[Frank Drackman]

And while some people think that Ebenezer Scrooge is (a Jew) well he’s not! but guess who is? all 3 Stooges! (HT A. Sandler)

Frank

[Dilan Esper]

I prefer the George C. Scott version, which aired every year on CBS during my adolescence. Scott was a far better actor than Sim, and you have to believe the Scrooge character's transformation for the story to work.

[Syd Henderson]

You also get a Beadle in "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," where he works with the evil Judge.

[wolfefan]

It's an excellent version of the story. I appreciate your notes - I hadn't caught the Ghost of Christmas Past growing fainter! Sim is magnificent; he creates a Scrooge that you can imagine being real, and that is far more three dimensional than the earlier Reginald Owen version. I think my favorite Scrooge is George C Scott, but Sim is up there.

[Mr. Bumble]

Anybody out there know how many versions of this story have been made?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Odd to see a character from "Oliver Twist" ask this question.

When I was a little kid I loved the "Mr. Magoo" version.

[F.D. Wolf]

IMDb lists 129, the earliest a six-minute short dated 1901:

https://youtu.be/HY3ZgSHgdSM

[Dan Schiavetta]

In Scrooge, when the Ghost of Christmas Present answers Scrooge's question about Tiny Tim, "None other of my race will find him," he means the child will be dead before next Christmas. In the George C. Scott version (1984) we see this playing out. Cratchit (David Warner) talking to his dead son's body is about the saddest thing I've seen. It ranks with King Lear's saying to Cordelia, "Stay with me a little while."

I didn't appreciate the Scott version as much for reasons that have to do with me, not the film. First, whenever I see Scott I always think of Patton. Also, it was a color film with florid production values, and I preferred the stark black and white of the Sim version. But again, that's me, not the film.

[Dilan Esper]

Scott obviously was iconic in Patton, but really, he was in three iconic movies- Dr. Strangelove (which I think is overrated overall but Scott was great in), The Hustler, and Patton. And then the 1980's version of "A Christmas Carol". He had quite a body of work.

[Dan Schiavetta]

True. Like I say, this is my fault, not his.

Supposedly he didn't like how Strangelove turned out. You can see at one point he's really hamming it up, which is not like him. He was told by Kubrick to overact on the first take just as an exercise. But that was the take Kubrick used. After that Scott wised up. There was a later movie where the director asked Scott to shout a line, promising that he wouldn't use that take, but Scott refused. (I forget the movie, but he mentioned this in his Playboy interview.)

[Dilan Esper]

Scott's really good in Strangelove, but I think that story gets at the fact that Kubrick really was the wrong director for a comedy. (He was the wrong director for a lot of things, but that's a different discussion. To say something nice about him, he was definitely the right director for "The Shining" and "Paths of Glory".) Kubrick didn't understand that oftentimes the job of a comedy director is simply to do an establishing shot if one is necessary (e.g., if there are props or there is physical comedy) and then just let the joke play out. So even though Strangelove is full of good material, Kubrick sometimes doesn't let it play out the way it should. If someone like Mel Brooks or Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker had directed Strangelove, it would have been a funnier movie.

[bernard11]

The Hustler stands out to me.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I think that’s the incident Scott mentioned in the Playboy interview. The director wanted him to whisper it but he wanted to shout (“you owe me MONEY!!!”). The director asked him to do it both ways “to see which works better” but Scott knew he wouldn’t use the shout. So he refused to do the whisper.

The Hustler was before Strangelove so maybe Scott hadn't wised up after all!