“Just because you can’t lick ’em that doesn’t mean you have to join ’em”.

Note that this is the moral polar opposite of the one about leading, following, or getting the hell out of the way.

It’s also the very reason I watch old movies. I’m measuring their morality and resonating with it on the rare occasions that I can.

Tokyo Joe failed. (I think the reason why is that is was trying to be Casablanca, except that the enemy wasn’t fascists, it was cartoon communists.)

This one succeeds, and resonates.

Man in the Middle (1964 Classic Film, Robert Mitchum & Trevor Howard)

Robert Mitchum is always worth watching. Trevor Howard does his thing to perfection.

The knockout performance comes from France Nguyễn Vân Nga.

You’ve seen her before. Either in South Pacific, or as the title character in the ST episode “Elaan of Troyius”, or elsewhere in a career spanning 50 years.

The Wikipedia entry says she is still with us today, living her best life in Beverly Hills.

May we all do one thing this well before our time is up.

***

One other item of note is that the man who wrote the book this is based on was blacklisted.

By the same kinds of red-blooded murikans that wanted you to swallow the world according to Tokyo Joe, and every other full glass of bullshit about everything from race to economics to what makes a person truly good, or bad.