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cabroome's avatar

I truly believe The Lost Cause was the most effective propaganda campaign in our country's history, and it used the burgeoning art form of the movies to a stultifying degree. From cinema's onset until Glory in the 80's you'd be hard-pressed to find a heroic Union soldier on the big screen. Whatever positivity given to the Union cause was instead rolled into hagiographies about Abraham Lincoln, and even then they didn't delve into the Civil War at all (see John Ford's "Young Mr Lincoln").

But as lousy cinema was with this, TV may have been worse. Every small screen cowboy seemingly had been Confederates.

Maybe though I'm wrong. Were there any notable heroes given any allegiance to the Union before the 80's?

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Jason Work Anderson's avatar

Sherlock Jr. was the first Keaton movie AND the first silent film I ever saw. It was in a film history class (with live accompaniment!) and it remains my favorite but The General is right up there. You two mentioned most of my favorite moments but how about the timing when Keaton is sitting on the front of the engine and throws one railroad tie at the one blocking his path, flipping it off the tracks? The absolute perfect timing of it just makes me laugh with delight every single time I see it.

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