American Experience: Mr. Polaroid, on PBS

He made the original selfies possible. His company’s instant photography provided immediate gratification, but their photos were still developed on film, so people generally saved it for moments that meant something. His company gave Kodak a run for its money and remains fondly remembered. The entrepreneurial career of Edwin Land and the rise and fall of the company he created are chronicled in director-writer Gene Tempest’s Mr. Polaroid, which airs this Monday as part of the current season of American Experience on PBS.

Tempest almost immediately likens Land, a Harvard drop-out, to some of the tech titans who followed his example, like Jobs and Gates. The comparison is apt. Land started his company developing a polarization technique to minimize car headlight glare. Detroit was not interested, so he ap[plied his technology to other uses, including gun-sights, which led to major defense contracts during WWII. Of course, he knew (and hoped) the war would not last forever, so he started R&D on his instant photography concept.

Eventually, Land launched Polaroid’s first instant camera at a media event that had serious Steve Jobs vibes. At the time, it was big and bulky, but the news photographers were still dazzled. However, it took years before Polaroid refined the process into a handheld device. He also pioneered the more laidback corporate culture that continues to be associated with the tech sector. Yet, Tempest still found plenty of former employees to complain about Land’s policies.

Ironically, Land was unusually progressive for his time, especially in his efforts to hire and promote women and black recruits. Nevertheless, some employees were apparently resentful that Land did not completely adopt every single one of their political positions. Yet, he clearly had a greater social conscience than many of his contemporaries, while also serving as unofficial technical advisor to the U.S. government on aerial surveillance photography.

American Experience: Ruthless—Monopoly’s Secret History

It originated as a device to promote Henry George’s economic philosophy that was popularized by Quakers, but it is now a shining symbol of capitalism. The ironic history of the best-selling Parker Brothers board game is very incompletely told in writer-producer-director Stephen Ives’ Ruthless: Monopoly’s Secret History, which premieres tomorrow night on PBS, as part of the current season of American Experience.

Ives does not start at the beginning. Instead, he chronicles the research of Ralph Anspach, an economics professor, who fought the cease & desist litigation launched against his “Anti-Monopoly” spoof board game. Ives never mentions Anspach fought on behalf of Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and served in the U.S. Army, stationed in the Philippines, which would have made him a much more sympathetic figure for a lot of viewers.

To undercut the patent of the supposed “inventor,” Charles Darrow, who sold the game to Parker Brothers, Anspach uncovered the game’s folk origins. Probably, the first incarnation was created by Lizzie Magie, an ardent follower of Henry George.

The history of Monopoly is pretty interesting, but Ives’ scope is quite narrow. He never discusses the evolution of the so-called “Monopoly Man” into a recognizable character in his own right. Nor does he explore recent developments, like the popular McDonalds Monopoly game, which was embroiled in a scandal documented in HBO’s multi-part McMillions. Frankly, this really isn’t the Monopoly story. It is the story of Anspach’s “Anti-Monopoly.”

That would be fine, as long as American Experience announced it properly. The problem with Ruthless is the complete absence of diverse opinions. Every single one of Ives’ talking heads disparages the creative power of capitalism. Over and over again, we hear there is no such thing as an even starting line in America. That is their opinion—and when we hear as often as we do in Ruthless, it becomes dull and tedious.

Honestly, it is easy to defend Darrow. Nobody else was marketing Monopoly, so why shouldn’t he try? Darrow was unemployed during the Great Depression, with a special needs child. Initially, he took all the risks self-producing his own copies before selling the rights to Parker Brothers. He saved the company, its employees, and his family from ruin, so why does Ruthless consider him a bad guy?

American Experience: The Lie Detector

Many laid claim to inventing it, including a police officer and an academic. Somewhat ironically, it was the cop who worried about its civil liberties implications. The academic was the weirdo who created Wonder Woman. Right from the start, the so-called “polygraph” was controversial, but it eventually supplied some work for ambulance chaser F. Lee Bailey, who hooked people up to it on his early 1980s reality TV show. The history and disputed authorship of the polygraph is chronicled in writer-director Rob Rapley’s The Lie Detector, which airs Tuesday as part of the current season of American Experience.

John Larsen was a rookie cop with a PhD, who actually wanted to make policing more scientific and less thuggish. On the Berkley, CA police force, he had a reformer Chief, who was open to his potential creations. A lot of shrinks had already created dodgy lie detectors, measuring one thing or another, but with the help of his high school intern, Leonarde Keeler, Larsen put them all together and created the iconic print out of the subject’s responses.

Yet, Larsen quickly started second guessing his invention after it supposedly help solve a rash of thefts at a Berkley women’s dorm. He would argue his device only measures strong emotional responses and not necessarily lies. However, Keeler broke with his one-time mentor, applying his lie detector with great fanfare in Los Angeles. William Marston was an inventor of one of the half-baked predecessors, but he could talk a good game. Eventually, the three became bitter rivals of each other in the media.

Rapley’s documentary is only one-hour long, but it tells an interesting story. The subject definitely raises issues regarding civil liberties and law enforcement, but it does so in a reasonable, levelheaded manner. It helps that all of his talking heads are real experts, rather than cheesy celebrities trying to virtue-signal.

AMEX/PBS: George W. Bush

Back during the dog days of 2005, Pres. George W. Bush rather upended his administration when he had them assemble an action plan for a doomsday pandemic scenario. He did not think the nation would use it during his term, but he presciently foresaw its need in the not-so distant future. Fifteen years later, the current administration dusted off the Bush plan, because that is what they had. Without George W. Bush, things would be even worse during this CCP-virus crisis. Unfortunately, that is the sort of greatly needed perspective that is largely missing from American Experience’s two-part George W. Bush, which premieres this Monday and Tuesday on PBS.

If nothing else, American Experience pretty much definitively proves the left-wing bias of the media, because the vast majority of its talking heads are journalists, nearly all of whom are determined to keep litigating the Iraq War. Time and again we were told there were no weapons of mass destruction when the truth is more complicated. Even the New York Times reported considerable discoveries of chemical weapons, which definitely qualified as WMDs—they just weren’t WMD-enough for the media’s preferred narrative.

Fittingly, AMEX starts with the fateful day of September 11^th and then flashes back to Bush’s formative years in Texas. To give credit where it is due, co-writer-producers Barak Goodman & Chris Durrance and their on-screen commentators are relatively sympathetic when addressing the awakening of Christian faith that transformed Bush from a hard-drinking slacker into a focused professional—with political aspirations. Of course, much is made of his somewhat strained relationship with his father Bush 41, as one would expect, with good reason.

The AMEX profile is also quite strong when it chronicles Bush’s political rise in Texas (particularly his wooing of Democratic Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock), his PEPFAR campaign to treat AIDS in Africa (saving approximately 5 million lives, according to estimates), and his handling of the financial crisis (in fact, the talking heads are so laudatory, it will start to make many viewers suspicious). Weirdly, the pivotal and defining period of 9/11 and its aftermath is handled rather perfunctorily, like it embarrasses Goodman & Durrance to consider the full implications of a coordinated terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Ripley: the Believe It or Not American Experience

Leroy Robert Ripley was a cartoonist who really put his stamp on Times Square. In 1939 the syndicated globe-trotter opened his first Odditorium on Broadway and the organization that bears his name and catch phrase successfully re-launched a tourist trap on 42^nd Street in 2007. Ripley’s various media properties might seem kitschy to contemporary ironic hipsters, but writer-director-producer Cathleen O’Connell and her cast of expert commentators establish how popular and respected he was during his Depression-era heyday in Ripley: Believe It or Not (promo here), which premieres this coming Tuesday as part of the current season of American Experience.

Ripley was a rather nebbish fellow with tragically buck teeth that Steve Carrell might consider playing next time he trolls for Oscar love. After getting sacked by newspapers in San Francisco, Ripley was able to re-start his career in New York penning sports cartoons. For slow sports days, he started cataloging unusual athletic feats for what became early forerunners of the Believe It or Not template. Obviously, readers approved. Much to his surprise, it led to a dream assignment sending comic strip dispatches from an around-the-world journey. Soon the Ripley’s comic as we know it was humming along, but it was a book deal with Simon & Schuster that really turned him into a sensation.

There are probably a lot of people who remember buying Ripley’s books at school book fares, so it will be somewhat mind-blowing to learn his was a Da Vinci Code level bestseller in his day. Many of the 1980s generation will also remember the packaged television series with Jack Palance, but radio was really the medium that cemented Ripley’s fame.

O’Connell, who previously helmed American Experience’s War of the Worlds special, has a good feel for slightly genre-ish non-fiction filmmaking. She largely casts Ripley as a pseudo-Horatio Alger figure, but also gives due credit to Norbert Pearlroth, his unsung research director, without getting bogged down in the three-headed dogs and ten foot cigars Ripley breathlessly covered. Ultimately, she paints an appealing portrait of a self-reinvented adventurer, despite his considerable human weaknesses.

O’Connell’s Ripley is a breezy hour that never overstays its welcome. Those who watch it will be far less likely to roll their eyes while dashing past the new Times Square Odditorium on their way to a screening at the AMC Empire. Recommended for those who enjoy slightly strange Americana, Ripley: Believe It or Not airs this coming Tuesday (1/6) on most PBS outlets nationwide.

The Poisoner’s Handbook: Toxicology and Tammany

There was a time crime was rampant in New York, but City Hall was fine with the carnage.  This seems to be a recurring cycle in the City, but in this case, the time in question is 1918.  Coroner positions were an important part of Tammany Hall’s patronage mill.  No medical training was required, as long as the mortuary kick-backs were shared with the machine.  As a result, untold poisoners escaped judgment, either through negligence or graft. The efforts of a reformist medical examiner and his pioneering toxicologist to make science and integrity part of New York law enforcement are chronicled in Rob Rapley’s The Poisoner’s Handbook (promo here), which airs this Tuesday as part of the current season of American Experience.

Charles Norris was independently wealthy, relatively politically astute, and a genuine medical doctor.  Against the vociferous objections of Tammany Mayor John F. “Red Mike” Hylan, the state of New York forced through his appointment as the City’s medical examiner.  His chief lieutenant was Alexander Gettler, a Jewish Hungarian immigrant who worked his way through a PhD in chemistry.  No longer in the business of selling specially tailored death certificates, Norris’ office actually started applying the scientific method to criminal investigation. During their early years, Gettler wrote academic papers on scores of toxins that remain relevant to this day.

Based on the nonfiction book by Deborah Blum (who appears as a talking head), Poisoner is more authoritative in its treatment of criminological history than the thematically related How Sherlock Changed the World.  Rapley never addresses Gettler’s reading habits, but evidently he was quite the Yankees fan.  Shrewdly structured, Poisoner zeroes in on Gettler’s relationship with his nemesis, sort of the Irene Adler of arsenic, for maximum dramatic value.  It also morbidly but logically organizes each section according to the relevant toxin under discussion. 

However, it clearly favors the toxicologist over his M.E., even though political junkies would probably prefer to hear more about Norris’ wrangling with Tammany Hall.  In contrast, a bit too much time is devoted to Prohibition.  While it certainly kept Norris and Gettler (both Wets) busy, there was little mystery involved in each toxic “denatured” alcohol death.

There is plenty of good New York history and vintage true crime in American Experience’s The Poisoner’s Handbook.  Highly watchable (at least until the last minute cheerleading for the FDA), it should entertain (and inform) fans of Caleb Carr’s The Alienist and BBC America’s Copper.  It premieres on most PBS outlets this coming Tuesday (1/7).

War of the Worlds: The Night Orson Welles Scared the Attitude Out of New Jersey

Prior to October 30, 1938, Orson Welles was considered a talent to watch, but his Mercury Theater on the Air did not have a proper sponsor and it regularly got beat by a variety show featuring ventriloquist Edgar Bergen with his dummy Charlie McCarthy (it was a great act for radio, because you truly couldn’t see his lips move).  Then Welles staged an innovative adaptation of H.G. Wells’ science fiction classic and suddenly everything changed.  American Experience marks the 75^th anniversary of Welles’ controversial broadcast with War of the Worlds (promo here), which airs this coming Tuesday on most PBS stations.

Welles was already a cottage industry before he transplanted War of the Worlds to Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.  Best known as a stage director, he frequently performed on radio, often without credit. The media and the smart set closely followed his career, but he had yet to breakthrough with Middle America.  For his weekly radio showcase, Welles had a notion to adapt the Martian invasion novel.  Producer-adult supervisor John Houseman thought it was a terrible idea, but Welles had his way as usual.  However, the script just didn’t come together until they decided to stage it as a series of breaking news bulletins.  This was not a completely original strategy.  It was inspired by Archibald MacLeish’s radio play Air Raid, which had just aired with much less fanfare.

According to American Experience’s historical experts, most listeners missed Welles’ introduction, dial-twisting over to the Mercury Theater once Bergen had finished his shtick.  As most everyone knows, a mild panic then ensued.  All the talking heads try their best to excuse away the mass hysteria, arguing the stress of the Depression and the constant news flashes trumpeting European war left the general public primed to believe Welles’ Americanized War of the Worlds.  Maybe there is a kernel truth to that, but that would have been one heck of an exclusive for CBS to score.

Just about everyone now recognizes Welles as one of the most important film directors of the Twentieth Century, but AE’s WOTW reminds us he was also probably one of the greatest radio directors as well.  Director Cathleen O’Connell and tele-writer Michelle Ferrari include some fascinating behind-the-scenes details of the in/famous broadcast, but the black-and-white dramatic recreations of angry listeners’ letters of complaint are rather corny and just generally unnecessary.

Arguably, Welles’ fictionalized news flashes represent an early forerunner to found footage genre films, in which a carefully produced narrative deliberately approximates some form of on-the-fly documentation.  O’Connell and her battery of experts, including Welles’ daughter Chris Welles Feder, nicely put the episode in the context of Welles’ career and the development of mass media.  Easily recommended for fans of Welles and Wells despite the over-stylized recreation interludes, American Experience’s War of the Worlds premieres on PBS Tuesday the 29^th (10/29), seventy-five years after the fateful broadcast, nearly to the day.

Silicon Valley: When California was a Land of Opportunity

They made the space program and the personal computer possible.  They were not just brilliant scientists.  They were the original venture capitalists.  The far-reaching scientific and economic revolutions initiated by Robert Noyce and his colleagues are explored in The American Experience’s first-rate Silicon Valley (promo here), which airs on most PBS stations this Tuesday.

A bright student at Grinnel College, Noyce happened to get an early look at two of Bell Labs’ first ever transistors, through his professor, Grant Gale.  He would remain a foremost expert on the devices and their successors from that point forward.  After an unrewarding East Coast corporate stint, Noyce joined soon to be Nobel Lauriat William Shockley’s semiconductor laboratory, in what was then nowheresville California.  That was a somewhat gutsy move at the time, but Noyce was just getting started. 

Fed up with Shockley’s erratic behavior and dubious strategic decision-making, Noyce and the rest of the so-called “Traitorous Eight” set out on their own, establishing Fairchild Semiconductor with the backing of Sherman Fairchild’s family of companies.  Noyce was the last to join the insurgency, but the one most needed for Fairchild Semiconductors to make a go of it.  He understood the science, but he also had persuasive powers the others lacked.  Opting to develop a Silicon-based semiconductor (a model Shockley had explicitly rejected), Fairchild scored some crucial government contracts right out of the gate.  Yet, Noyce would eventually pick up and start over once more.  Ever heard of a company called Intel?

Co-written, co-produced, and directed by Randall MacLowry, Silicon Valley does two things unusually well.  It nicely explains the enormous technological benefits offered by transistors, semiconductors, microchips, and microprocessors, in terms accessible for viewers not particularly savvy about the insides of their computers.  It also gives Noyce and his comrades full credit for their game-changing entrepreneurship.  MacLowry clearly establishes the substantial risks Noyce took, as well as the considerable reward he reaped.  As a result, viewers might just find themselves feeling a vicarious giddiness for the up-start success of Noyce’s start-ups.  That is a powerful response for a television documentary to inspire, but Silicon Valley is unquestionably the best of the last three seasons for American Experience, at least.

Many Fairchild and Intel alumni share their memories of Noyce and the formative years of Silicon Valley, including Andy Grove and surviving members of the infamous eight, Jay Last and Gordon Moore.  MacLowry also incorporates a wealth of archival photos that vividly remind us what the future used to look like in years past.  The film is also a bittersweet reminder California used to be synonymous with opportunity and new beginnings, rather than bankruptcy and stagnation.  As a documentarian, MacLowery is rather diplomatic, completely ignoring Shockley’s later controversial championing of eugenics, simply depicting him as a miserable boss and incompetent businessman instead.  Still, it is a reasonable call, considering how such hot button topics are apt to distract Public Television viewers.

It becomes obvious watching Silicon Valley what a great dramatic feature this story could become in the right hands.  Dominic West would be a decent likeness for Noyce.  However, in a world where Ashton Kutcher is cast as Steve Jobs, you have wonder whom Hollywood might come up with.  Taylor Lautner, perhaps?  At least MacLowry did right by band of pioneers who made Silicon Valley what it is today.  Highly recommended as a work of scientific, economic, and cultural history, Silicon Valley premieres this coming Tuesday (2/5) on most PBS outlets nationwide.

Death and the Civil War: Same War, but More Depressing

It might sound like a fraternal challenge.  Ric Burns, the co-writer and co-producer of his brother Ken’s blockbuster PBS documentary, The Civil War, returns to America’s bloodiest war, focusing on its gloomiest aspects.  Yet, Burns’ approach yields up some fascinating and under-reported episodes of American history in Death and the Civil War (trailer here), which airs this coming Tuesday as part of the current season of American Experience.

Every war invariably and unavoidably involves death.  However, by any objective standard of measurement, the Civil War claimed more American lives and caused more damage to infrastructure than any other war our nation has fought.  Burns’ on-camera historians argue the shockingly high death toll forced nearly every American to come to terms with death, often changing their conceptional framework as a result.  Frankly, the talking heads veer a bit into cultural-historical pop psychology, fixating on the notions of a “good death” that grew out of the Great Awakening.

In contrast, DCW is something of a revelation when explaining how ill-prepared both the Union and Confederate Armies were for dealing with mass casualties.  Basic military functions like official death notices and an ambulance corps were only instituted late in the war.  If buried at all, bodies were often interned in unmarked makeshift graves.  There were no military cemeteries, until the grounds of Gettysburg transformed for that purpose.  The occasion happened to be marked by a rather famous speech.  Oddly though, the film only mentions the Lincoln assassination in passing, despite frequently exploring mid Nineteenth Century American attitudes towards mortality.

DCW’s battery of talking heads display the appropriate authority and sensitivity for such a heavy subject, particularly David W. Blight, the director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance & Abolition, and poet-undertaker Thomas Lynch.  Unfortunately, Pulitzer Prize winner George F. Will’s commentary was treated rather severely in the editing bay.

Burns follows roughly the same template of the family’s predecessor Civil War documentary and his New York: A Documentary Film, employing archival photos, voice-over readings of primary sources, and a reassuring sounding narrator (Oliver Platt in this case), but with good reason.  There is no reason to radically change a successful formula.

Nobody could call DCW the “lite beer” version of the Burns’ The Civil War, because there is nothing frivolous about the subject matter.  Still, many might dismiss it as a mere addendum to the pledge break programming favorite.  Closely akin stylistically, the nature of its focus helps differentiate it a slight bit.  Nevertheless, fans of its predecessor who just want more of the same should find it a satisfying fix.  As well crafted and informative as viewers will expect from a Burns revisiting America’s most tragic years, Death and the Civil War is recommended for military history buffs, both North and South, when it airs this coming Tuesday (9/18) on most PBS outlets nationwide.

The American (Western) Experience: Custer’s Last Stand

His name is pseudonymous with military failure, but for over a century he has been portrayed in glowingly heroic terms. Yes, good publicity is a gift that keeps on giving. George Armstrong Custer was always good copy and he was not what you would call shy. He had a multitude of shortcomings as a military leader though, all of which are analyzed at length in writer-director Stephen Ives’ Custer’s Last Stand (promo here), the second of two recent western-themed editions of The American Experience, premiering on PBS this coming Tuesday.

In fairness, Ives gives Custer his just due for his Civil War heroics. A terrible student from humble origins, Custer essentially talked his way into a West Point appointment. His only asset was his willingness to risk life and limb. What came to be recognized as “Custer’s luck” held out until that fateful day in the Black Hills.

Frankly, it is nearly impossible to be a Custer partisan with the benefit of historical hindsight. Many will be appalled by his record as a zealous “Indian fighter,” whereas others will be disgusted with the hash Custer made of his command. In fact, Ives’ Stand is strongest when explaining the bad karma working against Custer in the Little Big Horn debacle.

While depicting Custer as a Horatio Algerish social climber undone by deep character flaws, Captain Frederick Benteen emerges as the most intriguing figure of the story. A former commander of a “Buffalo Soldier” regiment with little taste for war, Benteen’s sentiments would appear to more accurately reflect those of the modern American military. He bitterly resented Custer for abandoning a fellow officer during a controversial engagement at the Washita River. As a result, he was not exactly fired up to save Custer’s bacon.

While just exactly what happened to Custer and the majority of the men of the 7th Cavalry remains somewhat obscure (for lack of survivors), Ives explains the details of the side battles involving Benteen and his whiskey-addled comrade Major Marcus Reno quite lucidly and compellingly. Of course, the bottom line is pretty simple. Sitting Bull had a whole lot more men with him than Custer figured and they were pretty ticked off.

For all its tsktsking of Custer’s arrogance and recklessness, Stand puts him in understandable context. Following the Civil War, the standing army drastically contracted, with wartime officers brusquely reduced in rank. It is understandable why a self-promoter like Custer would conclude valor was the better part of prudence.

Stand also heavily relies on talking head historians, who are sufficiently authoritative on the subject, by and large. However, a late soundbite claiming Custer’s misadventure in the Black Hills is emblematic of America’s continuing eagerness to leap into ill-conceived wars is a bit of a partisan eye-roller, cheapening nearly two hours of solid history preceding it. Mostly informative and straightforwardly executed, overall it is another respectable tour of the Old West from The American Experience, airing this coming Tuesday (1/17) on most PBS outlets.

The American (Western) Experience: Billy the Kid

The man who became infamous as Billy the Kid was most likely born right here in New York City. It all starts to make sense now, doesn’t it? New York’s proud native son is profiled in the first of two new western-themed editions of The American Experience (promo here), which premieres on PBS this coming Tuesday.

William Henry McCarty, a.k.a. William H. Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid, never really had a father. There was a step-father, but he disappeared shortly after the death of McCarty’s mother. The greatest father-figure of his life was John Tunstall, the English cattleman who employed the Kid when he was already a fugitive. When the rival Murphy-Dolan outfit murdered Tunstall, McCarty and his former colleagues formed the Regulators to dispense some classic frontier justice. The resulting Lincoln County War made the Kid’s reputation.

One hundred forty years after the Kid’s death, everybody wants to be his friend. Amongst the talking heads, only Bill Richardson, the scandal-tarred former New Mexico governor, tactfully reminds viewers McCarty was a “cop killer.” Everyone else sees in McCarty what they want to: a Robin Hood, an ally of marginalized Hispanics, or a simply a young man in need of a sense of belonging. Yet, as an alternative to a stone cold outlaw, McCarty would arguably best be described as a vigilante out to punish a gang of murderers, at least until Governor Lew Ben-Hur Wallace walked away from a deal for McCarty’s testimony.

Regardless, Experience conveys a good sense of the era in general and the specific circumstances that made territorial New Mexico so conducive to the fugitive lifestyle. Employing faceless POV re-enactments, it sometimes resembles an Old West true crime program, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Competently helmed by John Maggio, it also features some fairly big name talent, including Robert Altman-regular Michael Murphy as the voice-over narrator and Pulitzer Prize winning author N. Scott Momaday as one its on-camera experts. Frankly, this is the sort of informative but not too taxing programming the History Channel was built on before it went all-in on reality shows. Indeed, history buffs should definitely enjoy Billy the Kid when it airs Tuesday (1/10) on PBS’s American Experience.