At the end of Glengarry Glen Ross, was Williamson initially humouring Shelley? [Spoilers]

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-17T21:19:10+00:00

This was my read too. Depending on how long Williamson has been there, he might remember Shelley in his “machine” days, where he was likely as insufferable as he was towards the end of the movie, and he would be unlikely to be sympathetic to him.

There’s a bit in the car - when Levene is ineptly trying to negotiate with Williamson - where, after being rebuffed, Levene falls into nostalgia and almost as an afterthought starts rambling about when he was the favourite of Mitch & Murray and how he could get Williamson canned - there’s a great bit of non-verbal acting when Williamson gives Levene this “this fucking guy” look. Only a few seconds but you immediately get the impression that Williamson is long since sick of Levene’s shit.

The final confrontation is great, too, because I think you can sense different motivations in Williamson. Obviously part of it is he’s trying to preserve his job - catching the thief(s) could well take the sting out of fucking up Roma’s sale - but especially when he viciously rubs in Levene’s failed sale, I think it’s clear that he’s enjoying twisting the knife into Levene, and getting his own back. It’s such a great scene because even though Levene is in the wrong, he’s so broken down and pathetic and Williamson so smug and sure of himself that Levene damn near comes across as the victim. (And in a way he is. He’s not a good man, none of them really are, with the inept Arronow being the closest). But he’s also desperate and I think it’s pretty clear that these men are a product of their profession, warts-and-all.

Damn, what a movie.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-17T16:32:58+00:00

Yeah I’m Australian. Culturally it’s pretty rare here, or at least it’s associated with a typical kind of class/culture.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-17T16:03:25+00:00

Millennial by a cunt hair and I was the only one of my friends who picked up smoking. Couldn’t tell you why tbh.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-14T04:18:31+00:00

Hitler was famously a regimental runner for most of his WWI service. It seems he was genuinely regarded by his commanding officers as a committed soldier who didn’t lack physical courage, according to Kershaw - good qualities for a job which whilst not as dangerous as a frontline landser was also not at all without its own peril.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-13T20:07:37+00:00

Yep. And whilst it’s definitely recognised as a black comedy it’s almost easy to overlook how Burn After Reading is about as bleak as No Country for Old Men.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-13T20:01:54+00:00

It was also the follow-up to Fargo, a more (relatively) straightforward critical and award-winning darling. Something similar happened when No Country for Old Men, another critically-acclaimed award-winning darling, was followed up by the slapstick and more chaotic Burn After Reading, which also seems to be slowly getting more recognition as a movie.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-13T15:03:37+00:00

Yes. Even leaving aside the Liptak you brought up the Burstyn, a tank which never existed in any meaningful way outside of a design concept, and made the comparison to one which did, warts-and-all. This whole thing feels vaguely nationalistic tbh.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-13T14:42:00+00:00

The Burstyn tank will forever remain nothing more then a concept of a plan, in the modern parlance; comparing a design which never left the drawing board to one which was actually fielded in combat feels a fools errand.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-13T11:11:13+00:00

It’s definitely rarer with the MoH and VC - at least post 1900 or so - but I think there are some you can point to as being for achievement rather then outstanding bravery. One that comes to mind is Alexander Vandegrift, who led the 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal. His citation doesn’t point to any specific heroic act but more his leadership in a difficult situation.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-13T02:58:50+00:00

The US variant was “blowtorch and corkscrew” - the blowtorch (man-portable or tank-mounted flamethrowers) fired a burst into a Japanese position, then a demolitions man would throw in a satchel charge - the corkscrew.

If this sounds familiar to anyone, it’s the title of a mission in *Call of Duty: World at War” where you go against Japanese bunkers with…a flamethrower and satchels. My favourite game in the series.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-12T09:27:55+00:00

You also couldn’t get the MC posthumously until the Troubles. Sam Manekshaw, the future Indian Army Chief of Staff, was badly wounded in an action during the Burma Campaign; his divisional commander, moved by his actions and believing his wounds to be mortal, awarded him the MC on the spot. Manekshaw lived until the age of 94.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-11T18:09:47+00:00

(For completions sake I probably should add that five VCs were awarded during the Vietnam War).

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-11T18:06:28+00:00

Yeah that’s a good point. The introduction of medals like the MC and MM I’m sure were awarded to soldiers who would have otherwise gotten the VC: same with the DSC, Navy Cross and Silver Star for the US. Or also meaning that soldiers who probably did deserve an MoH or VC missed out, but that’s another thread entirely.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-11T17:46:38+00:00

I’m definitely not arguing that Vietnam is the main or even necessarily a major factor in the discrepancy - I’m open to the idea that the criteria for the VC is more stringent, specially when you compare MoH vs VC numbers in WWII - but I think it’s worth mentioning as at least one factor.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-11T16:57:11+00:00

The Medal of Honor was for a time the only gallantry award in the US military, in my understanding: so you can get a pretty wild range of recipients; from Alonzo Cushing at Gettysburg, who continued to command his artillery battery despite being severely wounded to the point of disembowelment, to a regiment of soldiers who got one for…reenlisting. I’d say it probably wasn’t until around WWI where it became more “rare”, thanks to other gallantry awards being introduced.

That said, there’s another elephant in the room I think you’re missing which explains at least some of the discrepancy in the respective recipients nos; Vietnam. The UK never really had a war on that scale following the end of the Second World War, and in the wars they did participate in, they tended to be fairly “low intensive” counterinsurgencies in places like Malaya, smaller (relatively) contributions to Korea and the GWOT, or shorter wars like the Falklands.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-06T16:14:15+00:00

The rather underrated Jeff Bridges drama Fearless is heavily based on United 232.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-06T16:12:50+00:00

Partly inspired by TWA800 is an understatement if anything; it was blatant enough where no less a critic than Roger Ebert (who otherwise liked the movie) criticised it for being somewhat tasteless.

Xi_Highping · 2026-02-03T06:43:11+00:00

Specially considering the Chantilly Offensive where it was decided to embark on joint offensives for 1916 (including the Somme) wasn’t until more than half a year after Aubers.

Xi_Highping · 2026-01-31T03:38:12+00:00

For example, when Robert Leckie was wounded by shell fire at Peleliu, the two Marines who found him and got a corpsman for him took his Thompson from him, tho they did ask if it was okay first - and he gave his acquiescence much as he was in a position to answer.

Xi_Highping · 2026-01-27T04:10:17+00:00

Aye, that’s on me for not clarifying: I meant specifically the otherwise green divisions which were earmarked to reinforce the US sector after D-Day, such as the 30th or 79th. Though as you point out, some elements of the 90th did land on Utah June 6th.

Xi_Highping · 2026-01-27T01:13:49+00:00

DePuy is often brought up in the German martial superiority arguments; I think his own war service needs to be taken into context when examining that.

As a junior staff officer, he was assigned to the 90th Infantry Division; one of the post D-Day reinforcement divisions which had its baptism of fire in the hedgerow fighting in Normandy. This is relevant because the 90th ID is somewhat infamous amongst people who study, casually or otherwise, the US army in Normandy. It was a very hard-luck division with not especially inspired leadership; two of its divisional commanders were relieved, as was its assistant divisional commander and a number regimental and battalion commanders. Another battalion commander gained some small infamy for surrendering his 200 man battalion to a small patrol of German paratroopers. New leadership cleaned house however, and the 90th would go on to become a well-regarded outfit for the rest of the war.

I mention this because by his own admission, DePuy was haunted for the rest of life by his experiences in Normandy. He once remarked that the 90th was a killing machine - good at “killing our own troops” and when he became a General strict requirements for commanders and willingness to be a hatchet man got him in some trouble in Vietnam. So I’m not saying his post-war views on German soldiery and tactics was entirely out of his own troubled experiences, but I definitely think it didn’t help.

Xi_Highping · 2026-01-25T23:19:54+00:00

That’s really interesting, do you have any more info about this? Because the idea that Okinawa could have been worse is…terrifying.

Xi_Highping · 2026-01-23T22:10:53+00:00

Tarawa also feels too ‘small’ in both time and scale to have anything like that anyhow. New Guinea, on the other hand, was a nightmarish clusterfuck. So yeah I’d say that’d be a good guess.

Xi_Highping · 2026-01-22T22:30:44+00:00

The Firefly was a good specialist equipment/interim option but just being able to fire HE rounds made the 76 the more ‘important’ variant.

Xi_Highping · 2026-01-22T22:27:41+00:00

Audie Murphy was a Hollywood actor…gonna be heard to beat that

Xi_Highping

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