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The story of the
love
affair between FDR and his distant cousin Margaret "Daisy" Suckley,
centered around the weekend in 1939 when the King and Queen of the
United Kingdom visited upstate New York. ... Bill Murray, Laura Linney,
Olivia Williams. .
I
saw Hyde Park touted on
NETFLIX and thought, "screw Roosevelt",
and "Bill Murray??? WTF"!
In a moment of weakness, last week, I watched it. This is what I'll say
about it.
Somewhere in the middle of the film I caught myself
thinking, "Jesus, FDR looks like Bill
Murray." I am not making that up. This is a lot of fun. The wank
Ms. Suckley (I love that name) administers, is the first time
FDR's adventures have been
openly portrayed.
After I watched "Hyde Park," 'FLIX recommended The
Roosevelts: An Intimate History.
I bit. This seven-part, fourteen hour film from Ken Burns follows the
Roosevelts for more than a century, from Theodore’s birth in 1858 to
Eleanor’s death in 1962. I couldn't put it down, and by the end my
fuzzy attitude about Teddy's presidency had hardened into  utter
contempt, and my utter disrespect for Franklin had moved to grudging
admiration of sorts, and a feeling that if Eleanor had died in
1922 his
administration would not have been so littered with communists.
Real communists.
As an aside, in one of the FDR bios I
read
years ago was an accounting of how an apparent melanoma was removed in
secrecy
while he was off on the presidential yacht. To this day I have
yet to
see this addressed in other bios, written or filmed. There is a
web
presence that suggests that he died from cancer. If he did, there
would be no reason to hush it up, but "conspiracy" happens when you hush
things up.
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Bill Murray was fantastic, though.
ReplyDeleteI attended Junior Seminary in 1972-73 on the grounds of The Rogers Mansion, in Hyde Park, located between the Vanderbilt and FDR Estates. Nobody could afford the property taxes, hence the FDR Estate became the Presidential library, Vanderbilt became a museum, and the Catholic Church took over Rogers Estate, none of those entities had to pay the tax. It was a very cool place for a 9th grader to be, located on the banks of The Mighty Hudson, north of Poughkeepsie.
ReplyDeleteAlas, puberty kicked in that year, and I elected to transfer to a coed Catholic H.S. the following year. I was hoodwinked into thinking girls were more important, than living in a mansion, full of guys. Yes, there were some priests we knew to be "funny", but we kept our distance, and no guy ever burned me as bad as a score of females did, in the subsequent years (although I did manage to have, ahem, fun).
A great big "shout out" to anyone that remembers Eymard Seminary, east of the river, and west of Route 9, during that era.
Thank you.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTeddy Roosevelt. Great President, Great Republican. Great American.
ReplyDeleteGlenn Beck, Teddy Cruz and the Sooper Conservatives should start their own party. All 10 of them and they can march around in tri-corner hats all day long.
Barzini