Monday, October 07, 2002 6:30 PM

L’histoire just ain’t what it used to be

In Pittsburgh, when I was a kid, was this enticing bit of television that came on just about supper time, called the Early Show. (The Late Show came at 11:15 PM after the news with Bill Burns) The Early show was always a movie, mostly by Warner Brothers (I still thrill when I see that logo and hear the deep brash brass herald that accompanies it), cut to within an inch of its life so that commercials could fill out the hour. The deal was we could watch TV and eat dinner if, (a.) we were sick or (b.)there was some educational value displayed. Being a rather robust child, it is here that I learned most of the history of the world.

I have often thought that it would be a delicious way to teach a history course and am happy to see that The History Channel does such a thing with a war movies and a panel of experts to tell how the actual events tally with the theatrical recreation.

I, for one, always believe the movie. I know this is controversial, but it is also incontrovertible. Remember the old saying, when you want the facts read non-fictional (in olden days a newspaper might even approach the facts), but if you want the truth read fiction.

Several months ago in a funk I picked up Sir Walter Scott’s The Talisman. I remember Ivanhoe (more about that noble knight later) with some fondness and decided to read about Richard Coeur De Lion. Saladin the Saracen king comes off better.

The Early Show circa 1958 The Crusades(1935) with Henry Wilcoxon as Richard Lion Heart and Ian Keith as Saladin. Loretta Young as the yucky love interest. King of the Occident and King of the Orient meet in a tent somewhere in the holy land. Richard, smug as English Royalty, shows his might by setting a steel mace across a couple tables, then takes his big heavy sword and with a mighty thwack cuts the solid metal bar in two. Saladin shows proper surprise and respect and then takes a very delicate piece of silk, tosses it in to the air. It floats on the currents of the hot desert air. As it descends he pulls his curved sword from its jeweled scabbard and holds the very sharp business end up. The silk slowly passes over the blade and is cut in two as it settles to the earth. Now, who is cooler?

The same scene to my utter joy appears in The Talisman. Having looked it up in some internet database I now know that one of the screenwriters for this Cecil B. Demille debacle (the film lost money) was none other than Harold Lamb and was based on his book The Crusade: Iron Men And Saints. I figure Lamb got it from Scott.

An aside: Ivanhoe. You have your choice between Elizabeth Taylor, who, granted, is a Jewess and will cause you a great deal of disfavor, and Joan Fontaine, who is thin lipped and lily white but will cause your countrymen to flock to your aid Sorry, Walter, I pick Elizabeth and move to Israel after I lose the foreskin. So, I never said the Early Show was perfect history!

I love Harold Lamb. He is an historical author who is almost lost to history. I love Kenneth Roberts, another forgotten gem. And Rafael Sabatini, ditto. And Alan Eckert, who Tak au bon Dieu, is still on bookstore shelves but shunned by scholars. Lamb-The Crusades, Sabatini-Captain Blood, Scaramouche and the Sea Hawk, Roberts – Northwest Passage, a movie and or book with a journey so grueling that I cannot either read or watch again for the extreme difficulties and struggles that I would have to endure along with the characters.

And Thomas Costain, Mika Waltari, Frank Yerby, James Streeter, Charles Nordhoff and James Hall, Edison Marshall, Garland Raork, F Van Wyck Mason, Walter D. Edmonds, Ben Ames Williams and…. the unnamed others I discovered during the hours of the early show and then at the library on Saturday morning. Y’all live in the basement with me and my mind!

I thought I was gonna write about Errol Flynn and John Wayne this evening. Boy am I surprised!