Ferndale Film Festival

04/22/2025

12/01/2024

People are not widgets, but are flesh, bones and souls. And public policy should inure to the good of all, and not just the few, in the same spirit with which Henry Ford once declared “I will build a car for the great multitude…so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one — and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.”

On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford’s innovation of the full-chassis assembly line began churning Model Ts off at the Highland Park plant on…

10/31/2024

Houdini’s body was taken to the W. R. Hamilton and Company Funeral Home on Cass Avenue, where the remains were embalmed and stored there in a bronze coffin with a glass lid, which Houdini had intended to use as a prop for his act. The coffin was then placed in a crate and shipped by truck back to Michigan Central Station, where his body was taken by train to New York. Or so we think.

On this day in 1926, Harry Houdini, the most celebrated magician and escape artist of the 20th century, dies of peritonitis at Detroit’s…

10/30/2024

Welles and company’s brilliant writing, production and Foley sounds were so masterful, perhaps as many as a million radio listeners believed a real Martian invasion was underway as bedlam broke out across the country. Who would do such a thing?

On October 30, 1938, boy-genius radio producer Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater players scared the pants off America with a…

10/24/2024

On this day in 1901, 63-year-old charm school teacher Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel. After losing her husband in the Civil War, the New York-born Taylor moved all over the US before settling in Bay City, Michigan, around 1898.

An active and adventuresome woman, after commencing her young widowhood, Taylor found herself in a series of noteworthy scrapes. She survived a house fire in Chattanooga, an earthquake in South Carolina, and was held at gunpoint by highwaymen during a stage coach robbery in rural Texas.

"Blow away," she told the Texas bandits, as depicted in her memoir. "I would as soon be without my brains as without money." Of course, Taylor had $800 cash secreted in her dress at the time.

In July 1901, teaching the wealthy scions of Bay City to waltz, curtsy, bow and use the right fork was a tough racket, so reading an article on the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, she learned of the growing popularity of two enormous waterfalls located on the US-Canada border. Inspired by the derring-do of Houdini and others, Taylor had her brain storm; the widow would go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

And here the details of the lesson enthrall. On her 63rd birthday, the the custom-crafted, white oak barrel was put over the side of a rowboat, and Taylor climbed in, along with her lucky heart-shaped pillow. After screwing down the lid, boatmen used a bicycle tire pump to compress the air in the barrel. This hole was plugged with a cork, and Taylor was set adrift near the American shore, south of Goat Island and headed toward Horseshoe Falls.

Bobbing helplessly toward the brink, Edson felt a momentary calm perched atop the edge, before plunging into the cataract below. Churning and rolling first behind and then in front of the violent, watery veil, boatmen and spectators rushed in for a retrieval.

The trip itself took less than twenty minutes. "Good God!" shouted one of her shocked rescuers, fellow daredevil Carlisle Graham, upon opening the barrel, "She’s alive!" And with that, a woman had had beaten the very Falls which had years earlier claimed the life of British Captain Matthew Webb, the first human to swim the English Channel unaided.

After the journey, Annie Taylor told the press "If it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat...I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over the Fall."

Taylor briefly earned money speaking about her experience, but was never able to build much wealth. Her manager, Frank M. Russell, ran off with her barrel, and most of her savings were depleted by private detectives hired to find it (and if you've ever met Frank P. Bonnette, you know how those characters can behave). The barrel briefly surfaced in Chicago, only to permanently disappear some time later.

Taylor spent her final years at the Falls, posing for photographs with tourists at her souvenir stand, attempting lucrative trades on the New York Stock Exchange, briefly speculating on a second plunge in 1906, trying to write a novel (harder than it looks), re-constructing her 1901 plunge on film (which was never seen), working as a clairvoyant, and providing "magnetic therapeutic treatments" to local residents.

Annie Taylor passed in 1921 at age 82, relatively peniless but so front-page famous that we just devoted 627 words to her 122 years to the day after her stunning victory over the Falls. She is interred in the "Stranger's Rest" section of Oakview Cemetary in Niagara County, and like any good clairvoyant, she loves visitors, so do drop in.

09/30/2024

On this day in 1955, cultural icon James Dean dies at age 24 in a horrible wreck on U.S. Route 446 in California. Dean was driving his Porsche 550 Spyder, nicknamed “Little Bastard,” headed to a car race in Salinas, with his mechanic Rolf Wuetherich, when they were involved in a head-on collision with a car driven by a 23-year-old college student Donald Turnaspeed.

Dean was taken to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:59 p.m. Wuetherich, thrown from the car, survived the accident and Turnaspeed escaped with minor injuries; a coroner's inquest cleared him of wrongdoing.

Born February 8, 1931, in Marion, Indiana, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica while still in grade school. Very close to his mother Mildred, the first of many female figures who could "understand him," Dean was sent back to Indiana after Mildred passed from cancer when Dean was just nine.

Living on his Aunt and Uncle's farm in Fairmount, Dean sought the counsel of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd, who seems to have had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theater.

According to some, Dean had "an intimate relationship with his pastor, which began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years." In 2011, it was reported Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death.

Dean's overall performance in school was exceptional and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating Fairmount High School in May 1949, he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College and majored in pre-law.

He soon transferred to UCLA, changed his major to drama, and was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began training in James Whitmore's workshop, and by January 1951, he had dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career in the most uncertain of arts. Thespianism.

Initially Dean scored some television and small-role film work, before he moved to New York City, where he continued appearing in advertising, plays and TV programs and studied at the Actors Studio under legendary coach Lee Strasberg. With strong notices coming in for his growing body of work, Hollywood began calling.

Dean returned West, and rose to stardom in 1955 with his role as Cal Trask in East of Eden; he reportedly beat out Paul Newman for the part. Dean’s performance in the film, based on the John Steinbeck novel, earned him a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. It was the first time in Oscar history that an actor was nominated after his death.

The young actor’s next film was “Rebel Without a Cause,” also released in 1955, in which he played rebellious teen Jim Stark. The film, which co-starred Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, turned Dean into the poster boy for disaffected youth and cool.

Dean’s final film “Giant,” released in 1956 after his death, was an epic tale of a Texas cattle rancher and his family. Dean starred opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson and was nominated posthumously for a second Oscar for his performance as Jett Rink.

James Dean’s meteoric success as an actor enabled him to pursue his passion for racing cars and motorcycles, giving further voice to his passion, intellect and angst. A nurse by-standing at the Dean crash site detected a weak pulse, but said "death appeared to have been instantaneous" due to a broken neck and other mortal trauma.

Despite his short life and brief acting career, Dean endures as a Hollywood icon. Buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana, fans continue to flock to his grave every year and still more pay tribute to Dean at a memorial located near the accident site in Cholame, California, known as James Dean Junction.

08/23/2024

Sadly, not from The Onion.

08/17/2024

The sole survivor of the crash was four-year-old Cecelia Cichan of Tempe, Arizona. Romulus firemen found her still belted in her seat, faced down, covered in blood and soot. She was found several feet from the bodies of her mother, Paula Cichan, her father Michael and her six-year-old brother David. Cecelia sustained severe burns and fractures to her skull, collarbone, and left leg. She arrived at the hospital initially in critical condition, but later managed to make a full recovery.

On August 16, 1987, Northwest Flight 255 crashed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus, Michigan, killing 156 people. A four-year-old…

08/14/2024

On this day in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law. Flanked by ranking members of Congress, the 32nd President ratified an historic act guaranteeing an income for the unemployed and retirees. FDR commended Congress for what he considered to be a “patriotic” act.

Largely a measure to implement "social insurance" during the Great Depression of the 1930's, when poverty rates among senior citizens exceeded 50 percent, the act was an attempt to limit the unforeseen and the unprepared for dangers in the modern life, including old age, disability, poverty, unemployment, and the burdens of widow(er)s with and without children.

The idea of a federally funded pension plan was popularized by Francis Townsend in 1933, and the influence of the "Townsend Plan" movement on debate over social security persisted into the 1950s. Early debates on Social Security's design centered on how the program's benefits should be funded.

Some believed that benefits to individuals should be funded by contributions that they themselves had made over the course of their careers. Others argued that this design would disadvantage those who had already begun their careers at the time of the program's implementation because they would not have enough time to accumulate adequate benefits.

Social Security is funded primarily through payroll taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (F**A) or Self Employed Contributions Act Tax (SECA). Tax deposits are collected by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and are formally entrusted to the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, the two Social Security Trust Funds.

The average monthly Social Security benefit for December 2019 was $1,382. The total cost of the program for that year was $1.059 trillion or about 5 percent of GDP for 2019.

Income derived from Social Security is currently estimated to have reduced the poverty rate for Americans age 65 or older from about 40 percent to below 10%. In 2018, the trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund reported that the program will become financially insolvent in the year 2034.

Some serious pencil-sharpening must occur fairly soon, MAGA or no-MAGA......

08/13/2024

On this day in 1521, following a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés captured Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire. Cortés’ men promptly levelled the city, captured and then killed Cuauhtemoc, the Aztec emperor. Such were the followers of the Blessed Virgin when riled by gold and such.

Tenochtitlán was founded in 1325 A.D. by a wandering tribe of hunter-gatherers on islands in Lake Texcoco, near the present site of Mexico City. In only one century, this civilization grew into the remarkable sophisticated Aztec empire, largely because of its advanced system of agriculture. The empire came to dominate central Mexico and by the ascendance of Montezuma II in 1502 had reached its greatest extent, extending as far south as perhaps modern-day Nicaragua.

At the time, the empire was held together primarily by Aztec military strength, and Montezuma II set about establishing a bureaucracy, creating provinces that would pay tribute to the imperial capital of Tenochtitlán. The conquered peoples resented the Aztec demands for tribute and a brisk burn-rate on victims for the religious sacrifices, but the Aztec military kept open rebellion at bay.

The conqueror of this advanced society, young Spanish-born noble Hernán Cortés, came to Hispaniola in the West Indies in 1504. In 1511, he sailed with Diego Velázquez to conquer Cuba and twice was elected mayor of Santiago, the capital of Hispaniola. In 1518, he was appointed captain general of a new Spanish expedition to the American mainland. Velázquez, the governor of Cuba, later rescinded the order, and Cortés sailed without permission.

Cortes visited the coast of Yucatán and in March 1519 landed at Tabasco in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche with 500 soldiers, 100 sailors, and 16 horses. There, he won over the local Indians and was given a female slave, Malinche–baptized Marina–who became his mistress and later bore him a son.

Marina knew both Maya and Aztec and served as an interpreter. The expedition then proceeded up the Mexican coast, where the ambitious Cortés founded Veracruz, mainly for the purpose of having himself elected captain general by the colony, thus shaking off the authority of Velázquez and making him responsible only to King Charles V of Spain.

At Veracruz, Cortés trained his army and then burned his ships to ensure loyalty to his plans for conquest. Having learned of political strife in the Aztec empire, Cortés led his force into the Mexican interior. On the way to Tenochtitlán, he clashed with local Indians, but many of these people, including the nation of Tlaxcala, became his allies after learning of his plan to conquer their hated Aztec rulers.

Upon hearing of the approach of Cortés, with his frightful horses and sophisticated weapons, Montezuma II tried to buy him off, but Cortés would not be dissuaded. On November 8, 1519, the Spaniards and their 1,000 Tlaxcaltec warriors were allowed to enter Tenochtitlán unopposed.

Montezuma believed them to be divine envoys of the god Quetzalcatl, who was prophesied to return from the east in a “One Reed” year, which was 1519 on the Aztec calendar. The Spaniards were greeted with great honor, and Cortés seized the opportunity, taking Montezuma hostage so that he might govern the empire through him. His mistress, Marina, was a great help in this endeavor and succeeded in convincing Montezuma to cooperate fully.

In the spring of 1520, Cortés learned of the arrival of a Spanish force from Cuba, led by Pánfilo Narvez and sent by Velázquez to deprive Cortés of his command. Cortés led his army out of Tenochtitlán to meet them, leaving behind a garrison of 80 Spaniards and a few hundred Tlaxcaltecs to govern the city. Cortés defeated Narvez and enlisted Narvez’ army into his own.

When Cortes returned to Tenochtitlán in June, he found the garrison under siege from the Aztecs, who had rebelled after the subordinate whom Cortés left in command of the city massacred several Aztec chiefs, pushing the population to the brink of revolt. On June 30, under pressure and lacking food, Cortés and his men fought their way out of the capital at heavy cost. Known to the Spanish as La Noche Triste, or “the Night of Sadness,” many soldiers drowned in Lake Texcoco when the vessel carrying them and Aztec treasures hoarded by Cortés sank. Montezuma was killed in the fighting–in Aztec reports by the Spaniards, and in Spanish reports by an Aztec mob bitter at Montezuma’s subservience to Spanish rule. He was succeeded as emperor by his brother, Cuitláhuac.

During the Spaniards’ retreat, they defeated a large Aztec army at Otumba and then rejoined their Tlaxcaltec allies. In May 1521, Cortés returned to Tenochtitlán, and after a three-month siege the city fell. This victory marked the fall of the Aztec empire. Cuauhtámoc, Cuitláhuac’s successor as emperor, was taken prisoner and later executed, and Cortés became the ruler of a vast Mexican empire.

The Spanish conquistador led an expedition to Honduras in 1524 and in 1528 returned to Spain to see the king. Charles made him Marqués del Valle but refused to name him governor because of his quarrels with Velázquez and others. In 1530, he returned to Mexico, now known as New Spain, and found the country in disarray. After restoring some order, he retired to his estate south of Mexico City and sent out maritime expeditions from the Pacific coast. In 1540, he returned to Spain where he was neglected by the court as a gilipolas, or do*****ag.

He died in 1547, presumably alone and bereft of genuine affection.

08/10/2024

CURATED FROM THE GREAT LAKES AND SEAWAY SHIPPING NEWS: 1890--TWO FANNIES (three-mast wooden bark, 152 feet, 492 gross tons, built in 1862 at Peshtigo, Wisconsin) was carrying 800 tons of iron ore on Lake Erie when a seam opened in rough weather. The crew kept at the pumps to no avail. They all made it into the yawl just as the bark sank north of Bay Village, Ohio. CITY OF DETROIT tried to rescue the crew, but the weather prevented and only two men got to her. The tug JAMES AMADEUS came out and got the rest of the crew, including the ship’s cat, which was with them in the yawl. 1906--JOHN H. PAULEY (formerly THOMPSON KINSFORD, wooden propeller steam barge, 116 feet, 185 gross tons, built in 1880 at Oswego, New York) caught fire at Marine City, Michigan. Her lines were burned through, and she then drifted 3 miles down the St. Clair River before beaching near Port Lambton, Ontario, and burning out.1969--The EDMUND FITZGERALD set the last of many cargo records during the 1960s. The FITZGERALD loaded 27,402 gross tons of taconite pellets at Silver Bay on this date. This record was broken by the FITZGERALD’s sister ship, the ARTHUR B. HOMER, during the 1970 shipping season.

Auf der Klippe we have 66 degrees under partly cloudy skies, WSW winds gusting to 19 knots, pressure steady at 30" and 10 miles visibility. CSL ST-LAURENT is downbound for Montreal, JOYCE L VANENKEVORT is upbound for Calcite, and all is gusty and well.

08/06/2024

Notwithstanding contemporary and revisionist hand-wringing regarding the eventual two-pulls on the nuclear trigger, Japan had formulated Operation Ketsu-go, the final act of Japan’s “Holy War.” Contemplating mobilization of 60-plus million civilians armed and trained with hand grenades, swords, sickles, knives, fire hooks, and bamboo spears joining with the regular forces, the US braced for a populace committed to “inflicting tremendous casualties on US forces...." The Joint Chiefs estimated the US would experience 1.2 million casualties, with 267,000 deaths; USN mortality figures ranged as high as 800,000 US lives potentially lost.

On August 6, 1945, at 8:16 a.m. local time, the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay dropped atom bomb “Little Boy” over the city of Hiroshima. The…