In 1945 bums were there to be whacked.

No - and to come closer to the present, the death of Assad or Putin wouldn't distress me unduly...

As for Pinochet, he found one of his staunchest supporters in the late unlamented (by many) Mrs T.

So, to take this thread back to how the Past is Foreign Land, I recently came across some old Columbo shows. Say from 1971 or 1972 when Peter Falk's character was still being developed. No spankings getting handed out, but in one episode a father gives his son a love tap.

The closest to spanking in those early session came in "Ransom for a Dead Man" (plot summary: a man is murdered by his wife then the murderer stages a fake ransom demand / ransom drop to legally drain her stepdaughter's trust fund) where a teenage girl (whose father was kill and trust fund drained) makes use of the "outraged girl slaps your face" move. When she tries it on Columbo he blocks her swing and (in firm tones) tells her that she doesn't want to try that again. He doesn't make clear if he's threatening to arrest her or to spank her - but he is clearly threatening her.

But other than that, the teen talks dismissively about how her stepmother plays at being "the Lady Lawyer" - even though the woman is one of the top lawyers in the state. When Columbo is talking to a male employee at the law firm, he asks "How do you do it? Working for a woman?". Beyond the blatant sexism, Columbo has his trademark cigar in hand and lights up inside without asking if anyone minds if he smokes. Then there are the woman's clothing - some of the women delightfully short dresses and skirts. And the cars - all of them huge hunks of metal compared to today's smaller ones.

Watching those old movies bring home how much have changed in the last 40 odd years.

My father had a photograph which looked like an original, of the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress hanging upside down in a market place in Italy. The local people had apparently put the remains of Il Duce on display to show that the hated dictator really was dead. My father served in the British army in Italy during the war and I'm not sure if he took the picture himself or somehow came by it. I really don't know what happened to the photo but I suspect that my mother found it distasteful and destroyed it.

No hedging your bets. You said murder. Not died. You can try and wriggle off the hook but Jessica nailed your balls to the wall I am afraid. Metaphorically speaking of course!

So I watched a few more of those old Columbo shows. The first episode of the second session, from 1972 call "Etude In Black" included a nine year old Dawn Frame (best known as Dodie Douglas from My Three Sons). At one point she's outside at night in her buttoned up housecoat (presumingly having her sleepwear under it) checking poor Dog who is locked in a car with its windows up.

Can anyone think of that happening in modern times? No, today the kid would be out in his/her PJs or have paused to dressed, but in the early 70s it was acceptable to have kid running around outside in a housecoat over PJs (or nightgown or whatever).

My how times have changed.

Among old newspapers my parents had was one with a photo of Mussolini as mentioned above, and several others from WWII. My ex & I gave them all to a schoolteacher who was a friend of ours.

Goodgulf

A perfect example on nonPC, Columbo today would get a restriction order for moral harassment of his victims - er... suspects, without a shred of evidence. I have seen most, if not all, episodes and I loved the series.

blimp

As a guy who lived most of his life under one kind of dictatorship or another - from communism to military dictatorship, trying to compare the Western democracies to Orwell's 1984 seems a bit far-fetched.

I don't know if any of you lived in a place in which you could be arrested without a court order, snatched by unknown person from your home at night and kept hidden for as long as they liked, leaving your family desperate trying to locate you in hospitals, police districts or morgues. And they didn't even count with modern cameras all over. It is not the technology we have to be afraid of. It's people with ideology behind it.

By the way we just got rid of of our first female president for lies, gross mismanagement of our economy and mainly for daily murder of common sense and torture of Portuguese. We didn't execute her - she is still living in her ugly palace (build by Oscar Niemeyer who never had to live in things he designed) with full salary, staff of forty, guards and free transport using governamental jets wherever and whenever she wants - a kind of enforced paid vacations for up to 180 days. This is an example how we treat in a PC way almost-ex-presidents.

I heard the following sad joke in both regimes (slightly adapted to each): A community is in meeting about daily problems. At the end after a long speech about the greatness of the regime, the leader asks the audience: Any questions? Don't be afraid to say them. We support the right of free speech." John raises his hand. "I understood from your presentation that everything is alright and the things are extremely well and improving. Then why the food disappeared from the market?" "Excellent question!" praised the leader, "we will answer it during the next meeting."
During the next meeting the speeches were similar about the excellence of the regime. At the end the leader asked for questions. Bill raised his hand. The leader said: "I know, you will ask about the disappearance of food." "No," said Bill, "I want to ask about the disappearance of John."

I don't remember comparing Western democracies to 1984 but then again this is a very long thread!

More "the seventies were different" Columbo observations:
Episode 6 of season three (Mind Over Mayhem) sexism raises its head again during a murder investigation at a think tank. A female academic and physiologist who has a maid talks about it not being "easy to keep house" for her late husband. She's a professional woman, the equal of her husband in everything except age, and that's how defines herself - someone who "keeps house".

Meanwhile there's a pre-teen prodigy wants to go see an R-Rated sci fi movie (the Loves of Frankenstein) at the drive in (drive in theatres - another sign of how old the show is). The boy is one of the smartest people in the world, but he addresses adults (such as Columbo) as very politely, calling them all sir. When someone catches him helping Columbo he's told that "we're talk about this later" and reacts fearfully, much like the average boy does when he's some sort of bad trouble. No, we never learn what happened during that talk, but at the very least it will be a sarcastic balling out.

Would either of those scenes be shot today? No, they couldn't be.