At trial, they were defended by Clarence Darrow, who delivered a 12-hour closing argument that included lines like:
This terrible crime was inherent in his organism, and it came from some ancestor... Is any blame attached because somebody took Nietzsche's philosophy seriously and fashioned his life upon it?... It is hardly fair to hang a 19-year-old boy for the philosophy that was taught him at the university.The very entertaining Hitchcock movie "Rope" is based on this incident, and Jimmy Stewart plays the role of the professor who finds out where the philosophy he taught has led.
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Just think of all the atrocities committed throughout the ages by folks who took seriously the teachings of the Bible and the Koran.
If a 19 year old makes pot brownies with hash oil, I should like to think the esteemed Darrow would vouchsafe the justice of the sentence of life without parole, given the politics.
Why does Leopold always get top billing?
This actor who could do Hitchcock's version so well was a survivor of his own mental breakdown following flying as leader of 18 flights of B-24s over Germany being used as bait to draw up German Luftwaffe pilots to their deaths in the six months prior to June, 1944's invasion of Europe. Stewart broke down from daily watching his men slaughtered to win air supremacy over Europe.
After the war ended Colonel Stewart was a changed man. He had to find different and serious types of roles if he hoped to start back as an actor.
The Hitchcock role helped, but the old Jimmy Stewart was MIA. And found himself in It's a wonderful Life. But he mostly he did Anthony Mann westerns as a violent good man after the war.
A superman... is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do.
That's a 19 year old's reading of Nietzsche, all right. A sociopath is a sociopath, no matter what his preferred reading material may be. A brilliant sociopath will use that brilliance to justify his actions, while a dim-bulb sociopath will just do the evil deed without the fancy-ass justifications.
And one of them eventually got out. A guy kills a boy in cold blood, coldest possible blood, is caught, sentenced to life because death is too mean, and some fool later on lets him out! One among many reasons to support the death penalty.
As for entitled minds like Leopold and Loeb, I despise them. Give me a Jimmy Stewart guardian type real man any day.
BTW, Anatomy of a Murder is on Netflix this month. Stewart's role as a Upper Peninsula Michigan trial lawyer was done to perfection.
The thinly fictionalized "Compulsion," filmed with Orson Welles in the Darrow role, is much more compelling than "Rope."
The back story of the boys, the crime itself, the detective story and the Trial of the Century in minute detail, where Hitchcock stages a door-banging French farce with few laughs.
The Meyer Levin novel on which the film is based preceded "In Cold Blood." I find it far more compelling.
When he played Chicago, Lenny Bruce said, "Bobby Franks was a snotty kid anyway." The audience was not amused.
"BTW, Anatomy of a Murder is on Netflix this month. Stewart's role as a Upper Peninsula Michigan trial lawyer was done to perfection."
The book is actually better than the movie, although the movie is excellent. The movie changed the ending to simplify the story.
Jimbino: "Just think of all the atrocities committed throughout the ages by folks who took seriously the teachings of the Bible and the Koran."
Add them all up. Count every victim of the Muslim wars of conquest, the inquisition, the Reconquista and the atrocities in the crusades. Boy, that is a lot of bodies, isn't it?
Still, that large number pales in comparison to the total racked up by those, just in the last 100 years, who explicitly rejected the teachings of the Bible: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Il, Pol Pot, ...
And then stop to think how very few atheists there have been in history -- compared to the nominally religious. Accounting for their very low numbers the atheist achievement in murder absolutely dominates the religious opposition.
I guess the atheists win that contest. Nice try, Christians.
I wouldn't call The Rope entertaining. Riveting, thought provoking, and chilling -- yes. Entertaining, no.
Ann,
On a OT verve....
Rope and Lifeboat are two much under appreciated films of Hitchcock in my opinion.
Imagine what the movies Charade, Casablanca, Wait Until Dark and Chinatown would have been like if Hitch had directed them? An interesting thought experiment for you. Also Sister Carrie, the Magnificent Ambersons and Citizen Kane would be like if Hitch had done them.
thank you for sharing this. i love rope, but never knew it was based on a true story. there is another movie from that time period called 'kitten with a whip.' it stars ann-margret and includes two characters also based on leopold and loeb.
Leopold and Loeb - Libertarians before their time.
According to the French Philosophes reason is the key to goodness. Since they considered themselves paragons of reason they called their movement the Enlightenment. History has refuted the inherent goodness of reason again and again. Reason is a tool which can be used for good or for bad.
If reason was equivalent to goodness, Leopold and Loeb with their stellar IQs should have been the best people on earth. Instead they used their brilliant minds to plan the perfect murder. Incidentally their claim that highly intelligent people don't have to live under the same moral constraint as ordinary men. Mao shared that same philosophy. Anyone who claims that Mao is one of her favorite philosophers might as well rely on Leopold and Loeb's philosophy.
If Loeb had studied Wodehouse too, he might have turned out to be a harmless lawyer or merchant banker.
http://thehighestend.blogspot.com/2012/10/jeeves-and-nietzsche.html
While only 84 years ago, as opposed to the magic 90, Sacco & Vanzetti trial was much more important to those alive at the time, Darrow not withstanding.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/SaccoV/s&vaccount.html
plus, it was a better movie?
Now, I saw this film on release and cannot equate that to today's IMDb description: "The story of two anarchists who were charged and unfairly tried for murder when it was really for their political convictions." But, for the defense, that was 43 years ago & I admit to not remembering the names of inconsequential people I've met in the last decade.
Anyway, Amazon, for our hostess, or Netflix, watch & decide.
BTW, since I'm "unknown" here, would love to read responses at mikdaley@gmail.com
Go for it!!!
Since they wanted a perfect crime, pity they didn't get the perfect hanging.
Since it was a 14 year old child, I sure would have voted for that for their defense was nonsense.
" rcocean said...
Leopold and Loeb - Libertarians before their time."
That's a stupid comment. Libertarians don't advocate murder. Their beliefs sound far more like Obama than libertarians.
"..At trial, they were defended by Clarence Darrow, who delivered a 12-hour closing argument.."
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12 hours! I would have voted that Darrow hang with L&L.
12 hour closing argument? That calls for the motorman's friend!
Revisionist historians are once again trying to convince the world that Hitler wasn't a Catholic and instead was an atheist.
There are many speeches where he professed his Christian beliefs, but not one where he claimed to be an atheist.
Sacco & Vanzetti were guilty. So was Alger Hiss. So were the Rosenbergs. The left is 0 for 5 on those ones.
I wonder if jimbino considers the acts of love, mercy, sacrifice and compassion that are committed by those who take holy books seriously.
"Rope and Lifeboat are two much under appreciated films of Hitchcock in my opinion."
No film of Hitchcock's is sufficiently under appreciated in my opinion. His constant cinematic crutch is to have people act in ways no person would in real life, the character of Judy Barton, which was played by Kim Novak in the film Vertigo, being one of many examples.
Hitch's film version of ROPE is based on a 1929 stage play, the novelty of which was that it took place in real time (the first line of act 2 is a response to the last line of act 1, etc.). Hitch (with screenwriters Arthur Laurents and Hume Cronyn) took that concept a step further by designing the film to appear as if it was shot in one continuous take; it was this technical challenge that attracted him to the material. The film suffers a bit from having its original locale changed from London to New York, and much of the power of the stage play connected back to the Stewart character originally being a mildly crippled WW I veteran (a 1929 plot device that was somewhat lost in the 1948 film).
Keitel.
Each of these two little weasels tried to blame the other for the actual killing once they were interrogated and broke down.
They might have gotten away with it, if the victim had been a lower class kid with no connections or public appeal. But snobs in everything, they had to kill Frank, who was of their class and neighborhood. The Frank family got the investigation mobilized from the outset.
The murder weapon was a chisel. Try not to consider that too closely.
Job: It seems the focus was on the murderers' having acted out of their dedication to Nietsche, just as Christians have murdered in the name of Christ and the muslims in the name of Allah. I don't see that Hitler et. al. acted out of dedication to, or in the name of atheism. Who would have written the torture and killing book of atheism akin to the torture and murder Book of Job, for example?
I have misplaced my pants: As to Christian compassion and mercy, Christopher Hitchens did write the book on that when he condemned doodoo-gooder Mother Theresa.
Why does Leopold always get top billing?
Of the two übermenchen Loeb was slightly less über.
12 hour closing argument? That calls for the motorman's friend!
This terrible crime was inherent in his organism, and it came from some ancestor (t-tink t-tink t-tink) Is any blame attached because somebody took Nietzsche's philosophy seriously and fashioned his life upon it? (t-tink t-tink t-tink) It is hardly fair to hang a 19-year-old boy for the philosophy that was taught him at the university. (ahhhhh)
Leopold actually did some good in his long prison term with research on microbiology. He was eventually paroled. Loeb was killed in prison by a cellmate.
Those two should've read "Crime and Punishment". Raskolnikov had that exact thought process and Dostoyevsky detailed how that worked out for him. Or not.
It doesn't surprise me anymore how stupid "smart" people are.
It's too bad they didn't read Dostoyevsky in addition to Nietzsche. Crime and Punishment rebuts the Nietzschean superman premise before Nietzsche even proposed it.
madisonfella said...
"Revisionist historians are once again trying to convince the world that Hitler wasn't a Catholic and instead was an atheist.
There are many speeches where he professed his Christian beliefs, but not one where he claimed to be an atheist."
Interesting. In this instance madisonfella is a revisionist historian charging other people of revisionist history. The most informative book about Hitler's beliefs later in life is called Hitler's Table Talk in which Hitler had his secretary record his talks during WWII so that posterity would be blessed with the great man's thoughts.
In Hitler's Table Talk he did mention the Catholic church a great deal, not because he was a believer, but because the Catholic church was opposition which needed to be crushed. As worthy opposition Hitler both hated and admired the Catholic church and tried to copy some aspects of the church structure in his own Nazi movement. Hitler was more successful in the Protestant churches. Because of modern critical Biblical scholarship which had weakened faith in the Bible, Hitler was almost successful in taking over the Lutheran church and other Protestant churches, stripping them of traditional Biblical theology, and converting them into a vehicle for Nazi ideology. He failed because of a few faithful pastors who were willing to die for their beliefs rather than compromise. One of those pastors was Martin Neimoller who spent years in Dachau rather than compromise. While Hitler thought he could take over the Christian church, he would claim to be a Christian in his speeches, but only of the new Nazi Christian church. There was only one religion which Hitler accepted as it is rather than as an altered shell of itself. That religion is Islam. Hitler wailed about the misfortune of the German people because Christianity with its message of peace and love reached Germany first before the Germans had the opportunity to join Islam. He never actually said the Shahada to formally join Islam but he praised Islam because it was a warrior's religion and wasn't founded by a Jew.
Meanwhile, my rebuttal of the Nietzschean superman premise is here: Superman's Secret Identity.
"There are many speeches where he professed his Christian beliefs, but not one where he claimed to be an atheist."
There is a big wiki article on "Religious views of Adolf Hitler". You really should read it.
"I don't see that Hitler et. al. acted out of dedication to, or in the name of atheism"
The communist (and the "socialist" family it, like nazism, is part of) philosophy is explicitly atheist based. It doesn't have to declare atheism as reason for its massmurders. It's in its nature (People are animals and animals can be culled).
"Hitler was a catholic"
Hitler was baptized a catholic. Shouldn't you have to prove that nazism is catholicism? Shouldn't you have to prove that what Hitler did was just following his "catholic" belief?
Wiki:
"He made various public comments against "bolshevistic" atheist movements, and in favour of so-called "Positive Christianity" (a movement which sought to nazify Christianity by purging it of its Jewish elements, the Old Testament and key doctrines like the Apostle's Creed)."
"In the 1920s and 1930s, Catholic leaders made a number of forthright attacks on Nazi ideology and the main Christian opposition to Nazism had come from the Catholic Church"
"Hitler moved quickly to eliminate Political Catholicism. The Nazis arrested thousands of members of the German Centre Party.[15] The Catholic Bavarian People's Party government had been overthrown in Bavaria by a Nazi coup on 9 March 1933"
"In 1937, the New York Times reported that Christmas would see "several thousand Catholic clergymen in prison"
"Clergy, nuns and lay leaders began to be targeted, leading to thousands of arrests over the ensuing years, often on trumped up charges of currency smuggling or "immorality".[20] Priests were watched closely and frequently denounced, arrested and sent to concentration camps.[26] From 1940, a dedicated Clergy Barracks had been established at Dachau concentration campin prison"
And so on, and so on. It really takes an immoral, lying ass posing as an "atheist" to rejoice in the oppression and murder of people and at the same time proclaim the victims the perpetrators.
"Just think of all the atrocities committed throughout the ages by folks who took seriously the teachings of the Bible and the Koran."
I sometimes wonder how atheists survive. Take ice water and boiling water. One is 0 percent celsius, the other 100 percent celsius. But for the atheist there is no difference, after all, it's all celsius, like in "all religions are the same".
Nice tag, "unconvincing arguments".
Wish there more posts with that tag. Sounds like it be turned into a book.
"Is any blame attached because somebody took Nietzsche's philosophy seriously... hardly fair to hang a 19-year-old boy for the philosophy that was taught him..."
"Mistakes were made. Philosophies were taught... Let's not bicker and argue about 'oo killed 'oo..."
The things you learn on the interweb, I always assumed Leopold and Loeb were a team that wrote musicals of which I had probably heard, like maybe Finian's Rainbow.
I wonder if jimbino considers the acts of love, mercy, sacrifice and compassion that are committed by atheists.
Some Christian statements from Hitler:
National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. -1941
The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State.
Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea.
Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease."
So as we can see Hitler was a very devout Christian.
12 hours! I would have voted that Darrow hang with L&L.
I was once on a jury where the plaintiff's lawyer loved to hear the sound of his own voice. I'll admit by the time I got into the deliberation room, I wanted that man to suffer for all the extra hours I spent listening to him drone on and on. I didn't follow through, but that was definitely my first impulse.
Leopold and Loeb were sentenced to life plus 99 years. As Loeb died in 1936 and Leopold in 1971, Loeb has 21 years and Leopold 56 years left on the original sentence.
First the revisionists tried to claim Hitler was an atheist and now they are saying he was a Muslim?! And they use WIKI to back up their absurd claims?!?!
LOL
He was a life long Catholic, with the full support of the Catholic Church during his time in office. Given the church's long-standing attitude towards Jews, why is this any surprise?
Madisonfella (with the willful reading incomprehension);
"First the revisionists tried to claim Hitler was an atheist and now they are saying he was a Muslim?! And they use WIKI to back up their absurd claims?!?!
LOL
He was a life long Catholic, with the full support of the Catholic Church during his time in office. Given the church's long-standing attitude towards Jews, why is this any surprise?"
I'm only an occasional visitor here but anyway if I would have a wish fulfilled it would be for a function that automatically hides what some commentators have to say.
Seeing the name itself would be enough of an indication that what follows is just BS from a bomb trowing BS-artist.
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