Our Cinematic Historical Pageant

By Lewis Toland, 2026

Most Robson residents recall the 1950s when the “Greatest Generation” (our parents) raised families, built stable homes, and worshiped on Sunday.  Small towns abounded, marriages lasted before “no fault” divorce, children played in safety, and public schools taught marketable skills and patriotism.  Americans expected widespread literacy, so we gleaned much of our political insight from newspapers, magazines, and books.  Little did we notice, though, that technology was already reshaping politics and culture.   

In the 1920s, Republican President Coolidge introduced radio addresses, an art refined by FDR’s “fireside chats.”

Lessons of the 1924 Immigration Act: News Article - Independent Institute

In the Fifties, television’s political influence culminated in the Kennedy-Nixon debate.

The impact of the 1960 JFK-Nixon debate | CNN Politics

Radio listeners, better attuned to verbal content, thought that Nixon won.  Viewers more attuned to image, though, credited JFK with the better performance.  Since 2016, the Internet and social media have further allured most of us from careful reading and thinking to preferring performance over sober evaluation.  Whether the benefits of immediacy outweigh the distractive nature of social media awaits another column.

If politics indeed lies downstream of culture, we conservatives rightfully question how culture influences our politics.  Russell Kirk, a leader of conservatism’s 1950s resurrection, suggests our motives:

The conservative is concerned, first of all, with the regeneration of the spirit and

character—with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the

ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is

founded. This is conservatism at its highest.

Remembering the Conservative Icon Russell Kirk – New Guard Press

Indeed, this claim does not reflect talk radio or Fox News, which slights what makes life worth living, once the purpose of American History and Western Civilization courses. Imitating Greek and Roman predecessors, our Founders studied philosophy, history, and literature to become better persons, also the same purpose of American colleges until the Progressive Era.  Much of our social turmoil results from the educational shift from knowing our cultural origins to gratifying self-satisfaction.  Condemning the “Woke” interpretations in the Smithsonian Institute, Matthew Spalding clarifies the cultural cost, “Historical knowledge is to a civilization what memory is to the individual person.”

The Greeks and Romans expected literature to delight and to educate.  Similarly, George Washington loved Joseph Addison’s drama Cato about a senator who opposes Julius Caesar for replacing the Republic with an empire.

When colonial troops’ morale against imperial Britain sagged, Washington ordered a performance of Cato.  Nathan Hale reworked a line from the play before he was hanged: “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”  Similarly, Patrick Henry rephrased Cato to inspire the signers of the Declaration of Independence: “Give me liberty or give me death!”

Let’s reconsider a shrinking cultural factor that shaped and reflected our outlook on life: the movies, which render drama more accessible than a live performance.  In the 1950s, western movies stimulated our imaginations through adventure, offering heroism worth imitating.  The western hero risks danger so that others might safely thrive, a conservative goal.  Alan Ladd in Shane faces a gunslinger so that farmers might prosper.  At the cost of losing his gal, John Wayne’s Tom Doniphan rescues Jimmy Stewart’s Ransom Stoddard in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence: an honorable man values a lover’s hopes above his own.  Such classic westerns affirm Kirk’s “the inner order of the soul,” the ordered liberty, which is foundational to conservatism.

Classic westerns constitute one of several genres to conserve as we ponder the crème de la crème worth passing along to subsequent generations.  Abiding truths elicit wonder and gratitude.  The best films from our youth entertained and molded our character as stories have done for millennia. Consider these cinematic gems illustrating American life and western culture.

Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life commends George Bailey’s self-denial for the community’s families.  We admire Jefferson Smith in Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for acting like a new Lincoln.  Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons pushes ethics even higher for Sir Thomas More – when patriotism and faith conflict, which triumphs?  Eric Liddell, an Olympic Christian in Chariots of Fire, honors God by not competing on Sunday, and God honors him by granting victory in the 1928 Olympics before he dies in a Japanese prison compound while serving Chinese children.  Love and marriage bring more than “a horse and carriage” through musicals: Oklahoma, South Pacific, and The Music Man.  Our club offers these films not merely to entertain, but to cultivate gratitude for the American pageant passed to us by parents and grandparents.

Our leadership respects copyright laws.  Thus, President Julie Greenawalt consulted with the Motion Picture Licensing Corporation to learn the rules, located four anonymous donors, and secured scheduling through the clubhouse.  Her leadership and help from BOD members Constance Quagilano, Lizzie Wickert, and Tom Dollahite enable this series.  Three more films commend resilience, constitutional compromise for the common good, and saving endangered comrades in arms.  A tentative lineup awaits next spring.