A Review if the Movie “Hit and Stay” (preliminary and to be expanded)

Sunday, May 12, 2013


A Review if the Movie “Hit and Stay” (preliminary and to be expanded)

The documentary,“Hit and Stay”, by Joe Tropea (title), Skizz Cyzyk, (title), has played the Maryland Film Festival with two showings, 5/9 at the Charles Theatre and 5/11 at the Brown Auditorium at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Six years in the making, the 100 minute documentary is about anti draft board actions to protest the Vietnam War- spanning roughly a period between 1967 and 197? . Beginning with the Baltimore Four , the movie progresses through the Catonsville Nine, Milwaukee 14 actions to many other actions- there were 120 or so in all-including such major actions as the Harrisburg 8 and Camden 28- but also including such lesser known actions as the Flower City Conspiracy, Hoover Vacuum Conspiracy, Women Against Daddy Warbucks, RIPOFF, and so forth.

The movie describes how these actions progressed from the first- where four people poured blood on draft files in Baltimore and waited to be arrested (hence “Hit and Stay”) to the perhaps best known action- the Catonsville Nine- where draft files were burned with napalm- to actions like the Women Against Daddy Warbucks where files were cut into confetti or actions where persons would not wait to be arrested (“Stay”) but disappear to surface at a later time or actions where people hit and then ran, avoiding capture altogether, or actions where people acted and then 300 persons claimed responsibility, making it impossible for the FBI to arrest any one.



Participants appear speaking frankly and often humorously about their roles and plots and scenes to break into and pile up a myriad of draft files. The actions are always creative but, in some instances are ruined by informants and the FBI. Humor abounds, for example, Ms Dougherty spends the night watching the progression of lights on and off in the wrong building.



The film creates a gripping narrative arc, thanks to Joe and Skyzz even though it consists largely of talking heads and interviews. Interspersed is commentary by such luminaries as Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, and Howard Zinn. Some of the participants seem to provide glue to hold the the narrative together more than others, such as Jim Forest, George Mische, Dan Berrigan and Dean Pappas, providing commentary and key segues.



“Hit and Stay” played to sell out crowds of approximately 400 in both venues, and at both showings the movie was followed by a question and answer period featuring not just the two film makers- but persons who were in the movies as well.



Music and animation in the film is effective, and shots of nature and Baltimore provide welcome breaks to the intensity. Fine, moving, tear inducing drama is achieved!



The “other side” of the picture- that is those opposed to these actions--is well represented by a judge, retired FBI members, draft clerks and church goers.



Dan Berrigan spent considerable time in the “underground” deciding not to turn himself in for prison as ordered along with George Mische, Mary Moylan, David Eberhardt and Phil Berrigan. Dan gave the FBI fits as he popped up here and there to give interviews or sermons. As he leaves after giving the morning sermon at one church, a member of the congregation comments- “Oh that’s what it’s about? He’s supposed to be in jail with his bother?” And another says- “Well, he’s entitled to his beliefs but I don’t share them;” another states- “I think destroying draft cards is un-American”.



I fully expected an amateurish work and was pleasantly surprised by the over all professionalism- thus leading to hopes of some wide distribution or play on PBS or another more established venues (the hard part).



With all the work Joe and Skizz did- all of us participants learned a great deal about the other actions previously known only in fragmentary fashion. To have big appreciative audiences as well as friends present to watch the movie was very moving.



Sadly, a number of crucial actors, such as John Grady and of course, Phil Berrigan have passed on.



To me, Jim Harney and the “weather person, Laura Whitehorn, give moving summaries and analysis of what we were doing, trying to accomplish, what we meant and “were about” and what needs to be done. Because of such statements as theirs , the message is a plain and clear one, making the movie as relevant now as it will be in the future of war making Ameerica.



Joan Nicholson stands by the side of the road near Kennett Square in Pennsylvania, singing poignantly, “How many kids have you killed today, Empire USA,” a lone pillar of resistance as cars rush by.



Bob, or is it Jim Good? describes a crucial moment in the trial of the Camden 28, where his mother sternly, heartbreakingly, admonishes the jury- “It is us- we have sent our boys away to this Vietnam enterprise.” He states that she came to realize that one of her sons had died for oil, tin and rubber!



The 28 were acquitted in the only instance of jury nullification in the span of the draft action trials (wherein a jury ignores the judge’s admonition to follow HIS, (i.e. the government’s) interpretation of the law. Harrisburg 8 defendants were also acquitted although most of the trials were, and continue to be, railroad jobs!



During, the same week of the showing, three members of the “Transform Now” Plowshares were found guilty of two felonies--depredation of US property over $1000 and injury to the national defense at the Oak Ridge nuclear facility at a trial in Knoxville Tennessee. They had actually poured blood of Tom Lewis, preserved since his death, (a member of the Baltimore Four and several Plowshares actions) on the walls of a building containing enough enriched uranium to end life on the planet. They had hiked a mile to get there, going through four fences, the last three in “Kill Zones” where they could well have been shot!

The Plowshares actions, starting with the first (Plowshares 8) in 1980- plainly continued the draft action tactics, with obvious links being Phil and Dan Berrigan and Tom Lewis.

The Transform Now courtroom, their jury, their judge were as leaden and dead as the trials portrayed in “Hit and Stay;”but hopefully this movie will reach out to “middle America” and not just those of us who are a minority of exiles in our own country.

Message from dave (mozela9@comcast.net)- feel free to quote, use, AND CORRECT- just let me know