An Opportunity for Hope: The Old West

It’s no secret that I love the Old West. If you visit my house, a silhouette of cowboys riding above the world “welcome” will greet you. My living room boasts many framed photos of movie cowboys, plus a metal sign that instructs cowboys to leave their guns at the bar. (This probably explains why I find Nerf guns on my kitchen island from time to time.) The main floor bathroom has a decorative border around the walls that’s all cowboys herding cows across streams, endlessly. 

Even if you never visit my home, you just have to drop by my author webpage or even Google my name, and you’ll soon see I’m so dedicated to loving the Old West, I write books set there. I read books and watch movies set there. I write a monthly history column about the real Old West for the Prairie Times. Some days, it seems like I eat, sleep, dream, and breathe cowboys. Which is just how I like it. 

Why do I like that? What draws me to those twentyish years of American history when, from roughly 1865 to 1885, cowboys prodded cattle from ranch to rail yard with regularity? When lawmen and bad men were sometimes the same men at different times in their life? When all a pioneer needed to make a new, better home for themselves was determination, hope, patience, time, and an awful lot of hard work? 

It started with my dad showing me a lot of cowboy movies and shows when I was growing up. I inhaled a steady diet of Five Mile Creek, The Rifleman, Bonanza and Big Valley, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, James Garner and Steve McQueen. And, eventually, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, which my mom also enjoyed. Those were the mainstays of my childhood and adolescence. I could always count on a cowboy show to cheer me up or keep me interested or just plain pass my time pleasantly. 

Somewhere along the line, I started reading books about the history of the west, too. Biographies, mostly, of people like Wild Bill Hickock and Bat Masterson and any others our small-town public library might hold. I moved on to the giant Time-Life books with titles like The Gunfighters and The Townsmen, which I now have collected every volume of. I took horse-riding lessons; I daydreamed about cowboys; I felt thrilled to the ends of my twin braids the day I got to stand inside a real Pony Express station. Standing where the everyday heroes I’d read so much about had also stood was almost too good for me to think about for more than a few seconds at a time. 

What draws me to that era is not the hats or the horses or the six-shooters or the stagecoaches. It’s the people. It’s the idea that people no different from myself decided, Hey, we can have a better life if we move out west. We can have our own land, or more land, or better land. We can find a better job, or any job at all. We can find gold. We can find peace and quiet. The West became our nation’s metaphor for opportunity and for hope. The story of the Old West is the story we all want for ourselves, one with struggles and hardships, but one that ultimately results in a better life, a better self, a better world. 

That’s why I love to learn about the Old West, and it’s why I write westerns. I write each one to contribute one more story of hope and opportunity to our national pantheon. Because goodness knows we need all the opportunities for hope we can get.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on June 6, 2020.)

Composed of Contradictions: Ben Wade in "3:10 to Yuma" (1957)

Patient. Conniving. Gentlemanly. Calculating. Charming. Deceitful. Truthful. Selfish. Efficient. Ruthless. Gentle. Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) in the original 1957 version of 3:10 to Yuma is all of those, and more. 

Ben Wade is such an enigmatic character. He has so many facets and layers. Other villains might have three or four of the attributes I listed for him, and we’d think of them as perfectly acceptable villains. But every time I watch this film, I see new things I hadn’t noticed. I hear a line of dialog in a new light. 

The whole film is breathtakingly taut. Ben Wade is the ratchet at its center, turning up the tension a little more every minute he’s on screen. All the while, he lets us get a peek at some small corner of his complicated character to keep us fascinated, keep us sympathetic. It’s a spectacular performance by Glenn Ford, but quiet and understated, never showy or attention-seeking. That’s why Ben Wade one of the very few villains I’m willing to connect with the word “favorite.” 

Ben Wade is a businessman. He’s efficient, careful, controlled. He’d be an excellent banker or CEO of a corporation. But the business he’s chosen is robbery. When we first see him, he’s led his gang of outlaws to a stagecoach carrying gold. Wade hangs back, letting his men follow his orders and his plan. The only time he gets involved is when one of his own men makes a mistake. He gets too close to the stagecoach driver, who grabs his gun and holds the outlaw hostage, saying if they don’t stop the robbery and let the stage and its gold go, he’ll shoot this outlaw. 

Ben Wade saves him the trouble. He shoots his own gang member, and then the driver. Wade isn’t angry or upset about this; he’s crisp and careful. Ruthless, yes, but impersonally so. Before and after this shooting, he is courteous to the stage’s passengers and to the farmer and two boys who witnessed the robbery and shooting. He doesn’t kill witnesses to hide his lawless dealings; he doesn’t threaten them, he lets them go as long as they don’t interfere with his plans. 

By the time his first scene is over, the audience thinks they have a clear sense of who and what Ben Wade is: cold, calculating, deadly. Then, he turns all that on its head. The next ten minutes he’s on screen, he’s flirty, romantic, and charming. He and his men celebrate their successful robbery with a drink or two at a middle-of-nowhere saloon. Sparks fly between him and Emmy, the woman tending bar. In fact, they find each other so mutually entrancing that Wade stays behind when his gang scatters to avoid a posse. His scenes with Emmy are sweet, soft, and gentle. This outlaw is a lot more complicated than we expect. 

Ben Wade spends the bulk of the film in handcuffs, waiting to get shipped off on the train to the penitentiary in Yuma, Arizona. He also spends it manipulating everyone he comes into contact with, poking and prodding at them with his words to see if he can find the right opening that will set him free. That same farmer who witnessed the robbery, Dan Evans (Van Heflin), ends up outwitting and helping to capture Wade. They match wits, Wade trying to see if his cunning will outweigh Evans’s conviction that Wade needs to pay for his crimes. They’re both desperate men. Wade to get free, and Evans to earn the reward money promised him for delivering Wade to the train. Evans’s ranch is failing. He needs to stay alive and get that money if he’s going to provide for his wife and sons. 

Wade does everything in his power to convince Evans he’ll die a failure if he tries to get Wade to the train. Wade’s gang has rallied around their leader. He’s sure they’ll gun Evans down and free him as soon as they can. He’d rather bribe Evans to let him go. That’s easier. More civilized. A win-win for them both. Trouble is, Evans can’t be bought. He’s too stubborn and too honorable. That causes Wade to acquire something unexpected: respect for Evans. Sure, Wade is more cunning, more clever, and more successful than Evans. But he can’t sway this upright farmer. And, despite himself, he even envies Evans his convictions, his wife and family, his honor. 

Early in the film, when Wade is first in custody, he tells Evans’s wife, “I hope I can send him back to you all right.” He’s half sincere when he says it, and half pushing buttons to see what it’ll do to Evans. But by the time that train leaves the station at 3:10, he’s made good on that promise, despite himself. Wade and Evans, opposites, enemies, and opponents, have discovered they can respect and trust each other against both their better judgements. The only reason that’s believable for the audience is that Ben Wade has shown us, slowly and gradually just what a jumble of contradictions he really is. 

Aren’t we all?

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on October 29, 2021.)

(If you want to read my full review of 3:10 to Yuma, you will find it right here.)

Repeating the Past: "Dead Again" (1991)

Film noir movies love to explore the question of just how much hold the past has over us. Can a person ever outrun their past? Can they atone for past actions? Are we doomed to repeat our mistakes, or even the mistakes of others? Or can a person make new choices, a new life? Can someone put the past to rest, leaving them free to begin anew? 

Most noir stories lean toward the fatalistic, pessimistic side of these questions. From Out of the Past (1947) to Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) to L.A. Confidential (1997), often a person’s past will catch up with them and mess up whatever they’re trying to do with their lives now, for good or evil. The 1991 film Dead Again plays with those same questions. A neo-noir with two mysteries and two romances, it boasts the best use of scissors as a weapon since Dial ‘M’ for Murder. And it explores the idea of two people trying to figure out if they’re doomed to repeat the past, or if they’re free to create new lives for themselves. 

Although I don’t believe in reincarnation myself, I find it a fun concept to explore in fiction. Dead Again begins when an amnesiac (Emma Thompson) appears at the gate of a charitable home for kids. The nuns who run the home take her in for a day or two, but she has terrifying nightmares, refuses to eat, and can’t talk. The nuns realize they can’t care for her and try to find someone who can. 

They turn to Mike Church (Kenneth Branagh), a private investigator who specializes in tracking down missing persons. They hope he can reverse his usual methods and find out where this missing woman belongs. She has nowhere to go, so he lets her stay at his apartment while he runs an ad with her picture in the paper and tries to find clues to who she might be. 

The first night she stays at his place, she has her terrifying nightmare again — a man leering over her and exclaiming, “These are for you!” while preparing to stab her with a pair of scissors. The man in her dream looks like Mike Church, only with a goatee. A hypnotist (Derek Jacobi) tries to help this unknown woman by putting her in contact with her memories so she can figure out who she is. Only instead of accessing memories of her forgotten past, she remembers a husband and wife named Roman and Margaret Strauss (also Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson) whose 1940s love story ended in bloody tragedy. 

The woman becomes convinced she’s remembering things that happened, that she used to be Margaret Strauss back in the 1940s. They find pictures of the Strausses, and sure enough, she looks like Margaret, and Mike looks like Roman. From newspaper clippings, they learn that a jury convicted and executed Roman for killing his wife with a pair of scissors. Mike is initially skeptical, but an ex-psychiatrist (Robin Williams) convinces him to take the idea seriously. So he tries to track down a newspaper reporter (Andy Garcia) who did a lot of articles on the mystery fifty years earlier, hoping to find a reason why the woman he’s falling in love with thinks he murdered her in a past life and might do it again. 

When I say I have never seen another film like Dead Again, I am not being hyperbolic. And not just because married-at-the-time co-stars Branagh and Thompson play multiple roles. Or because they’re British actors doing such good non-British accents I forget they’re not Americans (or random Europeans). I’ve just never seen a noir film that used such a literal theme of the-past-will-haunt you. And I’ve never seen one focused on that theme that ended quite this way either. 

I don’t want to ruin the ending, so I’ll just say it wraps up in a way that's much more optimistic than I expected. Even if Mike Church and the amnesiac woman he loves can’t outrun the past, they can put it to rest once and for all.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on November 25, 2017.)

Nonsensical Geometry: The Two Love Triangles of "Jane Eyre"

The central romance in Jane Eyre resolves happily. (Do I need to mark that as a spoiler? Surely not! Surely, if you haven’t read Charlotte Bronte’s triumph of a novel by this time, you’ve at least watched a movie version?) Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre overcome every obstacle, including those within themselves, to meet as equals at last in the eyes of all, marry, produce offspring, and live happily ever after. Good for them. 

Good for them, but bad for two other characters within the novel. Because Jane Eyre contains not one but two love triangles. And the trouble with love triangles is that, inevitably, someone will lose. Someone will have their heart broken. Unless it becomes a weird love quadrangle where the thrown-off would-be lovers end up together, which I suppose could end happily for all involved… but that’s not what happens in Jane Eyre. 

Two women lay claim to Edward Fairfax Rochester. One, as we all know, is Jane herself. Young, poor, fiercely intelligent, insistently independent, and resolutely conscientious Jane. She’s my favorite fictional heroine, and I haven’t adjectives and adverbs enough to describe how wonderful she is. Mr. Rochester agrees with me. He wants absolutely nothing more than to grapple Jane to himself with hoops of steel so they can never be parted. 

But someone stands between them. Someone with an earlier claim to his name, his person, his love. Bertha Mason Rochester, his wife. Though she’s now joked about as the madwoman in the attic in our insensitive postmodern world, Bertha bears the sad honor of being the losing side of the love triangle. Edward Rochester may have loved her once, or been willing to love her. But her family’s deceit and her own behavior drove such tender feelings far from him. He spent his adult life searching for someone to replace the mad wife he hid in Thornfield’s upper floors. Bertha had no such options—no one to replace the husband who shunned her. And when she learns, somehow, that Edward means to marry another, Bertha fights for her marriage the only way she can. She attempts to destroy her husband. But she destroys only herself, freeing Edward at last to marry the woman he now loves. 

As for Jane Eyre, two men also lay claim to her. Edward Rochester nearly wins her, only to lose her when the truth about his past destroys the future happiness he’d almost secured. Jane flees, eventually finding refuge with a trio of siblings who nurse her back to health and help heal her wounded spirit. 

One of these siblings, St. John Rivers, also desires Jane Eyre. Though he does not express a bodily, sensual desire for her, he wishes to marry her. St. John is preparing to embark on a missionary journey. In the time when this book takes place, missionaries did not expect to return home. Ever. Many of them packed their luggage in a coffin so that, when they inevitably died in their mission field, they would have everything they needed for their burial. That being the case, St. John knows he will probably never find another Englishwoman so suited to being his helper. Jane is intelligent, pious, quick to learn languages, and has a steady personality. If he could but convince her to devote herself to being his helpmeet, he could face any heathen horde with equanimity. 

St. John Rivers would probably grow pale and stern if told he’s made himself one point of a love triangle by demanding Jane Eyre marry him. He would insist he harbored no romantic feelings for Jane, and thus could not be part of any such nonsensical geometry. But it’s true, nonetheless. Like Bertha Mason, however, he must exit the story disappointed. Jane rejects his proposal with absolute finality, dashing this second love triangle to pieces. 

We sometimes groan about how often love triangles pop up in modern fiction. Maybe if modern writers could handle them as deftly and unprosaically as Charlotte Bronte, we wouldn’t be so tired of them.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on January 12, 2019.)

Respect Me as a Human Being: Jackie Robinson

I spent a lot of years searching for my personal Civil Rights hero. History classes taught me the big names: Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, President John F. Kennedy. None of them connected with me. None had the mixture of goodness, integrity, and grit that makes someone my hero. 

And then, in my mid-twenties, I got Ken Burns’ documentary Baseball (1994) from the library. As I made my way through the series, I became fascinated by Jackie Robinson and how he used his athletic skills and personal courage to show the world that the color of a person’s skin had nothing to do with their worth and abilities. When I subsequently read Robinson’s autobiography, I Never Had it Made, I knew I’d found my Civil Rights hero at last. A kind, stubborn, dignified Christian, Robinson was everything I wanted in a hero. 

Born to Georgia sharecroppers, Jack Roosevelt Robinson grew up poor, but determined. His father left the family when Jack was still a baby, so his mother moved her five children all the way out to California, where she worked whatever jobs she could find and saved up enough money to buy a house in a nice neighborhood. They were the only non-white family on their street. 

Jack Robinson excelled at sports in high school and Pasadena Junior college, playing on various varsity teams. But he also gained a reputation for combativeness, standing up for other African-American students when he thought they were being unfairly treated due to their race. He nearly got suspended at least once over his resistance to inferior treatment. 

After junior college, Jack Robinson — nicknamed Jackie by newspaper reporters — went to UCLA, where he met his future wife, Rachel Isum. Although he did well athletically at UCLA, Robinson was restless. He quit school just a few months short of graduation. About that time, the US entered WWII, and Robinson applied for Officer Candidate School, graduating with a commission as a second lieutenant. He asked Rachel Isum to marry him, and they made plans for the future. 

But in the summer of 1944, Jack Robinson faced a court martial. The Army did not have segregated buses on the Texas base where he was stationed, but one day, a bus driver told Robinson to move to the back of the bus. Robinson refused and got arrested. His court martial acquitted him, but he missed out on seeing combat duty because the rest of his unit shipped overseas while he was awaiting his trial. Later that year, the Army gave him an honorable discharge. 

In 1945, the Kansas City Monarchs signed Jackie Robinson to play baseball in the Negro League. Baseball was entirely segregated — Major League Baseball had been white-only since the 1880s, though there were no formal, legal rules prohibiting athletes of other races from playing. Rather, there was a “gentleman’s agreement” among the team owners and managers that prohibited hiring non-white players. In the mid-1940s, Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey set out to challenge that agreement. He scouted the Negro League for someone who not only played excellent baseball, but who could withstand the scrutiny and abuse that would crash down on the first black man to step onto major-league baseball diamonds. 

Robinson had a reputation for not only refusing to back down in the face of racial aggression, but asserting his equality. The incidents in the military and his school days pointed to his being someone who would not stand still and endure racial taunts, threats, and aggression. But Robinson promised not to fight back against whatever abuse came his way, and Rickey signed him to play with the Montreal Royals, the minor league team associated with the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

Jackie and Rachel Robinson got married at last. Robinson played in the minors until April 15, 1947, when he made his major league debut by taking the field with the rest of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was 28, old by baseball standards, but played so well he wound up being named Rookie of the Year. 

He endured the hatred of millions. Some of his own teammates didn’t want to play with him at first and threatened to sit out any game he played. People in the stands screamed racial slurs at him. One opposing player deliberately gashed Robinson’s leg with his spiked cleats. Others taunted him while on the field. Strangers sent death threats not just to Robinson, but to Rickey and others associated with the Dodgers. 

The American League also signed a black player, Larry Doby, just a few months after Robinson joined the National League. In 1948, both leagues accepted more black athletes, and the pressure on Robinson eased up somewhat. He played better than ever, and by 1949 he was voted Most Valuable Player in the league. A remarkable achievement, considering three years earlier, many in the league actively worked to keep Robinson and other black players out. 

Robinson retired from baseball in 1956, due to his age and ill health. He suffered from diabetes, and a life of constant athletic activity was catching up with him. After leaving baseball, he had a successful business and banking career. He was a devoted husband and father, and a regular churchgoer. And he was active in the emerging Civil Rights Movement, attending marches, giving speeches, and lending moral support to those engaged in sit-ins and freedom rides. He used his fame to gain attention for the movement and worked with leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and being active in the NAACP. 

Jack Robinson once said, “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me … all I ask is that you respect me as a human being.” I think that’s all any of us can ask from people around us — respect as a human being. Let my actions, my personality, or my words gain your like or dislike, but treat me with the respect you would give any other person because they are created in the image of God.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on February 15, 2018.)

Were They the Best Years of Our Lives?

I picked up The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) off the shelf at the library a dozen or more years ago because I saw it had Myrna Loy in it, and I really like her. I love movies involving WWII, soldiers, and the 1940s, so I figured I’d give it a try. 

At that time, I mostly knew Loy from the Thin Man movies she made with William Powell, which are hilarious and snarky and fun. So I think I kind of expected that this movie would also be a lighthearted way to pass an evening on my night off from work that week. I didn’t expect it to surprise and awe me. I didn’t expect it to be a serious and soul-searching. I didn’t expect it to wow me. 

But, boy, am I glad it wasn’t what I expected. 

The Best Years of Our Lives follows three American servicemen as they return to their hometown after World War Two. Made in 1946, when some GIs were still returning from “over there,” it is an unflinching look at the frustrations, hardships, joys, and fears involved in reuniting fighters with families. 

Former Army sergeant Al Stephenson (Frederic March) comes home to his wife Milly (Myrna Loy) and kids Peggy (Theresa Wright) and Rob (Michael Hall). They welcome him eagerly, if a little awkwardly. It will take some time for them all to readjust to each other, they know. Al gets his old job at a bank back, but he doesn’t feel like he fits in either there or at home anymore. Everyone wants life to go back to being just as it was before, but he’s changed too much to feel that’s possible. He seeks solace in alcohol. Milly sees this and is worried, but stalwartly supports him however she can, helping him to work through his worries and doubts subtly and kindly. 

Former Air Force captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) comes home to his parents who live on the poor side of town and idolize him, and to Marie (Virginia Mayo), the wife he acquired during a quickie wartime marriage. She wants him to be the same heroic, charming, fun guy she married two years earlier, but he’s changed. They don’t call it this, but Fred suffers from PTSD. He has horrible nightmares and withdraws from his wife and others around him. Unable to get his old job back, he becomes a lowly salesman at a drug store. Marie constantly berates and demeans him for getting such a lame job, for being boring, for not throwing money and attention at her constantly. 

Former Navy sailor Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) has it the hardest. He returns home to a loving family and his devoted fiancée Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell), the literal girl-next-door… but he returns home without his hands. Fiercely independent, and yet physically dependent on others for so many things, Homer chafes at the love, the pity, the kindness, and the stares that meet him everywhere. He doesn’t want Wilma to marry him because he thinks she deserves better. He even considers taking his own life so he won’t be a bother to those around him anymore. 

Played by real-life double amputee Harold Russell, who lost his hands in an accidental explosion during WWII, Homer Parrish is nothing short of inspiring. He has two artificial limbs with hooks on them that enable him to eat, drink, write, smoke, play the piano… but not stroke Wilma’s hair. Not button buttons. Not tie shoes. Not do a hundred everyday things that Homer thinks are important. 

As their lives and the lives of their loved ones weave together in a myriad tiny ways, Al, Fred, and Homer come to rely on each other for support, understanding, and encouragement. All three of them understand what it was like in the war, what it’s like to come home, what it’s like to want to fit in, but fail. Together, they work to raise each other above their problems and see that maybe the years they spent apart from their families weren’t the best years, but that maybe the years to come will be the best years, if they can only allow themselves to live them.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on September 7, 2019.)

Obsession or Love: "Laura" (1944)

What’s the difference between love and obsession? How can you tell if you’re in the throes of one versus the other? Can obsession become love? Can love become obsession? 

These questions are at the heart of the 1944 noir film Laura. While it explores all of them fairly thoroughly, it does not provide any definitive answers. Instead, it seems to present obsession and love as two sides of the same coin, never far apart. 

The New York Police Department tasks Detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) with investigating the murder of a high-society working girl, advertising whiz Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney). Like any good detective, he collects clues, interviews those who knew the deceased, and follows up on any hunches he might have. 

Everyone he interviews professes to have loved Laura. They are all confused how anyone could have wanted her dead, much less murdered her. Yet, the body found on the floor of her apartment, clad in a negligee and shot at close range in the face, proves at least one person in New York City did not love Laura Hunt. Perhaps they were obsessed with her, and their obsession took a deadly turn. 

As he investigates her murder, McPherson becomes more than a little obsessed with the dead woman himself. Everyone who knew her tells him how elegant and sophisticated, yet sweet and kind Laura was. She was intelligent and had exquisite taste, helped her out-of-work boyfriend find a job at her advertising firm, was always polite and friendly to her maid, and dazzled the entire world. How could anyone help himself from falling in love with her, even in her permanent absence? 

It seems no one can resist Laura’s charm, even after she’s dead, not even McPherson, a working-class snob who calls women ‘dames’ and looks down his nose at his wealthy suspects because they live in expensive apartments surrounded by beautiful things. The only person he interviews that he appears to respect is her maid Bessie (Dorothy Adams), a working-class woman who practically worshiped her employer. Bessie and McPherson get off to a rocky start, but once he stops casting aspersions on Laura and starts listening to Bessie, they get along fine. 

McPherson may be a reverse elitist, but when it comes to the murdered woman, all his prejudices go out the window. He doesn’t mind that her apartment is expensive, her things beautiful, her furniture and clothing in the best taste. That just makes him more fascinated with her. So fascinated that he spends the night in her apartment, going through her clothes and personal possessions, drinking her alcohol, and staring at her portrait. He even puts in a bid on her portrait when he learns it will be sold at auction. 

You can’t fall in love with a dead person you’ve never met, but you can become obsessed with them. Maybe even as obsessed as the person who killed her so she could never be someone else’s. McPherson almost gets so lost in his own yearning for this woman he’s never known that he stops investigating her murder… but only almost. In the end, he finds the killer, and even gets a chance at actual love, the kind that could replace his unhealthy obsession with Laura.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on October 29, 2019.)

He Didn't Expect to Change the World: Martin Luther

Five hundred years ago, a monk and professor at the University of Wittenberg, Germany, wanted to discuss some theological questions with other learned Christians. So he wrote them all down and, since the internet was a few centuries from being invented yet, he posted them to the door of the church instead of to his blog or Facebook wall. He wasn’t trying to cause trouble, he wasn’t trying to start a new church body, and he definitely wasn’t trying to change the world. He just had questions about some church practices that troubled him, like charging money to get souls out of purgatory. 

His name, of course, was Martin Luther. And, whether he meant to or not, he most certainly caused trouble, started a new church body, and eventually changed the world. But what he’d meant to do is reflected in the name we now have for the movement he started: the Protestant Reformation. He was protesting that some of the church’s activities went against what was taught in the Bible, and he wanted to reform the church, to fix things that had gone wrong. Not overthrow it, not replace it, just reform it. 

The trouble was, he attacked the selling of indulgences. Indulgences were like “get out of jail free” cards for purgatory, which the church taught was a sort of limbo world between earth and heaven. They said that if you believed in Jesus as your Savior, but you’d committed more sins than the good works you’d done would atone for, you had to hang out in purgatory for a while until, as the Ghost in Shakespeare’s Hamlet put it, your foul crimes were “burnt and purged away” in “sulfurous and tormenting flames” (I,5). 

If you or someone you loved was probably going to have to stay in purgatory for a while, the church said you could lessen their sentence, or even forgo it entirely, by buying an indulgence. That was a piece of paper that entitled you to some of the extra good works done by various saints who had done so many good things in their lives that not only would they go straight to heaven, but they had leftover goodness you could get credited to yourself or a loved one. Why worry that your mother or father or child who died recently was languishing in torment when you could pay the church to get them released? Or, as a popular rhyme about indulgences went, “As soon as the coin clinks in the chest, the soul flies up to heavenly rest.” 

Selling these indulgences was a really big moneymaker for the church at that time, which made church officials happy. Why? Because they were building a gigantic cathedral in Rome called St. Peter’s Basilica. This was an expensive and lengthy project, and selling indulgences was a super-successful fundraising idea. So when some upstart monk had the audacity to question whether or not selling indulgences was a scriptural practice, the church authorities couldn’t ignore him. 

But wait — what was one unknown professor at some German university going to do against the power of the church, which had the support of the entire Holy Roman Empire? What did it matter if he posted ninety-five discussion questions on the door of some church? How many people were going to attend his little theological debate, anyway? The internet didn’t exist, TV didn’t exist, radio didn’t even exist — nobody except some musty old professors were going to care about this, right? 

A century earlier, that would have been true. But, by 1517, the world had Gutenberg’s printing press, which allowed pamphlets and books to be printed cheaply and quickly. Ideas spread swiftly and accurately now, not passed by word of mouth or by people copying out what someone else had written, but by being printed and distributed in massive quantities. And that’s what happened with Luther’s 95 Theses — someone printed them up and started passing them around. People got excited about this debate. Word spread that some professor in Wittenberg was daring to question the church’s practice of selling indulgences. Shocking! Exciting! News-worthy! 

Suddenly, Dr. Martin Luther was the center of all kinds of attention and controversy. Simply by wanting to discuss church practices and whether or not they were based in Scripture, he’d caused trouble, he was on his way to starting a new church body, and the Reformation he began would end up changing the world.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on April 27, 2017.)

The Slumming Angel: Raymond Chandler

In his essay “The Simple Art of Murder,” Raymond Chandler explores detective fiction in general, but especially the hard-boiled kind he perfected. It includes my favorite bit of writing advice: “When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.” By which he meant, if you’re not sure what should happen next, make things worse in the most exciting way you can. Which is exactly how his books and stories work—everything goes from bad to worse to the worst imaginable… and then somehow turns out all right in the end. 

Novelist Ross MacDonald said Raymond Chandler “wrote like a slumming angel.” He set his books in the seedy underbelly of 1930s, ’40s, and '50s Los Angeles and its surrounding cities, showing the grime and moral decay that Hollywood glossed over with its movies. The California sun beat down on ugliness and beauty alike, and Chandler strove to capture that combination in his writing. 

I was probably sixteen when I read my first Raymond Chandler mystery, The Big Sleep. It entranced me, and the power of his writing impressed me so much, I fell in love with hard-boiled detective stories and their cousin, film noir, all on the strength of that one novel. 

I love Raymond Chandler’s books more for how he writes them than what he writes about. Yes, I love mysteries, but find his plots often convoluted. They don’t always resolve the way I’d like them to. He himself admitted that he didn’t know who killed one particular character in The Big Sleep. But the way he writes? I am continually in awe. Here are a few quotations from his books to show you what I mean:

Montmar Vista was a few dozen houses of various sizes and shapes hanging by their teeth and eyebrows to a spur of mountain and looking as if a good sneeze would drop them down among the box lunches on the beach. —Farewell, My Lovely 

There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream. —The Long Goodbye 

The minutes went by on tiptoe, with their fingers to their lips. — The Lady in the Lake 

It was a nice face, a face you get to like. Pretty, but not so pretty that you would have to wear brass knuckles every time you took it out. — Farewell, My Lovely 

I was as empty of life as a scarecrow’s pockets. — The Big Sleep 

 I went out to the kitchen to make coffee—yards of coffee. Rich, strong, bitter, boiling hot, ruthless, depraved. The life-blood of tired men. — The Long Goodbye 

As you’ve probably gathered, Chandler’s books don’t shy away from subjects that might be shocking, or even taboo. Murder, greed, lust, drug use, blackmail, alcoholism, deviant behavior, and theft all make appearances, some regularly. What’s remarkable about his writing is that he can include subjects like these without making his books dirty. 

My sixteen-year-old self didn’t really get some of the things alluded to in The Big Sleep. I figured out that someone was being blackmailed with a photo of them naked, but I missed the other hints about even seedier subjects. This is because Chandler writes about these things obliquely, not glorifying them by dwelling on them. Instead, he glosses over them so they don’t gain importance from his attention. They exist, but he will not dwell on them. 

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out how he strikes that balance. And I think something else he wrote in “The Simple Art of Murder” goes a long way to explain it. When discussing the sort of detectives he wrote, Chandler said, “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” His fictional hero, Philip Marlowe, is such a man. He’s innately honorable, moral, unflinching, and even kind. Though he touches dirt in his cases, he doesn’t become dirty himself. Therefore, neither do his readers. 

I know I’m practically turning this whole article into one long string of quotations, but I want to include one more. Why? Because it so perfectly encapsulates why I love to read detective fiction. When he addressed that question in “The Simple Art of Murder,” he said that it all boils down to the fact that everyone “must escape at times from the deadly rhythm of their private thoughts.” Reading fiction, especially mysteries, is my favorite way to do that. And Raymond Chandler’s books delight me most of all.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on October 20, 2018.)

A Tale of Two Illyas: Character Changes in "The Man from UNCLE" (2015)

Anyone who has seen the ‘60s spy show The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the 2015 film version will tell you that, although the film is faithful to the show, there’s one major difference between the two. 

They both take place in the ‘60s during the Cold War. They both involve a Soviet spy named Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum in the original; Armie Hammer in the film) teaming up with an American spy named Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn first; Henry Cavill now). Both involve wild and somewhat madcap adventures, pretty girls, handsome men, shiny cars, spy gadgets, and a middle-aged British gent named Mr. Waverly (then Leo G. Carroll; now Hugh Grant) who runs the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. 

There are some smaller differences, such as the fact that Solo and Kuryakin are pretty good at spying in the film, but mysteriously inept on the show. Also, they are always working together on the show, but don’t team up until midway through the film, making it a prequel more than a reboot. But while both versions of Napoleon Solo are handsome and charming serial womanizers, the two Illya Kuryakins could not be more different, at least on the surface. 

The original Illya was short, slight, quiet, cool, and enigmatic, with a backstory never divulged beyond his Russian ancestry. It was that mysteriousness, combined with actor McCallum’s boyish cuteness, that gave rise to what’s often termed “Illya mania.” Young teen girls in the mid-1960s idolized Illya Kuryakin the way a more recent crop of girls swooned over One Direction. The writers divulged nothing about Illya’s past beyond a few tantalizing hints, so viewers never learned how he became a calm, mild-mannered spy who killed without flinching and avoided romantic entanglements as avidly as Napoleon Solo sought them. 

Movie Illya is tall, athletic, loud, angry, and emotionally disturbed. He’s given to “episodes” of rage-fueled outbursts. Not long into the film, we learn his whole back story: father fallen out of favor with Soviet officials and sent to the Gulag, mother with a reputation for being “easy,” and Illya distancing himself from both parents by becoming the KGB’s youngest agent ever and rising in the ranks to become their best. Over the course of the film, he gradually falls clumsily in love. 

Movie Illya is lonely; TV Illya would rather be alone. Movie Illya falls in love easily; TV Illya has no time or need for love. Movie Illya is relentless and obsessive; TV Illya is bored by just about everything. Movie Illya can’t dance and doesn’t care for American music; TV Illya is a jazz aficionado. 

The filmmakers changed Illya so deliberately, while keeping Solo so much the same, that I’m convinced they had a specific reason for doing so. I suspect it’s because quiet-and-enigmatic is no longer a fresh and intriguing type of character. When the show aired in the 1960s, Illya was very different from the typical heroes of the time who tended to be tall, dark, handsome, and brash—think of Sean Connery’s James Bond, of John Wayne and Gregory Peck and Henry Fonda. Those were heroes, big and manly and in control. TV Illya was their opposite, which made him new and interesting. 

But, what about now? James Bond today is lonely, quiet, tortured. So is Jason Bourne. From Harry Potter to Edward Cullen to Peeta Mellark, pop culture is glutted with heroes who are shy, slight, and quiet. TV Illya would fit right in, instead of standing out. 

I think the filmmakers wanted Illya Kuryakin to still have an aura of “otherness.” So they made him outwardly the opposite of TV Illya because he would be outwardly the opposite of the plethora of teen heartthrob heroes we have today. They made him emotionally disturbed instead of remote because audiences today would find him more interesting that way. They gave him a sad back story to help us sympathize with him, but cast an actor whose physical height alone would assure viewers he’s more than capable of fending for himself. And by making him obviously a novice when it comes to love and romance, they enhanced his “otherness” for an audience who assumes that everyone has had multiple romances and sexual encounters by their mid-twenties. 

Many TV series fans were put off by changes made to Illya Kuryakin for the movie. I myself find Movie Illya far more alluring than TV Illya because he needs other people while TV Illya doesn’t interest me much because I have no sense of who he is inside. Is this partly because I’m not a teenager? Is it because I saw the movie before I saw the show? Is it because I was already a fan of Armie Hammer before the movie was released? Those things probably play into it. I hope anyone who objected to this film “because Illya is just so different” will take the time to ponder why he’s different, and come to realize that, if the filmmakers didn’t change the other characters, they must have had a good reason for changing him.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on September 21, 2016.)

Forgiveness vs. Vengeance: "Ben-Hur" (1959)

When I was young, Ben-Hur (1959) was one of my top ten favorite movies. As a child, I enjoyed the spectacle of big set pieces like the sea battle and the chariot race, but when I moved into my teens, I began to understand the themes and character arcs more. While it’s slipped down a few notches over the past couple of decades, it’s still one of my absolute favorites, a film I don’t have to be “in the mood” for— I can enjoy it any time. And every time I watch it, I find new nuances, new layers, new depths to the story and the characters. 

Ben-Hur tells the story of a wealthy Jewish man named Judah Ben-Hur, sometimes referred to as “the prince of Hur” because he’s so rich and powerful. Around the year 30 AD, Judah’s childhood best friend, Messala, returns home after years fighting with the Roman army. Now a mighty tribune, he wants Judah to help him quiet the unrest in the area, and help Rome govern Judea peacefully. This would mean informing on any troublemakers Judah might know about. Judah refuses, Messala leaves in a huff, and the next thing you know, he’s framing Judah for attempting to assassinate the Roman governor. 

Judah gets sent to the galleys as a slave without a trial, and his mother and sister are thrown into prison. His wealth is confiscated, his servants tortured for information about his activities, and his entire life is ruined. Or so you’d think. But Judah rises from this defeat to become even more powerful than before, and grinds his former friend Messala into the dust to repay him for what he did to Judah and his family. 

Revenge is obviously a huge theme in Ben-Hur. Messala has revenge on Judah for his refusal to help; and Judah has revenge on Messala for destroying the Hur family. The story could have ended there, Judah triumphant over his enemy, but it goes on to show how focusing on vengeance can hollow a person out, leaving them empty and confused after they have gotten their revenge. With Messala gone, Judah is purposeless, vacant, his soul eaten away by the hatred he’d harbored for so many years. 

Into this void come the words of a young rabbi, someone Judah’s one-time slave Esther has started following. This rabbi, or teacher, is named Jesus, and he teaches that people should forgive those who wrong them, should love their enemies, and should leave vengeance to God. Judah has had his revenge and found it bitter, and the rest of the film deals with the question of whether it’s possible for him to forgive those who did him wrong, even the dead Messala, and to forgive himself for his actions as well. 

The movie is based on a book by General Lew Wallace, who had served under General Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War. Wallace wrote Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in the 1870s, finishing it while he was Governor of New Mexico and submitting it for publication in 1880. He began writing it after having a debate with a friend about Christianity. Wallace realized how little he knew about Christianity or the history of Christ’s life, and began to do research into that time period. It eventually led to his fleshing out a short story he’d previously written about the journey of the Magi. 

By focusing on a fictional character the same age as Christ, from the same area of the country, Wallace was able to impart historical detail to his readers about the world Christ lived in without fictionalizing the Biblical account of His life. I think Wallace’s experiences living in a country trying to knit itself back together after a civil war must have informed his decision to make the story revolve around two former friends who become bitter enemies. The lesson of finding peace through forgiveness would have resonated with the readers of the day, who were struggling with similar issues. In today’s fractured world, its message is equally poignant. 

When I was a kid, I loved Ben-Hur‘s epic excitement. When I got a bit older, I valued its excellent story-telling and character development. But now, it’s the themes of forgiveness versus vengeance that resonate with me. Who knows—in another ten or twenty years, this story might mean even more to me! In the meantime, I think I’ll watch it a few more times.

(This post originally appeared in the March/April 2015 issue of Femnista magazine.)

A Renaissance Cinderella: "Ever After" (1998)

The summer before I left for college, my three friends and I went to see Ever After (1998), the last movie we ever saw together in a theater. After that summer, we were never all four together again. Life took us our separate ways, and I’ve lost all contact with one of those girlhood friends, though I see the other two once in a while. But at the very end of July, 1998, we were still friends, four girls who had yet to fall in love with anyone for real, who enjoyed fairy tales, who wanted to wear Drew Barrymore’s butterfly dress and lose ourselves in a sparkling whirl of imagination. 

It was a rare occurrence, all four of us loving the same movie, but Ever After had characters and themes we could all appreciate. 

I’m married now; I have three children; I’m living my own happily-ever-after. And I still love this movie. However, my reasons for loving it have changed a bit over the years. Initially, I loved getting lost in the triumphant story of how a patient, hard-working, intelligent girl is rewarded with love and honor. It’s what I love about every retelling of the Cinderella story, and I do still like it for those reasons. Now, though, I’m also drawn to Ever After for the creative way it goes about spinning the familiar tale in new ways. 

Having spent many years studying how to effectively tell a story, I am fascinated by the way it still manages to be recognizable as the Cinderella story despite changing the time period, setting, character details, and so on. By setting Ever After solidly in Renaissance France, the filmmakers are able to keep many of the physical trappings of a fairy tale: beautiful dresses, royalty, coaches and horses and country estates. But they can also update the sensibilities of the characters. An educated, intelligent, argumentative, outspoken woman like Danielle (Drew Barrymore) would feel out of place in the more medieval setting that typical fairy tales use. But in the Renaissance, when everything in the known world was changing, when everyone was fascinated with knowledge and learning — such a woman fits quite nicely there. 

And then there’s Prince Henry (Dougray Scott). He’s also intelligent, an emerging intellectual, and initially more interested in discussing abstract concepts of love than in finding a wife. Still charming, but not exactly the easily-enamored type who will fall in love with a stranger the minute she steps into the ballroom in a pretty dress. Which leads to one of the things I like best about Ever After: no love at first sight. 

Call me unromantic, or boring, or overly modern, but I am not a fan of the idea of “love at first sight.” Attraction at first sight? Sure. Lust at first sight? Sure. But love? Nope. Love is deeper than just emotions and pheromones. Those can bring together two people who then fall in real love, absolutely. Which is what happens here. The prince encounters a pretty woman embroiled in a vehement argument. He’s attracted to her, yes. But more than that, he’s interested in her. She’s unusual, spouting philosophy and economics instead of twittering about feelings and fashion. And so he pursues her not because he is already in love with her, but because he wants to understand her, to get to know her. And by doing those two things, he then begins to fall in love with her. 

Danielle is attracted to Prince Henry physically as well, but she likes him more because he takes her seriously than because she appreciates his appearance or rank. She isn’t out to snag a prince, or out to have a good time at a fancy party — she wants to get to know and understand him too. There’s just that one pesky problem of her being a common servant and him being a prince. 

Who better to solve such a problem than the ultimate Renaissance Man, Leonardo da Vinci (Patrick Godfrey). Having such a famous artist, inventor, and intellectual in a fairy tale might seem incongruous at first, but it works beautifully here. In fact, he’s what ties the updated characters and setting together with the traditional story so well. He embodies all the new, marvelous ideas and pursuits of the Renaissance, and can bring art, science, and philosophy very naturally into the story. Without him, such topics might seem like convenient plot devices, not organic parts of the world, but with Leonardo da Vinci on hand, they make complete sense in the story. And with his help, Danielle and Prince Henry can find their happily-ever-after as well. 

I might not have a great desire to wear body glitter and fairy wings anymore, but my desire for a good story well told has not diminished. I know I’ll be enjoying and learning from Ever After for years to come. 

FUN FACTS: This story is set in an “alternate history” of the period. Utopia was published in 1516. Leonardo Da Vinci died in 1519. King Francis’ son Henry (born in 1519) married Catherine de’Medici. Charles, the Spanish monarch, was in his twenties and unmarried. And the queen says “divorce is only something they do in England” a full decade ahead of Henry VIII’s divorce.

(This post originally appeared in the November/December 2015 issue of Femnista magazine.)

Quiet Gallantry: General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

I was in my early teens when they released the movie Gettysburg (1993). My family rented it as soon as it hit the local video store. We settled down for a deeply moving, relatively accurate depiction of the battle at Gettysburg that turned the tide of the American Civil War in favor of the Union. 

The film more than exceeded my family’s the expectations and mine in particular. It introduced me to a historical figure who became a personal hero: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Sympathetically portrayed by Jeff Daniels, he stole my imagination. I eagerly looked him up in my history books later to learn more about him. 

Only, my history books didn’t say much about him. Chamberlain was not a big, famous Civil War personality by the 1990s. My history curriculum had a lot to say about Lee, Grant, Stuart, and Jackson, but not a soft-spoken college professor whose courage and gallantry earned him the devotion of the men he led and the respect of his opponents. It wasn’t until I got to college and could take a semester-long course in Civil War history that I could really learn more about him. 

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was born in Maine in 1828. Drawn to studying languages, possibly because he stuttered as a child, he overcame many personal obstacles to win a position as a professor of languages and rhetoric at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. When war arrived, thirty-four-year-old Chamberlain volunteered, leaving behind his career and his wife and children to fight for a cause he believed in wholeheartedly: ending slavery. 

Although he had no military experience, Chamberlain’s education gained him the rank of lieutenant colonel in the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment. Chamberlain had studied military history as a boy, and now he read every book on tactics and maneuvers he could find. He drilled his men endlessly and, though they resented the work, they learned to appreciate their new leader. Chamberlain tried to live as much like the enlisted men as he could, even though his status as an officer entitled him to better food and sleeping quarters. 

In late June 1863, the 20th Maine marched toward a little Pennsylvania town called Gettysburg where they had finally stopped the invading Confederate army. His superiors tasked Chamberlain with dealing with 120 mutineers from a different Maine unit. Unless they wanted to be shot, he must convince them to behave. Chamberlain talked to the men. He realized their unit had mistreated and misunderstood them. He promised that if they would fight as part of his regiment, the Union would not punish them for their previous mutiny. In the film Gettysburg, Chamberlain makes a quiet yet impassioned speech that reminds the soldiers why they’re all in this fight. That speech made me sit up and take notice of him. 

Chamberlain and his men saw some of the most intense fighting of the entire battle. Ordered to hold a small hill called Little Round Top at all costs, they faced overwhelming Confederate forces and only maintained their position through Chamberlain’s knowledge of military strategy and bold leadership. Wave after wave of Confederate troops crashed against their line, only to be repelled. 

Wounded in the foot, his men running desperately low on ammunition, and facing another Confederate advance, Chamberlain made a bold decision. He ordered his men to fix bayonets and charge downhill, straight at their enemies. His men were exhausted, but the Confederates had been fighting uphill the entire time, and they could not withstand the downward rush of Chamberlain and his men. Hundreds of them surrendered. They won the day. 

That evening, a limping Chamberlain and his remaining forces crept up nearby Big Round Top and captured it from a much larger force. The Union’s control of these two hills turned the tide of the battle, which began the slow end of the Confederate supremacy on the battlefield. 

Chamberlain received a wound in the leg and abdomen the next summer. General Grant gave him a deathbed promotion to brigadier general, the only battlefield promotion Grant gave during the entire war. Chamberlain did not die. After a slow recovery, he returned to active duty, only to be wounded again in the battle of Petersburg, where he turned a rout into a victory. They promoted him to major general for his gallant leadership. Now leading a division of 10,000 men, he joined the final pursuit of General Lee and his ragged army. 

Finally, the Union army trapped Lee in Virginia, near Appomattox. Messengers from General Lee met with General Chamberlain under a flag of truce and asked him to inform General Grant that Lee was ready to surrender. After they signed the terms of surrender, Grant chose Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the soft-spoken college professor from Maine, to accept the Confederate army‘s formal surrender. 

Then Chamberlain made a decision he knew would gain him a lot of criticism from people in the north. A decision that cemented him in my heart as a true hero. When the defeated Confederate soldiers reached the Union troops, Chamberlain gave the order for his men to stand at attention and salute their former enemies. Rather than humiliate his foes or glory in their defeat, he insisted on showing them the respect their courage in battle had earned. This action received harsh criticism from many in the North, but it endeared Chamberlain to people in the South and helped make the surrender a peaceful transition. 

After the war, Chamberlain returned to teaching at Bowdoin College until elected governor of Maine. He served four terms, then returned to private life and served as president of Bowdoin College, dying a beloved hero in 1914.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on May 22, 2019.)

The Many Flavors of Robin Hood

One of the things I like best about Robin Hood is how many flavors he comes in. Sweet Robin Hood. Dark Robin Hood. Zesty Robin Hood. Whatever you’re craving, there’s a Robin Hood for you! 

Say you want your Robin Hood sweet and light, but not too sugary. Go for the 1973 Disney animated version. Robin Hood’s quite the foxy fellow here (literally), always one merry step ahead of Prince John and his cohorts. He’s playful, he’s always donning some disguise or other, and nothing ever goes seriously wrong for him, even when he’s being threatened by a wolf brandishing a burning torch. The milk chocolate of Robin Hoods, the 1973 Robin Hood is perfect for satisfying your Robin Hood craving without leaving you feeling too full. 

But what if you want something a little more filling? Cake, instead of just a chocolate bar, for instance. Check out the 1952 Disney live-action version, The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men. Starring Richard Todd as our lovable rogue, this also has a confectionery feel to it, but with more substance than a cartoon can hold. Very nice for a dessert. 

Right, but say you’re in the mood for a Robin Hood that’s light, but nourishing. Sample 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood. Beneath Errol Flynn’s happy-go-lucky grin lurks a conscience troubled by the way he must turn outlaw to thwart lawbreakers and protect innocent people. This one’s a nice ham and cheese sandwich—good for a quick lunch, but not too heavy. 

If ham and cheese isn’t your thing, you could always go for peanut-butter-and-jelly instead. That’d be Princess of Thieves, a 2001 TV movie that features a teen Keira Knightley as Robin Hood’s headstrong daughter. This one’s got everything you want in a comfort food—adventure, a little sprinkling of romance, and lots of bravery. Like a PB&J, it’s something kids are gonna go nuts over. 

And then, there’s the dark Robin Hood. Like a 90% cacao bar of chocolate—you can only eat a bite or too, and you’re not entirely sure if you’re enjoying it, but you want some more. Yes, I’m talking about the 2010 movie starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. It’s grim and violent, and spends more time on Robin Hood’s back story than on his merry adventures. At the same time, it’s got some really enjoyable aspects too, so it’s good for a gloomy day when you don’t want something chipper anyway. 

I also promised you zesty Robin Hood. For that, look no farther than the BBC’s adaptation that ran from 2006 to 2009. Filled with zingy dialog, handsome men, pretty ladies, and a healthy helping of derring-do, it will keep you thoroughly entertained, but it’s not something you’d share with a little kid. Think a spicy salsa or those pickled peppers I’ve yet to work up the courage to try. 

Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves wants to be zesty, but it comes off a little too earnest, so it’s more ketchup than salsa. It mixes Kevin Costner with Christian Slater into something a little sweet and a little salty, but it’s not specifically suited to any one meal. Also, like ketchup, some people want it all the time, and some people think a little bit goes a long way. 

As for Robin Hood: Men in Tights, honestly, this is the pickle relish of Robin Hood movies. They took something tasty, chopped it up, and turned it into something I really don’t want too much of. It’s funny for a few minutes, but then I’ve had more than enough of it. 

Of course, there are many other Robin Hood flavors. There’s the ’50s TV show starring Richard Greene, the silent Douglas Fairbanks version, Robin and the Seven Hoods (in case you’re craving some Rat Pack gangsters), and the 1976 Robin and Marion (with Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn playing the aging couple). I won’t even delve into all the Ivanhoe adaptations, which also involve dear Robin. And these are just the versions I’ve personally seen! There are dozens more. Like I said, there’s a Robin Hood for every taste—no matter what your mood or preference, you’re sure to find one to satisfy your craving.

(This post originally appeared in the July/August 2015 issue of Femnista magazine.)