And so we come to the last episode of "Bag Man," Rachel Maddow's wonderful seven-part podcast about the known and (until now) unknown history surrounding the investigation and resignation of former Vice President Spiro Agnew.

If you've missed any of the previous episodes, you can click on the links below to catch up --

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5 
Part 6


Episode 7:  You Can't Fire Me -- I Quit
Disgraced Vice President Spiro T. Agnew officially becomes a private citizen and addresses the nation one last time... as a convicted criminal. Agnew continues his attacks on the press and the prosecutors right to the end. But his sudden resignation leaves questions-- unanswered-- that echo 45 years later. Can a President or Vice President actually be criminally indicted while in office? And if not, what sort of pressure can be brought to bear... to force them out?

Yesterday, I posted a bunch of Christmas songs ​from Kukla, Fran and Ollie, so I figured that it's only fitting that we give that show's brilliant creator Burr Tillstrom his due.  This will sit in for today's Holiday Music Fest.

I wrote about this piece of remarkable TV history two years ago, and it remains one of my favorites.  Back in my initial posting on this site about Kukla, Fran and Ollie, I wrote about how puppeteer Burr Tillstrom won an additional Emmy Award that was not involved with KF&O, but for his work on his own.  It was for one of the "hand ballets" that he performed on occasion for the satirical news series, That Was the Week That Was.  

That Was the Week That Was was a smart, pointed, very sharp British sketch-comedy show which was brought over to the U.S. in the early 1960s.  Among other things, it introduced to American audiences one of the original British cast members, David Frost.  It's also the show that introduced Tom Lehrer to most Americans.  He wrote periodic songs for the series, and then recorded them for his now-classic hit album, That Was the Year That Was.

And it also brought Burr Tillstrom into the national spotlight in a way people hadn't seen or expected.

A week ago, I wrote here about a new documentary that has been getting overwhelmingly spectacular reviews, They Shall Not Grow Old.  It's from Peter Jackson, who directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and focuses on the British foot soldiers in World War I, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the armistice.

The film, which uses material from the BBC and Imperial War Museum archives, was made for the BBC and originally intended as a 30-minute piece, but grew from the wealth of material and ultimately had such a profound effect that Warner Bros. is releasing it in very-limited release theatrically,  And by "very limited" I mean there are two days scheduled.  

I say this because I saw it yesterday, and that means there's only one other day left to see it for certain, and you will do yourself a great disservice by missing it.  Yes, it's that tremendous.

(By the way, what I wrote in an an earlier version of this article is that I suspected that the studio was hoping for an Oscar nomination -- and win -- but it turns out that since this was never originally intended as a theatrical film, Warner Bros. missed the October 1 deadline for submissions and so the film is ineligible.  However, the box office, even for such a profoundly-limited presentation, has been massive and so discussions are underway for a possible, full theatrical release.)

I'll keep this description reasonably short because of a bonus that goes along with the documentary.  I'll dive in a bit more when getting around to that.  But as for the documentary itself, what makes it stand out so much is how Jackson physically crafted it.  Using the latest technology, he and his team restored the footage to a quality so remarkably pristine that it almost looks like modern-day footage.  Additionally, they manipulated the speed of the film so it doesn't look the way old silent movies generally do, sped-up and jerky, but instead is all fully natural.  They colorized it using the highest quality efforts so, although the process is often controversial, here is completely justified and all looks fresh and lifelike.  Perhaps most fascinatingly, they brought in expert lip-readers to determine what soldiers are saying in the footage, and then dubbed the voices to add a sense of realism to the material.  They also converted the old material to 3D in a way that doesn't get in the way with anything splashy, but brings subtle depth to the landscape so that at times you almost feel you are there on the battlefields.  And much more.  And making it all the more touching is that there are no historians or WWI experts narrating -- instead, all the narration is from archival interviews that soldiers did 40-50 years later.

It's really quite remarkable.  

Which brings us to the bonus.  Following the 90-minute documentary, there is another half-hour film that runs afterwards with Peter Jackson explaining and showing all the amazing work that they put into crafting the film and bringing everything to life.  In some ways, it's surprsingly almost as moving at times as the documentary itself.  And if They Shall Not Grow Old does get a wider theatrical release at some point, I wouldn't think it would be with this special half-hour featurette.  It seems like that was solely for this limited theatrical release. (Or the DVD, assuming one gets released.)

Here's an example of the level of detail and effort the filmmakers went to.  When they dubbed the soldiers, they team tracked down which divisions the men were in, and they found actors who spoke in that same dialect, to make it authentic.  Also, they often found footage that all other WWI documentaries most-certainly ignored because the footage had degraded, or was deeply underexposed or overexposed and therefore unusable -- but they were able to restore it, and much of what they ended up with was a treasure.  

Jackson also explains the decision to colorize the footage.  He said that the focus of the movie was on the foot soldiers and their experience, how they saw the war.  And they saw the war in color.  He notes, too, that had color been available at the time, there's little doubt that the original filmmakers would have used it.  He explains, too, that the quality of colorization depends in large part on the time spent on the process, and so they devoted a great deal of time getting it to look right and natural.

One of the more fascinating things of the featurette has nothing to do with the war, but the filmmaker himself.  It turns out that Peter Jackson wasn't approached merely because of his acclaim as a director, but rather both that and because he is a true, massive aficionado of World War I.  When talking about the impossibility of getting some footage for the movie of hand-to-hand combat, Jackson says he remembered that he had a few copies of old war magazines he'd collected as a kid that had original drawings from the time which might be useful -- and when he went to check, he found out that he didn't still have a few copies, but several hundred.  Also, when they did the colorizing of all the old uniforms of the many divisions, their efforts were made significantly easier because...Jackson had his own collection of old World War I uniforms, which got a growing chuckle from the audience.  But what got the biggest laugh is when Jackson (who clearly found it a bit bizarre himself) said that they wanted the sound of the artillery movement and explosions to be authentic and so -- yes -- in a bemused voice said, "I had my own collection of WWI artillery...as one does."  And so the featurette shows them rolling out Jackson's own canons and other artillery out to fields to be properly operated.

Both of these films are showing one more time, for certain.  That will be on December 27.  If this is even of remote interest to you, try to see it.  It's very special.  Here is the page where you can enter your zip cod and see where it's screening in your area.  Just click this link.

And here's a very brief trailer, which I posted before.  It doesn't begin to do the documentary anything close to justice -- but -- it absolutely gives you a touch of an idea of how unique this is.

Continuing with our re-posting of Rachel Maddow's excellent 7-part podcast, Bag Man, about events surrounding the resignation of former Vice President Spiro Agnew, here's Part Five.

(If you've missed any of the earlier episodes and want to catch up with it, here's Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4.


Episode 5:  Double-Header
With his own Justice Department on the verge of indicting him, Vice President Spiro Agnew attempts a last-ditch effort to survive. A Constitutional crisis-inducing argument that even if prosecutors have evidence of his crimes, he can't be indicted anyway... the power of the White House protects him. With President Nixon himself about to go down in Watergate, it's now on one man's shoulders-- the Attorney General-- to come up with a way to remove a criminal Vice President... before he ascends to the Presidency

We've hit the halfway point.

For those who wanted to listen to Rachel Maddow's terrific seven-part podcast series, Bag Man, but weren't able to access it online, or simply just missed listening, here's our continuation of it.  The podcast tells the detailed, fascinating story behind former Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation -- and notes its similarities to how the Trump administration is handling its own legal challenges.

(If you've missed any of the earlier episodes and want to catch up, here's Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3.)
​

​Episode 4:  Turn It Off
After learning that his own Justice Department is investigating his crimes, Vice President Spiro Agnew embarks on a secret, behind-the-scenes effort... to obstruct justice. To use his power inside the White House to interfere with the investigation and shut it down. It’s a scheme that involves President Nixon himself, members of Nixon's inner circle, and it has never been known to the prosecutors investigating the case... even now, 45 years later.

Continuing our celebration of the 200th anniversary today of Illinois being admitted the Union, we have an appropriate video for the Land of Lincoln.  Here's a wonderful clip from the classic film, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play by Robert Sherwood (who co-adapted his play for the screen).  This is a six-minute monologue by Raymond Massey, who recreated his starring from from the Broadway production, during the Lincoln-Douglas debates.  (Historical note: those debates were not from when both men ran against one another for the presidency, but rather earlier when they competed for the U.S. Senate.)
​
By the way, despite this clip appearing to be almost nine minutes, it's not.  There is a ponderous opening minute added on (you can jump past it), and another minute-and-a-half or more tacked on at the end.

We interrupt the Holiday Music Fest currently in progress so that we my bring you this special posting.  The Holiday Music Fest will return soon.  This morning, though, we honor the State of Illinois on the 200th anniversary of it being admitted to the Union.  Huzzah!

In honor of it as the true birthplace of America, or at least me, we do have music, so those of you who miss the latest installment of holiday songs at least have something to hold on to.  It's the state song, "Illinois," quite an aptly-named title, I must say.  It's also often know as "By Thy Rivers Gently Flowing," the song's first line, which adds a bit of grace to something otherwise more perfunctory.  What it also tends to do is get people to sing the song (on those rare occasions when they do sing it) as if it was a religious hymn.  Or, often, a dirge.  For all I know, that's what they songwriters intended, rather than something to rouse the spirits -- or not.  Hymn-like does make it lovely, albeit interminable.  I have a feeling that it's all because of the word "Thy."  When you put "Thy" in a song, people are going to sing it like a hymn.  And if you give people a hymn and make it long-enough, there's a reasonable chance they'll turn it into a dirge.

(Not to worry, if you stick around, we'll rectify that in a moment...)

For now, here is that state song, with words by C.H. Chamberlain and music by Archibald Johnston, written sometime in the 1880s and adopted officially in 1925.  (While one source says it was written in the 1890s, that seems unlikely since the composer died in 1887.)  Although this version below is long and slow, it actually is a particularly-beautiful arrangement and lovingly sung.  For reasons unknown, though, they acknowledge changing the order of the verses.  Long and slow and out-of-order (and admittedly lovely) as it is, I'm including this video here for one reason only:  because they put together an especially-good montage of images of the State of Illinois to run with it.

Why on earth this video says, "Illinois, Worth Fighting For," I have zero idea.  I wasn't aware it was under attack.  Not when the song was written, not in the intervening years and not now.  (Unless you count by people from Wisconsin driving down on tractors wearing their cheeseheads.  But that usually isn't legally considered an act of war.)  But for those of you who want to sing along, I posted the lyrics below -- which I've matched to fit this group's inexplicably-changed order.  And remember, after this at the end, I have another video that's worth sticking around for.

For those who've wanted to listen to Rachel Maddow's terrific seven-part podcast series, Bag Man, but haven't been able to access it online, here's our continuation of it.  The podcast tells the detailed, fascinating story behind former Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation -- and notes its similarities to how the Trump administration is handling its own legal challenges.

If you've missed any of the earlier episodes and want to catch up, here's Part 1 and Part 2. 


​Episode 3: Hang In There, Baby
With the criminal investigation of him now public, Vice President Spiro Agnew launches a bold counter-attack to survive. An unprecedented assault... on his own Justice Department that's investigating him. And the reporters now covering his case. And Agnew gets back-up in that effort from his legion of hardcore supporters across the country and in Congress.

A few weeks ago, Rachel Maddow began a seven-part podcast called Bag Man.  It's extremely well-done and wonderfully produced -- and even has uncovered some new material that has surprised the investigators involved in the original event.

That original is the story behind the resignation of former Nixon Vice-President Spiro Agnew.  It provides much more depth to the public story that is know and, as I said, has come up with some new material.  They also have been able to draw some fascinating similarities to the Mueller investigation of Trump, including (but not limited to) the ways the White House attempted to discredit the judiciary and press).

I figured I'd post the series here, over the next seven weeks in case any folks here were interested but it's fallen through the cracks.  Each episode runs about 30 minutes.

Here's Maddow production's description of what's to come --

Episode 1: An Unsettling Secret

He was brash. Politically incorrect. An “outsider” political candidate who rose to the White House, out of nowhere, with a reputation as a “counter-puncher.” But Vice President Spiro Agnew was also something else… an active criminal whose secrets were about to be exposed. What happens when a “counter-puncher” in the White House suddenly sees his political future directly threatened by investigators inside his own Justice Department?