It may be you’ve never heard of this gem: The Brotherhood of the Bell, starring Glenn Ford and Dean Jagger, with a blow-the-doors-off supporting performance from William Conrad. It was broadcast back in 1970, and my wife had to work hard to add it to our video collection. But now it’s available on youtube, and anyone with a computer can see it.
One of my readers informs me that the United States government, society, and economy is run entirely by the Skull & Bones fraternity, out of Yale–doubtless with a little help from the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, the Masons, Opus Dei, Mystic Knights of the Sea, and Lizard People. You all know what I think of conspiracy theories. How, then, do I give a rave review to a movie that’s all about a vast conspiracy?
Well, if you’re gonna go conspiracy, you might as well go in style. The Brotherhood of the Bell is the conspiracy; it doesn’t need any help from any of those others, who are all just amateurs by comparison.
So we have here a tight, suspenseful plot, a great script, and superb acting. Conrad as a talk-show host is just spectacular, Glenn Ford is totally believable as the protagonist whose worldview is shattered when he discovers he’s just been a patsy, all along, and Dean Jagger makes a splendid villain. I don’t think there are any actors anymore like Conrad and Jagger.
If you’ve got 96 minutes to spend on a really cool movie, don’t miss The Brotherhood of the Bell.
Please send me the link to WATCH the movie my friend
Paul Herbert : family of Zimmerman sui juris sovereign living soul, holder of the office of “Bexar County Sheriff” Inhabitant on the land of Texas republic
For those who, like Paul, would like me to post a link direct to youtube–folks, I’m sorry, but that’s a thing that I have never succeeded in doing. Believe me, I’ve tried. But the youtube links are really long and complicated, and something always goes wrong when I try to copy them.
It’s easy enough to search “Brotherhood of the Bell” and find the youtube link on your search page, probably right under the wikipedia article about the movie; and then all you have to do is click it.
Oh Lee; you’ve struck a harmonious bell with me..THREE of my favorite actors. I think I might have viewed it at one time, BUT I’m gonna dig it up again. I share your anti-biotic reaction to “conspiracies” and such, as well as the “conspirator” who looks under their bed each night, or panic when a “black helicopter” chugs by…we ALL know the CIA is controlled by Aliens residing in Area 51…right?
I saw Brotherhood of the Bell just once on TV, in 1971, I think, and I never forgot it. My wife saw it some years before we met, and she never forgot it, either. But we never saw it again. For quite a while, she searched the video markets for it. The first copy we got had neither audio nor visual–not very satisfactory. Finally we got a VHS tape, from an obscure source, that is one of the gems of our collection.
Come to think of it, I ought to write a little review of The Ship That Died of Shame–another very hard-to-get video well worth the effort.