A Hurricane Called Bertha and Gone With the Wind
By Tom Barnes
2008 Hurricane Watch The strong tropical wave reported last Wednesday July 2nd off the African coast was real enough to cause some alarm. Over the next several days the wave intensified and by July 5th had the strength of a Tropical Storm with sustained winds of 50 mph and was named Bertha. Fortunately the storm was over open water and while she grew her winds were not directed at any land mass. On the 6th the storm became worrisome, not for her wind speed but for direction. Traveling almost due west with sustained winds of 75 mph the storm opened all kinds of possibilities in the Caribbean. Fortunately as her winds increased Bertha began a slow turn to the north and by the time the winds reached a respectable hurricane speed of 120 mph the storm was turning toward the northwest. As of 5:00 am EDT this morning July 9th Bertha was located 790 miles southeast of Bermuda and tracking to the northwest at 10 mph. The storm is traveling over open waters and at present is no menace to anyone with the exception of shipping lanes. During this time frame in 1945 there was no reported storm activity in the Caribbean. Hollywood Grows Up in the 1930's. Oxford, Mississippi native William Faulkner returned to Hollywood and worked on a number of films including The Big Sleep and To have and Have Not. But today we won't be talking about personalities; instead we'll stay mainly with the winning films of the thirties. In our segments on Let's go to the Movies we covered CB DeMille's first trip to the west and the first feature film made in Hollywood called The Squawman. The year was 1914. For the next dozen years Hollywood's main staple was silent comedy. But changes were in the wind and in 1927 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was formed. Two years later a tradition of handing out awards was born and the first formal ceremony to honor pictures and personalities was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on May 16 1929. The Best Picture winner was -- Wings directed by William Wellman. The technical process of filmmaking was also growing with the introduction of sound and later in the decade color was introduced. The first best film of the 1930's was All Quiet on the Western Front followed by Cimarron, Grand Hotel, Cavalcade, It Happened One Night, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Great Ziegfeld, The Life of Emile Zola Then in 1938 it was You can't take it with you. Suddenly a funny thing happened, it was like the whole Hollywood colony took aim at and built to a crescendo, saving their very best for that last and final year of the decade -- 1939. America was digging its way out of the malaise and misery of those depression years and it was Hollywood that provided an all-star celebration, marking an end to the thirties. "Turn on your radios America." On the night of February 29, 1940 there's going to be a party at the Ambassador Hotel's Cocoanut Grove. For the Oscar presentations Bob Hope was the MC. "Hello this is Bob, coming to you from the Ambassador Hotel, and the Academy Award Ceremony, Hope saying good evening all you, sitting on pins and needles, hopefuls." That was Oscar night and here are the entries for best picture choices. First the nominees and last the winner: Dark Victory During most years any one of those films could have won the Oscar, but not tonight. Now open the envelope please; and the best picture of 1939 is; GONE WITH THE WIND Writers Corner: Honor your character's integrity. To paraphrase Sherwood Anderson: Your characters should be as real as living people. You should be no more willing to sell them out than you would to sell out your friends or the woman you love. To take the lives of those people and bend or twist them to suit the needs of some cleverly thought out plot to give your readers a false emotion is as mean and ignoble as it is to sell out living men or women -- And that is the truth. Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter. Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
Good Bye, Mr. Chips
Love Affair
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
Ninotchka
Of Mice And Men
Stagecoach
The Wizzard Of Oz
Wuthering Heights.
About the Author
More Books by Tom Barnes
The Goring Collection
Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone
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