THE IMITATION GAME is a movie about Alan Turing, who invented the computer near the start of World War Two in a successful effort to break German military codes. Film reviewer Anthony Lane found the story of Turing remiss in that "no word is breathed . . . of the Polish cryptographers who did much of the heavy lifting on the project before Turing came on the scene."
This reminds me of flagrant historical error in the film TOMBSTONE, a Hollywood biography of Wyatt Earp. which includes the famous shootout near the O.K. Corral. No mention is made in this movie of the Polish carpenter who, months before Earp reached Arizona, actually built the corral. Similarly, in THE LONGEST DAY, a film about the Allied invasion of France, we find no mention of the Polish barber who cut General Omar Bradley's hair on the morning of June 3, 1944. Why not? Was Omar Bradley a Muslim? I don't think so.
Finally, if we celebrate Bradley and Turing, why have we seen no film on the life of film director Roman Polanski? His biography is packed with drama. His second wife was murdered. And on February 20, 1977, Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl in California, pleaded guilty, then fled to France to escape sentencing. We have solid testimony that Polanski is actually a good guy from such trusted figures as Bill Cosby, Woody Allen and Michael Jackson. How long can we condemn a man because he's Polish? Let's be fair.
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