42.

[byronius]

Netflix is showing this film; I'm having trouble watching it.

Why? It's just too damn powerful.

Why?

Because Jackie Robinson is probably the finest American story there is.

Maybe Martin Luther King, just maybe -- but Jackie Robinson...

There you go, there's the test --

True Americans love Jackie Robinson.

It's the best story ever told in this nation.

Period.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. I saw that movie a while back.

You are right. It's powerful.

I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like for him, and perhaps more importantly for his wife, in that era.

While we are a very long way from a racial paradise, if you look at old movies/TV/anything at all in the pre Civil Rights era, and look at similar things now, the contrast is striking. In sport it's very clear. There was a time when black men and white men played on the same team, but they weren't equals and didn't act as if they were. In recent years, the equality (and if I'm not using the right word I'll accept whatever I should be saying) is breathtaking. The body language changes are amazing.

It seems to me as if this video captures it.

The change in Ben E King's facial expressions says volumes.

[NBachers]

2. I've always enjoyed "The Jackie Robinson Story," 1950, with Jackie playing himself. Ruby Dee is

another reason to watch it, and the guy who plays Branch Rickey, Minor Watson, is great in it, too. I think it's a public domain movie now, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042609/

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Jackie+Robinson+Story

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+jackie+robinson+story+1950+