Today in Supreme Court History: August 18, 1920

8/18/1920: The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Hortonville Joint School Dist. No. 1 v. Hortonville Education Ass’n, 423 U.S. 1301 (decided August 18, 1975): Rehnquist refuses to stay Wisconsin Supreme Court order holding that teachers fired for going on illegal strike were denied due process; believes that cert would not be granted (in fact it was, and the Court ruled against the teachers, holding that review of terminations by the local school board was adequate due process, 426 U.S. 482, 1976)

[apedad]

So Justice Rehnquist didn't stay the Wisconsin Supreme Court order but joined the majority (8 - 1) to overturn the order.

That seems odd.

[Dan Schiavetta]

It was 1975, he was new on the Court and outnumbered by liberals, and he probably figured it was a hopeless cause where he shouldn’t stick his neck out. The 8 – 1 result must have surprised him.

[Dilan Esper]

You have to remember that in the old circuit justice system, the justices weren't supposed to just make their own ruling. They were supposed to predict whether the Court would grant cert and how it might rule.

I bang this drum all the time but this is one of the reasons Douglas' attempt to stop the bombing of Cambodia was so dumb and reckless. He ignored a norm that had been place for decades and just decided that if he, William O. Douglas, supposed military expert, thought we shouldn't bomb Cambodia, it didn't matter what any of his colleagues thought about whether the Court had jurisdiction to stop the bombing. And he was quickly, and properly, slapped down, by a far smarter and less egotistical Lefty Justice, Thurgood Marshall, who just canvassed the rest of the Court and overturned Douglas.

So here, Rehnquist was guessing as to what the Court would do. He thought they would deny cert. But once cert was granted, he could vote his own conscience.

[Dan Schiavetta]

today’s movie review: Driving Miss Daisy, 1989

In the spring of 1989 I went with my girlfriend (black, Dominican, grew up in D.R. and in the Bronx) to see Do the Right Thing, which she wanted to walk out of, so hateful was it. Perhaps I was wrong about that movie, which ends with a black character being choked to death by police, but Spike stacked the deck by making us care more about the white pizza owner and his sons, the emotional heart of the film, than the one-dimensional black characters, none of whom had a job (except Spike’s own character, who was irresponsible and lazy at it).

Later in 1989, in law school in California, I saw this movie, with my next girlfriend, also black, but grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, six years older than me and a trailblazer in the civil rights movement. This movie has been trashed for its uncritical portrayal of the master-servant relationship between Miss Daisy and her chauffeur Hoke, which extends even to the end of the film, where Daisy is in a nursing home and the elderly Hoke, driven there (ha) by his independent-minded daughter, visits her at lunch and takes it upon himself to spoon-feed her.

The film boasts great acting by Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, and by Dan Aykroyd as Daisy’s son, and Esther Rolle as a maid who is the only character to challenge the “narrative”. It was based on a successful play.

But more important, the story has the ring of truth. As my girlfriend pointed out, it shows how people actually acted in those days. Without any Spike Lee-style “big statement” being made, the ironies are allowed to stand out. Hoke pointing to the big house Daisy owns, after she says that as a Jew she has also known discrimination (my girlfriend got a big laugh out of that). Daisy making a big deal out of the can of beans he “lifted” and him immediately replacing it. He having to wait at the wheel while she is inside listening to Dr. King make a speech, though he hears it on the radio. Which brings me to the point that Miss Daisy is a liberal, and a strong woman with an undisclosed backstory, and any racism she feels is unconscious and, in the scheme of things those days, harmless. It has been said, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” I don’t think that’s true. Most people are not part of either. And what does one expect Daisy to do? She hires Hoke who otherwise would be without income. She doesn’t treat him like a slave. She's difficult but she's like that to everyone. And driving people around is what chauffeurs do. It’s a living.

Most of us just want to get along, and get through the day. When I was a crisis center director, age 25 or so, I was joking around with another young staff person. I forget what we were talking about, but referring to the show “Hogan’s Heroes”, I said, like Sgt. Schultz, “I see nuss – ing!! Nuss -ing!!” An older staff, who was watching the phones, turned and said with a dead serious face, “A lot of people were offended by that.”

That made me think. At first I felt guilty. But why was Sgt. Schultz funny? Because his character had the ring of truth. Most of us are trying to get through the day, and are aware of something to the side which, if we get involved with it, will cause no end of trouble. So we look the other way. We see nuss – ing!! Nuss – ing!! Most of us are Sgt. Schultz.

I’ve gone off on a tangent here. But . . . earlier in life, as a rebellious teenager, I would have been upset with Driving Miss Daisy. Now I appreciate it.

[Dr. Ed 2]

As to Hogan's Heroes, beyond Hogan sleeping with just about every female actress (including Klink's first secretary, which is why she left), most of the actors were Jewish.

Lebou had been in a concentration camp, Klink was Jewish and had a contract that said that the Germans had to always lose, and General Berkhouser was too.

When the show started in 1965, it was only 20 years after the war had ended, and it wasn't popular with the WWII generation. It was the Baby Boomers who loved the show.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Yes, again, good points. It was my favorite show when I was a kid. Looking at it today one is turned off by the overbearing laugh track but I see the dialog is still sharp and funny. There were real plots and some of the episodes are actually more serious than not.

It seemed odd to later generations that the prisoners were treated so well but in fact the Hitler regime followed the Geneva Convention with prisoners of war, at least in the West (in the East the Soviets and the Germans were equally cruel to each other). You saw this also in The Great Escape.

[Syd Henderson]

Werner Klemperer also played one of the truly chilling Nazi judges in "Judgment at Nuremberg" and he played Adolf Eichmann in the quickie "Operation Eichmann" which came out before all the details were known. John Banner (Sergeant Schultz) played Rudolf Höss, who was executed for his role as commandant of Auschwitz. He, of course, was Jewish too.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Seeing Klemperer and Banner in Judgment at Nuremberg, after having watched them play the war for laughs on "Hogan's Heroes", was a strange experience.

When I first learned that so much of the cast of "Hogan's Heroes" was Jewish, my first thought was, "How could they???" But later I got in on the joke. When I was in law school the Jewish Law Students Association had "Hogan's Heroes" parties. I didn't go, thinking it wouldn't be my place to be there, but I'm glad they enjoyed the show.

[Frank Drackman]

The German Version of “Hogan’s Heroes” is titled “Ein Kafig voller Helden” ( A Cage full of Heroes) and due to Germany not having a First Amendment, they can’t say “Heil Hitler”, so when they give the Nazi salute they dub in something like “This is how high the cornflowers grow!.” And the swastika arm bands are blurred out.

Frank

[SRG2]

---------

[SRG2]

Jewish actors frequently played Nazis in Hollywood – they had the accent and they were happy to show how vile the Nazis were.

https://www.jta.org/2019/10/23/culture/theres-a-long-history-of-jews-playing-nazis-on-screen

Amusingly, the most Aryan-looking Nazi-playing actor of all time, Anton Diffring, had a Jewish father.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Topped by Mel Brooks in a toothbrush mustache raising his hand and saying, "Heil Myself!"

[Frank Drackman]

It's General "Burkhalter" you blathering fountain of miss-information, I mean, Daddy stand back, that's a Geyser!

[Magister]

Do the Right Thing sadly detracted from a correct point about police violence and community frustration to work hard at drawing a natural response (sympathy with the characters who are sympathetically portrayed) that could be labelled racist. And right now I'm probably most annoyed with being made to sound like the worst commenters here; Spike Lee's talents were really counter productive.

Hogan's Heroes, a comedy set in World War II, is funny because it's completely detached from reality, importing only the fewest tropes needed to establish its setting and ignoring anything that might make viewers too uncomfortable.

And I have nothing to say about Driving Miss Daisy, the movie actually reviewed.

[ducksalad]

Spike Lee's "wrongest" movie, IMO, was Jungle Fever. Not much doubt about his message in that one: interracial romance is wrongful and doomed. Despite that, still a watchable movie.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Watchable, though it was really two movies, one about interracial romance and one about the crack epidemic.

The scenes in the deli with the moronic guy (“who is she? does she have big tits?”) and the John Turturro character longing for another life, were good.

Then there was that talk-show interlude with black women lusting after African men having penises down to their knees. I can’t believe that Lee, a black adult, put that in. Sounds more like something written by a white, 13-year-old virgin.

Odd that Lee would have such a take on interracial relationships (someone pointed out that the post-coital scenes are lingered on as if these were butchered bodies in a horror movie), given that his father was married to a white woman.

[Frank Drackman]

as an M.D. (Mentally Deranged) who's seen my share of Black Peni over the years (in a Professional status), I can say,
The "Myth" isn't true.
for Irish Peni it is.

Frank

[The Margrave of Azilia]

It was a good movie, but I'm not sure I liked the sequel, where Miss Daisy hires Hoke to transport a load of untaxed moonshine, and they have several car chases to avoid the Smokies.

[Dan Schiavetta]

LOL

[Frank Drackman]

We get it, you like the dark meat.

[apedad]

“That's where you went? Explains a lot.”

[Frank Drackman]

I love when an insult draws blood.

[ducksalad]

"Do the Right Thing, ..... which ends with a black character being choked to death by police, but Spike stacked the deck by making us care more about the white pizza owner and his sons, the emotional heart of the film, than the one-dimensional black characters, none of whom had a job"

Interesting take, that's not how I interpreted it. I assumed that the "Right Thing" Spike Lee was referring to was the rioters burning down the pizza parlor, and that the final scene (where the owner and Lee's character sort of reconcile) was supposed to show that the owner had come to understand the rioters' actions. Maybe my take on Lee's message was too simplistic?

[Dan Schiavetta]

In interviews Lee refused to answer whether Mookie "did the right thing". "Only a racist would ask that question!" It was apparent that he himself didn't know.

The fact about Sal and his sons being the emotional heart of the movie was made by Brent Staples in a New York Times article entitled "How Real Are the Black Women in Spike Lee Films?" Aside from that I didn't see much interesting commentary on that movie, just the usual shouting.

[Krayt]

Oops sorry accidentally flagged. Someone should invent an un-flag button one of these centuries.

[Dilan Esper]

Actually, nobody does the right thing. That's one of the central themes.

[Ed Grinberg]

Hoke pointing to the big house Daisy owns, after she says that as a Jew she has also known discrimination (my girlfriend got a big laugh out of that).

?
I don't get it. Is the point that it's a lie that Jews are (or ever were) discriminated against? Or that discrimination against Jews is no big deal, especially if they live in big houses?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Hoke says, "Yeah, but now, you're doing pretty good!" (pointing to house) The point is that for her the discrimination was in the past and she no longer suffers from it (at least not in ways that the movie shows). She's certainly not a Holocaust survivor (the movie would have told us that).

The point, made subtly here, was made more hamfistedly in Just Another Girl on the IRT from 1992, which I also saw. There, a Jewish history teacher's discussion of the Holocaust was cut short by our "heroine" who says he should be talking about the Holocaust going on right now in the ghetto. Not a well made or perceptive film.

[Ed Grinberg]

compare (source):

[T]he Russian government['s] ambassador to Washington...called the [Kishinev] pogrom an instance of “the peasant against the money lender and not the Russians against the Jews.”

[Dilan Esper]

I strongly disagree with you on Do the Right Thing, one of the best movies I have ever seen.

It's CRUCIAL to Lee's project that we sympathize with the white pizza parlor owner. He wants to show you how racism blows up even when many of the central characters are fundamentally good people. In most movies about racism, the racists are almost cartoonishly bad. Think of the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird (itself a good movie) or Mississippi Burning (also a good movie). And THAT "stacks the deck"; it becomes easy for the audience. It lets the audience off the hook.

Lee doesn't do that. He gives you a likeable, three dimensional portrait of a pizza parlor owner who is trying to make a living and serve his mostly Black clientele, because he wants to show you that being likeable and willing to serve the Black community, by itself, isn't enough to root out societal racism.

When Danny Aiello died, Lee put up a wonderful Instagram post saying "WE made this happen". That was how important Aiello and his character were to Lee's project. It's a great, great film.

[Dan Schiavetta]

A fundamentally good person would not spit out the n-word at black people. It was done in anger, which vitiates its importance in my mind, but Lee wants us to think it reveals Sal’s true feelings. Earlier hints are that he overcharges ($2 was a lot for a slice in those days), won’t put pictures of black folks on the wall, and insults the mentally challenged guy. Also he has desires for Mookie’s sister and we know how Lee feels about that sort of thing.

I wasn’t alone to think this. Shortly after I saw the movie I found my thoughts were echoed in Terrence Rafferty’s review in the New Yorker (it’s in the July 17, 1989 issue).

Aiello told Lee about his objections to the script (Aiello himself was a ghetto kid, from 1950’s Bronx) and to his credit Lee revised it, in particular that wonderful quiet scene where Sal tells Mookie how proud he is of the pizzeria. This conflicts with my analysis of how Lee felt about the Sal character (see above) but I think Lee was conflicted about the whole thing.

[Dilan Esper]

Lee wants us to understand that Sal's true feelings are complicated. That's the point. He's trying to tell us something that I think a lot of Black people will tell you- that they know "good" white people, who do good things and whom they have good relationships with, who nonetheless are capable of racism either out of anger or because they don't know any better. For the story to work, Sal has to be a sympathetic character with blind spots, not an ogre.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Miss Daisy likely couldn’t have operated the car — no power brakes, no power steering, no automatic transmission, no hydraulic clutch, no syncromesh gears. It had drum brakes, primitive steering, and maybe even a manual choke. (The starter was a foot switch to the right of the gas pedal.)

And this was vastly improved over vehicles 20-30 years earlier that had to be manually (crank) started and where the spark had to be manually advanced & retarded.

Driving a 1950s automobile required a great deal of physical strength and some degree of mechanical knowledge — both carburetor icing and fuel pump vaporlock were common. Icing occurred at about 40 degrees in the rain, gasoline evaporating in the carburetor would chill the little pipes it came out of, and water would then freeze and block them — no gas, car no run. Vaporlock was the opposite, the gas pump was bolted to the (hot) engine but the gasoline going through it cooled it. Except in stop & go traffic were the gasoline inside the pump boiled off and car no go.

Chauffeurs were more than just drivers back then.

By the 1960s — well the 1964 Pontiac Tempest had power steering and a 2 speed automatic transmission. A much easier car for a woman to drive, and a decade later there were power (vacuum assisted) brakes as well. Miss Daisy could now drive herself.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks.

Yes, good point as to what old cars were like. My 1959 VW, which I swear I’ll put back on the road someday, has a manual choke. (Chokes in general were pointless; you don’t need one if you just keep idling until the engine’s warm.) Also, no gas gauge. There are two intake tubes from the gas tank, and once you feel the engine cutting out you reach w-a-y down to the floor where a lever opens the tube for the last couple of liters. Which is fine in Germany but not so fine in, say, Arizona where the next gas station is 50 miles away.

Also the controls were fewer and non-explanatory. You knew what the wiper knob was without it saying “wiper” or having a little helpful diagram on it.

Also, as you point out, drivers were expected to have some mechanic smarts. In those pre-computer-diagnostic days, the average person could understand how cars worked and could do some simple adjustments or repairs. One of the (many) Seinfeld jokes that rang false was his ridiculing of people with stalled cars who got out and popped the hood. Yes, Jerry, sometimes the problem was simple and obvious. A disconnected wire, perhaps.

I think Daisy was a widow whose husband did all the driving, and after he died she either was too used to being driven around, or thought herself too old to learn how.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

The earliest car I remember was a 1950 Chevy, the fastback version, I think a Fleetliner or something. Three on the tree, and sometimes my mother had to hop out at intersections, pop the hood, fiddle with something on the firewall right in front of the driver, to get it going again. I was much to young to know this was wrong, that she should not have had to do that, so I have no idea what she fiddled with.

[SRG2]

When my father got a 1969 Mercedes 200, he said it was the first time he had a car he couldn't fix himself as it had been designed to prevent home mechanics from fixing things.

[Mr. Bumble]

By the 1960 power steering was pretty much standard on most cars. The first production car with power steering was the 1951 Chrysler Imperial and other car makers soon followed.

[Frank Drackman]

Power Steering/Brakes weren't standard on my mom's 1969 Malibu, drive that car awhile and you get forearms like Popeyes.

[Mr. Bumble]

I stand corrected. It was becoming standard on the higher end models and optional on the cheaper cars.
Of course back then dealers lots weren't full of loaded cars and many people would order their car with the options they desired.
A month or two later your car would arrive.

[Purple Martin]

Ummm, don't I recall the movie starting with Miss Daisy getting in a minor auto accident because, for whatever reason, she'd relatively recently reached the point where she couldn't safely drive her car anymore? (And, implied, it wasn't the first time.)

That circumstance was the movie's MacGuffin.

[Syd Henderson]

I got the impression that Miss Daisy could drive when she was younger but that age had made her a danger to herself and others (and I'm about her age at the start of the movie). I had a 2003 Taurus which also had a problem with vapor lock but the solution was to keep the gas tank close to full in cold weather.

[Bob from Ohio]

It was specifically mentioned in the movie that she had caused an accident and that is why her son bought a big new car and hired a driver.

[Frank Drackman]

What a joke, Spike Lee's probably the most anti-semitic director since Leni Riefenstahl, who at least made some decent movies.