Today in Supreme Court History: July 24, 1997

7/24/1997: Justice William Brennan dies.

Justice William Brennan

 

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (decided July 24, 1974): Court denies President Nixon’s motion to quash the Special Prosecutor’s subpoena; rules that he has to hand over “the tapes” which included the June 23, 1972 “smoking gun” tape which depicted what everyone in those days (including Nixon, a well-read lawyer) understood to be obstruction of justice: he had agreed with his Chief of Staff Haldeman’s suggestion that the CIA be told to lean on the FBI to stop the Watergate investigation. (As opposed to, say, taking the initiative in actually sacking the FBI director to stop an investigation and bragging about it to Lester Holt on national TV.) Nixon resigned two weeks later. The subpoena was issued in a criminal case against former Attorney General John Mitchell, Haldeman and five others, for conspiracy to obstruct justice, with Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. Unanimous opinion signed by Burger (though it was a collective effort), with Rehnquist, a former Mitchell aide, recusing himself. The Court noted that “the President’s need for complete candor and objectivity from advisers calls for great deference from the courts” but rejected Nixon’s claim of absolute, unspecified executive privilege. The opinion reads now like a time capsule of a judicial, political and Constitutional world which functioned because both parties were committed to it, as was the President, who decided to obey the Court’s order and hand over the tape which he knew would destroy him.

[apedad]

Unanimous BTW.

[Frank Drackman]

Wow, imagine if Milhouse left a young woman to asphyxiate (not drowned, there's a difference) he'd have really been in trouble!!
And if you listen to the June 23 tape
https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/white-house-tapes
Haldeman's "Suggestion" was really that weasel John Dean's "Suggestion" that Haldeman was passing on.
My favorite tapes are the photo ops when you hear the camera's going off like crazy and the ones where you can hear the Marine Corpse Band playing out on the South Lawn,

Frank "is that perfectly clear??"

[Krychek_2]

Poor Frank, he's been letting Ted Kennedy live in his head rent free for the past fifty years.

[SRG]

He also seems to approve of the Mafia code of ethics by calling John Dean a weasel.

The only thing he hasn't done is bring up the modern right-wing whinge, that "obstruction of justice" is merely a process crime, so not really a crime after all - at least, not when done by right-wing pols or their supporters.

[Jerry B.]

Oh, obstruction of justice is a crime, as President Biden may soon find out.

See the IRS whistleblowers article.

[Frank Drackman]

Nobody drowned (or asphyxiated) at Watergate.

[Krychek_2]

So what?

[Frank Drackman]

You got me there,
What I never understood, if Daniel Ellsberg was such a bad guy (He was, he stole the "Pentagon Papers" in 1968, why not release them then? because he knew it would hurt LBJ and his Troll Humpty Dump in the erection,
So why not just put out a hit on Ellsberg? Worked pretty well on Bid Laden.

Frank

[Frank Drackman]

Like "45" in yo' pointy haid since 2015

[Krychek_2]

45 is a continuing threat to democracy. Ted Kennedy has been dead for years. Maybe you could bring up Teapot Dome while you're at it, although since that was a Republican scandal you probably wouldn't be interested.

[Frank Drackman]

More interested in what Senescent Joe did with his $5,000,000,000 (I know where Hunter spent his) from You-Crane. If past is prologue, probably something stupid, probably just deposited it in his Passbook account and wrote “You-Crane Bribe” in his checkbook “Follow the Money!!!!!”

Frank

[Krychek_2]

$5 billion from the Ukraine? I doubt this. But if you did raise that issue, you at least would be talking about something current rather than something that happened 50 years ago.

[Frank Drackman]

Yeah, considering how much Senescent's sent to Vlodomir you'd think he'd demand a larger "Handling Fee"
And it was 54 years ago Ted Kennedy (sounds like you're pretty familiar with the story) committed his murder. And it wasn't just abandoning a young woman to asphyxiate, (who hasn't done that? umm, me) but the "Cover Up", how he didn't call 9-11 (In his defense Bull Connor didn't invent 9-11 until a few years later in Alabama) went back to the Hotel like nothing happened, and tried to get one his minions to be the "Fall Guy" even wearing a cervical collar to Mary Joe's funeral a few days later.

Frank.

[Krychek_2]

I'm not defending how Ted Kennedy handled Chappaquiddick, but I do not understand why you think it's relevant to anything being discussed on any of the threads you keep raising it on. As I've said before, if you're going to what about, try to find something that happened more recently than 54 years ago. You could equally as well bring up the Ulysses Grant scandals, Abe Fortas, or Grover Cleveland. I'll be surprised if anyone other than you thinks that Ted Kennedy is anything other than a thread hijack at this point.

But the fact that you're willing, on zero evidence, to accuse President Biden of taking kickbacks from the Ukraine tells us all we need to know about the value of your arguments.

[Mr. Bumble]

What would you accept as "evidence"?

[Krychek_2]

Was he caught talking about it on tape, or are there any documents that point to him having taken kickbacks, or any witnesses? I would accept anything that is considered standard evidence.

I've heard a lot of guilt by association with Hunter. Well, assuming Hunter is corrupt, that doesn't mean his dad is. If you're going to accuse Joe, you need more than just that he's Hunter's dad, or even that Hunter tried to use his influence. You need something that actually points directly at the President. Parents have very little control over what their adult children do.

[David Nieporent]

but I do not understand why you think it’s relevant to anything being discussed on any of the threads you keep raising it on.

Do you understand why he misspells words or randomly spews gibberish? Why even bother to try to understand Drackman?

[John F. Carr]

"with Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator"

Now we get "Individual-1". Less dramatic, more fair when the identity of the number is not obvious.

[F.D. Wolf]

United States v. Nixon was argued on July 8, 1974. The next day, July 9, the man who perhaps hated Nixon more than any man on earth, former Chief Justice Earl Warren, died.

On his deathbed, Warren was attended by two of his former colleagues, Justices William Douglas and William Brennan. What was Warren thinking about in those final moments before he went to meet his Maker? Nixon. His dying wish was that his colleagues rule against Nixon in the case they had heard just the previous day.

To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.

His wish was granted, and so ended the ugly thirty-year feud between Richard Nixon and Earl Warren. (To clarify, Warren, as far as I know, did not quote Moby-Dick on his deathbed, though I think the sentiment was about the same.)

[Frank Drackman]

Must have sucked for Warren when he found out the Devil was Japanese.

[Dan Schiavetta]

today’s movie review: North by Northwest, 1959

This is one of two films I’m pretty much obsessed with (the other is Tunes ng of Glory, 1960). It’s been justly praised, so as usual just a few notes.

This is the only film Hitchcock did for MGM and one sees from the beginning logo that it’s not a typical MGM film. The lion is in blue tint and its roar is played against the beginning of that threatening theme. The opening sequence as a whole was groundbreaking.

Thornhill leads quite a cushy life, doesn’t he? He treats his secretary as a personal errand girl, goes out to lunch to get sloshed with his buddies (look at the size of those martini glasses!) and then takes off the rest of the day.

The friend in the bar who cups his ear to hear — interesting how older movies allow peripheral characters to display some quirk of individualilty. I mentioned this a few days ago as to Scrooge. It doesn’t seem to happen in newer movies, where the stars suck up 100% of the oxygen.

The whole plot hinges on Van Damm and his men mistaking Thornhill for the fictional George Kaplan when Kaplan’s name is announced in the Oak Bar. Hitchcock does not make this clear enough. There should have been a closeup of the bellhop saying Kaplan’s name, then of Thornhill raising his finger. As it is, the audience is likely to miss it.

What a different world, where you run a telegram from the bar you’re sitting in, to your mother who is with her friends in a different part of town, instead of calling her on your cell phone.

When Thornhill finds a gun jabbed into his ribs, he should have stayed where he was, instead of allowing himself to be jostled into a strange car. They’re not about to shoot him in a bar with people watching. Then again it’s not the kind of thing you plan on reacting to.

Cary Grant was so good-looking, and tended to play such polished characters, that people didn’t appreciate how good an actor he was. Perhaps it was because he only accepted certain kinds of parts. He was offered the lead in A Star Is Born (1954 version), but reportedly considered the role to be too raw. Instead the role went to James Mason, who plays the villain here. Mason was also a great actor whose problem was that he was too short to be a leading man (the same thing happened to Claude Rains). Stupid, right? Years later it did not stand in the way of people like Dustin Hoffman.

Ever since I saw Grant order a gibson on the train, I’ve been a gibson guy. I think of it as the drink of successful men. The early part of the film shows Grand Central Station, and when I’m around that area I sometimes stop by one of those pricey restaurants there (my favorite is the Oyster Bar; I love oysters). And I order a gibson, and pretend I’m a successful lawyer instead of bankrupt and soon to be homeless. Needless to say I can’t do this often.

BTW — I actually order a martini. It’s useless to order a gibson because either they don’t know that it is, or they put in conventional cocktail onions, which are kept in vinegar to keep them crunchy, and the vinegar ruins the drink. This is not a problem with Rubin & Herzfeld’s “tipsy” onions, but those are hard to find. My favorite ratio is two parts gin (Beefeater or Plymouth) to one part vermouth.

A few years ago the roof of Grand Central was thoroughly cleaned so that you could actually see the stars and constellations (which are not depicted as they appear from Earth!). The contrast with the previous grime is illustrated by a tiny rectangle in the corner which was left uncleaned. Look carefully and you’ll see it.

This has been called “the first James Bond movie”, which I suppose includes supposedly smart crooks trying to kill our hero in stupid ways (getting him drunk and putting him in a car, and the cropduster).

The “United States Intelligence Agency” does as little as possible; they prefer to just watch. In that meeting the Professor says that they should “do nothing”. Later he tells Thornhill that they never interfere with the police “unless strictly necessary”. They deliberately don’t bag Van Damm and plan on just letting him leave the country, with Eve Kendall. This is my idea of what an intelligence agency is supposed to do (as opposed to, say, engineering coups in Chile or Vietnam).

This was the era of the afternoon paper. (In fact papers used to have several daily editions, ending with the “four star final”.) The cropduster crash happens in the morning, and we see Eve in the hotel looking at a headline about it later that day. I remember the New York Post when it was an afternoon paper — before it got bought by Rupert Murdock who turned it into a right-wing rag.

Grant sure looks good at age 54, running through that cornfield!

One sees how good an actor Mason is, when told of Eve’s betrayal. He punches Leonard and goes from shock to anger to grief. He really was in love with Eve.

The audience is left wondering about how Van Damm got to where he is (what is that photo of him in the newspaper about?) and where Eve came from (the hint is that she was a society girl who no one cared much about and finally found a caring man in Van Damm, then was contacted by the agency to spy on him).

[Frank Drackman]

Liked "Dial M for Murder" better, Ray Milland is such a swarmy villain and I still get headaches trying to keep track of the key.

[apedad]

I like the film too but can't quite figure where to put it (drama, comedy, suspense, etc.).

It's not a spy film like James Bond (1962) or even comedy spy like Pink Panther (1963), (maybe somewhere in-between), and it's not film noir either (like Maltese Falcon).

[SRG]

"Thriller" is sufficient, I think.

[Mr. Bumble]

While it is used colloquially it is not Grand Central Station, but rather Grand Central Terminal.

[SRG]

You do not mention that it is a rip-off of Hitchcock’s own “Thirty-nine Steps” – with just enough adjustment to the plot for deniability. I recommend both that film and the source book by John Buchan,

William Goldman, in “Adventures in the Screen Trade”, points to the brilliance of Hitchcock in managing to go from Thornhill saving Eve to showing them as a married couple in 30 seconds.

For all Cary Grant’s suaveness and polish, Raymond Chandler said that he wanted him to play Philip Marlow. (FWIW I think the perfect Marlowe was Powers Boothe in the TV series – yes, better than Bogart.)

[Magister]

Both films are in a genre of falsely accused heroes on the run. (And they both are very fast paced, more so than early James Bond movies.)

Buchan's book is very entertaining. Rightly criticized for the gratuitous accusation of a global Jewish conspiracy (which is subsequently dismissed by the hero).

[SRG]

Specifically, the hero is on the run in a case of mistaken identity with a hot chick and a lead villain with a peculiar physical distinction.

I don't think the "anti-Semite" criticism is fair. Buchan didn't put the words in Hannay's mouth but in a minor and unsound character.

See, for example, this letter: https://www.wsj.com/articles/buchan-wasnt-any-kind-of-bigot-1441045584

It is distressing so literate a publication in so excellent a feature, “Five Best,” repeats the slur that John Buchan was an anti-Semite. A character in “The Thirty-Nine Steps” does, indeed, say “the Jew was behind it,” and a great deal more. The character’s name is Franklin P. Scudder, an American in British service. After his murder, the permanent secretary of the Foreign Office, Sir Walter Bullivant, acknowledges his bravery but recognizes his limitations: “If only I had more confidence in Scudder’s judgment . . . He had a lot of odd biases, too. Jews, for example, made him see red.” Sir Walter, a recurring figure in Buchan’s World War I novels, the embodiment of all that is wisest and best in the establishment, regards anti-Semites as cranks.

Now Graham Greene, to name but one, was a different kettle of fish...

[SRG]

Though re Buchan's possible anti-Semitism, I note this article: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n04/christopher-tayler/the-manners-of-a-hog

But it doesn't strike me as too convincing a case for the prosecution.

[Magister]

I didn't say that Buchan was antisemitic; this one otherwise enjoyable book is marred by that gratuitous antisemitic accusation (and takes several chapters before it's revealed to be fake; and the minor character at the point it occurs can only be assumed to be better informed than the hero). I found it jarring to run across that when I read the book, and it serves no real purpose in the story.

[SRG]

I read it as a boy, together with all those other English boys’ adventure novels like King Solomon’s Mines, Treasure Island. etc. Possibly my reaction now would be different.

[Magister]

I read it after I was 50, so that may be so. Certainly revisiting stuff I liked when I was a kid has made me cringe as an adult.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

My favorite was Gerald Mohr on the radio. In movies he was nothing special, in other radio shows he was nothing special, but in that one radio series, he was perfect.

[Syd Henderson]

I thought Dick Powell was a better Marlowe than Bogart as well.

[Brett Bellmore]

" interesting how older movies allow peripheral characters to display some quirk of individualilty. I mentioned this a few days ago as to Scrooge. It doesn’t seem to happen in newer movies, where the stars suck up 100% of the oxygen."

I think it was because of the studio system. A lot of the peripheral characters were regular actors essentially 'on retainer', who might actually be a major character in another production. Not just disposable 'extras' who are just expected to be present and for God's sake don't do anything you're not told to.

[Dan Schiavetta]

That could be. But it could also be just lazy scriptwriting, or egomanical actors not wanting anyone to be distracted from their million-dollar faces.

I was watching a movie a few years ago called “Extraordinary Measures” (or something like that) with Harrison Ford trying to find a cure for a hereditary disease that afflicted two children. Their older brother was not affected (he helps his parents carry the kids around) and I kept wondering about him. I pictured a scene of some boys out on the sidewalk, carrying their bats and gloves, then a close-up of his own glove, as he momentarily stares past it at his friends. Then he gets distracted by his sister who needs to be tube fed (or something). It would have made us realize how sympathetic his character is, and presented another view of the situation. But no.

Or . . . a long time ago I saw a movie called “My Hero” where Gerard Depardieu and his daughter are at a resort and she has to pretend he’s her boyfriend (for some reason). The film was dripping with hints of incest, as critics pointed out. All the screenwriters had to do to defuse this accusation (which they should have anticipated) was put in a running gag (or even just one scene) where the father is trying to flirt with a woman his own age, then his daughter comes by, kisses him and leads him away, as the older woman slaps his face. But no!

[Magister]

That could be. But it could also be just lazy scriptwriting, or egomanical actors not wanting anyone to be distracted from their million-dollar faces.

Or they didn't want the possibility of ending up in a "he drank the ink" joke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UadPlHytd74

[Ridgeway]

To me, the biggest flaw in NbNY is the Mother-Son relationship. Roger Thornhill is supposed to be a henpecked son with an overbearing mother, but he's Cary Grant, so it is not believable. If they had wanted that part of the story to make sense, they should have cast a "weaker" actor like Jack Lemmon or Van Johnson.

If you want to see a movie where Cary Grant plays against type (at least somewhat), check out Notorious with Ingrid Bergman (and a phenomenal as usual Claude Rains). CG's character is pretty much an a$$hole.

[Mr. Bumble]

If you love old movies and appreciate the creativity that w
ent into their production you might appreciate this:

https://www.artofthehollywoodbackdropllc.com/

Before the days of CGI giant backdrops were used to show scenes that would otherwise be impossible to film.
The Mt. Rushmore scene was filmed against a 90' wide by 30' tall backdrop.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks!

[Dilan Esper]

In one of its musicals, MGM built a full replica of Grand Central Station on its lot.

On location filming is often justified on the grounds of realism, but it's really more about the fact that actors and directors have more power and like to travel and shoot on location.

[Mr. Bumble]

It's Grand Central Terminal! Not station.
There was Penn Station before the assholes tore it down and built Madison Square Garden (there is still a Penn Station below it) and thank God they were stopped from doing the same to Grand Central.

[Dilan Esper]

I'm a Philistine about train stations, but that's partly because Union Station in Los Angeles, the train station I grew up with, is carefully preserved but almost useless in terms of services to the traveler, whereas Penn Station is a paradise of useful businesses, shops, and restaurants.

So yeah, I have no attachment to Grand Central Station, and generally think train stations are just like airports- you build the best possible facility and shouldn't care at all about architectural preservation. There are travelers going through these places who are punished by bad designs locked in place for supposed "history".

[Dan Schiavetta]

I'm with you on this. I don't care if the present Penn Station causes someone "to scurry in and out of the city like a rat" (as someone put it). It serves its purpose. People don't travel somewhere just to see the magnificence of the terminal their train stops at.

The old Penn Station, if left intact, would have long ago caused intolerable bottlenecks. They were correct to demolish it. The current (very expensive) renovation of its companion across the street, the Farley Building, is useless, unless one has a hobby as a distance walker.

[SRG]

I dunno. I think that the Moynihan Hall is a very effective de-stresser. and commuters will not mind their commute as much when they're not so jammed together at arrival or departure.

And the waiting room in Moynihan is far more congenial than the vaguely disgusting old waiting room between the restrooms on the LIRR 7th avenue side.

[Dilan Esper]

"Psycho" is his best. He basically invented the modern horror movie, where terror comes from ordinary people, rather than from supernatural scary monster. The various tropes of Psycho still show up in contemporary horror movies.

[SRG]

FWIW there was a great shower scene parody in "Phantom of the Paradise".

[Dan Schiavetta]

Also in “High Anxiety”.