More great reporting Alex. What would we do withhout your valuable contributions to this election season.

..."rictus". Fits Giulinani and The Joker, not so much the great Widmark who's grin was more nuanced and yet as threatening. I really miss that guy.

was the shot of Huckabee watching with a look of complete disgust.

Giuliani looks like a man who would eat his young.

On several occasions over the years she told me that this movie really gave her the creeps. Hmmmm.....

You are slipping and turning into a puddle of ooze.

Bevis and Butthead could do better reporting than this.

Now stick that creepy laugh liberally in your "piece". Now read it aloud and stick that creepy laugh in and see if it fits perfectly.

I bet it does.

You aren't writing about Guiliani, you are writing about . . .

/obvious

But I bet he looks better in a dress than Koch does.

/creepy laugh

Alex said: "Some people just plain dislike former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Others, like Ed Koch -- who was himself mayor of NYC -- hate Giuliani with a fiery passion."

Don Meredith said, in reference to his Monday Night Football colleague Howard Cosell: "Some people people hate Howard like poison. Other people just hate him regular."

Is a great film noir with Victor Mature and Richard Widmark as the memorable psycho-killer Johnny Udo.

Johnny Udo: "You know what I do to squealers? I let 'em have it in the belly..."

Widmark was a class act who just can't be compared to a no class act like Rudi Ghoul-iani.

I can't imagine that this is so. Is it really so ? -- My goodness !!

Nah ... It must just be one of those 'Urban Legend' things.

I just can't believe it.

Killing is wrong. -- Its a Very bad thing.

Especially killing Cripples.

I'm glad Guiliani lost the nomination.

I'll just bet its got something to do with Guiliani's Cosa Nostra connections.

Thanks Mayor Koch for the tip.

We'll keep a closer eye on that guy from now on.

That may be true, but I bet Guiliani looks better in a dress than Richard Widmark.

Then again, I have never seen a picture of Richard Widmark in a dress.

Most popular story on the Huffington Post: John McCain pushed (that is shoved) a woman in a wheelchair. Not down a flight of stairs, but into the wall of a Congressional hallway because she irritated him. This after he reportedly pulled back his hand to strike her, then thought better of it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/07/report-mccain-pushed-woma_n_124615.html

Fiction just can't keep up, notwithstanding that Koch is approximately as crazy as Giuliani, though both seem somewhat normal next to McCain. Lucky New York. Lucky country. Most of the people who have been on the receiving end of McNasty's temper have been Republicans, and the woman in the wheelchair was the mother of a POW-MIA, not exactly a screaming liberal. You'd think they'd wise up.

As for Widmark, he was not only a great actor (AA nomination for Tommy Udo) but a Democrat and a liberal. His film credits included Judgement at Nuremburg, Cheyenne Autumn and the atomic end-of-the-world fable The Bedford Incident, which he also produced. Wonder how he'd like being compared to Giuliani, let alone McCain.

A few years ago, Richard Widmark appeared at a retrospective of his films in New York, where he talked about this scene. This was his first movie--and the wheelchair scene was the first one they shot. He laughed and said something like, "I mean, Good God, my first scene in movies and I'm pushing an old lady down the stairs in a wheelchair!! I thought, 'I should just get out of here...'"

Sidney Poitier has talked about how Widmark used to apologize to him between takes after scenes where he had to play a vicious racist in another film. Others have recalled how kind and generous he was to all his co-stars, especially those just starting out. Widmark also gave generously to liberal causes.

At the retrospective, I waited for the crowd to part and then nervously said hello and gave him a fan letter I'd written for him, and he took my by the shoulders and said, "Thank you! That's wonderful!" As if, after the amazing career he had, he could still be thrilled to be getting a fan letter. I left the theater on a cloud. And less than a week later, he responded with a lovely thank-you letter.

He was a wonderful actor and a wonderful human being. And I'll bet he'd be ecstatic that Republicans were being compared to the vicious screen icon he created back in his first role in 1947.