Month: April 2011

Behold the mighty pith helmet: Handcrafted, genuine cork, dyed with tea to match your khakis. Yes, the pith helmet; sometimes called the “Home Service Helmet,” it is still worn by the British army on several ceremonial occasions; a truly magnificent accessory to any ensemble, a singularly bold, if not grandiose, fashion statement, and oh yeah, Michael Caine also wore one as Lieutenant Bromhead in the number 63 on our list, the majestic English war film Zulu.

This incidentally was Michael Caine’s first film role. Stanley Baker co-stars as Lt. John Chard, a Royal Engineer who, by a quirk of fate, outranks everyone in the regiment including Lt. Bromhead. Even though Chard and Bromhead are both Lieutenants, Chard is given the command because he is older than Bromhead by three months. Also he was taller. Royal engineers incidentally were real soldiers, but also actual engineers. They are responsible for building London’s famous Albert Hall, Rideau Canal, The Western Heights of Dover, and the new Arby’s on the corner of Seventeenth. They were also commissioned not once, but twice throughout history to draw up the border between Canada and The United States. Apparently at some point Canada “forgot” that they were a different country and had to be reminded. At this juncture, Lt. Chard and his men have come to the tiny fort at O’rourkes Drift to repair the pontoon boats that the British forces used to cross the buffalo river, which is the border between the British Colony of Natal and the mighty Kingdom of the Zulus.

This former missionary station is the site of the now-famous battle where a small group of British soldiers held off approximately 4 thousand Zulu warriors. Originally staffed at about 400 soldiers, the garrison dwindled to just over 150 after several battalions bravely turned their tales and fled. Of the 150 who were left, at least 40 were patients in the local hospital. Amazingly many of the soldiers had to fight without the benefit of having their head covered by 7 centimeters of tea-dyed cork. One of these unfortunate soldiers was Private Henry Hook, in the film portrayed by James Booth. He is portrayed as a drunkard and a rebel rouser, but in real life, he was a teetotaler who enjoyed playing canasta and taking long walks on the beach. His daughters were so incensed at his rough-hewn portrayal in the film that when it was shown to them in 1964 they walked out of the screening.

The perimeter defenses of the small station were hastily built out of surplus food bags as the British soldiers hunkered down to wait for the impending onslaught of the Zulus. Luckily, although they numbered in the thousands, the Zulus were averse to carrying firearms, believing them to be the weapons of cowards. I won’t tell you exactly how it all plays out, but suffice it to say, that no fewer than eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded to members of the British military that day. Including Lieutenants Bromhead and Chard, as well as to Private Hook.

The film Zulu is actually quite well known in certain circles. For instance the “Germanic” war chant at the beginning of the movie Gladiator is actually a song sung by the Zulu army in Zulu and no less than Peter Jackson claimed that it was the main inspiration for his filming of the Helm’s Deep sequence in The Two Towers. The original film was written and directed by Cy Endfield a blacklisted American working in the U.K. Endfield also wrote a prequel called Zulu Dawn which starred Peter O’toole and featured a thrilling Boonta Eve pod race sequence. Zulu itself had actually lapsed into the public domain at one point; making it widely available on DVD so to this day you can probably find it in the 5-dollar bins at Wal-mart underneath the copies of Apocageddeon and Gigli. Happy hunting.

Next up … 62!

Allow me if you will to take a plot, shine a laser at it and see if, like a cat, you can follow it: Once upon time there was a young man who was unjustly imprisoned. Then one day, an old man finds him and mentors him, all the while telling him of a secret treasure hidden on a forgotten island. The young man executes a daring escape, finds the treasure and takes revenge on his unjust imprisoners. Did you follow it? Or are you one of those cats that prefer shoelaces?

Make no mistake; the following was not a random exercise in plot-following. It was intense scientific test performed with an actual plot taken from number 64 on our countdown: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. This is the condensed version of course. The actual plot from the actual novel is so serpentine and convoluted that it would be difficult to get too far into it without having to leave breadcrumbs. The labyrinthine nature of the plot is due to three important factors. Number one: The book was written for humans not cats. It seems that the bigger brain on a human allows for more characters to be processed at one time. Number two: the novel was first published in serial form. Meaning readers only got a little bit of it at a time and Dumas took a long time telling it. Therefore, by the end, if you hadn’t been following from the beginning, it was difficult to catch up. Factor number three is this: Alexander Dumas did not actually write the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo.

No, a guy by the name of Auguste Maquet wrote it. This is not a joke. Alexander Dumas always got the credit, but his collaborator, a professor at the local university, wrote the basic plots of most of his novels. Not only that but he was a bit of a wunderkind professor, having achieved professorship by the time he was 18. The two first met when Dumas rewrote Maquet’s play called Bathilde. Making it into an instant hit. This thrilled Maquet, and they entered into a partnership whereby Maquet stayed out of the limelight. The legend goes that Maquet was responsible for plot and characters and Dumas was responsible for the dialogue and for stretching the stories into opulent sprawling  epics published by literary magazines in 18 separate parts.

It is difficult to tell whether it was Dumas or Maquet’s responsibility to choose the milieu, but one of the coolest aspects of the story involves the formidable island prison known as Chateau D’if. This is where the main character Edmond Dantes and his mentor are held captive. It is an actual island located off the coast of Marseille in France. Originally started as a fortress, it later became a prison. The fortress itself was such an intimidating piece of rock that no army ever even bothered to test its defenses. When later it was turned into a prison, it made a very good one. For not only was it solid stone, but also sat on an island surrounded by an insurmountable windswept sea. Much like Alcatraz without the fog. Furthermore, although the plot of the novel involves a prison break, no prisoner is known to have ever escaped. Well, besides Sirius Black of course.

Next up … 63!