From: "Paul Hager" <hagerp@moose.cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: "Cain's 100", "Frank Miller" -- the perils of channel-grazing ...
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 00:04:48 -0500



     I engaged in a little channel-grazing this afternoon and
happened on a long-defunct series that is being replayed on TNT. 
The series is/was called "Cain's 100" and follows the exploits of
a federal agent who goes after bad guys.  The series appears to be
from the early 60s.  The episode I happened on was both an amazing
time capsule and a cautionary fable for burgeoning young
prohibitionists.

     The plot in essence: a maker of costume jewelry gets entangled
with mobsters in a scheme to smuggle gold out of the U.S. for sale
in Mexico.  At the time of this show, personal ownership of gold
except for jewelry was illegal -- trade in bullion was prohibited
and the price of gold was artificially fixed at $35 per troy ounce. 
Naturally, the rest of the world didn't follow this absurdity so it
made the trade in gold lucrative because $35 U.S. gold would fetch
a much higher price just over the border.  Government agent Cain,
an earnest and somewhat humorless fellow, explains on a couple of
different occasions how serious this "crime" is and how the
mobsters use the proceeds from the smuggling to bring narcotics
(horrors!) into the U.S. and/or to finance their "infiltration" of
legitimate business.

     As I watched, I went into fulmination overdrive. 
Unfortunately, there was only the TV which, like some elemental
force, went on heedless of my imprecations.  I had to supply the
irony.  "God help us if we ever made trade in gold legal," I said. 
"Why there'd be crime in the streets and more grisly, mob-related
murders."  "Shmucks!  Cretins!" I yelled.

     Eventually, I calmed down.  Amazing, isn't it -- the
government comes up with a prohibition, which, in turn, creates a
black market.  It then has to have federal agents running around to
investigate the activity.  Finally, it ends the prohibition (under
Nixon, if memory serves), the black market disappears, the mobsters
no longer find the activity lucrative, particularly if they have to
compete with Wall Street and Harvard Business types, and thus said
mobsters shuffle off the scene.

     What a re-education tool this program could be after we have
the Drug War Crimes Trials.  People like Bennet and Martinez could
be strapped into chairs with their eyelids held open -- ala
"Clockwork Orange" -- and made to watch this show, over and over
and over again.  This, of course, would be before we put them to
work in the hemp fields.

     As I'm now in free-association mode, I'll relate another TV
watching episode that set me off.  I caught part of "High Noon" a
couple of weeks back.  I've always liked this movie but on this
occasion, I saw things I had never seen before.  Frank Miller, we
are told is a bad man, yet it's never quite clear what he did that
was so bad.  Moreover, apparently, there are some people in the
town who like Miller and dislike Kane (how's that for a free-
associative connection), the sheriff.  Of course, the good, church-
going people "like" Kane but the reasons seem to be that "decent
women" can now walk the streets (hmmm) and business prospects are
now looking up.  As I watched, I began to see Kane as a toady for
corporate interests -- probably railroads and banks.  I also saw
that the church, ever a pillar of the status quo, was a player and
allied with the business people.  The "bad" people, on the other
hand, liked to gamble and drink but there was nothing intrinsically
disreputable about them.

     That's when I had my blinding revelation.  Frank Miller was a
hero!  A free-thinker and small businessman whose activities went
against the grain of a bunch of provincial, narrow, religious
bigots and who was a thorn in the side of the corporate interests
eyeing the town for development.  Miller probably ran a house of
prostitution, a gambling parlor, and a saloon but apparently, he
did so very well, because he had many satisfied customers. 
Undoubtably, he was hassled by Kane and arrested on some trumped-up
charge and sent away.  The whole story was forming up in my head. 
Then it came to me: "Frank Miller."  The "High Noon" story told
from his perspective!  What a movie that could be!  Also, we aren't
too far away from having the technology to generate the actors by
computer and video manipulations, thus, the movie "Frank Miller"
could have all of the original stars playing their original
characters but with a new script.  I can see it now:

                    21st Century Fox presents
                                a
                   Perpetuum Mobile production
                 of a C. P. Hager original movie

                     F R A N K   M I L L E R

           Starring computer-generated facsimiles of:
                           Gary Cooper
                           Grace Kelly
                          Lloyd Bridges
                         Thomas Mitchell
                         Lon Chaney, Jr.

etc., etc., etc. ...  Of course, I'd have to beef up the role of
the actor who played Frank Miller (don't remember his name).  And
I'd have fun cutting Kane down to size -- it would be Cooper
playing against type for the first time in his career.  Query: can
a computer-generated facsimile get an academy award?

     This seems to be drifting ever farther away from the topic of
drug policy so it seems like a good time to stop.
-- 
paul hager		hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu

"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason."
			-- Thomas Paine, _The Age of Reason_