Give 'em Hell, Harry!

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

As a twenty two year old enjoying a blissful summer in 1982, I came home from a day at Zuma Beach and this is what channel 5 was showing. Back then, my hobby was to audio tape(VCRs will rare then)stuff on TV. I recorded about the last twenty minutes of it. His story about McCarthy and his reading of the Tennyson poem were parts I've committed to memory. since my mom had a stroke, I recently began driving her car and it has a cassette player in it. I looked in my dusty old tape box and there it was. I have been playing it over and over again, like I did 26 years ago. Whitemore is priceless as Truman.

A side note: After the Truman show ends on my tape, the next thing you hear is Dan Akroyd as Richard Nixon on a SNL sketch where he turns off the TV in disgust at how Rip Torn is portraying him in a TV movie: Akroyd blurts out on my tape: "Well that was a piece of crap"

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 was a great filmed stage presentation of James Whitmore's one-man show about Harry Truman, written by Samuel Gallu. He becomes President Truman right from the beginning. This show, along with the Will Rogers USA and the not-as-well-known Bully or Bully Boy (Theodore Roosevelt) is the complete list of one-man shows this fine actor has done.