folks before we get started in today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment and mention that a friend of the show, Ian Lindquist, has passed away at a very young age. Yeah, Ian, who, you know, I mean, he's a young man, 36 years old, 35, 36 years old. Yeah. And he has seven children, young children.
In fact, he passed away from leukemia and his wife was pregnant with their seventh when the news came in. And he fought for, what was it, a year or two years, David? Yeah. And just passed away on May 5th.
And you know, he leaves his wife behind and seven young children. So one of the things we want to do is direct you all to the GoFundMe to raise money for his family. If you go to our Twitter, twitter.com slash the new Thincary, you'll see at the very top a pin tweet with a link to his GoFundMe. We ask that you guys, whatever you can give, any small amount, you know, that's a meal that helps out his family goes a long way.
So we ask that you give you doing best, right? Yeah. So, so Ian was a graduate of St. John's College where the two of us graduated.
I didn't meet him. He attended as an undergrad. And just as he was with the same age. So just as he was graduating, the two of us Alex were entering St.
John's. So in O 607, I would meet him later on as a her talk fellow, where we were taking these weekend courses on political statesman. And it's rare. And I think the Germans, I have heard this more even, hold it impossible to develop friendships later on in life.
Usually you need the time tested events that you can really only approximate during childhood and early adulthood to cement a friendship. But when I met Ian at her talk, we immediately fell in with one another over a shared love of great books and personality. Now, his mind wasn't in the gutter like mine is, but he smiled and laughed at my jokes. And I really enjoyed that.
And I think the thing I'd like to say about him is that he was a serious person. To me, that's that's the I think that one of the finest compliments I can pay a human being. This is not to say that he was serious in a gruff way or didn't smile, but he took ideas seriously. So when he could be joking with us, one moment in the second in year like this to Alex, we start talking about Aristotle in the good life, things like this.
You know, he takes a real interest in he gives you your full attention. And you marry that with just his kindness and diffusive nature with strangers, guys, a stranger, and in a willingness just to talk and share. And you really have a great human being. And I had personal problems during that period.
And we would talk on the phone and I didn't know him that well. He never judged me. And so I'm upset about it as are a lot of people. But if you can do something just like Alex noted, please do contribute.
Let me add here that he was after graduation, he did a lot of work in education, right? He taught at Great Arts Academy, which is a great books, sort of 10 great books, schools, and this eventually led to him working for AI in education policy. And finally, that was via the public interest fellowship. And then he ended up being a senior advisor there and while also serving as the executive director, which is also when I got to know him a little bit more when I was having a tough time on the academic job market, he was helping me try to find some sort of work in DC, my current job then came through and things worked out for me.
But he was very kind and generous man with his time and his connections when he had no need to. That's great. I had some really moving words there. I hope folks will go to business on Twitter and see that pinned tweet that has got funded page.
Thanks for that, David. Now let's go back to the show. Welcome back to New Thinkery. My name is David Barr with me as always as Alex.
Doing well, how are you? Good. And Greg McRae, how are you? Sorry.
My good friend Alex for you and here's Greg McRae. Oh, and also my good friend Greg McRae. Okay. Oh, he's implicit.
Oh, okay. Got it. I'm great. Thanks, David.
It's good to see you. It's been a nice week. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm excited to hear the conversation with Dr. Parents. What was it on again? Straus on natural law.
Elections from natural right and history and persecution and the art of writer. So you guys, this was an in-person interview at ACTC. Hopefully we can do this as a trio next year live on stage with strippers behind us. But until that time comes, I do want to talk a little bit about meeting some fans face to face.
Greg, I saw online that a gaggle of women surrounded you and asked you a take the picture with you. Now usually I'm going to run from you. So what was going on in that photo that I saw? Oh, man.
I didn't hear what they were saying. And Alex was crying. He was laughing so hard. From Greg's perspective, he's a girl's come up and said, we'd like to take a picture with you.
Kirk's like, well, yeah, sure. Can you get a picture? One of the girls is pointing at Greg. Like, and they're all smiling, non-ironic smiles.
And then another girl, as they left, another girl came up and asked for a picture. That's true. I forgot about that. And then my buddy Paul DeDuke, colleague Paul DeDuke, I run the show.
And I were laughing because we had heard them say, hey, we want to get a picture. And I go, what's going on here? And she goes, well, we heard Ryan Reynolds is here. Oh, so you guys said, I didn't hear this?
No, no. We didn't set it up. They came in and came into the restaurant to take it as somebody must have mistaken. Greg, Ryan Reynolds told their friends, they came into the restaurant to take a picture.
And they just thought he would obviously understand why they want a picture with him. Because I run it. Right. Right.
And I said, what's going on? And they explained that their friend had told them. So they thought I was asking, how did you know? But in reality, I was asking, why did I just?
Sure. Why wouldn't you want to take a picture with me like some kind of dummy? Oh, it's great because Greg has the biggest ego of all of us. True.
Yeah. Try to hide it. It's fragile too. It is fragile.
That's why I like Ryan Reynolds. That's an actor. Right. That's not my tactical.
Did you share that with your wife? I did actually. I sent it to her. And she's all right.
I get left. She was also very, you know, she was not the least I worry that I might actually try to seduce these when I write things. She was been bothering her at all. I'm like, I could have now I couldn't.
I don't think so. Now I know. Yeah. We're honorable.
I agree. Speaking of honorable people, what are we talking about today? Yeah, yeah. Nice segue.
Yeah. We're talking about fights. A little bit of fighting and a little bit of ****. No, no, what are we talking about?
Jake? Winchester 73. That's a gun. It's a gun.
Yeah. It's a it's an episode on guns. Yeah. That's a really pain in our base.
It's a movie by the director, Anthony Mann. It's a Western starring Jimmy Stewart. Yeah. You know, it's our same movie with Jimmy Stewart.
You guys say really quick before we go. Right. Stewart seems. Or anywhere at all.
Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Yeah.
I apologize. I apologize. I don't know. I don't hear it.
What's here? He's such an ex-American actor to me. He seems so miscast in many of the Westerns that he plays in. There's nothing tough about him.
He's just, oh, you're all the law. You know, and so... You're thinking of Liberty Balance. So now when he's just fine because that's...
Oh, it's our third movie with Jimmy Stewart, then Holy crap. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's right. We did.
Yeah. But any movie where he has to actually play a gun son, it just doesn't make a connection. Yeah. Well, he's quite good in this.
You know, Anthony Mann is, he's known for doing some, what's it called? What's the word? Film noir. Right.
And it's, I think the one that he's best known for is a movie called T-Men. I don't know if you've heard of this. But his Westerns are kind of interesting because they have a kind of film noir, psychological aspect, right? So you take like a John Ford Western.
It feels like the characters symbolize sort of factions of society, which is true here as well. But this seems to be more like a hard-boiled. That's the word that we're looking for. He did actually five Westerns with Jimmy Stewart.
I've seen all of them. They're really good. I think he is best Western, not to be confused with the hotel, is a film called The Furious, which I highly recommend. The Furious like the Oracaya?
Oh, that's yeah. That's obviously what it's recalling. But it's about a man, a kind of tyrannical frontier man who's consolidated this property, but he's grown sort of luxurious. His daughter, I don't want to sort of give anything away.
But yeah, it's really good. It's a really good show. So maybe that's not the film we're doing. That's not the film we're doing that.
Winchester 73 is great. It's named after a gun. The Winchester Model 1873, the film takes place I think in 1876. But it's a gun that they make them and then every one in 10 or 20,000 is comes out perfect.
Right? They call them. They say the same things about guitars too. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah. So it's about a weapon and it's a weapon that's incredibly desirable. Right? The film was made in 1950, I should say.
So I think there are some connotations here about nuclear weapons. It's a powerful weapon. And the weapon is sort of up for grabs at the beginning of the film. Right?
There's going to be a contest, a shooting contest to see who gets it. And who will get it is ostensibly the most skillful person. But it's the person who's most skillful at shooting, the person you want to have the gun. As they were marked at one point in the movie.
It's not so much. It's not just how you shoot. It's what you shoot at, but you need to learn. And that's I think the big issue.
The gun changes hands left and right. It goes, Jimmy Stewart wins it. But then this guy, Dutch Henry Brown, who turns out to be his brother. I should be able to make his map.
Boiler alert. Yeah, spoiler alert. He ends up modding him secret and secret before he can leave town. And he takes the gun from him.
But they have to flee town without their guns because it's not a city they have to set their guns aside. We got there. We got to get out of Dodge. Yeah, exactly.
Right. You're going to keep this bullsh up on it? I have a question for you. Let me just quickly just.
It goes from Dutch Henry Brown, his sort of lawless brother, criminal brother, to an Indian trader who's a kind of made-of-business but very morally neutral. He trades guns with Indians who go on to sort of kill white people. From him, after the Indian trader gets killed and the gun goes to the chief of this tribe, they then attack a group which ends up including Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy Stewart leaves, though, to keep pursuing his brother who's fled him.
And the gun goes to this simple kind of cowardly guy from him. He's missing a step there. He leaves it on the ground. I think he leaves it on the ground.
The private picks it up, gives it to the sergeant. And then the sergeant gives it to Steve. The cowardly guy. The cowardly guy who then in turn gets it taken from him after something tag him as he pulls a gun on this criminal quote-unquote friend.
Obviously, not really friends. The criminal ends up shooting him for pulling the gun. He takes the gun from him. And then from him, it gets dropped in a gunfight and it goes back to Dutch Henry Brown.
And then it ends with a shoot between Jimmy Stewart and Dutch Henry Brown, which Jimmy Stewart wins to fight having. This is a small point. I was just going to, you guys are going to be surprised at my numerology. I'll save it for a little later.
But it goes through seven different hands, which I think is important. But, and I also think there's something about the quizzes of this here. You guys laugh. Wait, I'll come back.
I don't want to hear the numbers. I'll talk about it a little bit. So, Lynn wins. I think the other thing, one of the other questions is, I think one of the other questions is, someone's raising who ought to have the gun, the guy who knows how to use it, or something else.
But I think one of the other questions, therefore, is what is the right or legitimate way to come into ownership of something. Because the ways in which each guy comes in the possession of the gun is different. So, Lynn, Jimmy Stewart, his character, he wins it. Dutch steals it from him.
Dutch loses it in a poker game to an Indian trader. By the way, there are numbers in the Indian, in the game of poker as well. He loses his money, and then the Indian trader says, if you need a gun, and there's Indians out there, so if you need a gun, you better sell this to me. I'll say he's a cheaper and fierier.
But then he tries the game, but back, he loses again. Yeah, he loses all the money. Good. So, winning, stealing, gambling, then murder.
If the Indian just murders it, it takes him. Mursing the Indian trader, it takes it. The next people get it in conquest after battle, so like booty or something like this. And then Waco, the other criminal gets it from, excuse me, then there's a step there.
The surgeon tried to give it to Steve. It's a gift. So, the coward gets it as a gift. Steve, the cowardly guy basically tries to do a dual, a gun draw dual, old West style with the Waco kid as that's name, and Waco gets it from him.
And then, and then Dutch gets it back from Waco on intimidation. Like he just sort of threatens him and he gives it to him. And then Lynn gets it from Dutch, in another shootout, but this is a rifle shootout, which by the way, Dutch acts sort of very rationally. So, it's not a, there's a quick draw shoot out and then there's a rifle shoot.
I don't know what to do with this, except winning, stealing, gambling, murdering, booty, giving, what is the appropriate way to get something? And one last thing before I know you guys want to talk about, Lynn seems to be the character least interested in the gun. The Jimmy Stewart character is the guy that does not seem interested in the gun. Yeah, we should be clear that although he wins it initially, he's not there to win the gun.
He's just playing because his brother will be there. He's in town to seek out his brother. Yeah, and he thinks the gun will be able to track some. And so, to be clear, it seems like he, I think he therefore is going to meet the brother with the sole purpose in the first place of killing him.
Absolutely. And the reason that doesn't is because, if you recall, grandsons of guns, that's right. Early on in the scene, the sheriff, what's the same famous white herp? White Earp asks Stewart to and his psychic to relinquish their guns as he asked the same of each man who enters the town.
That was a funny scene when they go to the sheriff's office and it's just like, crampacked with guns. Yeah. So, he was there to kill his brother, which their father in the back. Right.
One funny part there to me was that, you know, I am guns and guns are great, but all these gun rights actors, they were like, I never give up my guns and this and the other. Because I'm a cowboy, and this is actually fairly kind of practice when you go into these towns, they would just turn over their guns. It's not me, which is maintaining order. Yeah.
Of course. And it's a reminder that passage of Thucydides, where wherever you could see men freely bearing arms, you don't have, you don't have civilization. Right. Like, that's not civilized.
Yeah. Yeah. So, two civilized and white are passed to say no weapons. I mean, one sort of, now you say all that, I'm thinking about how, no, it's good.
I wonder. So, there's this, there's a, one of the themes here is, I think there's a kind of moral decay that's applied, right? Right? Dutch sort of killing his father.
There's a dancing girl, she's a prostitute, right? In the town that they kick out of town for the 4th of July, where they're made explicit, by the way, never made explicit. Never is, you know what it is. Right.
Well, currently I don't have some other stories we've told over the weekend, but anyway, we don't need to talk about that. No. And she's a, and she's sort of in a difficult situation, she's sort of with the cowardly guy, right? But I think she sort of symbolizes the potential wife, you know, and who's she going to end up with?
She also trades hands quite a bit, right? She goes from the town, she's a bit by wider. You then see her with, what's this? Steve.
Yeah. Steve. Steve, Steve, she goes to a wake up Johnny Brown, I think his name is. And then after a week goes killed, she ends up with Lyn, right?
At the end, they're just, now they're not going anywhere. I think he returns with the gun and then the movie ends, right? Yeah. But there's a sense that there's the weapon, but there's also the future generations, right?
And an interesting point there is, is that when Steve, and what's the one's name I'm forgetting her name? When Steve and his girlfriend, what have you, end up in that camp where the Indians attack and then Lyn shows up with his sidekick, Lyn's the one who comes up with a strategy, right? To help defeat the Indians. And he then departs immediately in pursuit of his brother.
So he's trying to correct the injustices of the past, right? Meanwhile, there's the fragility of the future, I think is sort of suggested in this couple. And the question is, on what terms will he return to be more forward-facing rather than backwards? Her name is Lola.
Lola, Lola, Lola. She's a prominent, right? I'm going to keep it because yes, she is. You know what I just realized that I looked up the cast.
I did not, when I was watching who, there are a lot of Native Americans and they're very important. But I was like, those are not Native Americans. The chief, the main guy, young bull, he's played by Rock Hudson. That's right.
I didn't know that. Yeah. It's usually they stick an Italian metaphor. That's true.
That's right. Italian or yeah. So I want to go back through the, I'll do this later, I'm going to go back through the time, the number of people whose hands Lola passes through. I'm going to bet it's six.
And that's just in the movie, Fox. Cheese, Lisa. It's a family show out. It's a play you're putting down.
What do you want to say about it? You want to talk to the analogy? Yeah, go ahead. All right.
Sorry. Listeners at home. You'll realize how it works. I'm just like, I'm just a basic third rate spouse in here.
What year is this movie? It's our second rate, Titus, the chair. What's the? 86.
76. I think so, yeah. 76. And competition.
What number is Lynne, McAdams, and Dutch. 7 and 6. You remember when he loses the gun? When Dutch loses the gun and the bet.
If you remember he loses it to the Indian trader, Indian traders playing solitaire. And the first thing he says to him is take your six and put it on the seven. And then the seven. I'm not entirely sure.
I'm not working it out, but I think the gun changes ownership seven times. And I'm wondering if now I'm wondering if the woman also changes six times. I'm not really sure what to make it, but I think that for me, one of the things it does is it emphasizes here's my, the only intro inside I can draw. I haven't figured it anymore.
I only watched it one time. We sort of thought about it. But I think one of the things that the movie is drawing your attention to, I think this, I think implicitly the idea is this is a movie about American fact. That this is the centennial.
I do wonder if it's something about the lands and about technology. I don't know if you remember, there's a huge, so it's obviously a centennial, but something else really important happened in 1876 that was alluded to at least three times. Custer's last thing. And if you, the battle happens just before July 4th, 1876, but Custer's horse, Comanche, is the sole survivor, this horse, not his horse, one of the horses, Comanche survives.
I think that's right. And news of the loss arrives on July 4th, 1876. And so this is, it's when people first start noticing it. And it's also, I think historians will, a lot of historians will talk about the way that Custer's last stand marks a profound shift in Native American, American, American, United States relations.
So after this is when the United States changes policy and starts killing the buffalo on mass. So there's a real connection here, I think, like, I think the fact that it was even referred to as the recursors last stand or the butcher or the massacre or whatever. And I think that there's a real shift in how policies where Native Americans changes in 1876 as a result of this. And so I do wonder if the, I wonder if this film isn't actually more sympathetic to the Native American side than just the US side.
And if you remember, with the Rock Hudson character, Young Bull says at one point, all white men are thieves. And there's really no response to it. And all the white men we see, I mean, the main white characters are, I mean, is there a non-prinil among them? I mean, even the Jimmy Stewart character, it's about, I mean, he's going with the express purpose of revenge murder.
It's not quite he- But why would that advantage be? You got to wonder about frontier justice, right? If he killed his father, right, he justified killing it back, right? And also he kills him in a fair shootout.
So I don't know. And he also double crosses and the man who's supposed to be selling him guns. Yeah, sure. The echo Greg's point, I think this is a good point, right?
Because she feels, and he says right before killing him, right, that he doesn't trust him, right? And he wants the guns that helped to defeat custard. So I guess the Indian, what's his name again? Young Bull.
Young Bull. Yeah. He probably just, for what reason would he expect to trade? There's no peace between these stations.
And he had just heard about the Indian, one of the other mentions of custard's last name is by him, I think. So he's aware of news of traveling among the Native Americans. Yeah, everybody. And so he's aware that these white people are not living up to what they say they're going to do.
And so it's like, at the whole point, there's the point, because I'm not going to do it. Just that I think the whole battle happens because the Indians, I think is where the phrase going off the reservation comes from. I'm not joking. I think that this was like the whole battle happened because there were some Natives where they weren't supposed to be or something like this.
I'm not a story. I don't remember that. So there was no trying to run on the top and the thing went to battle. Yeah.
So let me pivot here because I think one of the tangential topics that we could go into is education, right? We talked about this a little bit about teaching somebody how to shoot versus what to shoot. I think this is related specifically because one of the things that helps Stuart defeat Young Bull and when they're attacking is that he's learned from what's happened. The formations?
Yeah. He learns, oh, look, what they're going to do is they send in a few people, they wait for us to shoot. And then as we're reloading the attack and full force and we'll call it a pants runner and go, but we have some repeaters. We'll take it easy the first round and then we'll sort of move in the second round.
And there's a whole two repeater. So the repeaters, the kind of gun where you can just go, it's a folks at home is a required costume. Like here, yeah, yeah. You can shoot multiple shots.
Yeah. And the question of education starts at the beginning when he says to his brother, he shot taught you what to shoot, but not how to shoot, right? Or what not? Sorry, how to shoot, but not what to shoot, right?
And then at the end in the last scene, he says, you know, didn't dad, you didn't pay attention to that. That was not to waste lead, right? He just unloads multiple bullets as he's reloading. Stewart picks him off and kills him, right?
But you know, it's interesting to me about the prior education. We don't learn too much autobiographical stuff about Stewart's character. We do when he does come across the besieged garrison of American troops at the very end before they part after they've rebuffed young bull. The one you never do.
Lynn indicates that. That's good. Great. Thank you.
Every now and again, you first. Um, Lynn indicates that he fought on the side of the South, right? He was a confederate. He and his buddy.
It was a, it was a draw, right? The battle, the battle, wasn't the first battle of bull run is in depth about all that they, because they had the union guys did the South one. Okay. Yeah.
I think you're right. So that's why we wish we'd had you. I wish you had been there. He's like, I was there.
I was on the winning side. Did you guys make anything about? That's kind of, you know, I'm not really sure. I mean, there's this mention of Grant too, right?
Grant's in the present at this time. I do think there's something, I don't really know. I mean, it was somewhat common in some of these westerns that the bad, like the outlaw would be a Confederate, right? The outlaw Josie Wales.
Um, I don't, I kept trying to do something with that too. Right? So it's 1876, it's Centennial, but he's somebody fought against the union. I mean, I think there's something deeply American going on this movie that I haven't put together yet in my head.
Yeah. I mean, just the idea of two brothers worrying. Oh, yeah. There you go.
It's just this week, it's the war. Yeah. In a way, yeah. It's a civil war.
I think it's backwards looking. It's also forwards looking to the present. Grant is mentioned, but specifically in that he has one of these rare perfect guns as well. Um, so I think there's, you have the question, his name is Henry Brown with like Dutch head doesn't go by Henry Brown.
I'm not sure. I'm sorry. Yeah. So there's this question of who's at the helm person at the helm has the perfect gun.
And then you have these fighting brothers who are fighting for the control of this other gun, but it's the same gun. And so there's this sort of symbol of who has control of it. Just a continue on that question of education. Just to return to that real quick.
The, the funny thing is that though they both know how to shoot well, Jimmy Stewart's a little bit better at shooting. Right. Um, when they're doing the shoot out as it gets more and more difficult to realize that Jimmy Stewart's superior, right? They first they shoot out a dollar.
They both hit it, but Jimmy Stewart's is more dead center. And then when they, they flip this ring that has a hole in it, Stewart shoots it through the hole, right? Whereas his brother, uh, misses an empire, right? And so there's, there's a sense that he's also better.
And so I was wondering why does the moral difference, knowing what to shoot, lead to a technical difference, right? Being a better shooter. Um, and the only, uh, the only answer I can come with is that, uh, Dutch Henry Brown in, in seeking to reject his father or break from his father, um, for the sake of breaking, right? Or out of sort of criminality, um, cuts his lessons short, right?
Or in a way that, that, in, in not acknowledging the goodness of his father and what he's taught him and, and, and all that sort of, this is a kind of, I think this, this, this movie is, is I think very conservative in a way because it, it talks or presents tradition as something that can educate, right? In the symbol of the father. This is something you should cultivate and keep in line with. So maybe to go back to the Civil War thing, um, maybe there's a suggestion that, uh, those stewards character fought against the union.
Um, he, he has a sort of respect for the union or respect for the sort of new, new sense of justice going forward. I'm not sure. He's still, he's still a man outside the city. Yeah, I think so.
I don't know where I mean, it's the frontier. So it's hard to be clear. I mean, he's definitely carding his own way and he's very backwards looking, I think, but in a way, the, on that point, like he is outside the city, but when he's outside the city, he always has his guns with him. And so I think you're right, the gun represents a lot of things.
But when we're texting, you mentioned that the gun might also represent technology. In a way, I think that's right. The bad guys, when they steal the gun successfully from Jimmy Stewart, they don't have any ammunition for it and they have to flee before they can get their weapons. So when Dutch and his crowds steal the gun at first, they're out in the state of nature, as it were, and they're, and they keep repeatedly saying that they're naked, they're naked because they don't have arms.
And so I wonder if, I know you want to talk about technology, but the idea here is that, I mean, you know, uh, the Prometheus myth, right? The idea that humans are sort of alone, naked and vulnerable in nature and that only through tech, they only through art, only through technology can man equip himself to be to be able to survive in the state of nature. And so they seem to be without technology. So I mean, I don't know what you want to talk about with technology, but that is a theme that you I thought was the theme you mentioned in the right show you want to chat about.
Yeah, I think technology and power, right? Because there's, if this is taken as a an illusion to the nuclear weapons, right? Ocean. Then you do have this question of what do you do when you have this perfect gun, right?
What are you doing? You have this perfect gun and you have irresponsible actors going around. Or in the case of the Indian trader, sort of neutral, coldly calculating self-interested commercial types or business types, who, you know, now he falls prey to the lawless sort of Indians, right? He gets his comeuppance just by virtue of he is trying to trade with them.
And it suggests that therefore that I think, though, you know, this business type tries to be coldly calculating, he needs to attend to the question of justice because his fellow citizens will grant him a measure of security that, you know, foreign entities that are not in a peaceful relationship to his country, walked, right? But yeah, I see this point about who gets the gun and how it changes hands. The weaving chains hands, I hadn't noticed that you're absolutely right, that's important. But also who's hand is it the just the backwards looking Jimmy Stewart?
Is it the criminal that's Henry Brown? Is it the sort of self interested business man? Is it the coward? Yeah, the coward, you know, who has it, but he's still cowardly.
He just slips from his hands easily. My interpretation of the gun as conferring power through its technology is I interpreted that as a myth, but the movie was trying to explode this kind of myth. Because the only person who's thing that for any benefit in that that assumption is exploded in the very last scene, when Stewart is able to best his brother through the use of an ordinary rifle and duchess, the only one who fires the perfect gun in the movie. Is that right?
Yeah, he's the first and only one within the country movie. Yeah, that's what I thought. So that's a good point, David. He loses, even though he's got the perfect gun.
And he loses not because he's unskilled in shooting, but because of certain, in purological, yeah, curiological flaws, right? He didn't learn his lessons, right? He didn't pay attention to his father. And so he shot it off too many times quickly and made himself vulnerable.
I thought it was interesting that after he gets shot, he drops the gun, he falls, but the gun is safe in a way. Oh, yeah. And I took that to me that though the gun is in the right man's hand, it's going to survive more than any individual, right? The weapons, right?
So the weapons will linger around even after responsible actors get it back. This is a small point, but Jimmy Stewart, you know, the movie ends basically, he writes back in a town he's hugged and kissed by Lola, and also his buddy, High Spade, is that him? And he has the gun. Is his brother also, was his brother on his horse in that last scene?
Have you picked him up and brought him back to town to bury him? I think so. I don't think he left him there to rot, in other words, which is a weird, you know, if your whole security, if your whole point is to go kill your brother because he killed your father, it's a strange sort of filial duty to bury him. I don't know.
It's interesting. Yeah, I know that's exactly where my mind went to, right? He though he is unjust, he is a human being, and he has his brother and in death he deserves. I guess the right way he'd be guilty of the same sort of the piety and patricides to sort of let the animals pick away at his corpse.
Yeah. Well, one theme of the movie I've curious for your thoughts is that this film is driven by the characters in the town and other westerns in the town itself plays a part as a kind of symbolism. Do we even learn the name of the town that he learned? Yeah, well, the final thing happens is outside of, oh gosh, what's that?
It's Tuscora, what's it called? Yeah, it's supposed to be a tea. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's Tascosa, but they start in Dodge City, and I was sort of struck by the use of real life human beings.
Batman Masterson has mentioned at one point, wider, and wider for the older, I think, at least he's cast that way, so that must have been where he was in real life. But you're right, then the final shoot down outside of that Tascosa, Texas, which is way up north in Texas, but there are other places you're right where it doesn't seem to be identified. The house, for example, where there's a wayco is, a wayco kid, it's not clear where that is to me. That's what's it called?
They were going around and he had said to, this is Steve, that's a little, I'm going to take you to this house. They bought a house specifically on her earnings. I've never seen somebody buying a house on a dancing girls, a course girls stuff. What are you trying to say?
Try to say she's turning tricks. Trying to say she's needy. In 1950, Alex, they didn't know about that stuff in 1980, but that whole game turned into tricks. Right?
Robin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man. But why is this movie in black and white?
That's my question I was going to ask is it they did have the technology to do non-black and white in 1950, right? Right. Anyway, I just said that with way too much authority. I don't know.
Okay. I know that the man shall be balanced could have been in color and John Ford chose to do it black and white. I wonder if this was the same choice. I mean, I know that there were color movies in the 19th and become prevalent for another mid 50s, is that right?
So maybe it was possible, but not, but I still, it struck me as an artistic choice. Yeah. But I could be wrong. Totally get for time.
I don't know. Movies we don't know. Anything about movies. Yeah.
I think this was, I think it's been a good, good conversation. Who chose this film? Is Alex with you? That was me.
This is, I love Anthony Manswesters. I think they're really good. Okay. I think there's a lot to be gotten from.
Yeah, I didn't pick up on any of this. Oh. I mean, I just kind of secretly watched it and thought Alex is having a joke at our expense. Yeah.
I didn't really know what to make of it, but. No, I think it's, I think it's a pretty much, I got to say, a lot of this didn't occur to me the last time I'd seen it and just working through it a little bit more and trying to be attention to details in a more systematic way. It does seem, I think Greg seven, six thing is really interesting because you are. There's also that.
He's 76. Yeah. He could have said it. He could have said it in 1873 with the gun.
Yeah. It's almost like they're underscoring that the year is not the year of the model. Right. And also for the concrete events.
Yeah. Yeah. And when Dutch loses all of his money in the poker, he has almost a dead man's hand. He has aces and aits full house, which is one card off the dead man's hand.
So I'm not really sure what to do with that either, but I don't remember what. Man's hand. Is it? Yeah.
Okay. Chuck. Not Buffalo Bill. I think he was holding aces and aits when he got shot in the back playing poker.
Is it all right? You guys know that? Okay. And you guys didn't watch what I'm doing.
I need a ton of questions. I know these little things are about studying as you are. Yeah. Well, Bill, he got not Buffalo Bill.
He's well, Bill, he got was apparently shot to death when he had aces and aits. But it was too pair. And so this guy had so I was just curious because it's like not quite a dead man's hand. It's better than dead man's hand, but he ends up dead.
And so I was trying to wonder is he somehow dead or is he already dead? Or you think you overcome the dead man's hand, but he still sort of lose. Yeah. Yeah.
And I didn't rewind it because I was watching my wife, but he loses. I mean, full house like you always got the house in your full house. Because his opponent, the Indian trader had four of a kind. And I couldn't remember if I thought I heard four sixes, but I'll have to go back and check.
So I would read the sixes again, what sort of we come up? So. Yeah. It's I suggest I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to talk about this.
But I suggest there's a lot of other really good here. Let's hear it. There's one called the tin star, which is similar. Oh, another move.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Another movie. Sorry.
Who wants to go? There's the far country. It's a really good one. And some of these are a bit more hard boiled, but you see, right?
Stuart dealing with love of his brother and also with trying to get vengeance for his dad, and as well as being forward looking versus backward looking. So there's a few psychological term. There's one detail I could not make heads or tails of. And maybe it's just a sort of joke or Western sort of custom, but why does his brother, when they're in Dodge originally and the Jimmy Stewart walks into a bar, it sees his brother.
They both reach for their gods, but they don't have them because they have to give him up in Dodge City. So they're sitting there and. The milk. The milk.
Yeah. That's Henry. Yes. He is wants to send a cup of goat's milk.
He says, well, we got cow's milk. It's good enough for the cat. So he sends that over to him. Do you have any sense of why that might be?
I thought it was just to say that he saw it. But that's not like a child's drink. He's not soft. Maybe.
I mean, this is I noticed it too. And I asked my wife and I talked about her a few minutes trying to make sense of it. But I mean, a child children's re-book, not whiskey. I don't know.
That's all I got. Then it was a common-drilled goat's milk. I have no idea. Yeah.
That's a good one. Good. So I got a good butter. Okay.
You have a goat's milk? Yeah. What does it taste like? Is it good?
It tastes like cheese, but it's like not as strong. It tastes like the goat's cheese. It's got the same. It's good as butter.
It's good as cheese. It's not good as butter. It's good as butter. Yeah.
I'm going to say I got a goat's milk. It's very good. I'm going to get a cheese barn. Grandpa's cheese barn.
That is. Here. Do you have a goat's cheese? They do have goat's cheese.
I have some goat actually, my fridge right now from Grandpa's cheese barn. Out on 250. Exit 186. On five or one.
You have from under cheese? I don't know what that is. What's from under cheese? That's from under my balls.
You didn't see that coming, Greg? You're hurt. He's an idiot. Yeah.
That's a pretty good note to him. I am appalled that you would listen. Listen, we have the folks at home. Alex is a family show.
Can I have another detail about the gun issue? Remember after Jimmy Stewart leaves Lola after the Indian attack that he sort of navigates? She keeps a bullet from him and chairs his and then. I thought that's because the Indians were into rape line and some.
Yeah, it's the killing herself. So she doesn't get it. I think it's just the other self-excalibur. Yeah, whatever it might be.
She then, when Waco Johnny Dean brings her to their hideout, where he meets up with Dutch Underground, she sees a picture of, which is interesting, right? His brother has a picture of his brother, Jimmy Stewart and their dad up, right? Like he cares for them in their hideaway in all places. And she sees the picture and then she kind of brings out the bullet and holds onto it.
Sort of cherishing it, right? So there's. Oh, right. Suicide.
Yeah, so I wonder if it's the bullet. I don't think she's thinking of suicide there, but I think she's thinking of, you know, the protection that he offered her and about the fact that she's not safe anymore. She's just been dragged away from this guy, this cowardly guy. And she's dragged in now among these criminals.