A white feather has been a traditional symbol of cowardice, used and recognised especially within the British Army and in countries associated with the British Empire since the 18th century. It also carries opposite meanings, however: in some cases of pacifism, and in the United States, of extraordinary bravery and excellence in combat marksmanship.
The white feather as a symbol of cowardice comes from cockfighting and the belief that a cockerel sporting a white feather in its tail is likely to be a poor fighter. Pure-breed gamecocks do not show white feathers, so its presence indicates that the cockerel is an inferior cross-breed.
In August 1914, at the start of the First World War, Admiral Charles Fitzgerald founded the Order of the White Feather with support from the prominent author Mrs Humphrey Ward. The organisation aimed to coerce men to enlist in the British Army by persuading women to present them with a white feather if they were not wearing a uniform.
The campaign was very effective, and spread throughout several other nations in the Empire, so much so that it started to cause problems for the government when public servants came under pressure to enlist. This prompted the Home Secretary, Reginald McKenna, to issue employees in state industries with lapel badges reading "King and Country" to indicate that they too were serving the war effort. Likewise, the Silver War Badge, given to service personnel who had been honourably discharged due to wounds or sickness, was first issued in September 1916 to prevent veterans from being challenged for not wearing uniform. The poetry from the period indicates that the campaign was not popular amongst soldiers (e.g. Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est) - not least because soldiers who were home on leave could find themselves presented with the feathers.
A Silent Film is a 4 piece alternative rock band from Oxford England. The band consists of Robert Stevenson (vocals/piano), Karl Bareham (guitar), Ali Hussain (bass) and Spencer Walker (drums). Their first album, 'A City That Sleeps', was released on October 6, 2008. with reviewers describing it as 'a surefire winner'.
Critics have compared A Silent Film to Coldplay, Snow Patrol and The Killers.
The band formed in 2005. Two of the four members (Robert Stevenson & Spencer Walker) had been members of another band named Shouting Myke, which formed in early 2000. In 2005 two members (Benn Clarke and Steve Meyer-Rassow) left the band and were replaced by Ali Hussain. The newly-formed band chose the name 'A Silent Film' after the lead singer, Robert Stevenson, wrote a song using the melody from a song from a Charlie Chaplin film; the band agreed they liked the style and chose the name as a reference to Charlie Chaplin's many silent films.
The band released their first single in 2007, an EP titled 'The Projectionist'. They performed on the BBC Introducing Stage at Glastonbury in 2007 and their first album, The City That Sleeps, was released in October 2008.
Robert John Wagner (born February 10, 1930) is an American actor of stage, screen, and television, best known for starring in the television shows It Takes a Thief (1968–70), Switch (1975–78), and Hart to Hart (1979–84). In movies, Wagner is known for his role as Number Two in the Austin Powers films (1997, 1999, 2002). He also had a recurring role as Teddy Leopold on the TV sitcom Two and a Half Men.
Wagner's autobiography, Pieces of My Heart: A Life, written with author Scott Eyman, was published on September 23, 2008.
Wagner was born in Detroit, Michigan. He is the son of Hazel Alvera (née Boe), a telephone operator, and Robert John Wagner Sr., a traveling salesman who worked for the Ford Motor Company. His paternal grandparents were born in Germany. Wagner has a sister, Mary. He graduated from Santa Monica High School in 1949.
He made his film debut in The Happy Years (1950). He was signed by agent Henry Willson and put under contract with 20th Century-Fox, where he gained attention with a small but showy part as a shellshocked soldier in With a Song in My Heart (1952). This led to star roles in a series of films including Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953) and Prince Valiant (1954), and White Feather (1955, with Debra Paget and Jeffrey Hunter), A Kiss Before Dying (1956, a rare villainous role) and Between Heaven and Hell (1956).
Jeffrey Hunter (born Henry Herman “Hank” McKinnies, November 25, 1926 – May 27, 1969) was an American film and television actor. His most famous roles are as John Wayne's character's sidekick in The Searchers, as Jesus Christ in the biblical film King of Kings, and as Capt. Christopher Pike in the original pilot episode of Star Trek.
Hunter was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and after 1930 reared in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he graduated from Whitefish Bay High School. He began acting in local theater and radio in his early teens. He served stateside in the United States Navy, in World War II, then from 1946 to 1949 studied theatre at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois alongside Charlton Heston.
In 1950, while a graduate student in radio at the University of California, Los Angeles and appearing in a college play, he was spotted by talent scouts and offered a two-year motion picture contract by 20th Century-Fox that was eventually extended to 1959. He made his Hollywood debut in Fourteen Hours, had star billing by Red Skies of Montana (1952), and first billing in Sailor of the King (1953).
Merry Clayton (born December 25, 1948, Gert Town, New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American soul and gospel singer (both solo and back-up), and an actress. She has provided a number of back-up vocal tracks to songs recorded by major performing artists during the 1960s, most notably with her duet with Mick Jagger on The Rolling Stones song "Gimme Shelter".
Clayton began her recording career in 1962 at the age of fourteen, singing "Who Can I Count On? (When I Can't Count On You)" as a duet with Bobby Darin on his album "You're The Reason I'm Living". A year later, she recorded the first version of "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)", although it was Betty Everett's version of the same year that reached the top 10 in the Billboard Hot 100. Her early career included performances with artists including Ray Charles (as one of The Raelettes), Pearl Bailey, Elvis Presley, Phil Ochs, and Burt Bacharach. In 1971 she co-wrote the song "Sho' Nuff", which is about her mother. She contributed vocals to Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's 1968 film Performance.
What you can't see can still kill you
Deliver us from evil
Cowboy: I am not going to talk to this ape with a painted face!::Chief of Comanches: I forgive the pale face. He has not heard of Sir Charles Darwin and does not know that ape is our common ancestor.
Jonny First: [to the drunk cowboy] Excuse me, sir, would you be so kind to tell me... No, you wouldn't.
Plot
The film is based on real events. At the end of the seventies of the previous century the fights against the Sioux were over, and the US-Army started putting the Indian tribes living to the West of the Rocky Mountains into reservations. Among those tribes was the peaceful hunter and fisher tribe of the Nez Perces. The cavalry under Colonel Howard takes the horses of the Nez Perces in order to prevent them from fleeing to Canada, which would be the tribe's only option to avoid their own decay on the reservation. The deputy chief White Feather takes over the seemingly impossible task of bringing back the herd of horses. His chances of succeeding improve when he finds out from scouts of the Cayuse that Fort Lapwai, the destination of the Americans, has been destroyed and that Howard's group is in trouble. The Cayuse pursue the cavalry and the dissolving groups arrive simultaneously at the debris of the fort. When the Cayuse attack again White Feather manages to the get control over the herd and takes it back to his tribe.
Keywords: based-on-true-story, native-american
Plot
When Benjie, a black man who fought in the Civil War, returns to the southern town of Ironside, his return is not exactly a welcome one. The citizens are already uptight about the color of his skin...but the fact that he fought for the Union Army and still wears his uniform is all that is needed for hatred and violence to be fanned by an ex-Confederate soldier named Colby. Benjie's one true friend turns out to be Neal McMasters, the rancher who raised Benjie and is now offering him a half-share in the McMasters land. As Benjie tries to make his new home, he helps some starving Indians and finds himself the owner of an Indian woman who eventually becomes his wife. He also uses Indians to help with the round-up. But things come to a violent turn when Kolby's hatred launches a reign of anger that brings about an unusual white-black-red triangle in the phenomenon of prejudice.
Keywords: african-american, asian-american, character-name-in-title, female-nudity, independent-film, native-american, racism
After the wedding... they were given a real fine reception.
Plot
One of three films made in the six-announced "Morton of the Mounted' series: Sergeant Bruce Morton (John Preston (I)'), in charge of the Three Rivers Post of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police is informed by White Feather ('Chief Whire Feather'), an Indian fur-trapper, that for many months, most of the local fur trappers have been systematically robbed, but refuses to name the robbers, fearing for his life. Morton, his horse Dynamite ('Dynamite the Horse' (qv)), his dog Captain ('Captain King of Dogs' (qv)), and a RCMP corporal, Jimmy Downs ('Jimmy Aubrey' (qv)), set out to apprehend the culprits. After rescuing Yvonne Travis ('June Love' (qv)) from the treacherous waters of Horse Shoe Rapids, Morton learns that her father is a fur trader indebted to Monty Mordant ('Tom London' (qv)), who runs the trading post, and Mordant is using her father's debt to force Yvonne to marry him. Morton decides that Mordant could bear watching, but Mordant has already decided that Morton is bad news for his operation, and he sends his henchman out to get rid of Morton and Downs.
Keywords: 1890s, ambush, argument, australia, canada, canadian, canoe, cigarette-smoking, cockney-accent, corporal
NORTHWEST ACTION THRILLER! (original poster - all caps)
Plot
Captain John Allister of the U.S. Cavalry catches deputy sheriff "Red'Greeley and four henchmen in the act of attacking White Feather and two other Indians.The men accuse the Indians of stealing their horses but Allister, using a ruse, proves this false. He knows the four men were planning on stealing the gold the Indians were taking to El Rio. Allister arrests the men, charges them with theft and the murder of Indians a week before, and turns then over to Sheriff Bill Ryan. Greeley gets word to gang-leader Lee Burgess, foreman of the Fernandez ranch that his men have been arrested. Ryan and Allister ride to the ranch to look over some horses for Army purchase, where the open admiration of Dolores Fernandez for Allister triggers a jealous reaction in Burgess. Back at the jail, the four prisoners escape and Greeley is suspected of complicity in their escape. Fearing an Indian uprising, Allister declares martial law and threatens the firing squad for anyone interfering with the Indians.Discarding his uniform, Allister joins the Indians, who are moving their gold at night. They are attacked, but repulsed, and Sheriff Ryan accuses Greeley who alone knew of the plan to ship by night.During a fiesta held by Dolores, Burgess has his men attack the stage, kill the paymaster and seriously wound the guard, Army Lieutenant Wilbur Allister, the son of John Allister. Wilbur recovers but his weakness for gambling, liquor and women put him in a circumstance where Burgess kills a Mexican named Manuel and he, saloon owner Jim Slade and bar-girl Chiquita frame the young Allister for the killing. Captain Allenby's task is now to prove the innocence of his son and the guilt of Burgess, Slade, Greeley and company, and he doesn't have much too work with. Might as well start with Chiquita.
Keywords: american-indian, arrest, attack, attorney, b-movie, b-western, bandit, bar, bartender, birthday
A MIGHTY CARAVAN OF MELODRAMATIC THRILLS! (Original poster)
Plot
A white fur-trapper, Harvey Ogden ('Frank Mayo (I)' (qv))) takes an Indian maiden, A-Che-Chee ('Claire McDowell' (qv)), as his bride, a union that meets with much disapproval when they return to civilization. But their child, a boy ('Frankie Lee (I)' (qv)) helps bring about many adjustments to the attitudes of the civilized people.
Keywords: 1880s, canada, canadian, canadian-northwest, civilization, color-in-title, daughter, father, fur-trapper, husband-wife-relationship
When I hit the streets back in '81
Found a heart in the gutter and a poet's crown
I felt barbed wire kisses and icicle tears
Where have I been for all these years?
I saw political intrigue, political lies
Gonna wipe those smiles of self-satisfaction from their eyes
I will wear your white feather, I will carry your white flag
I will swear I have no nation but I'm proud to own my heart
I will wear your white feather, I will carry your white flag
I will swear I have no nation but I'm proud to own my heart
My heart, this is my heart
We don't need no uniforms, we have no disguise
Divided we stand, together we'll rise
We will wear your white feather all the children
We will carry your white flag
We will swear we have no nations Beirut children
But we're proud to own our hearts Jerusalem children
We will wear your white feather Tokyo children
We will carry your white flag Moscow children
We will swear we have no nations Washington children
But we're proud to own our hearts Munich children
These are our hearts Chicago children
These are our hearts Cairo children
You can't take away our hearts
You can't steal our hearts away
I can't walk away I can't walk away
Track 10 of _Misplaced Childhood_
When I hit the streets back in '81
With a heart and a gown and a poet's crown.
I felt barbed wire kisses and icicle tears,
Wearing at me for all these years.
I saw political intrigue, political lies.
Going to wipe those smiles of self-satisfaction from
their eyes
I will wear your white feather,
I will carry your white flag,
I will swear I have no nation,
But I'm proud to own my heart.
I will wear your white feather,
I will carry your white flag,
I will swear I have no nation,
But I'm proud to own my heart.
My heart, My heart,
This is my heart.
We don't need your uniforms,
We have no disguise,
Divided we stand, together we rise.
[All the children, all the children,
Tell your children...]
We will wear your white feathers,
We will carry your white flags,
We will swear we have no nation,
But we're proud to own our hearts.
We will wear your white feather,
We will carry your white flags,
We will swear we have no nation,
But we're proud to own our hearts.
Our hearts,
You wanted love
You wanted love but it's not what she was thinking of
You step to the left
You step to the the left on your dancing feet, now
Dancing feet
I, I can't compete now with with your dancing feet, now
Somebody gotta try and to get to know now
Somebody gotta try and say it's all right now
Said it's all right now
Oh, oh, ah
Dancing feet
I, I can't compete now with your dancing feet now
Some people say
They can't compare when you're not over here, you're there
You see 'cause girl
She say oh no, another boy would you like to know
Somebody gotta try and to get to know now
Somebody gotta try to say it's all right now
That it's all right now
She got the white feather
To get you through the night
She got the white feather
To make you feel all right
Dancing feet
Somebody gotta try and to get to know now
Somebody gotta try to say it's all right now