US History Honors Assignment

Please write a synopsis of 4 films from differing time period explaining their historical relevance and any errors that you many see in it presentation. The papers are to be typed, double spaced, #12 font Times News, and cite any outside sources that you used. These papers are to be turned in the first day of class 1/22/2014.

Thank you

USA: Early Years

The Buccaneer (1938) –pirate hero Jean Lafitte, who aids American cause in Battle of New Orleans, War of 1812

The Buccaneer (1958) Andrew Jackson relies for help in the Battle of New Orleans on Lafitte

The President’s Lady (1953) Andrew Jackson criticized for his wife with a past

The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) trouble for Napoleon exiles in Demopolis, Alabama

Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955)

Jeremiah Johnson (1972) mountain man who had his own personal war with the Crows

Mountain Men (1980) story of mountain men who led many of the settlers into the West

The republic of Texas and the Mexican-American War

The Adventures of Jim Bowie (1956) (TV) TV series based on the life of Jim Bowie

Texas (1994) history of Texas from its settlement via Stephen Austin to statehood

The Alamo (1960)

The Last Command (1955) Jim Bowie and the Alamo

Alamo: 13 Days to Glory (1987)

Bloody Kansas:

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) for vengeances joins “Bloody Bill” Anderson’s gang, a pro-southern gang of “outlaws”

Quantrill’s Raiders (1958) psychopathy leading outlaws with a pro-southern slant

Kansas Raiders (1950) Jesse James joins Quantrill’s Raiders

Dark Command (1940) Civil War Kansas; Quantrill’s Raiders

Ride with the Devil (1999) the war in bloody Kansas and Missouri

Seven Angry Men (1955) John Brown

Civil War Begins and Ends

Gods and Generals (2003) early Confederate victories: Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville that led to excessive hubris in Gen. Lee

The Horse Soldiers (1959) set in Vicksburg campaign: John Ford and John Wayne

Gettysburg (1993) 1863 battle, high water mark of the Confederacy

Lincoln (2012) passage of the 13th amendment

Far and Away (1992) Irish immigrant makes his way across America

World War I

The Day that Shook the World (1977) events leading up to WW I

USA: 1920’s

Inherit the Wind (1960) 1925 Scopes Trial on evolution, Clarence Darrow vs. Wm. Jennings Bryan

The Great Gatsby (1949) F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tale of class snobbery among the rich

The Great Gatsby (2013)

Last Call (2002) biography of the mature F. Scott Fitzgerald

Spirit of St. Louis (1957) Lindbergh, first solo trans-Atlantic flight

Crime of the Century (1996) Lindbergh kidnapping trail

Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight (1994) famous aviator

Cobb (1994) TV Cobb great baseball player

The Babe (1992) John Goodman

WWII and Cold War

October Sky

Fat Man and Little Boy (1989) development of the atomic bomb

Good night and Good Luck –McCarthyism and journalists Edward R. Murrow

Civil Rights

Keep the Faith, Baby (2002) Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. pushes integration in New York State and elsewhere

Separate but Equal (1991) legal challenge of school segregation by NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall

The Road to Freedom: The Vernon Johns Story (1994) father of Civil Rights movement, predecessor of King in Montgomery, AL

Boycott (2000) MLK organizes the bus boycott

King: A filmed Record: Montgomery to Memphis (1970)

The Long Walk Home (1989) –Montgomery Bus Boycott

Vietnam War

Go Tell the Spartans (1978) early years of Vietnam War

The Great Berets (1968) early film in support of the Vietnam War

Backlash Nixon and the 1970’s

The Boys in Company C (1977) Vietnam War

The Anderson Platoon (1967) French documentary about American soldiers in Vietnam War

Nixon (1995)

All the President’s Men-Washington Post reporters track down Nixon and Watergate

The Pentagon Papers (2003) negative report on the War in Vietnam