Give 'em Hell, Harry!

With today being Presidents Day, I've been watching some movies about presidents. Previously, I saw Wilson about Woodrow Wilson-the 28th President of the United States. This one is about Harry S. Truman-the 33rd President of the United States. As portrayed by James Whitmore, he appears on stage as the only performer on it having "conversations" with various people that come into his office like former President Herbert Hoover. He recounts his fight with General Douglas MacArthur, his taking on the Ku Klux Klan and Senator Joseph McCarthy, a critic saying something not-flattering about daughter Margaret concerning a concert performance, and, near the end, what he thinks about eventual president, Richard Nixon. (It's not good!) After years of only knowing about this, I'm glad to finally have seen this on YouTube just now. So on that note, I highly recommend Give 'em Hell, Harry!

Sorry Jack Nicholson - you were awesome in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, but Whitmore channels Truman and he's on the screen 100% of the time! He looks like Truman, talks and acts like Truman; It's a marvelous performance and the documented items that he discusses, MacArthur, Nixon, McCarthy, White Supremacy, Liars in Public Office, Civil Rights: All are true and just as pertinent today and they were 70 years ago when he said them. It's a great history lesson and a very entertaining one as well. I just can't stress it long or loud enough, this should be on every streaming service for the public to watch. Great quote which is not exact, but paraphrased here: If you have someone in office lying long enough to the public, the public will start to believe the lies. This film was made in 1975 and the original quote is 70 years old - The future is here.

This movie was made the year I was born, and I only saw it because it happened to be on at midnight on some non-affiliated channel back around 1990. I taped this movie off television, and just about wore the tape out watching it. I did not know much about Truman prior to seeing this movie, but after having watched it at least 100 times, Whitmore makes me feel like I knew the man. Even as a teenager in the early '90s, this was one of my favorite movies. Truman clearly had a quick wit, and it comes through clearly in this masterpiece biopic. If this movie is not released on DVD or some other digital medium, I fear that it will not be seen by future generations. I have never seen it on television since that night almost twenty years ago. I saw the Shawshank Redemption (which was also an excellent movie), and I thought that Whitmore was even better in "Give 'Em Hell Harry".

A filmed version of a one-man stage play (filmed before a live audience), James Whitmore's Oscar-nominated performance is a rare treasure. As Truman, Whitmore gives rapid-fire comments on the highlights of an exceptional politician's career. Truman explains his justification for dropping the atomic bomb at the end of World War II, and his reasons for firing General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. He talks of his wife, Bess (whom he refers to as "the Boss"), his home in Missouri, and his early days as a soldier in World War I, and a county commissioner in Kansas City. He offers us his views of Truman's contemporaries, both good (Winston Churchill, George C. Marshall) and bad (Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon). Whitmore is a joy to watch. If you can find this rare film it is well worth seeing.

I lived through this time. James Whitmore did such a good job he even made you think he looked like old Harry.