a real 'american' classic...

Yes, I thought the Black servant was very period but totally out of place in Peru. The aspect that bothered me the most was the freedom with which Cary Grant pushed Rita Hayworth around, dumping water on her head, as if he had some right to do so. First of all, she was another man's wife (and his former girlfriend), and second, it's treated as if it's normal, and she goes along with it, and is repentant afterward, as if she needed that kind of treatment. I have noticed this a lot in older films, especially from the 30s, and it strikes me how absolutely forbidden it would be in today's films, except for a villain, to push around or slap or push a grapefruit into a lover's face. And his justification--that she didn't understad her husband and wasn't giving him a break. I'm a conservative, but it shows me how our sensibilities have done a 180.

Do you understand the danger the nest of birds (the birds themselves) presented to the planes and their pilots?

Amen, Mike, Amen.

Absolutely - thanks for the clarity, Mike!

*Everything happens to me! Now Im shot by a child! (T.Chaney)

South America is not exactly a jurassic wilderness when it comes to aviation! There are citis in South America much older than any in North America. The Mayans had a weitten language and knowledge if astron omy far in advance of The Nazca Lines were drawn to be seen from above--somehow someone was able to view them because otherwise they had to have knowledge of Euclidian geometry to have created perfect isosceles triangles...and many other things...the spider has the same distances and orientation as Orion.

Alberto Santos-Dumont, referred to by his fellow countrymen of Brazil as the "Father of Aviation," flew a dirigible before the Wright Bros. flew their 1st fixed wing aircraft. And natives of Peru and Chile crossed the Alps, and Andes. Aircraft were used for commerce, travel and in conflicts. It's absurd to thinks that people licing in South America were all too behind to fly or to operate an airplane, so that Anglos had to be imported. Insulting that so many bought this storyline. But this backward thinking is consistent--women must be physically abused by men to learn not to demand too much from a man or a relationship, animals must be destroyed with the sc enic peaks on which they reside if they get in the way of business...and men show their masculinity and strength by their cruelty and abuse, and by their near-constant alcohol consumption and tobaco smoking. At least their abusive lives will be as short as possible.

This link is to a Smithsonian site containing a speech given on aviation history in South America--by the 1920s, they were often more advanced than North America! http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/scitech/impacto/graphic/aviation/postwwii.html

To just assume South America could not possess either mechanics or pilots capable of operating aircraft is more racist than Hawkes making a movie about an English guy (at least the accent) starting a cargo airline in South America and not even training local people to fill positions as mechanics, pilots, or even ground crew? I was surprised as the movie proceeded, that they did not have any locals working for them and being trained to eventually fill these positions. After all, it's the c onact and familiarity that grows on people that eventually becomes an expertise. If your dad let you watch him change the oil ev ery month growing up, you will pick-up the details much easier as an adult, than someone who was not allowed to touch the hood release. In a country where no one supposedly was able to fly or work on aircraft, you'd expect Cary Grant's character to have several local very young people absorbing as much as possible from the crews working there. As a future talent pool...

If anyone operating a business on foreign soil tries to do so by hiring workers solely transported from North America, he'll be broke in no time--people must be paid a higher than usual salary and bonus to leave the comforts of home to work abroad. Yet a business is paid prices based on the local business scene. Eventually, a business needs to pay wages commensurate with its income...or there will be no profit. So it's not just racist nonsense, it's poor business sense.

As a female, lots of these old movies leave me feeling super left-out, as the guys-only club engages in whatever... One movie I watched lately had a college reunion that was entirely male---It was about 1940, and it was a 10 or 20 year reunion. So a class of 1920 or 1930 that supposedly was all-male. By 1970, when I went to college, there were 40 to 50% females everywhere but engineering(?).

So I checked and found there were a couple of all male schools (literally two of them LOL?) until integrated in the 1970s, but women had starting going to college back in the 1800s. I remember from American history courses about the 1700s, most women (and non-land-owning males) were illiterate, except Quakers, who taught their daughters to read using the Bible. The Founding Fathers' wives were rare exceptions who could read and write, and were well-read...and the trend continued...as women were able to read, they wanted more education, and began studying literature, medicine, law, and other fields. So depicting a college class as all-male, in the 1920s or 1930s, was a choice---women could have been included, just as realistically.

The same goes for a gratuitous comment they had Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes supposedly say (in a bio film about him) to his wife during a visit to his new office at the Supreme Court---that he'd have lots of children (they had none, but he'd have lots of law clerks through the years)---and "they'll all be sons!" I felt the sting of that and researched it, because I remember a plaque at my law school about the first woman graduate in 1911. And yes, women were graduating law school as early as 1868 or 9. It was a gratuitous sexist jab that I doubt there is any evidence of Justice Holmes saying. And you can bet there would not be such a comment about race or religion. But women are expected to ignore the jabs and exclusions. A female had graduated from law school by the time Justice Holmes sat on the Court, and a female law clerk had been hired at the Supreme Court by the time they made the movie, had they bothered to check. But just one--it would be years before another, and even today do not represent their numbers anywhere. Is it any wonder so many years passed before a 2d female was hired as a clerk, when the attitude was such that movies threw in jabs that were not even accurate at the time? As the book Backlash pointed out decades ago, it's 3 steps forward, 2 steps back...2 steps forward, 3 steps back, 2 steps forward, and let's pause?

I say this because now members of any groups historically excluded will be feeling the pinch as movies from past eras of 'white hetero males only' are aired to now-sensitive people. When you know your group now is integrated into the population, it's very painful to be reminded that you, and your family were one of those who were left out of the action in a film. It's hard sometimes to just pretend you are one of those guys...rather than one of the women left in the kitchen, or worse, one of those saying "Yassem" as they swept the floor (potentially with an IQ 40 points higher than those leading the action)... It's not that everything must be quotas--it's just that there ought to be some form of recognition that a film is incorrect, or that what it portrays can be painful to watch when you would have had to be cleaning the floors or cooking the meals even if you hate housework or cooking...you'd be excluded from your passion on the basis of anatomy, color, birthplace, religion, gender identity, or sexual preference. Some people get mad to hear this, I don't get why THEY are the ones being so sensitive---it's rare they personally have ever experienced that exclusion...it's usually a white male who was never limited or excluded, or a white female who convinced herself she did not want more than scraps.

I don't have an answer---the films are great reminders of how ridiculous the exclusions/prejudices were. When they gratuitously insult a group---like pretending no women or minorities graduated, or clerked for a Supreme Court Justice, maybe a correction or reminder afterward is in order? Clear the record to tell us that college classes included other races and women? That this portrayal is unique... That South America had aircraft that were not piloted only by Anglos? They had airplanes of their own by the 1920s?