WHY ISN'T THIS ON SCREEN - "Coya, Come Home"

Looking at film and television.   Some real life people and events should be films or TV shows, like...

Coya Knutson (1912 - 1996) Congresswoman.

Coya planned to become an opera singer, but after attending Juliard she realised she wasn't going to make it and returned home.  She married Andy Knutson, an alcoholic who beat her and they adopted a boy called Terry.

She went into local politics, and eventually, upset with the agriculture policies of the Eisenhower administration, she ran against and defeated the sitting congressman and became the first female elected for Congress by Minnesota in 1955.  The Speaker of the House offered her a seat on any committee she wanted, with Agriculture her obvious choice.  The Speaker got her the position over the sexist objections of the Committee Chair.

When it came time for the next Presidential election, the Minnesota party officials supported Adlai Stevenson Senator in the Primary, hoping that the local Senator Humbert Humphrey would be his running mate.  Knutson supported Estes Kefauver because his agricultural policies were popular in her area and campaigned for him.  Kefauver won the Minnesota primary but lost to Stevenson.  Stevenson however made Kefauver his running mate.  Knutson became unpopular with the party locally.

She won a second term and moved to Washington with Terry to get away from Andy and his beatings.  Rumours started that she was having an affair with her Chief of Staff.  And then came the letter.

Signed by Andy, but possibly written by party officials it pleaded with Knutson to come home and be a proper wife and mother and to stop seeing other men.  The letter got into the hands of reporters and was printed under the headline "Coya, Come Home."

Knutson became the only sitting Democrat to lose their seat in congress at the next election.  She was defeated by Odin Langen, "A Big Man for a Man-sized Job," in a tight race.

After her election defeat she divorced Andy who died a few years after.  She is often cited as an example of sexism in politics and feminist martyr for obvious reasons.

~ DUG.

Don't forget the poll for the Competing Film Showdown.

WHY ISN'T THIS ON SCREEN? - Sir Bernard Spilsbury

Looking at film and television.   Some real life people and events should be films or TV shows, like...  Sir Bernard Spilsbury.

Bernard Spilsbury (1877 - 1947) Pathologist.

Film

A bio-pic of a driven but flawed man, considered by many a genius but over-confident to the point that he is responsible for guilty men to be set free and innocent men to be hung who eventually commits suicide by gassing himself in his lab.

TV Series

Contains everything a television series needs:

• Forensic Investigator - Pathologist.
• Period Piece - Bulk of cases 1910 - 1934.
• Charismatic - It is said his force of personality convinced may convinced many juries more than the evidence.
• Flawed - Over-confident, suffered depression.
• Driven - Willing to go beyond is expertise to convict someone he knows to be guilty.
• Loner - Insisted on working alone, refused to train students.

And his work included famous cases an events:

• The Case of the Crippens (1910) - which first got him public attention which was filmed as Dr Crippen (1942) and Dr Crippen (1963)
• The Case of the Brides in the Bath (1915) - which made his name and was filmed The Brides in the Bath (2003)
• The Herbert Armstrong Case (1921) - The only solicitor in UK history hanged for murder, filmed as Dandelion Dead.
• The Blazing Car Murder (1930)
• The Brighton Trunk Murders (1934) - Although Mancini was found not guilty he confessed before his death in 1973. 

He also

• Developed with Scotland Yard the "Murder Bag" the forensic equipment taken to suspicious deaths.
• Advised Operation Mincemeat during WWII.

Remember to do the Competing Films Poll.

~ DUG.