Today In History with The Retrospectors

United Artists, a new company formed by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith - four of the most powerful figures in early cinema - was announced on 5th February 1919. The movie trade press quickly labelled it a ‘rebellion’ against the mainstream studios.

Declaring their new enterprise would exist to “protect the industry from itself”, the Hollywood quartet took aim at an industry that depended on long contracts, vertical integration and strict talent control. They hoped to see a greater degree of creative autonomy and financial reward, but perhaps underestimated the difficulty of running a distribution company and the risks the studio system itself had absorbed. Existing contracts delayed releases, investors were wary, and the promise of artistic freedom collided with the realities of inconsistent output, experimental failure and changing technology, including the arrival of sound.

In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly consider UA’s eerily prescient ambition to counter ‘machine-made entertainment’; discover how an experience selling war bonds helped inspire  the idea for the studio; and explain why, despite their success, the studio still missed out on ‘Gone With The Wind’... 

Further Reading:

• ‘United Artists: The studio that challenged and revolutionised Hollywood’ (Far Out, 2021): 

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/united-artists-studio-revolutionised-hollywood/

• ‘Artists Unite Against the Studios’ (Celebrate California): https://celebratecalifornia.library.ca.gov/february-5-1919-artists-unite-against-the-studios-2/

• ‘Chaplin, Fairbanks, Pickford & Griffith Signing United Artists Contract’ (1919): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEBZU_KHSM0

#Hollywood #1910s #Business #Film

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The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.

Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.

Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026.

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Disguised variously as a baseball umpire, NFL referee, pro golfer, and even Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, Barry Bremen earned his reputation as America’s greatest pitch invader - a career that kicked off on 4th February, 1979.

Dressed as a player for the Kansas City Kings, the 32 year-old insurance salesman crashed the court of an NBA All-Star basketball game - much to the delight of fellow players and spectators. Hey, it was the Seventies!

In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly ask why top sportsmen of the day were so keen to support him; reveal how the media encouraged his efforts to become a sporting celebrity; and explain why his behaviour pushed the broadcasters of the 1985 Emmys to cut quickly to a puzzled David Hasselhoff…

Further Reading:

• ‘From Ali Dia to Karl Power: the greatest impostors in sporting history’ (The Guardian, 2016): https://www.theguardian.com/sport/shortcuts/2016/oct/18/from-ali-dia-barry-bremen-greatest-fakers-in-sporting-history

• ’When Barry Bremen Tried to Infiltrate the Dallas Cowgirls, the Team Found It a Drag’ (People, 1980): https://people.com/archive/when-barry-bremen-tried-to-infiltrate-the-dallas-cowgirls-the-team-found-it-a-drag-vol-13-no-2/

• ‘The Great Imposter Barry Bremen’ (NBC, 1979): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNjZni1yQ90

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Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY… 

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The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.

Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.

Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026.

This episode originally aired in 2022.
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With a cast of over 800, and a budget equivalent to £3 million, James Shirley’s extravagant masque ‘The Triumph of Peace’ was performed on 3rd February, 1634. Unusually, it was such a popular show that, despite the enormous cost of staging it, King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria requested that it be repeated.

Though replete with all the arse-kissing allegorical tableaux that typified these celebrations of the monarchy - and requisite set designs by Inigo Jones - this spectacular was also markedly different from its predecessors in that it was especially designed to appease Henrietta, who had been slurred by polemicist William Prynne.   

In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly come to terms with the ‘17th century immersive theatre’ experience; explain why legendary playwright Ben Jonson WASN’T involved in this one; and reveal how a masque was once responsible for the destruction of Shakespeare’s Globe… 

Further Reading:

• ‘Masque and music at the Stuart court’ (Royal Museums Greenwich): https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/masque-music-stuart-court

• ‘Inigo Jones designs for masque costumes’ (The British Library): https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/inigo-jones-designs-for-masque-costumes

•  ‘The History of the British Masque’ (Heidi Kobara, 2013):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G22UED2yJ_Q

Love the show? Support us! 

Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY… 

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The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.

Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.

Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026.

This episode originally aired in 2023.

#1600s #Theatre #Royals
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Leonarde Keeler, inventor of the modern polygraph, first showcased his device in a courtroom on 2nd February, 1935. The wooden box, which measured physiological responses like blood pressure and respiration, took the stand alongside him, and, while Keeler emphasized the machine wasn’t infallible, he later told journalists assembled outside the venue that his invention would soon revolutionise criminal justice.

Keeler’s innovations built upon earlier work by others, including Scottish cardiologist James McKenzie, who created a device to detect heart arrhythmias, and Dr. William Moulton Marston, who later linked blood pressure changes to emotional responses - and, inspired by his "truth-telling" research, would go on to create Wonder Woman. But Keeler’s talent for self-promotion, using dramatic applications of his polygraph, made his name, and cemented the device’s reputation as a “lie detector” (a term he never actually used).

In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly discover how the polygraph - now discredited as evidence in US courts - once put a Death Row inmate to the electric chair; reveal how Keeler’s mentors gradually drifted away from the ‘monster’ they had created; and explain how the men who invented the ‘truth machines’ of the 20th century had an uncanny talent for meeting their wives at work…

Further Reading:

• ’Will Lie Detectors Ever Get Their Day in Court Again?’ (Center for Law, Brain & Behavior, Harvard University, 2015): https://clbb.mgh.harvard.edu/will-lie-detectors-ever-get-their-day-in-court-again/

• ‘He Met His Wife Over a Lie Detector. Then Things Got Interesting’ (PBS American Experience, 2022): https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/lie-detector-1000-words/

• ‘Neurologist Trashes "Lie Detector" Tests’ (Dr. Brandon Beaber, 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_08b7Y7DgI

Love the show? Support us! 

Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY… 

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The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.

Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.

Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026.
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Revolutionary leader Oliver Cromwell was executed on 30th January, 1661 - despite having been dead for more than two years. His body was exhumed from its tomb in Westminster Abbey on the instruction of King Charles II, who sought retribution for those involved in the trial and execution of his father, Charles I.

Along with other Regicides, Cromwell’s corpse was disinterred and subjected to public abuse. On the anniversary of Charles I’s beheading, Cromwell’s head was mounted on a spike and stuck on the roof of Westminster Hall - where it remained for thirty years.

In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly track the illustrious history of Cromwell’s head from that date forth; consider whether the crowd in attendance at the ‘execution’ really hated their former Lord Protector as much as their jeering suggests; and explain how the intervention of a future Prime Minister prevented Cromwell’s relic being put on public display as recently as the 19th Century…

Further Reading:

• ‘Oliver Cromwell: Hero or Villain?’ (HistoryExtra, 2014) : https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/oliver-cromwell-hero-or-villain/

• ‘The Strange Saga of Oliver Cromwell's Head’ (Mental Floss, 2019):

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/585591/oliver-cromwells-head-history

• ‘Opening The Coffin Of Oliver Cromwell’ (The Fortress, 2023): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR0_DE2zQgU

We'll be back on Monday - unless you join CLUB RETROSPECTORS, where we give you ad-free listening AND a full-length Sunday episode every week!Plus, weekly bonus content, unlock over 70 bonus bits, and support our independent podcast.Join now via Apple Podcasts or Patreon. Thanks!The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026.

This episode originally aired in 2024.
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