Word: ghosts
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Another esteemed ruin, as far as Vidal is concerned, is the 18th century radicalism of the Declaration of Independence. In writing of contemporary American piety, hypocrisy or corruption, he evokes the ghost of Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolution who led a futile rebellion against the propertied founding fathers when they sought to replace the confederation of states with a central government empowered to collect taxes. Shays, says Vidal with obvious approval, sounding a little like a Dixiecrat, "did not want London to be replaced by New York." Still the Property Party, as Vidal calls those who rule...
About the last place one would expect to find a ghost is that most earth-bound of educational institutes, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Nonetheless, several cadets swear that they have recently seen visions of a 5 ft. 3 in. soldier in full Jackson-era regimentals, complete with shako and musket. The thought of spectral shenanigans on hallowed military ground has officials of the Point scratching their well-clipped heads in perplexity...
...47th Division barracks. One of two plebes who occupy the room said that he awoke to see a life-sized apparition of a 19th century officer emerge from a wall. The vision receded before the plebe could summon his roommate. The next night both saw the ghost. The story eventually reached the ears of Cadet Captain Keith Bakken. He and another upperclassman commandeered the room a few days later. The ghost promptly appeared before Bakken's confederate, but receded into the wall again. Bakken, who is still a firm nonbeliever, admitted that the designated point of evaporation, which...
...happens, this is not the first astral presence to bestir West Point. The superintendent's mansion is said to be haunted by the ghost of an Irish cook named Molly. In the 1920s, moreover, a priest was summoned to a house on Professors' Row to exorcise a spirit that had sent two young servant girls screaming naked into the night. To outflank the new extraterrestrial presence, Bakken has declared Room 4714 off limits until Easter. Meanwhile, one upperclassman insists that the ghost has gone. How does he know? "I am a warlock," the cadet solemnly explained...
...credibility of all this is the fact that the film was shot entirely on location, enforcing the sense of isolation and calamity. The snow is not only abundant but real, as is the house, which is at once magnificent enough for the Ambersons and spooky enough for the Canterville ghost...