Brad Friedman‘s X-post-factoid Sunday was pretty eye-catching. Ohio Republicans really, really don’t want the majority of state voters to cast ballots in the Aug. 8 special election. Their ultimate goal is to prevent a popular constitutional amendment securing abortion rights from passing in November.
Early voting is ongoing for the upcoming Aug. 8 special election on Issue 1 that asks voters to make it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution by raising the threshold to 60%.
To get to the ballot box, voters need to keep in mind changes made to voter ID laws last year, in a late-night legislative move approved by Gov. Mike DeWine at the beginning of 2023.
Those changes, made through House Bill 458, mean different identification allowed at the polls, and limits to the absentee ballot dates.
While a driver’s license with a different address is still allowed (as long as it’s not expired), voters must be registered with the Ohio Secretary of State at the correct address before voting.
Along with unexpired driver’s licenses, a state of Ohio ID card, interim ID form from the BMV, a US passport or passport card, US military ID card, Ohio National Guard ID or ID from the US Department of Veterans Affairs counts as valid photo identification.
Under the changes, voters can no longer use a Social Security card, birth certificate, insurance card, utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck or other government document, according to the Secretary of State. Even a “registration acknowledgment notice” from the county board of elections is no longer acceptable, according to the new rules.
Heads up, Ohio – new GOP voting barriers: “Even a “registration acknowledgment notice” from the county board of elections is no longer acceptable” GOP legislature cut early voting days, absentee ballot deadlines, window to “cure” a provisional ballot, morehttps://t.co/N6sJYfmfnZ
— Green News Report (@GreenNewsReport) July 30, 2023
No one is fooled by the obvious efforts by the Democracy-Optional Party™ to stifle voting by groups with which they disagree.
As of April 7, those without a driver’s license from Ohio or any other state can obtain a photo ID through the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles free of charge, an ID that can be used at the polls.
The deadline for absentee ballot applications is now Aug. 1 at 8:30 p.m., another change made by the legislature.
“Ballots now must be requested a full week before Election Day – the previous Tuesday by 5 p.m. – as opposed to the previous Saturday by noon (the previous deadline),” according to information sent out by the ACLU’s Ohio chapter.
It’s getting steamy around the Tar Heel State, and not because of the temperature.
At a public Democratic event here on Sunday, my state senator advised North Carolina voters to vote in person, early, and to avoid using absentee voting in coming elections if at all possible. The NCGOP has erected barriers to acceptance similar to Ohio’s that render absentee voting iffy.
Funny, the NCGOP was down with voting by mail so long as it was mainly Republicans using it. You could repeal Obamacare from the comfort of your own home! (2012 mailer above.)
NC’s absentee voters must now include with their mailed ballots a photocopy of their approved photo IDs. Or else include a Photo ID Exception Form. As if everyone who wishes to vote from home has the equipment and computer savvy for doing any of that. And even I can’t locate that Photo ID Exception Form on the state board’s website!
That’s because, thanks to the GOP-controlled NC general assembly’s foot-dragging and refusal to fund their election-suppression mandates, it doesn’t exist yet!
BTW, one can get a free photo ID at your NC county Board of Elections office. Except the software for producing it on the printing equipment the boards have on hand is still unavailable! (See previous paragraph.)
I’m going to bastardize a Ronald Reagan quote to suit MAGA Republicans’ view of popular sovereignty: If they vote Democrat, stop them. If they keep voting, regulate them. And if they stop voting, give the rich another tax cut.
An old joke from the Cold War comes to mind this morning. At the risk of telling it badly, here goes:
American: We have freedom of speech in my country. I’m free to criticize my president as much as I want.
Russian: But is true in Soviet Union! I too am free to criticize your president as much as I want.
Now let’s back up to another Cold War tale I recalled at the very beginning of the Donald Trump administration (1/26/2017). Programmers and scientists across the country were rushing to back up climatic data in fear that the new administration would delete it and other research that conflicted with the administration’s chosen view of reality. They hoped to head off a MAGA Dark Age.
Hedrick Smith in “The Russians” (1984) recounted a visit to Moscow’s Lenin Library. (Memory must serve, as I cannot locate the text online.) Smith, the New York Times’ Moscow Bureau Chief from 1971–74, had gone to one of the world’s great libraries to do some research. He needed a back copy of Time(?) magazine. But viewing such subversive foreign material was restricted. He had to present a permission slip from some office, which he had. While the clerk went back into the restricted stacks to fetch the magazine, Smith began leafing through a copy of Life someone had returned to the counter. When the clerk returned, she became visibly agitated. Smith had permission to read Time, but not Life.
In Trump’s America, soon we may all need permission slips.
And in the fullness of time, as the saying goes, comes an ACLU lawsuit challenging an Arkansas law blocked by a federal judge “that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing ‘harmful’ materials to minors.” Digby referenced the Associated Press report on Sunday:
“The question we had to ask was — do Arkansans still legally have access to reading materials? Luckily, the judicial system has once again defended our highly valued liberties,” Holly Dickson, the executive director of the ACLU in Arkansas, said in a statement.
The lawsuit comes as lawmakers in an increasing number of conservative states are pushing for measures making it easier to ban or restrict access to books. The number of attempts to ban or restrict books across the U.S. last year was the highest in the 20 years the American Library Association has been tracking such efforts.
Laws restricting access to certain materials or making it easier to challenge them have been enacted in several other states, including Iowa, Indiana and Texas.
A member of the SA throws confiscated books into the bonfire during the public burning of “un-German” books on the Opernplatz in Berlin. Photo Public Domain via United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Don’t treat these MAGA clowns as clowns.
UPDATE: Thanks to Rick Perlstein for pointing me to the Hedrick Smith text for this online.
The warning signs were there even before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stepped onto the stageat a luxury hotel near Miami.
Ticket sales for the local Republican Party’s biggest annual fundraiser were down by two-thirds. One group of reliable supporters skipped the event entirely. The ballroom at the JW Marriott Turnberry Resort & Spa was far too big for the 380 people who showed up. Staff hustled to arrange paneled “air walls” around the room to make the space look smaller.
When DeSantis arrived at the gathering in early July, he gave what two people who attended described as a familiar and lackluster speech.
“It kind of came off like a bar mitzvah speech,” said a party member who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from Miami-Dade GOP leaders. “The only time people really applauded was when he was introduced, and when he was done. In between it was clanging plates and people talking to each other.”
That evening offered a snapshot into a conundrum for the DeSantis campaign: While the governor runs on a platform to “make America Florida,” his support in the Sunshine State is showing signs of teetering. The governor’s uphill battle in his own state is a troubling sign at a moment when his campaign is struggling to regain momentum.
If a GOP primary were to be held today, multiple polls show DeSantis would resoundingly lose to former president Donald Trump in the state both men call home.
Oopsie
A March survey of nearly 1,500 voters living in the state by the University of North Florida found Republicans favored DeSantis over Trump by more than 30 points. DeSantis had the support of 59 percent of those questioned, compared with 28 percent for Trump. But more recent polling has consistently shown him trailing behind the former president.
The most recent poll by Florida Atlantic University found that of more than 900 Republican voters questioned, 54 percent would vote for Trump if a primary were held immediately, compared with 37 percent for the governor in a one-on-one matchup.
Political analysts say Florida offers a litmus test for how well DeSantis can appeal to a larger audience beyond early primary states. In attempting to win over conservative voters outside the state, some supporters now fear he may have turned away those who propelled him to success in Florida.
“It’s too early to write him off,” said Republican state Rep. Spencer Roach, who represents the Fort Myers area. “There’s still plenty of time for him to catch fire and get the momentum going.”
But even Roach said DeSantis would find a more receptive audience if he focused his message on the economy rather than “the woke war and covid.”
Several former DeSantis supporters echoed those remarks, with many expressing particular concern over policies like the state’s new abortion law. Surveys show most Floridians support access to the procedure, but DeSantis backed a six-week abortion ban recently passed by the legislature. Republican detractors also point to his ongoing feud with Disney and the amount of time he is spending out of state.
Recall that DeSantis barely won in 2018 and I think most Floridians voted tribally in 2022, an off-year election with a lackluster Democratic candidate. They assumed he was a standard MAGA Republican and they just didn’t look any further. Now they’re really seeing him and he’s just … DeSantis, And that’s not good, not good at all.
Maureen Dowd wrote a typically snotty column excoriating Joe and Jill Biden for failing to acknowledge their granddaughter, Hunter’s child by a woman with whom he’d had a brief affair four years earlier. It gave the right wingers fodder to proclaim that despite Joe’s reputation as a family man, the Biden Crime Family is cruel to little children and other living things. It seemed obvious that there was more to the story than what we knew which was already complicated.
The first family put out this statement:
President Joe Biden has offered his first statement on 4-year-old grandchild Navy Joan Roberts, the daughter of Hunter Biden and Lunden Roberts, an Arkansas woman who filed a paternity suit against the president’s son in May 2019.
“Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward,” President Biden said in a statement provided exclusively to PEOPLE.
Navy, one of the president’s seven grandchildren, has recently been the subject of headlines as Republicans have criticized the president for previously touting his “six grandchildren.”
“This is not a political issue, it’s a family matter,” President Biden’s statement continues. “Jill and I only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy.”
A source familiar with the situation tells PEOPLE that the recently resolved child support dispute between Hunter and Lunden has dictated how the relationship has played out so far.
“You have to remember there were some fairly contentious legal proceedings between Navy’s parents happening until just a few weeks ago. As grandparents, the Bidens are following Hunter’s lead,” the source says, adding, “They are — and have been — giving Hunter and Lunden the space and time to figure things out.”
They were going through some ongoing legal issues there was some politics involved on the part of the mother’s family in Arkansas. (It’s MAGA, of course, so calling it complicated is an understatement.) Nonetheless it was sad to think that this little girl was being used as a pawn in a political game and not being acknowledged by her powerful paternal grandfather. It seemed obvious to me that he and Jill were following the advice of lawyers and trying to give the parties space to work out their issues without turning it into more of a political football than it already was. As much as the right wingers are trying to make Joe Biden into some vengeful mob kingpen it’s simply not believable that they would disavow a four year old girl out of animus toward her mother and her family.
Former president Donald Trump called on congressional Republicans to withhold military support for Ukraine until the Biden administration cooperates with their investigations into the president and his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
The demand, delivered at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, echoed Trump’s conduct at issue during his first impeachment, when Trump withheld aid from Ukraine while pressuring the country’s president to announce an investigation of Biden.
“Congress should refuse to authorize a single additional shipment of our depleted weapons stockpiles … to Ukraine until the FBI, DOJ and IRS hand over every scrap of evidence they have on the Biden Crime Family’s corrupt business dealings,” Trump said at the rally. He added that any Republican lawmakers who didn’t join the effort should face primary challenges, a tactic he used last year to unseat Republicans who voted to impeach him for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
Republicans are investigating Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China and Ukraine during the Obama administration, when his father was vice president. Hunter Biden held a well-paid board position at a Ukrainian energy company. The White House has said Republicans have failed to present evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden.
Congressional Republicans have voiced frustration with the administration’s responses to their demands for records, a common point of tension between lawmakers and administrations of opposing parties. The Oversight Committee has obtained thousands of pages of financial records, in addition to viewing bank activity reports from the Treasury Department and a sensitive internal FBI report.
Hard-liners have been raising pressure on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to escalate the probes to an impeachment inquiry. In a shift, last week McCarthy signaled openness toward starting impeachment proceedings, without specifying the evidentiary basis.
Democratic National Committee spokesman Ammar Moussa responded Saturday: “Just like when he was impeached, Trump is using aid to Ukraine to play politics, which only serves to benefit one person: Vladimir Putin. MAGA Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kevin McCarthy are echoing Trump’s baseless attacks, floating a political impeachment, and wasting taxpayer dollars instead of working with President Biden on actually delivering lower costs, more jobs, and safer communities for the American people.”
In 2019, Trump spoke on the phone with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and responded to his plea for missiles to help the country resist Russia’s invasion by saying, “I would like you to do us a favor though.” Trump went on to ask Zelensky to assist in finding Democratic National Committee emails that were, without substantiation, purported to be in Ukraine. He also asked Zelensky to talk to his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William P. Barr about investigating Hunter Biden.
The phone call led to a whistleblower complaint that prompted an impeachment inquiry. Trump stonewalled the proceedings and was impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate acquitted him in February 2020, with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) joining the Democrats.
Trump has insisted his phone call with Zelensky was “perfect,” a claim he repeated at Saturday’s rally.
He also reprised his pledge, if reelected, to have a special prosecutor to investigate the Biden family. On Wednesday a federal judge delayed a plea deal for Hunter Biden involving two tax misdemeanors.
Shamelessness doesn’t begin to explain it. The man is certifiably nuts.
Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors, a federal judge ruled Saturday.
U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks issued a preliminary injunction against the law, which also would have created a new process to challenge library materials and request that they be relocated to areas not accessible by kids. The measure, signed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier this year, was set to take effect Aug. 1.
A coalition that included the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock had challenged the law, saying fear of prosecution under the measure could prompt libraries and booksellers to no longer carry titles that could be challenged.
The judge also rejected a motion by the defendants, which include prosecuting attorneys for the state, seeking to dismiss the case.
The ACLU of Arkansas, which represents some of the plaintiffs, applauded the court’s ruling, saying that the absence of a preliminary injunction would have jeopardized First Amendment rights.
“The question we had to ask was — do Arkansans still legally have access to reading materials? Luckily, the judicial system has once again defended our highly valued liberties,” Holly Dickson, the executive director of the ACLU in Arkansas, said in a statement.
The lawsuit comes as lawmakers in an increasing number of conservative states are pushing for measures making it easier to ban or restrict access to books. The number of attempts to ban or restrict books across the U.S. last year was the highest in the 20 years the American Library Association has been tracking such efforts.
Laws restricting access to certain materials or making it easier to challenge them have been enacted in several other states, including Iowa, Indiana and Texas.
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said in an email Saturday that his office would be “reviewing the judge’s opinion and will continue to vigorously defend the law.”
The executive director of Central Arkansas Library System, Nate Coulter, said the judge’s 49-page decision recognized the law as censorship, a violation of the Constitution and wrongly maligning librarians.
“As folks in southwest Arkansas say, this order is stout as horseradish!” he said in an email.
“I’m relieved that for now the dark cloud that was hanging over CALS’ librarians has lifted,” he added.
It’s been lifted for the moment but book banning is all the rage among the MAGA set. And it very unpopular even among Republicans:
About half of all Republicans oppose banning books in schools, even as many GOP lawmakers throughout the country have implemented laws restricting materials being taught in the classroom, according to a poll released Friday.
The NPR/Ipsos poll shows 51 percent of Republicans oppose state lawmakers passing laws to ban certain books and remove them from classrooms and libraries, including 31 percent who said they strongly oppose it. More than 45 percent also said they oppose individual school boards banning books.
Democrats and independents were even more opposed to book bans; About 85 percent of Democrats said they oppose bans from school boards and lawmakers, and about two-thirds of independents said the same.
BIDEN: "Trump wasn’t there. He's the first president in the history of the United States of America that didn't show up on Inauguration Day. Classy guy. I was just as happy he didn’t."
In a recently published research letter regarding emerging infectious diseases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that Florida is witnessing an increase in leprosy cases lacking traditional risk factors and recommending that travel to Florida be considered when conducting leprosy contact tracing in any state.
[…]
The number of reported leprosy cases across the country has doubled over the past decade, according to the CDC. Citing data from the National Hansen’s Disease Program, the CDC says there were 159 new cases reported in the U.S. in 2020. Nearly 70% of these new cases were reported in Florida, California, Louisiana, Hawaii, New York and Texas.
Florida stands out in the report for two reasons: Central Florida alone accounted for nearly 20% of the total number of cases reported nationally and several new-case patients in central Florida demonstrated no clear evidence of zoonotic exposure or traditionally known risk factors.
It’s not a first world country. It’s Florida in the latest stage.
Lies and conspiracy theories are related, finds Marcel Danesi, a professor of semiotics and linguistic anthropology at the University of Toronto. In a pattern that “goes back to antiquity,” populist leaders such as former President Donald Trump, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Russia’s Vladimir Putin “use language to develop a cult-like following.” Danesi offers a scientific explanation at Politico.
RSBN interviewer issues a “clarification” on his statement “I agree with you,” that he made after the man he was interviewing said “kill them all” when referring to people on the Left, RINOs and globalists. pic.twitter.com/gQTkqCM0R8
The first step to manipulating the minds of the public, or really the precondition, is that listeners need to be in the right emotional state.
In order to hack into the minds of the public, people need to feel fear or uncertainty.That could be caused by economic instability or pre-existing cultural prejudices, but the emotional basis is fear. The brain is designed to respond to fear in various ways, with its own in-built defense mechanisms which produce chemicals in the response pattern, such as cortisol and adrenaline. These chemical responses, which zip straight past our logical brains to our fight-or-flight reactions, are also activated by forms of language that instill fear, either directly (as in a vocal threat) or, more insidiously, by twisted facts which allay fears through lies and deceptive statements.
Lay observers of this phenomenon simply call it “the lizard brain,” the area triggered by our most primitive instincts.
This pattern becomes more effective the more it is used. According to studies, the more these circuits are activated the more hardwired they become, until it becomes almost impossible to turn them off. What this means is these repetitive uses of dehumanizing metaphors are incredibly powerful to those brains already willing to hear them, because they direct their thoughts, making it easy to focus on certain things and ignore others.
The same is true of conspiracy theories. The neuroscientific research shows that people who believe them develop more rigid neural pathways, meaning they find it difficult to rethink situations once this pattern of thinking is established.
This reminds me of how chronic depression can cause a stubborn “set” in people’s brains.
Big lies, Danesi writes, more readily tap into a “well-trodden neural pathway.” He offers recent dehumanizing metaphors used by Orbán, Putin and white supremacists. And Donald Trump, of course.
One might explain the reason behind the extremist right’s need to control or dismantle public education as an attempt to prevent the development of critical-thinking skills in the young. “Simply put — if we are constantly critical of lies, our brains are more trained to notice them,” Danesi writes. Good for you. Bad for demagogues. It makes you harder to brainwash.
Once the brain has carved out a well-worn path of believing deceit, it is even harder to step out of that path — which is how fanatics are born. Instead, these people will seek out information that confirms their beliefs, avoid anything that is in conflict with them, or even turn the contrasting information on its head, so as to make it fit their beliefs.
Behold:
Woman at the Trump rally today says she supports “King Jesus and King Trump.” pic.twitter.com/fIrhe82Pn5
Guy at Trump rally in Erie, PA today is asked why he supports Trump: “I like Trump as a person. Most importantly, I like his christian values.” pic.twitter.com/PZNIzkvCpU
History has shown that disruptive events — such as the toppling of a regime or the loss of a war — can force a new perspective and the brain is able to recalibrate. So it is at least possible to change this pattern. Once the critical mind is engaged, away from the frenzy of fear and manipulation, the lie can become clear. This is the uplifting moral tale that can be gleaned from history — all the great liars, from dictators to autocrats, were eventually defeated by truth, which eventually will win out.
But the bad news is that you need that kind of disruption. Without these jarring events to bring a dose of reality, it is unlikely that people with strong convictions will ever change their minds — something that benefits the autocrat and endangers their society.
I don’t know. I’ve seen more than my share of disruptive, “jarring” events in the Trump era. And still, these “damn proud” cultists keep showing up in numbers to have their lizard brains tickled. Some are primed to kill (above). Eighteen million Americans (7% of the adult population) are primed for another violent insurrection to reinstall Trump as president. That is up from 4.5%, or 12 million people, in April.
Truth will eventually win out, Danesi promises. I’m still waiting. Hitler, Tojo, and the Confederacy, if I recall, were defeated on the battlefield.
Malaria’s not the only surprise comeback of 2023. Gold heists are still a thing:
Police in Canada are investigating one of the largest gold heists in the country’s history, after more than C$20m ($15m; £12m) of the precious metal and other valuable goods were stolen from Toronto’s airport [this past April].
[…] In a brazen pilferage, a “high-value container” disappeared while it was being transported to a cargo holding facility near Canada’s busiest airport.
Authorities say the thieves gained access to the public side of a warehouse near Toronto Pearson International Airport that was unmanned by airport security.
The theft, which is still under investigation, was an isolated and “very rare” incident, police say. While a heist of that magnitude is indeed rare, a look at Canadian history shows it’s not the first.
The Toronto Pearson International Airport has often been used as a hub for gold mined in the province of Ontario, and in September 1952 it was the scene of a mysterious heist.
Back then, Pearson was known by another name: Malton Airport. It is where thieves managed to steal about C$215,000-worth of gold bars (valued at about C$2.5m today).
The gold was stored in a steel mesh wire cage before it was loaded to a Montreal-bound plane. From there, it was destined to be shipped to the UK.
But when the plane arrived in Montreal, there were only four boxes of gold bullion out of 10.
According to articles from the Toronto Star at the time, the robbers were never spotted. No suspect has been publicly named since the heist took place 70 years ago.
The gold “just seemed to vanish”, a police officer told reporters at the time.
“Theft happens all the time at airports,” says Stacey Porter, an independent security consultant who conducts security risk assessments for airports.
Airports are large facilities with lots of potential security vulnerabilities, especially in areas where bags and cargo are kept, he says.
Cameras capture every moment that passengers spend inside airports, but luggage – both commercial airline cargo and larger shipments made by businesses – are often kept in darkened warehouses that may not have much video surveillance. […]
While Canada has an impressive history of gold heists, none come quite close to one that has been dubbed the “Crime of the Century” in the UK, involving the theft of gold bullion in November 1983, valued then at £26m.
In today’s currency, that amount is worth around £112m, or C$188m in Canadian dollars.
The robbery unfolded after six armed men broke into the Brink’s-Mat depot near London’s Heathrow Airport, with the help of one of the security guards who was in on the theft.
They were expecting to find large sums of foreign currency. Instead, they stumbled on precious gold, diamonds and cash.
The theft led police on a lengthy chase to find all of those who were involved, as the criminals enlisted the help of others to help turn the gold into cash.
Many murders over the years have been linked back to the robbery, as well as a few suicides. Much of the gold has never been recovered and four out of the six original robbers were never convicted.
The heist was one of the largest in world history at the time, and had a lasting impact on both the British public and police.
A BBC TV drama depicting the robbery and its aftermath stated that “if you have bought gold jewellery in Britain since 1984, it is likely to contain traces of the Brink’s-Mat gold”.
That BBC miniseries is called The Gold, and is streaming here in the colonies on Paramount Plus-which (dammit!) is a platform I’m not subscribed to (nothing a “free trial” can’t cure, if you catch my drift). There’s also a 1993 made-for-TV movie called Fool’s Gold: The Story of the Brink’s-Mat Robbery, starring Sean Bean (I haven’t seen that one either). I’ve always been a sucker for heist films; as I’ve seen my fair share, I thought I’d steal a few moments of your time and break into my video vault to share a few favorites:
The Anderson Tapes – In Sidney Lumet’s gritty 1971 heist caper, Sean Connery plays an ex-con, fresh out of the joint, who masterminds the robbery of an entire NYC apartment building. What he doesn’t know is that the job is under close surveillance by several interested parties, official and private.
To my knowledge it’s one of the first films to explore the “libertarian’s nightmare” aspect of everyday surveillance technology (in this regard, it is a pre-cursor to Francis Ford Coppola’s paranoiac 1974 conspiracy thriller The Conversation).
Also on board are Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam, Ralph Meeker, Alan King and Christopher Walken (his first major film role). The smart script was adapted from the Lawrence Sanders novel by Frank Pierson, and Quincy Jones provides the score.
Bellman and True – This off-beat 1987 caper is from eclectic writer-director Richard Loncraine (Brimstone & Treacle, The Missionary, Richard III, et.al.). Bernard Hill stars as a computer system engineer named Hiller who finds himself reluctantly beholden to a criminal gang he had briefly fallen in with previously. They have kidnapped his teenage son and threaten to do him harm if Hiller doesn’t help them disable the alarm system at the bank they’re planning to rob.
The one advantage he holds over his “partners” is his intelligence and technical know-how, but the big question is whether he gets an opportunity to turn the tables in time without endangering himself or his son. A unique, character-driven crime film, with cheeky dialog and surprising twists (Desmond Lowden co-adapted the screenplay from his own novel with Loncraine and Michael Wearing).
Bob le Flambeur – This is the premier “casino heist” movie, a highly stylized homage to American film noir from writer-director Jean-Pierre Melville. “Bob” (Roger Duchesne) is a suave, old-school gangster who plans “one last score” to pay off his gambling debts.
The film is more character study than action caper; in fact its slow pace is the antithesis to what contemporary audiences expect from a heist movie. Still, patience has its rewards. The film belies its low-budget, thanks to the atmospheric location shooting in the Montmartre and Rue Pigalle districts of Paris.
Charley Varrick – Directed by Don Siegel (The Big Steal, The Lineup, Dirty Harry) and adapted from John Reese’s novel by Howard Rodman and Dean Reisner, this tough and gritty crime drama/character study from 1973 stars Walter Matthau as a master thief/ex- stunt pilot who gets into hot water when he unwittingly robs a bank that washes money for the mob. I think it’s one of his best performances. If the cheeky dialog reminds you of a certain contemporary film maker, all will become clear when one character is warned that the mob may come after him with “a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.” Joe Don Baker is memorable as a kinky hit man.
Criss-Cross – Burt Lancaster stars in this 1949 noir by revered genre director Robert Siodmak (Phantom Lady, The Suspect, The Killers, The Cry of the City, et.al.). Lancaster is an armored car driver who still has the hots for his troublesome ex-wife (Yvonne De Carlo). Chagrined over her marriage to a local mobster (Dan Duryea), he makes an ill-advised decision to ingratiate himself back into her life, leading to his reluctant involvement in an armored car heist as the “inside man”.
Great script by Daniel Fuchs (adapted from Don Tracy’s novel; Steven Soderbergh adapted his 1995 thriller The Underneath from the same). Artful, atmospheric cinematography by Franz Planer.
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round – James Coburn is at his rascally best as a con artist who schemes to knock over a bank at LAX, ingeniously using the airport’s security lock down for the visit of a foreign dignitary as cover. The first half of the film is reminiscent of The Producers; in order to raise the money he needs to finance the heist, he uses his charm to bilk rich women out of their savings.
Aldo Ray, Severn Darden and Robert Webber give good supporting performances. It’s the only real film of note by writer-director Bernard Girard, but one could do worse for a one-off.
$ (Dollars) – In this 1971 film from writer-director Richard Brooks, Warren Beatty is a bank security expert who uses intel from his sex worker girlfriend (Goldie Hawn) to hatch an ingenious plan to pinch several safety deposit boxes sitting in the vault of a German bank (the boxes belong to criminals). The robbery scene is a real nail-biter.
What sets this apart from standard heist capers is a chase sequence that seems to run through most of Germany and takes up 25 minutes of screen time (a record?). The cast includes Robert Webber and Gert Frobe (Mr. Goldfinger!). Great Quincy Jones score.
Heat – This is writer-director Michael Mann’s masterpiece. While it features the planning and execution of several heists and delivers exciting action sequences, at its heart it is a character study.
Robert De Niro portrays a master thief who plays cat-and-mouse with a dogged police detective (Al Pacino). Mann not only examines the “professional” relationship between the cops and the robbers, but by drawing parallels between the characters’ personal lives he illustrates how at the end of the day, they basically seek the same things in life (they only differ in how they go about “getting” it). De Niro and Pacino only have one brief scene together, but it’s a doozy.
The great supporting cast includes Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Wes Studi, Amy Brenneman and Ashley Judd.
The Hot Rock – Although it starts out as a by-the-numbers diamond heist caper, this 1972 Peter Yates film delivers a unique twist halfway through: the diamond needs to be stolen all over again (so it’s back to the drawing board). There’s even a little political intrigue in the mix. The film boasts a William Goldman screenplay (adapted from a Donald E. Westlake novel) and a knockout cast (Segal, Robert Redford Zero Mostel, Ron Leibman, Paul Sand and Moses Gunn). Redford and Segal make a great team, and the film finds a nice balance between suspense and humor. Lots of fun.
Kelly’s Heroes – The Dirty Dozen meets Ocean’s Eleven in this clever hybrid of WW2 action yarn and heist caper, directed by Brian G. Hutton. While interrogating a drunken German officer, a platoon leader (Clint Eastwood) stumbles onto a hot tip about a Nazi-controlled bank with a secret stash of gold bullion worth millions.
Eastwood plays it straight, but there’s anachronistic M*A*S*H-style irreverence on hand from Donald Sutherland, as the perpetually stoned and aptly named bohemian tank commander, “Oddball”.
Also with Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Carroll O’Connor, Gavin MacLeod and Harry Dean Stanton. Mike Curb (future Lt. Governor of California!) composed the theme song, “Burning Bridges”.
The Killing – Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 film (nicely shot by DP Lucien Ballard, renowned in later years for his work with Sam Peckinpah) is a pulpy, taut 94-minute noir that extrapolates on the “heist gone awry” model pioneered six years earlier in John Huston’s TheAsphalt Jungle (also recommended!). Kubrick even nabbed one of the stars from Huston’s film, Sterling Hayden, to be his leading man.
Hayden plays the mastermind, Johnny Clay (fresh out of stir) who hatches an elaborate plan to rob the day’s receipts from a horse track. He enlists a couple of track employees (Elisha Cook, Jr. and Joe Sawyer), a wrestler (Kola Kwariani), a puppy-loving hit man (oddball character actor Timothy Carey-the John Turturro of his day) and of course, the requisite “bad” cop (Ted de Corsia).
Being a cautious planner, Johnny keeps his accomplices in the dark about any details not specific to their particular assignments. Still, the plan has to go like clockwork; if any one player falters, the gig will collapse like a house of cards. Also in the cast: scene-stealer Marie Windsor, who plays an entertainingly trashy femme fatale.
Legendary pulp writer Jim Thompson was enlisted for the screenplay (adapted from Lionel White’s Clean Break). Stories have circulated that Thompson never forgave the director for the “screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, with additional dialog by Jim Thompson” billing, when it was allegedly Thompson who contributed the lion’s share of original dialog to the script.
While certain venerable conventions of the heist film are faithfully adhered to in The Killing, it’s in the way Kubrick structures the narrative that sets it apart from other genre films of the era. Playing with the timeline to build a network narrative crime caper is cliché now, but was groundbreaking in 1956 (Quentin Tarantino clearly “borrowed” from The Killing for his 1991 caper Reservoir Dogs).
The Ladykillers (1955) – This black comedy gem from Ealing Studios concerns a league of five quirky criminals, posing as classical musicians, who rent a flat from little old Mrs. Wilberforce and use it as a front for an elaborate bank robbery. To watch Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom working together is a beautiful thing.
William Rose scripted (he also penned Genevieve, another Ealing classic). Director Alexander Mackendrick would go on to helm one of the darkest noirs of them all, The Sweet Smell of Success, in 1957.
Ocean’s Eleven (1960) – This (very) loose remake of Bob le Flambeur is the ultimate Rat Pack extravaganza. Frank Sinatra stars as Danny Ocean, a WW2 vet who enlists 11 of his old Army buddies for an ambitious take down of five big Vegas casinos in one night. Yes, they are all here: Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, Angie Dickinson, Henry Silva and the original “Joker” himself-Cesar Romero. Lewis Milestone directed, and Billy Wilder is said to have made some non-credited contributions to the script.
To be sure, it’s a vanity project, and may not hold up well to close scrutiny; but every time Sammy warbles “Eee-ohhh, eee-leaven…” I somehow feel that all is right with the world. Steven Soderbergh’s contemporary franchise is slicker, but nowhere near as hip, baby.
That Sinking Feeling – Sort of a Scottish version of Big Deal on Madonna Street, this was the 1979 debut from writer-director Bill Forsyth (Local Hero, Comfort & Joy). An impoverished Glasgow teenager, tired of eating cornflakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, comes up with a scheme that will make him and his underemployed pals rich beyond their wildest dreams-knocking over a plumbing supply warehouse full of stainless steel sinks.
Funny as hell, but with a wee touch of working class weltschmerz ; this subtext makes it a precursor to films like The Full Monty, Waking Ned Devine and Brassed Off. Nearly all of the same principal cast would return in Forsyth’s 1982 charmer, Gregory’s Girl.
Topkapi – I’m sure I will be raked over the coals by some for choosing director Jules Dassin’s relatively lighthearted 1964 romp over his darker and more esteemed 1956 casse classic Rififi for this list, but there’s no accounting for some people’s tastes-eh, mon ami?
The wonderful Peter Ustinov heads an international cast that includes Melina Mercouri, Maximilian Schell, Robert Morley and Akim Tamiroff. They are all involved in an ingeniously planned heist to nab a priceless bejeweled dagger that sits in an Istanbul museum.
There’s plenty of intrigue, suspense and good laughs (mostly thanks to Ustinov’s presence). There’s also a great deal of lovely and colorful Mediterranean scenery to drink in. Entertaining fare.
