I know that during the filming of "The Adventures of Mark Twain" with Frederic March, there were standing orders on the set that NO ONE was to speak to Clara Clemens. With Clara's views on religion, and her reluctance to release his anti-religion writings, I wonder if she would have had many complaints about the sanitization of Yankee, especially the lack of any of the cutting satire on religion contained in that book. And as a singer, I'm sure she'd have enjoyed the music. Anyone remember whether they used Mark Twain's great bit of dialog: "I am his lordship's page." "Go on. You ain't more than a paragraph." I seem to be able to hear Bing Crosby doing that line. Richard Downloadable mp3 Mark Twain audio books at http://www.richardhenzel.com Latest Title: The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Conn Yankee From: David Davis <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, September 17, 2009 9:41 am To: [log in to unmask] It is a terrific work, although I seem to remember (what I perceived as) flaws. Grabbed a PDF from Google Books Search, re-reading starting yesterday. I wonder what Clara made of the Bing Crosby version? ;-) DDD -----Original Message----- From: Mark Twain Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of L T Oggel/FS/VCU Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 1:24 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Conn Yankee Here's a piece from yesterday's Wash. Post that's perfectly timed for our recent/on-going discussion on Conn Yankee: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/04/AR200909 0403802.html?referrer=emailarticle Henry Nash Smith's book on CYankee, Mark Twain's Fable of Progress, left a strong impression on me when I first read it, and it still does seem to hit the nail on the head. Smith's book, one of (few) literary studies that endures, might be old but it's not out of date, like the Twain book it examines. Smith's book is sub-titled, Political and Economic Ideas in A Connecticut Yankee. Terry Oggel