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Corny Yet Endearing
1776 (1972)
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Director
Peter H. Hunt *
Writer
Sherman Edwards **
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Plot Synposis
Film adaptation of Broadway hit musical, in which the founding fathers sing and dance their way to independence. The G rated plot may be corny yet endearing enough to be enjoyable.
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Dramatis Personae
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William Daniels .... John Adams
Howard Da Silva .... Dr. Benjamin Franklin
Ken Howard (I) .... Thomas Jefferson
Donald Madden .... John Dickinson
John Cullum .... Edward Rutledge
Roy Poole .... Stephen Hopkins
David Ford (I) .... John Hancock
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Ron Holgate .... Richard Henry Lee
Ray Middleton .... Colonel Thomas McKean
William Hansen .... Caesar Rodney
Blythe Danner .... Martha (Wayles)Jefferson
Virginia Vestoff .... Abigail Smith Adams
Emory Bass .... Judge James Wilson
Ralston Hill .... Charles Thomson
Howard Caine .... Lewis Morris
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Tumult and Revolution
The year was 1969. The country was in turmoil as the bicentential year approached. An unpopular war raged in South East Asia. Revolution was more than openly whispered. Flags were burnt in the streets; laws were openly defied.
The left wing appeared willing to hang its head in shame at the American past and renounce it entirely as much as the right was willing to defend it. Division between right and left over the war in Vietnam had created such a chasm that civil war loomed as the only immanent and probable consequence. The midst of this strife seemed the worst possible moment to celebrate the country's birth in a war.
Yet author Sherman Edwards toiled to recreate the Declaration of Independence in a musical. Driven in hysteria to Philadelphia in the middle of the night to pray at Dr Franklin's grave for inspiration, Edwards scripted 1776 in a frenzy. The product, singing and dancing congressmen, who sung off the British yoke might have been just as corny.
The end result was test aired on the Ed Sullivan Show. Despite the anti-heroic tenor of the time, 1776 was favorably received. A command performance at the Nixon White House passed muster. The play which followed was a hit; the motion picture joined a very select minority which beat the curse against American Revolution films.
The motion picture and the play upon which it was based track to a large extent the historical event, the Congressional debate over Independence and the narrow margin by which it passed as well as some of the nuances of the points of order by which Dr Franklin gently ramrodded the Declaration through Congress. It's a good introduction to the silly speeches and pompous oratory side of the history of the war. "1776" though fraught with trivial historical inaccuracies and rife with a giddy silliness delivers a solid depiction of the momentous occasion.
John Adams: An Unlikely Hero
The play however takes an interesting turn: it daringly makes a villain of American history, John Adams the hero and mover of the event. Long associated with the post-war neo-royalist Federalists, with the oppressive Alien and Sedition Laws, and with persecution in office as President of pro French Republican newspapers and their editors, Adams never attained the recognition he deserved in the American pantheon for some of his nobler moments in service of the cause. Most credit went to the brooding philosopher Jefferson who replaced Adams as President ironically as the choice of the most extreme federalists.
In the 1960s a neo-conservative revival against the backdrop of the turmoil argued for a greater dignity for John Adams. Certainly much could be said for Adams the patriot. A member of the committee which drafted the declaration, Adams would see the cause through to the Treaty of Paris where he served as one of the five commissioners who met with Britain. As ambassador to Holland, Adams rejected the English version of a treaty for not having been properly translated into The American language. Even Adam's repressive measures in office were justified by the exigencies of an undeclared naval war with the French Republic. Sherman Edwards followed the Adamist view in the musical.
And the view of both Adamses is up close and personal. Abigail Adams plays an important part in John's life. Yet if the movie claims a certain homebound simplicity for Mrs Adams, more than legend asserts Mrs Adams not Mr served in fact as the second US president. And a rather glib one at that. Abigail openly advocated women's rights.
An excellent performance by William Daniels as John Adams, a man short in stature but not without a certain obnoxious charm was nicely complimented by Virginia Vestoff as Abigail Adams. Both did justice to the powerful and dynamic people the Adams were.
William Daniels, all agree, was John Adams reincarnate. The role as John Adams made Daniels into the stereotypical New Englander. Later Daniels would return to the Adams character in PBS' much acclaimed Adams family chronicles and again in John Jakes' THE BASTARD. Then the small screen arced off the typecast launching Daniels in a longstanding gig as Dr Craig a hard nosed Boston Doctor in St Elsewhere.
And William Daniels toyed with the John Adams character, on "St. Elsewhere" where he as Dr Craig chants a line from 1776:"It's hot as hell in Philadelphia!"
Authorship of the Declaration
The declaration is always attributed to Jefferson but others certainly had a hand in it. Fans of Thomas Paine say the basic text comes lifted directly from the pages of Paine's best selling broadside Common Sense. In the history of the country, Paine's popular Common Sense outsold all other books including the Bible. In Common Sense Paine suggested a declaration which if in a cruder hand says pretty much the same as that now on parchment under glass.
Even if the text itself were not completely original, the ruffles and flourishes undoubtedly flowed from Jefferson's quill.
The Icons Dance to Life
Yet, although the play strives for a measure of historical accuracy, in deriving dialogue from documents and letters of the principal movers, the screen play does not become so caught up in a political science lecture that it ignores the emotions of this important moment. Turning the icons to flesh and blood, the play presents real people with real worries and real feelings and unleashes the demi-gods from the marble in which history has ensconced them. The men and women who were in Jefferson's words an assemblage of "demi-gods" are granted that human face, occasionally with a touch of wit and humor, without besmirching them or their accomplishments. Many have said that the personalization of the movers and shakers make 1776 an excellent as a teaching tool for American History.
The Music of 1776
We led fair Freedom hither,
And lo, the desert smiled,
A paradise of pleasure
New opened in the wild;
Your harvest, bold Americans,
No power shall snatch away,
Preserve, preserve, preserve your rights
In Free America.
Great costumes and superb acting might attach personalities to the founding fathers but 1776's music rings a cacophonic note when first heard. The music of 1776 takes a bit of getting used to. Very little of it resembles colonial music which in itself would take some acclimation.
The music of 1776 is more reflective of music of the late music hall era of a cheap Gilbert and Sullivan knock-offs. Only the haunting melody Momma Look Sharp, an anti-war song sung by a soldier acting as a messenger from Washington's Army, could be mistaken for a colonial aria. Cool Cool Conservative Men, the center-piece of the Second Act in the play cut from the movie at the insistence of Jack Warner comes close to a period song,
The Liberty Song
sometimes titled in different versions For Washington and Liberty. As in The Liberty Song, the stirring bars of
`To Acheron in Heaven'
just pop out.
The Cool Cool Conservative Men
"Cool, Cool Conservative Men" expounds the Tory position. Without its cool, what follows makes no sense. Many skeptical Tories including John Dickenson put aside misgivings to fight in the American cause. Noteworthy is Dickenson's decision to leave congress to bear arms for the cause he would have disfavored. Dickenson would be one of two US Congressmen to serve in the Army. Little has changed in 226 years.
1776 like the Arthurian saga in itself has sprouted legends. According to some the
Jack Warner was horrified at hearing the loyalists strumming verse to the tune of The Star Spangled Banner. Even re-titling the song `The Cool Cool Considerate Men' did not assauge Warner. The offending passages, according to legend, were cut to avoid
retribution from the Nixon White House.
I think part of the
Robert Goldstein
epic has intruded here. Unlike famed screenplaywright Goldstein jailed in 1917 by President Wilson at Britain's insistence, for having written a screenplay by the nearly the same title,
Spirit of 1776
Warner had nothing to fear but fear itself. Warner needn't have bothered emending the script. The play was repeatedly staged at the Nixon White House. And Nixon claimed to have been inspired by it to mine the harbors at Haiphong and to invade Cambodia, controversial decisions in the Vietnam War.
Modern folk lorists credit an unknown assistant editor with protecting excised sections from destruction and a dedicated secretary in bringing it to light. A Laserdisc version is now available which has restored "Cool Cool Considerate Men" to its rightful place in the Second Act.
The Director's cut excising `Cool, Cool Considerate Men' shortened the film by a half-hour. Likely the length rather than a political agenda was the motivating factor in the deletion.
Music adds to 1776's intrinsic humor. Yet if the concept of Congressmen singing to anything other than a Grand Jury or dancing anywhere but out of a political mal-en-scene troubles the viewer, the music moves the message. Song develops character, compliments dialogue and advances the plot.
Once infected with the music, one can see the genius of the author in presenting the thorny problem of the slave trade in the moving song "Molasses, Rum and Slaves" sung by John Cullum (Edward Rutledge), a chilling rationalization of the peculiar system.
Colonial Music
What was Colonial music like? Nothing on the top ten or the top of the pops would be recognized by the esteemed forebearers. Most colonial musicians re-worded existing tunes from the British Isles. Though Colonials did like to sing and dance (except in dour Puritan New England), Americans had limited instrumentation: the fife, the drums, the fiddle; rich people might have afforded a harpsichord.
The Gilbert and Sullivan-esque music from 1776 lacked the simplicity of the Colonial era.
The nearest extant genres to Colonial music are some strains of Country-Western, particularly Blue Grass, or modern Keltic airs.
History vs Film
Proud Albion bow'd to Caesar,
And numerous lords before,
To Picts, to Danes, to Normans,
And many masters more;
But we can boast Americans
Have never fall'n a prey,
Huzza, huzza, huzza, huzza
For Free America.
Where accurate in reporting the correspondence between John Adams and Abigail and the messages from General Washington, the play, the movie and American history in general miss the real controversy brewing between the obsequetious Washington and the Congress. Washington pled for more: more men, more money and more guns to build a professional army to face the British. Congress, though not without the invisible hand of backstage maneouvering, enacted the declaration in euphoria over the legends of the deeds of part-time untrained militia at Concord and Lexington on April 19th, 1775.
Though that dates stands to this date on the US Army colors, the British accomplished the search and destroy mission which the Americans conspicuously failed to interdict.
A Nation and A Nationality
Torn from a world of tyrants
Beneath this western sky
We formed a new dominion,
A land of liberty;
The world shall own we're freemen here,
And such will ever be,
Huzza, huzza, huzza, huzza
For love and liberty.
"We're a new nationality. We require a new nation!" declares Dr Ben Franklin (Howard DeSilva.) Particularly perfect to the part of Dr Benjamin Franklin whose humility hides his cunning as a politician of the backstairs. How ironic! The Franklin template fits well on DeSilva blacklisted during the Red Scare of the 1950s.
Yet the real Franklin though at all times true and faithful to the cause as its principal spokesman in the French court and in the final negotiations with Britain after Cornwallis' defeat would have preferred a Commonwealth relationship with the British King and lamented the Independence which his efforts produced.
WHO WERE THE LOYALISTS
But then again if some Tories laid aside misgivings and supported the cause, some who concurred in the colonies' remonstrations with Britain eventually served in Loyalist units on the British side. The revolution was so divisive an event that at time to pick and choose, father fought son and brother, brother. The Loyalist could be a friend a neighbor a business partner or a cousin.
The divisions of 1976 which veered toward civil war were not quite as intricately entangled by comparison.
There may yet arise a wiser generation spared the experience of the destruction, iconoclasm and devaluation of the American past which stemmed from the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s. This film might serve as a useful starting point in building the future.
jd collins
Editor of Fullosia Press, jd collins claims to be a student of the American Revolution. Some of his writings had been carried by
Inditer Dot Com.
Canada's leading on line journal now archived by their national library.
RPPS
The RPPS was created in 1971 to preserve American culture against erosion. Its study of the Revolution collects forgotten films which have dealt with the values of the Revolution. It hopes to inspire a daring writter to break the curse and produce an epic.
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