title: Super (2010 American film)

text: Gunn also responded to the accusations, pointing out that "It sucks on the one hand and then on the other hand, who gives a shit? There are 4,000 bank heist movies. We can have five superheroes-without-powers movies. What does bum me out [is] people who pretend like "Kick-Ass" was the first superheroes without powers movie, when that's obviously the classic John Ritter film "Hero at Large"."


title: Pat Nixon

text: Thelma Catherine "Pat" Nixon ("née" Ryan; March 16, 1912 – June 22, 1993) was First Lady of the United States from 1969 to 1974 as the wife of President Richard Nixon. She also served as Second Lady of the United States from 1953 to 1961 when her husband was vice president.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Born in Ely, Nevada, she grew up with her two brothers in what is now Cerritos, California, graduating from Excelsior Union High School in Norwalk, California in 1929. She attended Fullerton Junior College and later the University of Southern California. She paid for her schooling by working multiple jobs, including pharmacy manager, typist, radiographer, and retail clerk. In 1940, she married lawyer Richard Nixon and they had two daughters, Tricia and Julie. Dubbed the "Nixon team", Richard and Pat Nixon campaigned together in his successful congressional campaigns of 1946 and 1948. Richard Nixon was elected vice president in 1952 alongside General Dwight D. Eisenhower, whereupon Pat became Second Lady. Pat Nixon did much to add substance to the role of the vice president's wife, insisting on visiting schools, orphanages, hospitals, and village markets as she undertook many missions of goodwill across the world.


title: Pat Nixon

text: As First Lady, Pat Nixon promoted a number of charitable causes, including volunteerism. She oversaw the collection of more than 600 pieces of historic art and furnishings for the White House, an acquisition larger than that of any other administration. She was the most traveled First Lady in U.S. history, a record unsurpassed until twenty-five years later. She accompanied the President as the first First Lady to visit China and the Soviet Union, and was the first president's wife to be officially designated a representative of the United States on her solo trips to Africa and South America, which gained her recognition as "Madame Ambassador"; she was also the first First Lady to enter a combat zone. Though her husband was re-elected in a landslide victory in 1972, her tenure as First Lady ended two years later, when President Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Her public appearances became increasingly rare later in life. She and her husband settled in San Clemente, California, and later moved to New Jersey. She suffered two strokes, one in 1976 and another in 1983, and was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1992. She died in 1993, aged 81.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Thelma Catherine Ryan was born in 1912 in the small mining town of Ely, Nevada. Her father, William M. Ryan Sr., was a sailor, gold miner, and truck farmer of Irish ancestry; her mother, Katherine Halberstadt, was a German immigrant. The nickname "Pat" was given to her by her father, because of her birth on the day before Saint Patrick's Day and her Irish ancestry. When she enrolled in college in 1931 she started using the name "Pat" (and occasionally "Patricia") instead of "Thelma" but she did not legally change her name.


title: Pat Nixon

text: After her birth, the Ryan family moved to California, and in 1914 settled on a small truck farm in Artesia (present-day Cerritos). Thelma Ryan's high school yearbook page gives her nickname as "Buddy" and her ambition to run a boarding house.


title: Pat Nixon

text: She worked on the family farm and also at a local bank as a janitor and bookkeeper. Her mother died of cancer in 1924. Pat, who was only 12, assumed all the household duties for her father (who died himself of silicosis 5 years later) and her two older brothers, William Jr. (1910–1997) and Thomas (1911–1992). She also had a half-sister, Neva Bender (1909–1981), and a half-brother, Matthew Bender (1907–1973), from her mother's first marriage; her mother's first husband had died during a flash flood in South Dakota.


title: Pat Nixon

text: After graduating from Excelsior High School in 1929, she attended Fullerton College. She paid for her education by working odd jobs, including as a driver, a pharmacy manager, a telephone operator, and a typist. She also earned money sweeping the floors of a local bank, and from 1930 until 1931, she lived in New York City, working as a secretary and also as a radiographer.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Determined "to make something out of myself", she enrolled in 1931 at the University of Southern California (USC), where she majored in merchandising. A former professor noted that she "stood out from the empty-headed, overdressed little sorority girls of that era like a good piece of literature on a shelf of cheap paperbacks". She held part-time jobs on campus, worked as a sales clerk in Bullock's-Wilshire department store, and taught touch typing and shorthand at a high school. She also supplemented her income by working as an extra and bit player in the film industry, for which she took several screen tests. In this capacity, she made brief appearances in films such as "Becky Sharp" (1935), "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936), and "Small Town Girl" (1936). In some cases she ended up on the cutting room floor, such as with her spoken lines in "Becky Sharp". She told Hollywood columnist Erskine Johnson in 1959 that her time in films was "too fleeting even for recollections embellished by the years" and that "my choice of a career was teaching school and the many jobs I pursued were merely to help with college expenses." During the 1968 presidential campaign, she explained to the writer Gloria Steinem, "I never had time to think about things like... who I wanted to be, or who I admired, or to have ideas. I never had time to dream about being anyone else. I had to work."


title: Pat Nixon

text: In 1937, Pat Ryan graduated "cum laude" from USC with a Bachelor of Science degree in merchandising, together with a certificate to teach at the high school level, which USC deemed equivalent to a master's degree. Pat accepted a position as a high school teacher in Whittier, California.


title: Pat Nixon

text: While in Whittier, Pat Ryan met Richard Nixon, a young lawyer who had recently graduated from the Duke University School of Law. The two became acquainted at a Little Theater group when they were cast together in "The Dark Tower". Known as Dick, he asked Pat to marry him the first night they went out. "I thought he was nuts or something!" she recalled. He courted the redhead he called his "wild Irish Gypsy" for two years, even driving her to and from her dates with other men.


title: Pat Nixon

text: They eventually married on June 21, 1940, at the Mission Inn in Riverside, California. She said that she had been attracted to the young Nixon because he "was going places, he was vital and ambitious ... he was always doing things". Later, referring to Richard Nixon, she said, "Oh but you just don't realize how much fun he is! He's just so much fun!" Following a brief honeymoon in Mexico, the two lived in a small apartment in Whittier. As U.S. involvement in World War II began, the couple moved to Washington, D.C., with Richard taking a position as a lawyer for the Office of Price Administration (OPA); Pat worked as a secretary for the American Red Cross, but also qualified as a price analyst for the OPA. He then joined the United States Navy, and while he was stationed in San Francisco, she resumed work for the OPA as an economic analyst.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Veteran UPI reporter Helen Thomas suggested that in public, the Nixons "moved through life ritualistically", but privately, however, they were "very close". In private, Richard Nixon was described as being "unabashedly sentimental", often praising Pat for her work, remembering anniversaries and surprising her with frequent gifts. During state dinners, he ordered the protocol changed so that Pat could be served first. Pat, in turn, felt that her husband was vulnerable and sought to protect him. Of his critics, she said that "Lincoln had worse critics. He was big enough not to let it bother him. That's the way my husband is."


title: Pat Nixon

text: Pat campaigned at her husband's side in 1946 when he entered politics and successfully ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives. That same year, she gave birth to a daughter and namesake, Patricia, known as Tricia. In 1948, Pat had her second and last child, Julie. When asked about her husband's career, Pat once stated, "The only thing I could do was help him, but [politics] was not a life I would have chosen." Pat participated in the campaign by doing research on his opponent, incumbent Jerry Voorhis. She also wrote and distributed campaign literature. Nixon was elected in his first campaign to represent California's 12th congressional district. During the next six years, Pat saw her husband move from the U.S. House of Representatives to the United States Senate, and then be nominated as Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice presidential candidate.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Although Pat Nixon was a Methodist, she and her husband attended whichever Protestant church was nearest to their home, especially after moving to Washington. They attended the Metropolitan Memorial Methodist Church because it sponsored her daughters' Brownie troop, occasional Baptist services with Billy Graham, and Norman Vincent Peale's Marble Collegiate Church.


title: Pat Nixon

text: At the time of her husband coming under consideration for the vice presidential nomination, Pat Nixon was against her husband accepting the selection, as she despised campaigns and had been relieved that as a newly elected senator he would not have another one for six years. She thought she had prevailed in convincing him, until she heard the announcement of the pick from a news bulletin while at the 1952 Republican National Convention. During the Presidential campaign of 1952, Pat Nixon's attitude toward politics changed when her husband was accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions. Pat encouraged him to fight the charges, and he did so by delivering the famed "Checkers speech", so-called for the family's dog, a cocker spaniel given to them by a political supporter. This was Pat's first national television appearance, and she, her daughters, and the dog were featured prominently. Defending himself as a man of the people, Nixon stressed his wife's abilities as a stenographer, then said, "I should say this, that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat, and I always tell her she would look good in anything."


title: Pat Nixon

text: Pat Nixon accompanied her husband abroad during his vice presidential years. She traveled to 53 nations, often bypassing luncheons and teas and instead visiting hospitals, orphanages, and even a leper colony in Panama. On a trip to Venezuela, the Nixons' limousine was pelted with rocks and the couple was spat upon as representatives of the U.S. government.


title: Pat Nixon

text: A November 1, 1958, article in "The Seattle Times" was typical of the media's favorable coverage of the future First Lady, stating that "Mrs. Nixon is always reported to be gracious and friendly. And she sure is friendly. She greets a stranger as a friend. She doesn't just shake hands but clasps a visitor's hand in both her hands. Her manner is direct ... Mrs. Nixon also upheld her reputation of always looking neat, no matter how long her day has been." A year and a half later, during her husband's campaign for the presidency, "The New York Times" called her "a paragon of wifely virtues" whose "efficiency makes other women feel slothful and untalented".


title: Pat Nixon

text: Pat Nixon was named Outstanding Homemaker of the Year (1953), Mother of the Year (1955), and the Nation's Ideal Housewife (1957), and once admitted that she pressed all of her husband's suits one evening. "Of course, I didn't have to," she told "The New York Times", "But when I don't have work to do, I just think up some new project."


title: Pat Nixon

text: In the 1960 election, Vice President Nixon ran for president of the United States against Democratic opponent Senator John F. Kennedy. Pat was featured prominently in the effort; an entire advertising campaign was built around the slogan "Pat for First Lady". Nixon conceded the election to Kennedy, although the race was very close and there were allegations of voter fraud. Pat had urged her husband to demand a recount of votes, though Nixon declined. Pat was most upset about the television cameras, which recorded her reaction when her husband lost—"millions of television viewers witnessed her desperate fight to hold a smile upon her lips as her face came apart and the bitter tears flowed from her eyes", as one reporter put it. This permanently dimmed Pat Nixon's view of politics.


title: Pat Nixon

text: In 1962, the Nixons embarked on another campaign, this time for Governor of California. Prior to Richard Nixon's announcement of his candidacy, Pat's brother Tom Ryan said, "Pat told me that if Dick ran for governor she was going to take her shoe to him." She eventually agreed to another run, citing that it meant a great deal to her husband, but Richard Nixon lost the gubernatorial election to Pat Brown.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Six years later, Richard Nixon ran again for the presidency. Pat was reluctant to face another campaign, her eighth since 1946. Her husband was a deeply controversial figure in American politics, and Pat had witnessed and shared the praise and vilification he had received without having established an independent public identity for herself. Although she supported him in his career, she feared another "1960", when Nixon lost to Kennedy. She consented, however, and participated in the campaign by traveling on campaign trips with her husband. Richard Nixon made a political comeback with his narrow presidential victory of 1968 over Vice-President Hubert Humphrey—and the country had a new First Lady.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Pat Nixon felt that the First Lady should always set a public example of high virtue as a symbol of dignity, but she refused to revel in the trappings of the position. When considering ideas for a project as First Lady, Pat refused to do (or be) something simply to emulate her predecessor, Lady Bird Johnson. She decided to continue what she called "personal diplomacy", which meant traveling and visiting people in other states or other nations.


title: Pat Nixon

text: One of her major initiatives as First Lady was the promotion of volunteerism, in which she encouraged Americans to address social problems at the local level through volunteering at hospitals, civic organizations, and rehabilitation centers. She stated, "Our success as a nation depends on our willingness to give generously of ourselves for the welfare and enrichment of the lives of others." She undertook a "Vest Pockets for Volunteerism" trip, where she visited ten different volunteer programs. Susan Porter, in charge of the First Lady's scheduling, noted that Pat "saw volunteers as unsung heroes who hadn't been encouraged or given credit for their sacrifices and who needed to be". Her second volunteerism tour—she traveled within the United States—helped to boost the notion that not all students were protesting the Vietnam War. She herself belonged to several volunteer groups, including Women in Community Services and Urban Services League, and was an advocate of the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973, a bill that encouraged volunteerism by providing benefits to a number of volunteer organizations. Some reporters viewed her choice of volunteerism as safe and dull compared to the initiatives undertaken by Lady Bird Johnson and Jacqueline Kennedy.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Pat Nixon became involved in the development of recreation areas and parkland, was a member of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, and lent her support to organizations dedicated to improving the lives of handicapped children. For her first Thanksgiving in the White House, Pat organized a meal for 225 senior citizens who did not have families. The following year, she invited wounded servicemen to a second annual Thanksgiving meal in the White House. Though presidents since George Washington had been issuing Thanksgiving proclamations, Pat became the only First Lady to issue one.


title: Pat Nixon

text: After her husband was elected president in 1968, Pat Nixon met with the outgoing First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson. Together, they toured the private quarters of the White House on December 12. She eventually asked Sarah Jackson Doyle, an interior decorator who had worked for the Nixons since 1965 and who decorated the family's 10-room apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York with French and English antiques, to serve as a design consultant. She hired Clement Conger from the State Department to be the Executive Mansion's new curator, replacing James Ketchum, who had been hired by Jacqueline Kennedy.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Pat Nixon developed and led a coordinated effort to improve the authenticity of the White House as an historic residence and museum. She added more than 600 paintings, antiques and furnishings to the Executive Mansion and its collections, the largest number of acquisitions by any administration; this greatly, and dramatically, expanded upon Jacqueline Kennedy's more publicized efforts. She created the Map Room and renovated the China room, and refurbished nine other rooms, including the Red Room, Blue Room and Green Room. She worked with engineers to develop an exterior lighting system for the entire White House, making it glow a soft white. She ordered the American flag atop the White House flown day and night, even when the president was not in residence.


title: Pat Nixon

text: She ordered pamphlets describing the rooms of the house for tourists so they could understand everything, and had them translated into Spanish, French, Italian and Russian for foreigners. She had ramps installed for the handicapped and physically disabled. She instructed the police who served as tour guides to attend sessions at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library (to learn how tours were guided "in a real museum"), and arranged for them to wear less menacing uniforms, with their guns hidden underneath. The tour guides were to speak slowly to deaf groups, to help those who lip-read, and Pat ordered that the blind be able to touch the antiques.


title: Pat Nixon

text: The First Lady had long been irritated by the perception that the White House and access to the President and First Lady were exclusively for the wealthy and famous; she routinely came down from the family quarters to greet tourists, shake hands, sign autographs, and pose for photos. Her daughter Julie Eisenhower reflected, "she invited so many groups to the White House to give them recognition, not famous ones, but little-known organizations..."


title: Pat Nixon

text: She invited former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and her children Caroline and John Jr. to dine with her family and view the White House's official portraits of her and her husband, the late President Kennedy. It was the first time that the three Kennedys had returned to the White House since the president's assassination eight years earlier. Pat had ordered the visit to be kept secret from the media until after the trip's conclusion in an attempt to maintain privacy for the Kennedys. She also invited President Kennedy's mother Rose Kennedy to see her son's official portrait.


title: Pat Nixon

text: She opened the White House for evening tours so that the public could see the interior design work that had been implemented. The tours that were conducted in December displayed the White House's Christmas decor. In addition, she instituted a series of performances by artists at the White House in varied American traditions, from opera to bluegrass; among the guests were The Carpenters in 1972. These events were described as ranging from "creative to indifferent, to downright embarrassing". When they entered the White House in 1969, the Nixons began inviting families to non-denominational Sunday church services in the East Room of the White House. She also oversaw the White House wedding of her daughter, Tricia, to Edward Ridley Finch Cox in 1971.


title: Pat Nixon

text: In October 1969, she announced her appointment of Constance Stuart as her staff director and press secretary. To the White House residence staff, the Nixons were perceived as more stiff and formal than other first families, but nonetheless kind.


title: Pat Nixon

text: She spoke out in favor of women running for political office and encouraged her husband to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court, saying "woman power is unbeatable; I've seen it all across this country". She was the first of the American First Ladies to publicly support the Equal Rights Amendment, though her views on abortion were mixed. Following the Court's 1973 "Roe vs. Wade" decision, Pat stated she was pro-choice. However, in 1972, she said, "I'm really not for abortion. I think it's a personal thing. I mean abortion on demand—wholesale."


title: Pat Nixon

text: In 1972, she became the first Republican First Lady to address a national convention. Her efforts in the 1972 reelection campaign—traveling across the country and speaking on behalf of her husband—were copied by future candidates' spouses.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Pat Nixon held the record as the most-traveled First Lady until her mark was surpassed by Hillary Rodham Clinton. In President Nixon's first term, Pat traveled to 39 of 50 states, and in the first year alone, shook hands with a quarter of a million people. She undertook many missions of goodwill to foreign nations as well. Her first foreign trip took in Guam, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, Romania, and England. On such trips, Pat refused to be serviced by an entourage, feeling that they were an unnecessary barrier and a burden for taxpayers. Soon after, during a trip to South Vietnam, Pat became the first First Lady to enter a combat zone. She had tea with the wife of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu in a palace, visited an orphanage, and lifted off in an open-door helicopter—armed by military guards with machine guns—to witness U.S. troops fighting in a jungle below. She later admitted to experiencing a "moment of fear going into a battle zone", because, as author and historian Carl Sferrazza Anthony noted, "Pat Nixon was literally in a line of fire." She later visited an army hospital, where, for two hours, she walked through the wards and spoke with each wounded patient. The First Lady of South Vietnam, Madame Thieu, said Pat Nixon's trip "intensified our morale".


title: Pat Nixon

text: After hearing about the Great Peruvian earthquake of 1970, which caused an avalanche and additional destruction, Pat initiated a "volunteer American relief drive" and flew to the country, where she aided in taking relief supplies to earthquake victims. She toured damaged regions and embraced homeless townspeople; they trailed her as she climbed up hills of rubble and under fallen beams. Her trip was heralded in newspapers around the world for her acts of compassion and disregard for her personal safety or comfort, and her presence was a direct boost to political relations. One Peruvian official commented: "Her coming here meant more than anything else President Nixon could have done," and an editorial in Peru's "Lima Prensa" said that Peruvians could never forget Pat Nixon. Fran Lewine of the Associated Press wrote that no First Lady had ever undertaken a "mercy mission" resulting in such "diplomatic side effects". On the trip, the Peruvian government presented her with the Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun, the highest Peruvian distinction and the oldest such honor in the Americas.


title: Pat Nixon

text: She became the first First Lady to visit Africa in 1972, on a , eight-day journey to Ghana, Liberia, and the Ivory Coast. Upon arrival in Liberia, Pat was honored with a 19-gun salute, a tribute reserved only for heads of government, and she reviewed troops. She later donned a traditional native costume and danced with locals. She was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Most Venerable Order of Knighthood, Liberia's highest honor. In Ghana, she again danced with local residents, and addressed the nation's Parliament. In the Ivory Coast, she was met by a quarter of a million people shouting ""Vive Madame Nixon!"" She conferred with leaders of all three African nations. Upon her return home, White House staffer Charles Colson sent a memo to the President reading in part, "Mrs. Nixon has now broken through where we have failed ... People—men and women—identify with her, and in return with you."


title: Pat Nixon

text: Another notable journey was the Nixons' historic visit to the People's Republic of China in 1972. While President Nixon was in meetings, Pat toured through Peking in her red coat. According to Carl Sferrazza Anthony, China was Pat Nixon's "moment", her turning point as an acclaimed First Lady in the United States. She accompanied her husband to the Nixon–Brezhnev summit meetings in the Soviet Union later in the year. Though security constraints left her unable to walk freely through the streets as she did in China, Pat was still able to visit with children and walk arm-in-arm with Soviet First Lady Viktoria Brezhneva. Later, she visited Brazil and Venezuela in 1974 with the unique diplomatic standing of personal representative of the president. The Nixons' last major trip was in June 1974, to Austria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel, and Jordan.


title: Pat Nixon

text: The traditional role of a First Lady as the nation's hostess puts her personal appearance and style under scrutiny, and the attention to Pat was lively. "Women's Wear Daily" stated that Pat had a "good figure and good posture", as well as "the best-looking legs of any woman in public life today". Some fashion writers tended to have a lackluster opinion of her well tailored, but nondescript, American-made clothes. "I consider it my duty to use American designers", she said, and favored them because, "they are now using so many materials which are great for traveling because they're non crushable". She preferred to buy readymade garments rather than made-to-order outfits. "I'm a size 10," she told "The New York Times". "I can just walk in and buy. I've bought things in various stores in various cities. Only some of my clothes are by designers." She did, however, wear the custom work of some well-known talents, notably Geoffrey Beene, at the suggestion of Clara Treyz, her personal shopper. Many fashion observers concluded that Pat Nixon did not greatly advance the cause of American fashion. Nixon's yellow-satin inaugural gown by Harvey Berin was criticized as "a schoolteacher on her night out", but Treyz defended her wardrobe selections by saying, "Mrs. Nixon must be ladylike."


title: Pat Nixon

text: Nixon did not sport the outrageous fashions of the 1970s, because she was concerned about appearing conservatively dressed, especially as her husband's political star rose. "Always before, it was sort of fun to get some ... thing that was completely different, high-style", she told a reporter. "But this is not appropriate now. I avoid the spectacular."


title: Pat Nixon

text: At the time the Watergate scandal broke to the media, Nixon "barely noticed" the reports of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Later, when asked by the press about Watergate, she replied curtly, "I know only what I read in the newspapers." In 1974, when a reporter asked "Is the press the cause of the president's problems?", she shot back, "What problems?" Privately, she felt that the power of her husband's staff was increasing, and President Nixon was becoming more removed from what was occurring in the administration."


title: Pat Nixon

text: Pat Nixon did not know of the secret tape recordings her husband had made. Julie Nixon Eisenhower stated that the First Lady would have ordered the tapes destroyed immediately, had she known of their existence. Once she did learn of the tapes, she vigorously opposed making them public, and compared them to "private love letters—for one person alone". Believing in her husband's innocence, she also encouraged him not to resign and instead fight all the impeachment charges that were eventually leveled against him. She said to her friend Helene Drown, "Dick has done so much for the country. Why is this happening?"


title: Pat Nixon

text: After President Nixon told his family he would resign the office of the presidency, she replied "But why?" She contacted White House curator Clement Conger to cancel any further development of a new official china pattern from the Lenox China Company, and began supervising the packing of the family's personal belongings. On August 7, 1974, the family met in the solarium of the White House for their last dinner. Pat sat on the edge of a couch and held her chin high, a sign of tension to her husband. When the president walked in, she threw her arms around him, kissed him, and said, "We're all very proud of you, Daddy." Later Pat Nixon said of the photographs taken that evening, "Our hearts were breaking and there we are smiling."


title: Pat Nixon

text: On the morning of August 9 in the East Room, Nixon gave a televised 20-minute farewell speech to the White House staff, during which time he read from Theodore Roosevelt's biography and praised his own parents. The First Lady could hardly contain her tears; she was most upset about the cameras, because they recorded her anguish, as they had during the 1960 election defeat. The Nixons walked onto the Executive Mansion's South Lawn with Vice President Gerald Ford and Betty Ford. The outgoing president departed from the White House on Marine One. As the family walked towards the helicopter, Pat, with one arm around her husband's waist and one around Betty's, said to Betty "You'll see many of these red carpets, and you'll get so you hate 'em." The helicopter transported them to Andrews Air Force Base; from there they flew to California.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Pat Nixon later told her daughter Julie, "Watergate is the only crisis that ever got me down ... And I know I will never live to see the vindication."


title: Pat Nixon

text: Historian Carl Sferrazza Anthony noted that ordinary citizens responded to, and identified with, Pat Nixon. When a group of people from a rural community visited the White House to present a quilt to the First Lady, many were overcome with nervousness; upon hearing their weeping, Pat hugged each individual tightly, and the tension dissipated. When a young boy doubted that the Executive Mansion was her house because he could not see her washing machine, Pat led him through the halls and up an elevator, into the family quarters and the laundry room. She mixed well with people of different races, and made no distinctions on that basis. During the Nixons' trip to China in 1972, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was sufficiently smitten with her so as to give two rare giant pandas to the United States as a gift from China.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Pat Nixon was listed on the Gallup Organization's top-ten list of the most admired women fourteen times, from 1959 to 1962 and 1968 to 1979. She was ranked third in 1969, second in 1970 and 1971, and first in 1972. She remained on the top-ten list until 1979, five years after her husband left office. To many, she was seen as an example of the "American Dream", having risen from a poor background, with her greatest popularity among the "great silent majority" of voters. Mary Brooks, the director of the United States Mint and a long-time friend of Pat's, illustrated some of the cultural divides present at the time when she described the First Lady as "a good example to the women of this country–if they're not part of those Women's Liberation groups". Additionally, it was the view of veteran UPI correspondent Helen Thomas that Pat "was the warmest First Lady I covered and the one who loved people the most. I think newspeople who covered her saw a woman who was sharp, responsive, sensitive."


title: Pat Nixon

text: Press accounts framed Pat Nixon as an embodiment of Cold War domesticity, in stark contrast to the second-wave feminism of the time. Journalists often portrayed her as dutiful and selfless and seeing herself as a wife first and individual second. "Time" magazine described her as "the perfect wife and mother–pressing [her husband's] pants, making dresses for daughters Tricia and Julie, doing her own housework even as the Vice President's wife". In the early years of her tenure as First Lady she was tagged "Plastic Pat", a derogatory nickname applied because, according to critics, she was always smiling while her face rarely expressed emotion and her body language made her seem reserved, and at times, artificial. Some observers described Pat Nixon as "a paper doll, a Barbie doll–plastic, antiseptic, unalive" and that she "put every bit of the energy and drive of her youth into playing a role, and she may no longer recognize it as such".


title: Pat Nixon

text: As for the criticisms, she said, "I am who I am and I will continue to be." She unguardedly revealed some of her opinions of her own life in a 1968 interview aboard a campaign plane with Gloria Steinem: "Now, I have friends in all the countries of the world. I haven't just sat back and thought of myself or my ideas or what I wanted to do. Oh no, I've stayed interested in people. I've kept working. Right here in the plane I keep this case with me, and the minute I sit down, I write my thank you notes. Nobody gets by without a personal note. I don't have time to worry about who I admire or who I identify with. I've never had it easy. I'm not like all you ... all those people who had it easy."


title: Pat Nixon

text: Despite her largely demure public persona as a traditional wife and homemaker, she was not as self-effacing and timid as her critics often claimed. When a news photographer wanted her to strike yet another pose while wearing an apron, she firmly responded, "I think we've had enough of this kitchen thing, don't you?" Some journalists, such as columnist and White House Correspondent Robert E. Thompson, felt that Pat was an ideal balance for the 1970s; Thompson wrote that she proved that "women can play a vital role in world affairs" while still retaining a "feminine manner". Other journalists felt that Pat represented the failings of the feminine mystique, and portrayed her as being out of step with her times. Those who opposed the Vietnam War identified her with the Nixon administration's policies, and, as a result, occasionally picketed her speaking events. After she had spoken to some of them in one instance in 1970, however, one of the students told the press that "she wanted to listen. I felt like this is a woman who really cares about what we are doing. I was surprised." Veteran CBS correspondent Mike Wallace expressed regret that the one major interview he was never able to conduct was that of Pat Nixon.


title: Pat Nixon

text: After returning to San Clemente, California, in 1974 and settling into the Nixons' home, "La Casa Pacifica", Pat Nixon rarely appeared in public and only granted occasional interviews to the press. In late May 1975, Pat went to her girlhood hometown of Artesia to dedicate the Patricia Nixon Elementary School. In her remarks, she said, "I'm proud to have the school carry my name. I always thought that only those who have gone had schools named after them. I am happy to tell you that I'm not gone—I mean, not really gone." It was Pat's only solo public appearance in five and a half years in California.


title: Pat Nixon

text: On July 7, 1976, at "La Casa Pacifica", Nixon suffered a stroke, which resulted in the paralysis of her entire left side. Physical therapy enabled her to eventually regain all movement. She said that her recovery was "the hardest thing I have ever done physically". In 1979, she and her husband moved to a townhouse on East 65th Street in Manhattan, New York. They lived there only briefly and in 1981 moved to a house in Saddle River, New Jersey. This gave the couple additional space, and enabled them to be near their children and grandchildren. Pat, however, sustained another stroke in 1983 and two lung infections the following year.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Appearing "frail and slightly bent", she appeared in public for the opening of the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace (now Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum) in Yorba Linda, California, on July 19, 1990. The dedication ceremony included 50,000 friends and well-wishers, as well as former Presidents Ford, Reagan, and Bush and their wives. The library includes a Pat Nixon room, a Pat Nixon amphitheater, and rose gardens planted with the red-black Pat Nixon Rose developed by a French company in 1972, when she was first lady. Pat also attended the opening of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, in November 1991. Former First Lady Barbara Bush reflected, "I loved Pat Nixon, who was a sensational, gracious, and thoughtful First Lady", and at the dedication of the Reagan Library, Bush remembered, "There was one sad thing. Pat Nixon did not look well at all. Through her smile you could see that she was in great pain and having a terrible time getting air into her lungs."


title: Pat Nixon

text: The Nixons moved to a gated complex in Park Ridge, New Jersey, in 1991. Pat's health was failing, and the house was smaller and contained an elevator. A heavy smoker most of her adult life who nevertheless never allowed herself to be seen with a cigarette in public, she eventually endured bouts of oral cancer, emphysema, and ultimately lung cancer, with which she was diagnosed in December 1992 while hospitalized with respiratory problems.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Pat Nixon died at her Park Ridge, New Jersey, home at 5:45 a.m. on June 22, 1993, the day after her fifty-third wedding anniversary. She was 81 years old. Her daughters and husband were by her side.


title: Pat Nixon

text: The funeral service for Pat Nixon took place on the grounds of the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda on June 26, 1993. Speakers at the ceremony, including California Governor Pete Wilson, Kansas senator Bob Dole, and the Reverend Dr. Billy Graham, eulogized the former First Lady. In addition to her husband and immediate family, former presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford and their wives, Nancy and Betty, were also in attendance. President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton did not attend the funeral and former presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush and their wives Rosalynn and Barbara also did not attend. Lady Bird Johnson was unable to attend because she was in the hospital recovering from a stroke, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis did not attend either. President Nixon sobbed openly, profusely, and at times uncontrollably during the ceremony. It was a rare display of emotion from the former president, and Helen McCain Smith said that she had never seen him more distraught.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Nixon's tombstone gives her name as "Patricia Ryan Nixon", the name by which she was popularly known. Her husband survived her by ten months, dying on April 22, 1994. He was also 81. Her epitaph reads:


title: Pat Nixon

text: In 1994, the Pat Nixon Park was established in Cerritos, California. The site where her girlhood home stood is on the property. The Cerritos City Council voted in April 1996 to erect a statue of the former first lady, one of the few statues created in the image of a first lady.


title: Pat Nixon

text: Pat has been portrayed by Joan Allen in the 1995 film "Nixon" (for which Allen earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress), Patty McCormack in the 2008 film "Frost/Nixon" and Nicole Sullivan in the 2009 film "Black Dynamite". She was sung by soprano Carolann Page in John Adams' opera "Nixon in China" 1987 world premiere in Houston, Texas; a "New York Times" critic noted that the performance captured "the First Lady's shy mannerisms" while one from the "Los Angeles Times" described the subject as the "chronically demure First Lady". The part was later sung by Scottish soprano Janis Kelly in the 2011 Metropolitan Opera premiere in New York. This "New York Times" critic wrote that Kelly "was wonderful as Pat Nixon. During the affecting Act II scene in which she is guided by Chinese escorts and journalists to a glass factory, a people's commune and a health clinic, she is finally taken to a school. She speaks of coming from a poor family and tells the obliging children that for a while she was a schoolteacher. In Mr. Adams's tender music, as sung by Ms. Kelly, you sense Mrs. Nixon wistfully pondering the much different life she might have had."


title: Pat Nixon

text: Since 1982 Siena College Research Institute has periodically conducted surveys asking historians to assess American first ladies according to a cumulative score on the independent criteria of their background, value to the country, intelligence, courage, accomplishments, integrity, leadership, being their own women, public image, and value to the president. In terms of cumulative assessment, Nixon has been ranked:


title: Pat Nixon

text: In the 2014 survey, Nixon and her husband were ranked the 29th-highest out of 39 first couples in terms of being a "power couple".


title: Ned Leeds

text: Edward "Ned" Leeds is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. A supporting character in stories featuring the superhero Spider-Man, he has been a reporter for the "Daily Bugle", and the abusive husband of Betty Brant. Leeds is the first character to take on the Hobgoblin mantle as a supervillain; ten years following his assassination, he is retroactively established to have been willingly brainwashed to serve as a stand-in for Roderick Kingsley and his brother Daniel Kingsley, the true first Hobgoblins and masterminds, and killed before he could give them up to the authorities for a lesser sentence, and as such the third Hobgoblin: prior to this, from 1987 to 1997, Ned was originally depicted as having been the true identity of the first Hobgoblin. The character was revived in a 2018–2021 storyline where he was revealed to have been a willing Hobgoblin, faking his death to seek revenge on the Foreigner for having attempted to kill him, and using the brainwashing story to convince Betty to take him back and impregnate her, with the character confirmed to have been the first (willing, non-brainwashed) Hobgoblin in a 2022 storyline.


title: Ned Leeds

text: Jacob Batalon portrays Ned Leeds in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), appearing in "" (2017), "" (2018), "" and "" (both 2019), and "The Daily Bugle" and "" (both 2021).


title: Ned Leeds

text: Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Ned Leeds made his first appearance in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #18 (November 1964). His character is killed off in the 1986 one-shot "Spider-Man vs. Wolverine", written by then Spider-Man editor Jim Owsley. Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, and Peter David (of the creative teams on the ongoing Spider-Man books) found this objectionable, saying that Owsley gave them no warning that he was going to kill Leeds, then a regular cast member in the Spider-Man books. Frenz remarked:


title: Ned Leeds

text: Ned Leeds was a reporter for the "Daily Bugle". He and Peter Parker compete for the affections of "Daily Bugle" secretary Betty Brant, but Parker drops out of the running due to realizing that Brant will not be able to accept Spider-Man's double identity. He would win outright when Betty went into stress induced shock after J. Jonah Jameson was attacked at the Daily Bugle by the Scorpion. Leeds and Brant are married shortly after. However, the couple's marriage is often strained.


title: Ned Leeds

text: When Spider-Man battles the Hobgoblin, Ned follows the Hobgoblin to a hideout. When the Hobgoblin realizes Ned is present, Ned is captured and brainwashed as a scapegoat in case of being unmasked. Wanting to find out about the Kingpin, Ned approaches Richard Fisk. Discovering that Richard hates the Kingpin, Leeds helps create Richard's secret identity as the Rose. The Hobgoblin manipulates Ned to remove the Kingpin from the scene. Ned's regular brainwashing causes his marriage with Betty and professional relationships to fall apart. Increasingly mentally unstable, Ned drives Betty to seek solace in Flash Thompson. While Flash makes statements about the Hobgoblin and events are staged so Flash is revealed as the enigmatic villain, Ned and Richard reach a disagreement and Ned decides to turn in the Rose to the Kingpin, and thus Ned is no longer needed as Hobgoblin. After Flash is cleared of being framed, the New York underworld empire is known that Ned is actually Hobgoblin and that he would soon be traveling to Berlin. Ned and Peter go on an assignment in Berlin, and Leeds is murdered by the Foreigner at Jason Macendale's request as a replacement Hobgoblin. The Kingpin presents photos of Ned in the Hobgoblin costume (which was obtained via the Foreigner) to Spider-Man in an attempt to get Spider-Man to go after the Foreigner.


title: Ned Leeds

text: Peter reflected on Ned's death years later, believing Ned must have been framed as Hobgoblin as the Foreigner's non-superhuman operatives would never have been able to defeat the real Hobgoblin. Around this time, the original Hobgoblin returns to eliminate Macendale, revealing the deception of Leeds being a stand-in. Spider-Man and Betty subsequently provoked Roderick Kingsley into confessing to Ned's framing on tape.


title: Ned Leeds

text: During the "" storyline, a clone of Ned Leeds is created by Ben Reilly (posing as Jackal) and is seen in New U Technologies' facility Haven. The clone is revealed to have survived the end of the event and disguised himself as a hobo to continue watching over Betty. It is shown that Betty still cares for Ned. While still unaware of his survival, Ned feels that he is proud of Betty's accomplishments. The clone later dies during a conflict between Spider-Man, Rhino, Taskmaster and Black Ant and tries to warn Spider-Man of something after Betty in the near future, revealed to be the real Ned Leeds, apparently revived.


title: Ned Leeds

text: By the time Spider-Man meets Kindred in person during the "Last Remains" arc, he finds that Kindred had dug up the bodies of Ned Leeds, Ben Parker, George Stacy, Gwen Stacy, Jean DeWolff, and Marla Jameson and sat them around a dinner table.


title: Ned Leeds

text: Ned Leeds had a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism, and was a master of deductive reasoning and investigation. He was a normal man who engaged in regular exercise, which increased to more intensive levels after assuming the Hobgoblin role. While brainwashed, Ned wore the Hobgoblin's uniform and used the glider and equipment which included Jack O'Lantern bombs, razor bats and electrical shock gloves. However, he had no healing factor or superhuman strength.


title: Ned Leeds

text: The Ultimate Marvel version of Ned Leeds is a reporter for the "Daily Bugle" and an alcoholic with an antagonistic relationship with Betty Brant.


title: Ned Leeds

text: Ned Leeds appears in the dramatic comic book "Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane". In this continuity, the characters are high school students, and Ned is Mary Jane's boyfriend, who breaks up with her to reunite with his ex-girlfriend Betty Brant.


title: Ned Leeds

text: The Ned Leeds incarnation of the Hobgoblin appears in the Islands of Adventure ride "The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man", voiced by Pat Fraley. This version is a member of Doctor Octopus' Sinister Syndicate. He attacks guests with a pumpkin bomb, but Spider-Man intervenes and fends off the Hobgoblin. Later in the ride, the latter and Scream grab Spider-Man and travel through the city with him before the ride vehicle crashes into the Hobgoblin's glider. He is last seen webbed up with the rest of the Syndicate.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: Hellboy is a 2004 American superhero film written and directed by Guillermo del Toro from a story by Del Toro and Peter Briggs. It is based on the Dark Horse Comics graphic novel "" by Mike Mignola. Ron Perlman stars as Hellboy, alongside Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, Karel Roden, Rupert Evans, and John Hurt in supporting roles. In the film, a demonic beast-turned superhero known as Hellboy secretly works to keep the world safe from paranormal threats with his team, the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: "Hellboy" was theatrically released on April 2, 2004 to positive reviews and grossed $99.8 million worldwide against a budget of $60–66 million. The film was followed by a sequel, "", released on July 11, 2008 by Universal Pictures, and a reboot, released on April 12, 2019 by Lionsgate.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: In 1944, with the help of Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin, the Nazis build a dimensional portal off the coast of Scotland and intend to free the Ogdru Jahad to aid them in defeating the Allies. Rasputin opens the portal with the aid of his disciples, Ilsa von Haupstein and Obersturmbannführer Karl Ruprecht Kroenen. An Allied team destroys the portal, guided by a young scientist named Trevor Bruttenholm (colloquially known as "Broom"). The German team is killed and the portal is destroyed, in the process absorbing Rasputin, while Haupstein and Kroenen escape. The Allied team discovers that an infant demon with a right hand of stone has come through the portal; they dub him "Hellboy" and Bruttenholm adopts him.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: Sixty years later, the eternally youthful Kroenen and Haupstein resurrect Rasputin. FBI agent John Myers is transferred to the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) at the request of Bruttenholm, where he meets the adult Hellboy and a psychic, amphibious humanoid named Abe Sapien. Hellboy is sent to investigate an incident at a Museum and battles a creature named Samael. After defeating it, Hellboy visits former BPRD member Liz Sherman at a mental hospital that she committed herself to due to her unstable pyrokinetic abilities. Abe learns that Samael was resurrected by Rasputin, who has imbued Samael with the power to reincarnate and split his essence, causing two of the creature's eggs to hatch and mature each time one dies. Abe also learns that Bruttenholm is dying.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: Concluding the eggs are in the sewer, Hellboy, Abe and several FBI agents go down to destroy them. Abe is injured while looking for the eggs, while Kroenen kills most of the agents. Kroenen, whose mutilated body is run by mechanical parts, shuts himself down, pretending to be defeated, and is brought to the bureau. FBI Director Tom Manning is angered by Hellboy's recklessness. Myers takes Liz out for coffee and to talk. Hellboy, jealous, covertly follows them, leaving the bureau unguarded. Kroenen reanimates himself and Rasputin appears at the bureau, confronting Bruttenholm. Rasputin offers him a vision of the future, showing Hellboy is the agent that will destroy the world. However, Bruttenholm tells Rasputin he will always see Hellboy as his son. Rasputin, respecting Bruttenholm for raising Hellboy, directs a quick execution by Kroenen. Bruttenholm dies holding a rosary.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: Manning takes over the BPRD and locates Rasputin's mausoleum in an old cemetery outside Moscow, Russia. A team led by Manning and Hellboy enters the mausoleum, but swiftly becomes separated. Hellboy and Manning find their way to Kroenen's lair and kill him. Hellboy reunites with Liz and Myers at Samael's new nest, but the creatures overwhelm them. Liz uses her pyrokinetic powers to incinerate the creatures and their eggs. Hellboy, Liz and Myers lose consciousness and are captured by Rasputin and Haupstein. Rasputin sucks Liz's soul out of her body, then tells Hellboy to release the Ogdru Jahad in return for her soul. Hellboy awakens his true power as Anung un Rama, causing his horns to regrow, and begins to release the Ogdru Jahad. Myers breaks out of his restraints, subdues Haupstein, and reminds Hellboy that he can defy his destiny, throwing him Bruttenholm's rosary. Remembering his true self and what Bruttenholm brought him up to be, Hellboy breaks off his horns, reseals the Ogdru Jahad and defeats Rasputin by stabbing him with one of his broken-off horns.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: However, Rasputin has been possessed by the Behemoth, a spawn of the Ogdru Jahad which bursts out of his body, grows to enormous size, and destroys him and Haupstein. Hellboy allows himself to be swallowed by the beast, then detonates a belt of hand grenades and destroys it from the inside. He whispers something in Liz's ear and she is revived. When she asks how her soul was returned, Hellboy replies that he said "Hey, you on the other side, let her go, because for... for her I'll cross over, and then you'll be sorry." Liz and Hellboy share a kiss.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: Del Toro and Hellboy creator Mike Mignola envisioned the film as a Ray Harryhausen film. The film was shopped and rejected by various studios for years due to studios disliking the title, script, and the fact that Perlman was cast as Hellboy. Del Toro invited Harryhausen to teach the film's animators what made his effects techniques unique but declined, feeling that modern films were too violent.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: While writing the script, Del Toro researched occult Nazi philosophies and used them as a reference for the film's opening scene. In an early version of the script, the gyroscope portal was described being made out of rails that formed into pentagrams, hexagrams, and inverted stars to illustrate the film's magic and occult elements. Del Toro chose to alter the origin from the comic to give main characters interconnected origins.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: Labyrinths became a motif for the film to represent Hellboy's conflict of "choosing the right path." This was reflected in the film's opening titles. Del Toro felt that labyrinths represent the film's themes regarding "choices and taking different turns and choosing different destinies," Del Toro stated, "A labyrinth, it is said, is not a place to be lost, but a place to find yourself." Del Toro chose to add context to the BPRD logo by rooting the film's version in Catholic mythology by adding archangels in Broom's office. Del Toro wrote Hellboy's dialogue with Perlman in mind for the role, prior to casting him. Del Toro noted that he tried to emulate Jack Kirby and Harryhausen's action style for the film's action scenes.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: Hellboy's gun was given the name "Samaritan" for the film to illustrate the BPRD's techno-magic. Del Toro approached the love story with a reverse Beauty and the Beast approach, stating, "I wanted the beauty to turn into a beast in the end to fully assume her mortal gifts... and when she accepts herself for what she is, a monster, then she can love the monster [Hellboy]." The idea of Hellboy spying on Liz and Myers was originally written for a separate script titled "Meat Market, A Love Story". While Broom's death happened early in the comics, Del Toro wished to delay it to have audiences become attached to the character and "make it painful to lose that character."


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: Aside from working with Perlman before, Del Toro chose him for the title role because he felt Perlman could deliver subtlety and nuance with makeup. Del Toro assigned his real life friend, Santiago Segura, to play the train driver who assaults Hellboy. David Hyde Pierce was hired to provide the voice for Abe Sapien due to Pierce being a "bigger name" and having a "more recognizable sound". Pierce refused to take credit, perform press tours, or attend the premiere out of respect for Doug Jones.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: The film was shot 6 days a week for 130 days, Mondays through Saturdays without a second unit. Sundays were reserved for editing. Del Toro noted that the film could have commenced filming in 1998, however, the film had difficulty finding a committed studio due to the stigma Hollywood associated superhero and comic book films with, at the time. The action scenes were staged after Harryhausen films with little to no camera movement using wide shots. The cemetery sequence was filmed in a real cemetery in Prague.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: "Hellboy" had its world premiere at the Mann Village Theater in Westwood, Los Angeles, California on March 30, 2004, and subsequently opened in wide release on April 2, where it grossed USD $23.1 million in 3,028 theaters on its opening weekend. It went on to gross $59.7 million in North America and $40.2 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $99.8 million against a budget of $66 million. Mike Mignola, the original creator of the Hellboy character, has stated that he was "very happy" with the "Hellboy" films. Some theaters refused to host the film due to the word "hell" being used in the title. Certain theaters in the South retitled the film in publicity materials, and on my heated marquees, as "Helloboy" to avoid comparisons with "The Passion of the Christ", which was also in release at the time. The film was mysteriously dropped from certain theaters during easter, despite still playing nationwide. Certain toy chains also refused to carry the film's products due to the word "hell" in the title. Del Toro noted that one scene near the climax, which occurs after a rock hits the screen, was carelessly removed by projectionists in American theaters. He deduced that projectionists believed the reel had ended.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: "Hellboy" was released on DVD in a two-disc special edition DVD on July 27, 2004, less than sixteen weeks after it opened in theaters. Included, were video introductions by Del Toro and Selma Blair, plus a feature that allowed viewers to click during selected parts of the film to comics drawn by Mike Mignola. Other bonus features include two audio commentaries, one by Del Toro and Mignola; and the other by Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, and Rupert Evans, which was recorded on April 12, 2004. The special features also include visits to the "Right Hand of Doom" set and a two-hour documentary. This DVD topped the Nielsen VideoScan's First Alert DVD sales chart and the Video Store magazine's list of top rentals for the week ending August 1, 2004, registering a total of more than a half-million units in sales.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: A three-disc unrated director's cut DVD set was released on October 19, 2004. In addition to all of the features of the original two-disc set, with the exception of a new director's commentary replacing the old one, new features included Del Toro introducing 20 minutes of additional and extended scenes, a composer commentary with isolated score replacing the cast commentary, a Cast Video Commentary with Perlman, Blair, Tambor and Rupert Evans, multiple production workshop featurettes, a Comic Con 2002 Panel Discussion with Del Toro, Perlman and Mignola, and A Quick Guide to Understanding Comics with Scott McCloud.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: A high-definition Blu-ray version of the director's cut was released on June 5, 2007. It contains most of the same content as the DVD set, but is missing a few features such as the video commentary and the composer commentary. An Ultra HD Blu-ray version was released on October 15, 2019, with many of the remaining bonus features from the 3-disc reinstated and both cuts remastered in 4K resolution.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "With wit, humor and Guillermo del Toro's fantastic visuals, the entertaining "Hellboy" transcends the derivative nature of the genre." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B−" on scale of A to F.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a "B" rating and wrote, "Pop pretensions can't undo a basic contradiction: that our hero is fighting "metaphysical" evil with pure, meaty brawn. "Hellboy" is engaging, but it's got a lot more boy in it than hell". In his review for "The New York Times", Elvis Mitchell wrote, "Mr. del Toro avidly lavishes this texture on "Hellboy" ... giving it a kiss of distinction. It's an elegant haunted house of a picture with dread and yearning part of the eeriness". Roger Ebert gave the film three and half stars out of four and praised Ron Perlman's performance: "And in Ron Perlman, it has found an actor who is not just playing a superhero, but enjoying it ... he chomps his cigar, twitches his tail and battles his demons with something approaching glee. You can see an actor in the process of making an impossible character really work". The film also received good reviews in the British press – for example, Peter Bradshaw from "The Guardian" commented amusedly on the unhistoricity of the Nazis invading Britain in the initial sequence but overall called the film "bizarre and loopy, romantic and dynamic". Claudia Puig "USA Today" was less enthusiastic and wrote, ""Hellboy"s special effects don't offer much of anything new, its far-fetched plot leaves a bit to be desired, and there is plenty that flat-out doesn't make sense. Those unfamiliar with the comic book may leave the theater bedeviled and scratching their heads".


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: "Hellboy" was nominated for four Saturn Awards in 2005, including Best Fantasy Film, Best Special Edition DVD Release, and Best Make-Up, which it won. The film was also nominated for a Visual Effects Society Award in the category of "Outstanding Performance by an Animated Character in a Live Action Motion Picture." In 2007, Rotten Tomatoes declared "Hellboy" to be the 13th best-reviewed comic book film adaptation, out of 94 total.


title: Hellboy (2004 film)

text: In 2008, "Empire" magazine ranked "Hellboy" 11th in their list of "The 20 Greatest Comic Book Movies".


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The Great Train Robbery was the robbery of £2.6million from a Royal Mail train heading from Glasgow to London on the West Coast Main Line in the early hours of 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn, near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: After tampering with the lineside signals to bring the train to a halt, a gang of 15, led by Bruce Reynolds, attacked the train. Other gang members included Gordon Goody, Buster Edwards, Charlie Wilson, Roy James, John Daly, Jimmy White, Ronnie Biggs, Tommy Wisbey, Jim Hussey, Bob Welch and Roger Cordrey, as well as three men known only as numbers "1", "2" and "3"; two were later identified as Harry Smith and Danny Pembroke. A 16th man, an unnamed retired train driver, was also present.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: With careful planning based on inside information from an individual known as "The Ulsterman", whose real identity has never been established, the robbers escaped with over £2.6million (equivalent to £million today). The bulk of the stolen money was never recovered. The gang did not use any firearms; Jack Mills, the train driver, was beaten over the head with a metal bar. Mills suffered serious head injuries. After his partial recovery, he returned to work doing light duties. He retired in 1967 and died in 1970 due to an unrelated illness. He never overcame the trauma of the robbery. After the robbery, the gang hid at Leatherslade Farm. The police found this hideout, and incriminating evidence led to the eventual arrest and conviction of most of the gang. The ringleaders were sentenced to 30 years in prison.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The plan to intercept and rob the overnight Glasgow to London mail train was based on information from an unnamed senior security officer within Royal Mail who had detailed knowledge of the amounts of money carried; he was introduced to two of the criminals who would carry out the raid—Gordon Goody and Buster Edwards—by a London solicitor's clerk, Brian Field.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The raid was devised over a period of months by a core team: Goody and Edwards along with Bruce Reynolds, and Charlie Wilson, with Reynolds assuming the role of "mastermind". This gang, although very successful in the criminal underworld, had virtually no experience in stopping and robbing trains, so it was agreed to enlist the help of another London gang called The South Coast Raiders. This group included Tommy Wisbey, Bob Welch, and Jim Hussey, who were already 'accomplished train robbers'. This group also included Roger Cordrey, a man who was a specialist in this field and knew how to rig the track-side signals to stop the train.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Other associates (including Ronnie Biggs, a man Reynolds had previously met in jail) were added as the organisation evolved. The final gang who took part in the raid comprised a total of sixteen men.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: At 18:50 on Wednesday 7 August 1963, the travelling post office (TPO) "Up Special" train set off from Glasgow Central station en route to Euston Station in London. It was scheduled to arrive at Euston at 04:00 the following morning. The train was hauled by English Electric Type 4 (later Class 40) diesel-electric locomotive (later 40 126). The train consisted of 12 carriages and carried 72 Post Office staff who sorted mail during the journey.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Mail was loaded onto the train at Glasgow, during additional station stops en route, and from line-side collection points where local post office staff would hang mail sacks on elevated track-side hooks that were caught by nets deployed by the on-board staff. Sorted mail on the train could be dropped off at the same time. This process of exchange allowed mail to be distributed locally without delaying the train with unnecessary stops. One of the carriages involved in the robbery is preserved at the Nene Valley Railway.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The second carriage behind the engine was known as the HVP (high-value packages) coach, which carried large amounts of money and registered mail for sorting. Usually, the value of the shipment was in the region of £300,000, but because the previous weekend had been a UK Bank Holiday weekend, the total on the day of the robbery was to be between £2.5 and £3million.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: In 1960, the Post Office Investigation Branch (IB) recommended the fitting of alarms to all TPOs with HVP carriages. This recommendation was implemented in 1961, but HVP carriages without alarms were retained in reserve. By August 1963, three HVP carriages were equipped with alarms, bars over the windows and bolts and catches on the doors, but at the time of the robbery, these carriages were out of service, so a reserve carriage (M30204M) without those features had to be used. The fitting of radios was also considered, but they were deemed to be too expensive, and the measure was not implemented. This carriage was kept for evidence for seven years following the event and then burned at a scrapyard in Norfolk in the presence of police and post office officials to deter any souvenir hunters.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Just after 03:00 on 8 August, the driver, 58-year-old Jack Mills from Crewe, stopped the train on the West Coast Main Line at a red signal light at Sears Crossing, Ledburn, between Leighton Buzzard and Cheddington. The signal had been tampered with by the robbers: they had covered the green light and connected a battery to power the red light. The locomotive's second crew member, known as the second man, was 26-year-old David Whitby, also from Crewe. As a signal stop was unexpected at this time and place, Whitby climbed down from the cab to call the signalman from a line-side telephone, only to find the cables had been cut. As he returned to the train he was overpowered by one of the robbers. Meanwhile, gang members entered the engine cabin from both sides, and as Mills grappled with one robber he was struck from behind by another with a cosh and rendered semi-conscious.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The robbers now had to move the train to Bridego Bridge (now known as Mentmore Bridge), approximately half a mile (800 m) further along the track, where they planned to unload the money.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: One of the robbers had spent months befriending railway staff and familiarising himself with the layout and operation of trains and carriages. Ultimately though, it was decided that it would be better to use an experienced train driver to move the locomotive and the first two carriages from the signals to the bridge after uncoupling the carriages containing the rest of the sorters and the ordinary mail.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: On that night, the gang's hired train driver (an acquaintance of Ronnie Biggs, later referred to as "Stan Agate" or "Peter") was unable to operate this newer type of locomotive; although having driven trains for many years, he was by then retired and was experienced only on shunting locomotives on the Southern Region. With no alternative available to them, it was quickly decided that Mills would have to move the train to the stopping point near the bridge, which was indicated by a white sheet stretched between poles on the track. Biggs's only task was to supervise Agate's participation in the robbery, and when it became obvious that Agate was not able to drive the train, he and Biggs were sent to the waiting truck to help load the mail bags.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The train was stopped at Bridego Bridge, and the robbers' "assault force" attacked the 'high-value packages' (HVP) carriage. Frank Dewhurst was in charge of the three other postal workers (Leslie Penn, Joseph Ware and John O'Connor) in the HVP carriage. Thomas Kett, assistant inspector in charge of the train from Carlisle to Euston, was also in the carriage. Dewhurst and Kett were hit with coshes when they made a vain attempt to prevent the robbers from storming the carriage. Once the robbers had entered the carriage, the staff could put up no effective resistance and there was no police officer or security guard on board to assist them. The staff were made to lie face down on the floor in a corner of the carriage. Mills and Whitby were then brought into the carriage, handcuffed together, and put down beside the staff.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The robbers removed all but eight of the 128 sacks from the HVP carriage, which they transferred in about 15–20 minutes to the waiting truck by forming a human chain. The gang departed in their Austin Loadstar truck some 30 minutes after the robbery had begun and, in an effort to mislead any potential witnesses, they used two Land Rover vehicles, both of which bore the registration plates BMG 757A.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The gang then headed along minor roads, listening for police broadcasts on a VHF radio, the journey taking somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour, and arrived back at Leatherslade Farm at around 04:30, at around the same time as the first reports of the crime were being made. Leatherslade was a run-down farm from the crime scene, between Oakley and Brill (). It had been bought two months earlier as their hideout.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: At the farm they counted the proceeds and divided it into 16 full shares and several 'drinks' (smaller sums of money intended for associates of the gang). The precise amounts of the split differ according to the source, but the full shares came to approximately £150,000 each (equivalent to £million today).


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: From listening to their police-tuned radio, the gang learned that the police had calculated they had gone to ground within a radius of the crime scene rather than dispersing with their haul. This declaration was based on the information given by a witness at the crime scene who stated that a gang member had told the post office workers "not to move for half an hour". The press interpreted this information as a radius—a half-hour drive in a fast car.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The gang realised the police were using a "dragnet tactic", and with help from the public, would probably discover the farm much sooner than had been originally anticipated. As a result, the plan for leaving the farm was brought forward to Friday from Sunday (the crime was committed on Thursday). The vehicles they had driven to the farm could no longer be used because they had been seen by the train staff. Brian Field came to the farm on Thursday to pick up his share of the loot and to take Roy James to London to find an extra vehicle. Bruce Reynolds and John Daly picked up cars, one for Jimmy White and the other for Reynolds, Daly, Biggs and the replacement train driver. Field, his wife Karin and his associate "Mark" brought the vans and drove the remainder of the gang to the Field's home to recover.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Field had arranged with "Mark" to carry out a comprehensive clean-up and set fire to the farm after the robbers had left, even though the robbers had already spent much time wiping the place down to be free of prints. According to Buster Edwards, he 'nicked' £10,000 in ten-shilling notes to help pay "Mark's" drink. However, on Monday, when Charlie Wilson rang Brian Field to check whether the farm had been cleaned, he did not believe Field's assurances. He called a meeting with Edwards, Reynolds, Daly and James and they agreed that they needed to be sure. They called Field to a meeting on Tuesday, where he was forced to admit that he had failed to "torch" the farm. In the IVS 2012 documentary film "The Great Train Robbery", Nick Reynolds (son of Bruce Reynolds) said "...the guy who was paid to basically go back to the farm and burn it down did a runner." Wilson would have killed Field there and then but was restrained by the others. By the time they were ready to go back to the farm, however, they learned that police had found the hide-out.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: There is some uncertainty regarding the exact cash total stolen from the train. £2,631,684 is a figure quoted in the press, although the police investigation states the theft as £2,595,997 10s, in 636 packages, contained in 120 mailbags—the bulk of the haul in £1 and £5 notes (both the older white note and the newer blue note, which was half its size). There were also ten-shilling notes and Irish and Scottish money. Because a 30-minute time limit had been set by Reynolds, eight out of 128 bags were not stolen and were left behind. Statistically, this could have amounted to £131,000 or 4.7% of the total. It is alleged that the total weight of the bags removed was 2.5 tons, according to former Buckinghamshire police officer John Woolley.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The robbers had cut all the telephone lines in the vicinity, but one of the rail-men left on the train at Sears Crossing caught a passing goods train to Cheddington, where he raised the alarm at around 04:20. The first reports of the robbery were broadcast on the VHF police radio within a few minutes and this is where the gang heard the line "A robbery has been committed and you'll never believe it – they've stolen the train!"


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The gang consisted of 17 full members who were to receive an equal share, including the men who were at the robbery and two key informants.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The gang that carried out the robbery consisted of 15 criminals predominantly from south London: Gordon Goody, Charlie Wilson, Buster Edwards, Bruce Reynolds, Roy James, John Daly, Roger Cordrey, Jimmy White, Bob Welch, Tommy Wisbey, Jim Hussey, and Ronnie Biggs, as well as Harry Smith and Danny Pembroke, who were never charged due to the lack of evidence against them, and one still unknown, plus the train driver they nicknamed "Pop". The best-known member of the gang, Biggs, had only a minor role—to recruit the train driver.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Bruce Richard Reynolds was born on 7 September 1931 at Charing Cross Hospital, Strand, London, to Thomas Richard and Dorothy Margaret (née Keen). His mother died in 1935, and he had trouble living with his father and stepmother, so he often stayed with one or other of his grandmothers. Reynolds was jailed for three years on several counts of breaking and entering, and upon his release quickly started re-offending. He soon joined a gang with best friend John Daly (future brother-in-law). They were mentored by South Western gang leaders Ernie Watts and Terry Hogan (a.k.a. Harry Booth). Also, he did some (criminal?) work with Jimmy White and met Buster Edwards at Charlie Richardson's club. Richardson in turn introduced him to Gordon Goody.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: After the train heist, Reynolds escaped to Mexico with his wife, Angela, and young son, Nick Reynolds (who later became a member of the band Alabama 3, whose song "Woke Up This Morning" was the opening theme of "The Sopranos") and lived lavishly with his share of the take, approximately £150,000. When that money ran out, Reynolds moved his family to Canada and then France under false identities, in search of work, before returning to the United Kingdom to pursue opportunities promised by his old criminal contacts. He was arrested in 1968 in Torquay and sentenced to 25 years in jail. He was released a decade later.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Reynolds was sent back to prison in the mid-1980s for dealing amphetamines. He produced occasional journalism pieces, was a consultant on movie and book projects about the train heist, and published a well-regarded crime memoir, "Crossing the Line: The Autobiography of a Thief" (1995). In a 2003 interview, Reynolds recalled: "from an early age I always wanted a life of adventure." He was rejected by the Royal Navy because of poor eyesight, and then tried to become a foreign correspondent, but his highest achievement in that vein was to become a clerk at the "Daily Mail". While his life in crime did provide excitement, Reynolds said in 2003, "I've always felt that I can't escape my past. And in many ways, I feel that it is like a line from the 'Ancient Mariner' and that the notoriety was like an albatross around my neck." Reynolds died aged 81 on 28 February 2013 after a brief illness. He was survived by his son Nick.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Authorities regarded Douglas Gordon Goody as the mastermind of the operation. He first made contact with 'The Ulsterman' in a meeting set up by Brian Field in Finsbury Park. Of Northern Irish descent, Goody was born in Putney, London in March 1930 and was still living there in his mother's flat at the time of the robbery. In the early 1960s, he joined Buster Edwards' gang and helped rob various easy targets.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: After his release from prison in 1975, Goody moved to the white-washed town of Mojácar in Almería, Spain, where he ran the Chiringuito Kon Tiki beachfront bar. In September 2014, Goody claimed the identity of 'The Ulsterman' was Patrick McKenna for the first time in a documentary marking the 50th anniversary of the robbery. The documentary makers employed Ariel Bruce, a social worker who finds missing family members, to trace McKenna, who was found to have died some years previously. However, Bruce was able to make contact with McKenna's family. This documentary was shown in cinemas and on-demand in October 2014.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The most dangerous of the Great Train Robbers was 'the Silent Man' Charlie Wilson. He was born on 30 June 1932 to Bill and Mabel Wilson in Battersea. His friends from childhood were Jimmy Hussey, Tommy Wisbey, Bruce Reynolds and Gordon Goody. Later on, he met Ronald 'Buster' Edwards and the young driving enthusiasts Mickey Ball and Roy James, who had taken up car theft. From 1948 to 1950 he was called up for national service, and in 1955 he married Patricia (Pat) Osbourne, with whom he had three children. He turned to crime early in life and spurned his father's legitimate but low-income wage. While he did have legitimate work in his in-laws' grocer's shop, he also was a thief and his criminal proceeds went into buying shares in various gambling enterprises. He went to jail for short spells for numerous offences. In 1960, he began to work with Bruce Reynolds and planned to get into the criminal big league.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Ronald Christopher Edwards was born on 27 January 1932 at Lambeth, London, the son of a barman. After leaving school, he worked in a sausage factory, where he began his criminal career by stealing meat to sell on the post-war black market. During his national service in the RAF he was detained for stealing cigarettes. When he returned to South London, he ran a drinking club and became a professional criminal. He married June Rose in 1952. They had a daughter, Nicky. In his final years he ran a flower stall outside Waterloo station in London.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Brian Arthur Field was born on 15 December 1934 and was immediately put up for adoption. He served two years in the Royal Army Service Corps, seeing service during the Korean War. Although soldiers in the Service Corps were considered combat personnel, they were primarily associated with transport and logistics. When he was discharged from the military, it was with "a very good character".


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Field later became a solicitor's managing clerk for John Wheater & Co. Although he was only 28 at the time of the robbery, he was already apparently more prosperous than his boss, John Wheater. Field drove a new Jaguar and had a house, "Kabri" (an amalgam of Karin and Brian [Field]), with his wife at the Bridle Path, Whitchurch Hill, Oxfordshire, while his boss owned a battered Ford and lived in a run-down neighbourhood. Part of the reason for Field's prosperity was that he was not averse to giving Goody and Edwards information about what his clients had in their country houses, making them prime targets for the thieves. On one occasion he described the contents and layout of a house near Weybridge where his wife Karin had once been a nanny.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Prior to the robbery Field had represented Buster Edwards and Gordon Goody. He had arranged Edwards' defence when he had been caught with a stolen car and had met Goody at a nightclub in Soho. Field was called upon to assist in Goody's defence in the aftermath of the "Airport Job", which was a robbery carried out on 27 November 1962 at BOAC Comet House, Hatton Cross, London Airport. This was the big practice robbery that the South West Gang had done before the Great Train Robbery. Field was successful in arranging bail for Goody and Charlie Wilson.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: In 2014, Douglas Goody claimed to journalists that "The Ulsterman" was Patrick McKenna, at the time of the robbery a 43-year-old postal worker living in Salford, Lancashire.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: McKenna, who was originally from Belfast, met Goody four times in 1963. Goody alleged that he found out McKenna's name only when he saw it written inside his spectacles case.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: It is not known what became of the share McKenna allegedly received, but his children were "flabbergasted" on hearing the claim of their father's involvement. It was surmised that McKenna either donated his share to the Catholic church over the years or had had the money stolen from him.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: This alleged identification of McKenna as "The Ulsterman" has been disputed; not least because McKenna appears to have had no criminal record or associations and died poor. It has been suggested that a known associate of the convicted robbers, Sammy Osterman, was part of the gang, and his "Ulsterman" soubriquet was simply the result of mishearing his surname.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: William Gerald Boal (22 October 1913 – 26 June 1970), an accomplice after the fact of Roger Cordrey, was convicted as being one of the robbers, despite playing a role no different from the many other accomplices of the various train robbers. Boal died in jail.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Leonard "Lennie" Denis Field (born 1931, date of death unknown) helped with the purchase of the Leatherslade Farm hideout, paying the deposit of £5,000 in return for a 'drink' of £12,000. Lennie Field was allowed to think that the plan was to hijack a lorry load of cigarettes. Despite not being in on the robbery, he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years (20 years for conspiracy to rob and five years for obstructing justice), which was later reduced to five. He was released from jail in 1967 and went to live in north London.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: John Denby Wheater (born 17 December 1921, died 18 July 1985) was the employer of Brian Field. He was convicted and sentenced to three years. He died in Harrogate, near Leeds, aged 63.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: At 05:00, Chief Superintendent Malcolm Fewtrell, head of the Buckinghamshire Police Criminal Investigation Department (CID), located at Aylesbury, arrived at the crime scene, where he supervised evidence-gathering. He then went to Cheddington railway station, where the train had been taken, and where statements were taken from the driver and postal workers. A member of the gang had told the postal staff not to move for half an hour and this suggested to the police that their hide-out could not be more than away. It appeared, from interviews with the witnesses, that about 15 hooded men dressed in blue boiler suits had been involved, but little more could be gleaned.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: By lunchtime of the following day, it became obvious to Fewtrell that extra resources were needed to cope with the scale of the investigation and the Buckinghamshire Chief Constable referred the case to Scotland Yard. George Hatherill, Commander of the C Department and Detective Chief Superintendent Earnest (Ernie) Millen, Head of the Flying Squad were initially in charge of the London side of the investigation. They sent Detective Superintendent Gerald McArthur and Detective Sergeant John Pritchard to assist the Buckinghamshire Police.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The police then undertook a major search, fanning out from the crime scene after having failed to find any forensic evidence there. A watch was put on the seaports. The Postmaster General Reginald Bevins offered a £10,000 reward to "the first person giving information leading to the apprehension and conviction of the persons responsible for the robbery".


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Following a tip-off from a herdsman who used a field adjacent to Leatherslade Farm, a police sergeant and constable called there on 13 August 1963, five days after the robbery. The farm was deserted but they found the truck used by the robbers, which had been hastily painted yellow, as well as the Land Rovers. They also found a large quantity of food, bedding, sleeping bags, post-office sacks, registered mail packages, banknote wrappers and a Monopoly board game.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: It was determined that although the farm had been cleaned for fingerprints, some finger and palm prints (presumably of the robbers) had been overlooked, including those on a ketchup bottle and on the Monopoly set (which had been used after the robbery for a game, but with real money).


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Despite the big breakthrough of the discovery of Leatherslade Farm, the investigation was not going well. The London side of the investigation then continued under Detective Chief Superintendent Tommy Butler, who replaced Millen as head of the Flying Squad shortly after Millen was promoted to Deputy Commander under George Hatherill. On Monday 12 August 1963, Butler was appointed to head the police investigation of the London connection and quickly formed a six-man Train Robbery Squad. With Leatherslade Farm finally found on 13 August 1963, the day after Tommy Butler was appointed to head the London investigation, the Train Robbery Squad descended on the farm.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The breakthrough came when Detective Chief Superintendent Millen met a distinguished barrister in a smoking room of an exclusive West End club who told him that someone was willing to inform on the gang. The process of talking to the informer was handled by Hatherill and Millen and they never divulged the identity of the informer to the detectives in their command. The informant had been jailed in a provincial prison just before the train robbery and was hoping to get parole and other favours from talking. He clearly did not know all the names perfectly, and a second informant (a woman) was able to fill in the gaps. Millen said in his book "Specialist in Crime", "the break-through with the informer came at a moment when I and my colleagues at the Yard were in a state of frustration almost approaching despair". This process saw them get eighteen names to be passed on to detectives to match up with the list being prepared from fingerprints collected at Leatherslade. Hatherill and Millen decided to publish photos of the wanted men, despite strong protests from Tommy Butler and Frank Williams. This resulted in most of the robbers going to ground.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Tommy Butler was a shrewd choice to take over the Flying Squad and in particular the Train Robbery Squad. He became arguably the most renowned head of the Flying Squad in its history. He was known variously as "Mr Flying Squad", as "One-day Tommy" for the speed with which he apprehended criminals and as the "Grey Fox" for his shrewdness. He was Scotland Yard's most formidable thief-taker and, as an unmarried man who still lived with his mother, he had a fanatical dedication to the job. Butler worked long hours and expected all members of the squad to do the same.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The squad later had to work out rotations whereby one member would go home to rest as otherwise they were getting only three hours of sleep per night and had no time to eat healthily or see their families. When the squad tried to get him to ease the working conditions, Butler was enraged and threatened to send them back to their normal duties. Butler was said to be very secretive, with Jack Slipper claiming in his book "Slipper of the Yard" (1981) that "he wouldn't even tell his own left hand what the right one was doing". This meant that Train Robbery Squad members were often dispatched on errands with no knowledge of how their tasks fitted into the overall investigation.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The six-man Train Robbery Squad consisted of Detective Inspector Frank Williams, Detective Sergeant Steve Moore, Detective Sergeant Jack Slipper, Detective Sergeant Jim Nevill, Detective Sergeant Lou Van Dyck and Detective Constable Tommy Thorburn. The senior officer, Frank Williams, was a quiet man. His speciality was dealing with informants and he had the best working knowledge of the south London criminal fraternity in the force. One of the squad, Jack Slipper, would later become head of the Flying Squad and would still be involved in the case many years later.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The Post Office Investigation Branch (IB) had to establish the amount of money stolen, £2,595,997.10s.0d. They also sought to identify what money had been taken so that the relevant banks could be notified. Deficiencies in High-Value Package carriage security were reported and secure carriages were immediately brought back into service. The installation of radios was recommended as a priority. The investigation was detailed in a report by Assistant Controller Richard Yates that was issued in May 1964.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The first gang member to be caught was Roger Cordrey. He was with his friend, William Boal who was helping him lie low in return for the payment of old debts. They were living in a rented, fully furnished flat above a florist's shop in Wimborne Road, Moordown, Bournemouth. The Bournemouth police were tipped off by Ethel Clark when Boal and Cordrey paid her for three months rent in advance on a garage in Tweedale Road, off Castle Lane West. Clark was the widow of a former police officer and Boal and Cordrey made the whole payment in used ten-shilling notes. Boal, who was not involved in the robbery, was sentenced to 24 years and died in prison in 1970. Police later acknowledged that he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Other arrests followed. Eight of the gang members and several associates were caught. The other arrests were made by Sgt Stan Davis and Probationary Constable Gordon 'Charlie' Case. On Friday 16 August 1963, two people who had decided to take a morning stroll in Dorking Woods discovered a briefcase, a holdall and a camel-skin bag, all containing money. They called police, who also discovered another briefcase full of money in the woods. In total, a sum of £100,900 was found. They also found a camel-skin bag containing a receipt from a hotel "Sonnenbichel" in the German town of Bad Hindelang in the Bavarian Prealps. It was made out to Herr and Frau Field. Surrey police delivered the money and the receipt to Fewtrell and McArthur in Aylesbury, who knew by then that Brian Field was a clerk at James and Wheater who had acted in the purchase of Leatherslade Farm. They quickly confirmed through Interpol that Brian and Karin Field had stayed at "Sonnenbichel" in February that year. The police knew that Field had acted for Gordon Goody and other criminals.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Several weeks later, the police went to Field's house to interview him. He calmly (for someone whose relatives had dumped a large part of the loot) provided a cover story that implicated Lennie Field as the purchaser of the farm and his boss John Wheater as the conveyancer. He admitted to visiting the farm on one occasion with Lennie Field, but said he assumed it was an investment of his brother Alexander Field, whom Brian Field had defended (unsuccessfully) in a recent court case. Field, not knowing the police had found a receipt, readily confirmed that he and his wife had been to Germany on a holiday and gave them the details of the place at which they had stayed. On 15 September 1963 Brian Field was arrested and his boss John Wheater was arrested two days later. Lennie Field had already been arrested on 14 September. Jack Slipper was involved in the capture of Roy James, Ronald Biggs, Jimmy Hussey and John Daly.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The trial of the robbers began at Aylesbury Assizes, Buckinghamshire, on 20 January 1964. Because it would be necessary to accommodate a large number of lawyers and journalists, the existing court was deemed too small and so the offices of Aylesbury Rural District Council were specially converted for the event. The defendants were brought to the court each day from Aylesbury Prison in a compartmentalised van, out of view of the large crowd of spectators. Mr Justice Edmund Davies presided over the trial, which lasted 51 days and included 613 exhibits and 240 witnesses. The jury retired to the Grange Youth Centre in Aylesbury to consider its verdict.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: On 11 February 1964, there was a sensation when John Daly was found to have no case to answer. His counsel, Walter Raeburn QC, claimed that the evidence against his client was limited to his fingerprints being on the Monopoly set found at Leatherslade Farm and the fact that he went underground after the robbery. Raeburn went on to say that Daly had played the Monopoly game with his brother-in-law Bruce Reynolds earlier in 1963, and that he had gone underground only because he was associated with people publicly sought by the police. This was not proof of involvement in a conspiracy. The judge agreed, and the jury was directed to acquit him.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Detective Inspector Frank Williams was shocked when this occurred because, owing to Tommy Butler's refusal to share information, he had no knowledge of the fact that Daly's prints were only on the Monopoly set. If Williams had known this, he could have asked Daly questions about the Monopoly set and robbed him of his very effective alibi. Daly was clever in avoiding having a photo taken when he was arrested until he could shave his beard. This meant that there was no photo to show the lengths he had gone to in order to change his appearance. No action was taken against Butler for his mistake in not ensuring the case against Daly was more thorough.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: On 15 April 1964 the proceedings ended with the judge describing the robbery as "a crime of sordid violence inspired by vast greed" and passing sentences of 30 years' imprisonment on seven of the robbers.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The 11 men sentenced all felt aggrieved at the sentences handed down, particularly Bill Boal (who died in prison) and Lennie Field, who were later found not guilty of the charges against them. The other men (aside from Wheater) resented what they considered to be the excessive length of the sentences, which were longer than those given to many murderers or armed robbers. Train robbers who were sentenced later, and by different judges, received shorter terms. The severity of the sentences caused some surprise. When mastermind Bruce Reynolds was arrested in 1968, he allegedly told arresting officer Tommy Butler that those sentences had had a detrimental effect. According to him, they had prompted criminals generally to take guns with them when they set out on robberies.