On this date in 1955, Great Britain hanged Ruth Ellis, who became the last woman executed in the United Kingdom. Ellis was convicted of murdering race-car driver David Blakely. Ellis and Blakely had an affair that sometimes became violent, including one time when Blakely hit Ellis in the stomach causing her to miscarriage. Ellis, a married night club hostess, was found guilty of shooting Blakely to death outside a pub in North London. She emptied the bullets in her revolver into his body and then asked someone to call the police. She immediately gave a full confession.
After the jury convicted the 28-year-old Ellis of intentional murder, she automatically received the death penalty. She was hanged at Holloway Prison. As in the modern United States, executions of women often seem to highlight for some the barbarity of the death penalty. In Ellis’s case, thousands of people protested the planned execution.
Although more men were hanged after Ellis, she was the last woman hanged in Great Britain. The last men were hanged in 1964, as England, Scotland, and Wales banned the death penalty for murder in 1965. In 1973, Northern Ireland banned capital punishment, and in 1998 Great Britain banned executions for all crimes, including treason.
I just learned there is a movie about the case, Dance With A Stranger (1985). It does not appear to be available on Netflix, but is available other places. Dance With A Stranger stars Miranda Richardson, Rupert Everett, and Ian Holm. If you have seen the movie, leave a comment. It seems to have received pretty good reviews by critics. Ellis is also portrayed in the movie Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman(2006).
The murder of Blakely and the hanging of Ellis led to other tragedies. According to a detailed Wikipedia article, Ellis’s husband, George Ellis, hanged himself a few years later. Ruth Ellis’s son by another man, who was 10 when his mother was hanged, suffered psychological problems after the execution and eventually killed himself in 1982. Ruth’s sister Muriel Jakubait has worked unsuccessfully to clear her sister’s name, although many have argued that Ellis suffered from battered spouse syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Albert Pierrepoint, the official hangman of Great Britain who hanged Ellis, wrote in 1974 “that executions solve nothing.” The United Kingdom eventually agreed, but it was too late for Ruth Ellis. More details on the case are available on the TruTV website.
Have you seen Dance with a Stranger? Leave a comment.
One of the many amazing and unusual things about Bob Dylan is that he continues to write great songs after such a long career. Most talented artists have a short period of brilliant creativity, but Dylan has transcended time. Few artists in any field have had such a long career of such quality.
While Dylan is most famous for his early output, in his later years he continues to create relevant and beautiful music. One of those songs is “Make You Feel My Love” from his 1997 album, Time Out Of Mind.
The song has been covered by number of artists. Garth Brooks and Billy Joel, two great pop songwriters themselves, recognized the brilliance of “Make You Feel My Love.” They each released cover versions immediately after the song was available, with Brooks’s song going to number one on the country charts. The song also has been covered by Adele, Kelly Clarkson, Bryan Ferry, Joan Osborne, Kris Allen, Shawn Colvin, Neil Diamond, and Garth’s wife Trisha Yearwood, among others.
Garth Brooks and Bob Dylan are anti-You Tube, so it is harder to hear their versions online, but you may hear a clip of Bob Dylan’s original on his website. If you are brave you might try this short clip of actor Jeremy Irons singing “To Make You Feel My Love.”Rebecca Ferguson, the season runner-up on the 2010 United Kingdom’s X Factor received a standing ovation from Simon Cowell for her version of the song, and 2009 American Idol winner Kris Allen also performed the song on that show. The Garth Brooks version also appeared in the Sandra Bullock movie, Hope Floats.
By contrast, music critics have not been so kind to the song. Nigel Williamson’s Rough Guide to Bob Dylan calls it the “slightest composition” on Time Out of Mind. In Still on the Road, Clinton Heylin claims that the song shows Dylan’s inability to emulate Tin Pan Alley and that the song “truly belonged” on the Billy Joel album. Critics of the cover artists and shows like American Idol might argue that those artists reflect the poor quality of the song. They are wrong.
The song is timeless and sounds like it has been around forever, which is the magic of so many of Bob Dylan’s songs. I agree with the critics that Time Out of Mind has greater songs in some senses, like “Not Dark Yet.” But it is “Make You Feel My Love” that will be covered for decades to come. Many of the lyrics are typical love song cliches, such as “I could hold you for a million years.” And some of the words do not look like they would work when you see them on the written page, including “I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue / I’d go crawlin’ down the avenue.” But the combination of words with the melody create something timeless that is more than the separate parts. And the lyrics for the final bridge are something special:
Though storms are raging on the rollin’ sea, And on the highway of regrets; Though winds of change are throwing wild and free, You ain’t seen nothin’ like me yet.
This 2003 live version by Joan Osborne in Sausalito, California is one of the best versions of the song. There is something about this beautiful version on a sunny cool afternoon next to the ocean. Osborne’s heart really comes through her voice, even as the people talking in the crowd do not realize what is happening on stage. Thank goodness for YouTube so others can appreciate what they were missing. Her studio version of the song is on her 2000 album Righteous Love.
In Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, Oliver Trager says that the song “is at best a lament for, or at worst a creepy plea to, an unattainable woman from a man getting more desperate by the minute.” He also points out that some have interpreted the song as being about the relationship between humans and Christ (“I could hold you for a million years”).
Both interpretations from Trager are worth some thought, but ultimately the song seems more in the tradition of love songs like “My Girl” by the Temptations (“I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day/ When it’s cold outside I’ve got the month of May.”) or “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers (“I’ve hungered for your touch/ A long lonely time/ And time goes by so slowly”) or “Here, There, and Everywhere” by the Beatles (“I want her everywhere”). There is a long tradition in pop music of using hyperbole to explain the unexplainable human emotion of love. And when you watch the Joan Osborne version above, there is no trace of Trager’s creepy old man left. While Dylan may be Dylan and may have intended something different, the song has taken on a life of its own through various interpretations, becoming one of his late career classics and a beautiful love song.
What do you think? Is “Make You Feel My Love” a classic song or just a bad pop song or something else? Leave a comment.
Chimesfreedom recently added a new feature to our main page entitled, “Featured Blog Posts,” in the right-hand column of this page under the “Archives.” When you visit Chimesfreedom, that section will randomly select among some of our best posts, chosen because of reader interest or because we think they are among our more interesting blog posts. It is sort of a selection of greatest hits.
So, if you are new to this website, or even if you are a regular reader who may have missed some posts, periodically check to see what posts are featured and click on the links to read the ones that interest you. This new feature allows you to find older posts of interest in addition to the other ways of clicking the “Category” links at the right or the “Headlines” tab at the top.
This morning at 11:30 a.m. EST, the space shuttle Atlantis successfully launched, marking NASA’s final shuttle mission. Atlantis will be in space for twelve days before returning to earth at Kennedy Space Center.
A previous Chimesfreedom post featured some thoughts about the end of the shuttle program, but watching this final launch online this morning at NASA HD-TV brings back a flood of memories, ranging from the excitement about the program when it was first announced, the thrill of the first test flights when the shuttle rode piggyback on jets, and remembering where I was when we lost the heroes on the Challenger in January 28, 1986 and on the Columbia on February 1, 2003. So today, it is hats off to all of the men and women (as well as some animals) who have contributed to the space program through the years, and here is hoping for future safe adventures.
The space shuttle is named after a seafaring research ship, following a practice for naming the shuttles after ships. The articles do not say where the research ship got its name, but one may surmise that the name “Atlantis” comes from stories about the lost civilization and the continent that was buried beneath the sea. Tales about Atlantis, whether myth or reality, have circulated for centuries, and Plato wrote about it around 360 B.C.
A little more recently, in 1969, Donovan released an album featuring the classic song about the lost civilization, “Atlantis.” It is an unusual and unforgettable song, where the singer begins by telling us about the island’s tragedy as an epic story and ends with his sadness over a lost love. The song was originally released in the U.S. as a B-side to the song “To Susan on the West Coast Waiting” because the record company thought U.S. record buyers would not be interested in a song with a long talking introduction. But they were wrong, and “Atlantis” became a much bigger hit than the A-side did.
Around the Internet, there are rumors that Paul McCartney sings in the background and plays tambourine on “Atlantis,” although he is not listed in the credits for the song. Give it a listen and you will hear the McCartney-like voice near the end. But in a 2008 Goldmine interview, Donovan said that it was not McCartney (although McCartney claps and giggles on Donovan’s “Mellow Yellow“).
And as you listen to “Atlantis,” send good thoughts to the astronauts on their journey, as well as to “the poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist,/ The magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.”
Bonus “Atlantis” song: On Twitter, someone pointed out that The Shadows recorded an instrumental song also called “Atlantis” in the early 1960s. For readers who may not be familiar with the group, as explained on Allmusic.com, The Shadows were a landmark U.K. band in the 1960s and became one of the most popular instrumental groups in the world. Also, they often performed with Cliff Richard. Check them out if you do not know them already. (Thanks to @RetrospaceAndy.)
On July 7 in 1900, Warren Earp — the youngest of the Earp brothers — was killed in a saloon in Wilcox, Arizona. Warren’s most famous brother, Wyatt Earp, lived until 1929. On the day he died, Warren was drinking and confronting other customers when John Boyett killed him in a gunfight. In a later trial, Boyett was found not guilty because he was acting in self-defense.
Warren Earp did not participate in the famous 1881 gunfight at OK Corral with his brothers and Doc Holliday. But he was in the town at the time. And later he helped Wyatt with the revenge killings after the gunfight. All of those events surrounding the gunfight are portrayed in the movie Wyatt Earp (1994), a decent movie with an odd ending.
The Ending of “Wyatt Earp” . . . on a Ship?
“You ended a movie about me with a luxury cruise?”
Wyatt Earp is an enjoyable movie and in some ways superior to the more popular Tombstone from the same year. But there is one major problem with it. The movie has a poor ending. Had director Lawrence Kasden given the movie a memorable ending, the movie would be more highly regarded than it is. (Spoiler Alert: This entry discusses the film’s ending, although it is not a twist or surprise ending.)
In Wyatt Earp, the movie follows Earp’s life from his time as a child to adulthood. The film, of course, focuses largely on Earp’s western exploits. And much of the movie centers on Earp’s time in Tombstone, Arizona. It is in Tombstone where Earp and his brothers participated in the Gunfight at OK Corral.
The movie provides a realistic portrayal of that famous fight. Then, the movie shows subsequent events and the anger among the survivors. As the movie nears the end, we see Kevin Costner’s Earp exacting revenge on other characters who participated in the Tombstone gunfight.
Then, the movie cuts to many years in the future. Earp and his wife Josie Marcus are on a ship near Alaska.
They are approached by a young man who recounts a story, by aid of a flashback, of how Earp saved his uncle, Tommy “Behind the Deuce” O’Rourke (based on real-life Michael “Johnny-Behind-the Deuce” O’Rourke). Tommy’s nephew describes how Earp had intervened to protect Tommy from an angry mob many years earlier in Tombstone.
Then, after Tommy’s nephew leaves, Earp says to Josie, “Some say it did not happen that way.” She responds to the effect, “Don’t worry Wyatt, it happened that way.” End of movie.
The video below includes most of the movie’s conclusion, although it omits the comments by Wyatt and Josie at the end of the scene.
Why the Ending of “Wyatt Earp” Does not Work
This coda to the movie does not work for a number of reasons. First, the scene includes a distracting flashback after a short jump to the future.
We are thrown into a big jump in the future, which could work if the future showed us something meaningful about the movie we have been watching for three-plus hours. But the purpose of this flash-forward is to show a flashback to Earp’s lawman days — a time period the movie already covered.
Further, the ship ending — especially along with the flashback — makes it appear that the Tommy-Behind-the-Deuce character has some big significance for summarizing Earp’s life. But what happened with Tommy does not really seem that significant. It is not any more important than the rest of the movie that already focused on Earp’s lawman. But by ending with a discussion of the flashback, the movie makes the viewer think they should see something important that just is not there.
On the IMDb website, one astute viewer notes that earlier in the movie Josie had mentioned having heard the Tommy-Behind-the-Deuce story when she first met Wyatt. But, even assuming viewers will remember one passing mention of Tommy early in the three-hour movie, viewers may not remember at the end. And even if they remember and make the connection at the end, it is still confusing about why the movie ends on the Tommy-Behind-the-Deuce note.
What Was the Director Thinking?
There does not seem to be much discussion of the ending on the web. But there are a few brief critiques (“muddled,” “neutered climax,” etc.). And Roger Ebert calls the ending sequence “pointless.”
One might concede there is an argument for what Director Lawrence Kasden was trying to accomplish. The scene does reflect on the myth of the Western and how events may be remembered differently than how they really happened.
The flashback does show Earp as a pure hero. When we watch Earp in the real-time of the movie, we see many flaws in the man. But when we see him in the memory, Earp does his job as a lawman perfectly. So, perhaps Kasden wanted viewers to see that contrast to show how Earp became remembered as a hero and his flaws forgotten in that memory.
That interpretation of the ending makes some sense. But if that interpretation was Kasden’s goal, the contrast should have been clearer for the viewer disoriented by the sudden jump to the future on a boat. Maybe the scene needed to be longer.
Perhaps Kasden was trying to invoke another famous movie scene from To Kill a Mockingbird. In that movie, lawyer Atticus Finch protected a man from a lynch mob, and the viewer saw him as a courageous hero.
That all being said, with the exception of the ending, Director Lawrence Kasden created a very good Western epic biopic with Wyatt Earp. The film does a decent job of trying to convey much of a long adventurous life.
I even prefer Wyatt Earp to the less realistic Tombstone. Kevin Costner does a good job in the lead role, portraying the hero as a dark and troubled character. And Dennis Quaid gives one of his best performances ever as Doc Holliday. One of the best things about both Wyatt Earp and Tombstone are the portrayals of Doc Holiday by Quaid and Val Kilmer, respectively.
If you do not mind the awkward ending and the length of the film, and if you appreciate character-studies and Westerns, you might want to spend a lazy weekend afternoon watching Wyatt Earp.
(The trailer has a better ending than the movie, withe Gene Hackman’s lines summarizing the theme of the movie better than the lines that actually ended the movie.)
On this date in 1955, Great Britain hanged Ruth Ellis, who became the last woman executed in the United Kingdom. Ellis was convicted of murdering race-car driver David Blakely. Ellis and Blakely had an affair that sometimes became violent, including one time when Blakely hit Ellis in the stomach causing her to miscarriage. Ellis, a married night club hostess, was found guilty of shooting Blakely to death outside a pub in North London. She emptied the bullets in her revolver into his body and then asked someone to call the police. She immediately gave a full confession.
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calls it the “slightest composition” on Time Out of Mind. In Still on the Road, Clinton Heylin claims that the song shows Dylan’s inability to emulate Tin Pan Alley and that the song “truly belonged” on the Billy Joel album. Critics of the cover artists and shows like American Idol might argue that those artists reflect the poor quality of the song. They are wrong.
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, Oliver Trager says that the song “is at best a lament for, or at worst a creepy plea to, an unattainable woman from a man getting more desperate by the minute.” He also points out that some have interpreted the song as being about the relationship between humans and Christ (“I could hold you for a million years”).
would add more to explain the confusing ending, but unfortunately 