According to David McCullough, Harry S. Truman was supposedly fond of making the observation that the only thing new under the sun is the history that you do not know. How right the haberdasher from Independence, Missouri was!

Although he never attended college,“Give’ Em Hell Harry” was an avid reader. Sadly, many disinterested people would never know it because they care nothing for the past and have little patience for current events. Some contemporary cynics call these people “Democrats.”

One of my cousins refuses to watch black and white movies because they are “too old fashioned.” From the standpoint of cinematography and film preservation, black and white film stock is arguably a much more expressive and permanent medium than colored film. More importantly, I think that some younger viewers are missing out when they refuse to watch older films. Many of the scripts filmed when the production code was still rigidly enforced seemed to be aimed at more literate audiences. Subtle suggestions and implications proved much more satisfactory than the blatant and oftentimes gratuitous depictions of sex and violence that occur all too often in the movies today.

Since the creative well seems to have run dry in Hollywood, it is not surprising to see remakes and adaptations of television programs and comic books finding their way into the theaters. For example, all of Chicago is excited by the release of the latest film in the Batman series, “The Dark Knight,” which had its local premiere last Wednesday. Few, if any, of the thousands of movie goers are probably aware that the first Batman film (a fifteen chapter serial) was released by Columbia Pictures more than sixty years ago. The villainous leader of the Japanese spy ring menacing Gotham City in that 1943 opus was the sinister Dr. Daka, played by veteran character actor J. Carroll Naish. I have lost count of how many subsequent sequels have been made.

American audiences have grown so accustomed to sequels that the a British movie had to have its title abridged for its release in the USA. Film executives feared a loss of box office business if movie patrons passed upon “The
Madness of King George III” in the mistaken belief that there was no point in seeing the new movie if they had missed the first two installments of the series with the same royal character. Too funny! The movie played here without Roman numerals and won an Academy Award.

As the campaign season advances, Kevin Costner is starring in a newly released film entitled “Swing Vote.” The premise of this satirical comedy is that the outcome of a presidential election hangs in the balance as the margin of victory or defeat depends upon the ballot of a single uncommitted voter. It may sound like a unique story, but it has been done before. John Barrymore, “the Great Profile,” had his last significant movie role in “The Great Man Votes.” The truly original premise of the 1939 comedy is that the outcome of a local mayoral campaign depends upon a single uncommitted voter in a key election precinct. Director Garson Kanin helped write the script with two others.

The original plot seems more plausible than that of the remake in that a single vote majority seems much more likely in a local race rather than a national election.

Interestingly enough, the screenplay of “Swing Vote” fails to credit the earlier script for serving as its source material. I checked the Internet Movie Database and could find nary a word of acknowledgment or credit for the previous screenwriters. Some will say that it is alright because everybody does it, but I find the entire trend to be troubling in the extreme. As a faculty lecturer, I have had to caution my students about academic integrity and the perils and pitfalls associated with plagiarism. The Internet era has ushered in a brave new world in which there are myriad opportunities to cut and paste term papers together in ways unimaginable to previous generations of dis-honest college students. In response, new computer software programs have been developed to help instructors ferret out instances of plagiarism.

Apart from purely ethical considerations and my faculty obligations, which sometimes include teaching professional ethics, I have also had the unique perspective of having personally witnessed a federal court judge impose treble damages as the penalty for unlawful infringement of an individual’s
intellectual property rights in a copyrighted work. Actual monetary damages stemming from plagiarism are nonetheless rare.

Canny copycats are tomb raiders who wait until an author is a dead, a book is long out of print and its copyright registrations have lapsed. That may keep them out of court today, but for newly copyrighted works the laws are going to be far more comprehensive and restrictive than anything seen the in the past.

In terms of losing one’s reputation and standing, however, plagiarism has no statute of limitations. Richard Posner, the scholarly Federal Court Judge from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, has even written a book on the topic of plagiarism. Why do the plagiarists do it? Because they can evidently. The risks are small and the rewards can be great.

Hillary Clinton convincingly accused Barack Obama of plagiarizing lines from speeches made by other politicians to little or no affect during the primaries. US Senator Joseph Biden, however, suffered mightily for the same offense years earlier. Media double standard? Absolutely.

Outside of academia, the threat of being caught is remote and plagiarism can be quite profitable. A former US Representative and one time Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Glenn Poshard, was alleged to have submitted a thesis that contained passages taken from other works without proper notes to credit the authors of the source materials. Absent Poshard’s current employment at
Southern Illinois University, it is doubtful that the issue would have ever have been raised.

A handful of notable cases that are the exception to the rule have been publicized in recent years. Best selling authors such as military historian Stephen Ambrose and the reliably liberal biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin have been convincingly accused of plagiarism. Goodwin compounded her
misdeeds by attempting to pay hush money to silence Lynne McTaggart who discovered
that Goodwin had plagiarized material from the text of McTaggart’s earlier book about Kathleen Kennedy. Goodwin was exposed to greater derision for attempting to cover up her plagiarism which she blamed upon poor note taking.

Over the years, I have been acquainted with a variety of authors, biographers and historians. It is the penalty for being a bibliophile, I suppose. The authors might argue that it is more a case of my good fortune and their bad luck. Nonetheless, taking part in lively discussions with such writers can be exhilarating and intellectually stimulating. Regrettably, however, sometimes such relationships can be injured by painful arguments. A few authors can be exceedingly vain and quick to find offense even where none is intended. It
does take courage to submit manuscripts to disinterested publishers and face the prospect of rejection, so a degree of ego is necessary to succeed as an
artist, but some people become intoxicated with their only self importance and, for the lucky few, with their occasional literary successes. Modesty is an unfortunately overlooked virtue in today’s narcissistic, topsy turvy world.

I was raised in an environment where self praise was no praise and the greatest reward for completing a task successfully was the satisfaction of a job well done.

I am uncertain if I will bother to see “Swing Vote.” My favorite political satire is still “The Great McGinty” which was released in 1940. Preston Sturges directed Brian Donlevy in the role of a pliable vagrant who is promoted
from acting as a paid chain voter to becoming the corrupt political machine’s nominee for governor. Would you believe that Sturges claimed to have gotten partial inspiration for his Academy Award winning screenplay after swapping stories with a Chicago judge about our local elections? Right-o! Brian Donlevy, whose daily work routine included being laced into a girdle to conceal his expanding midsection, stepping into a pair of elevator shoes and donning a toupee before facing the cameras, proved to be such a hit in the 1940 film that Sturges had him reprise the role of the bumbling and venal governor four years later in a humorous cameo appearance in “The Miracle of Morgan‘s Creek.”

Bumbling governor, corrupt political machine bosses, hmm. Say, is Rod Blagojevich’s inept performance as governor infringing upon Donlevy’s copyrighted portrayal of an earlier movie character? Call the legal department for an advisory opinion. Hey, who is supposed to be playing Akim Tamiroff’s role of the political fixer opposite Blagojevich anyway? Is it Tony Rezko?

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Daniel J. Kelley is a regular contributor to “The Daily Observer.“ He occasionally reviews classic films for a variety of online publications.