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Reviews
Three Daughters (1986)
Historical note: Playboy satellite jamming case
On Labor Day weekend 1987, the satellite uplink carrying the Playboy Channel showing of the soft core version of this film was jammed and the video replaced with text of a biblical quote.
Within a week, FCC investigators suspected that the signal came from the Virginia Beach, VA facility of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. At the time, Robertson was running for the Republican presidential nomination and the Justice Department assigned a low priority to prosecuting the case -- even though it had asked Congress to make satellite jamming a felony a year earlier.
The operator on duty, Thomas Haney, denied any involvement and CBN management supported his claim. His was convicted of a federal felony for the jamming after a 1 week trial. He received a fine and suspended sentence as the crime occurred prior to the new federal sentencing guidelines which now permit jail time for nonviolent crimes.
After the trial, one of the FCC investigators said, "The nuns were wrong, I didn't go blind!"
The Third Man (1949)
The Third Man in today's Vienna
While this film has not inspired the tourism that Sound of Music does in Salzberg, the Vienna Tourism Office can point you to 3 interesting activities should you get to the city:
Twice weekly screenings of the film.
A museum with lots of old posters, records, and a computer loaded with more than 300 versions of the theme song including a Beatles version! They say they have the original zither for the theme music and will display it soon.(At this writing the museum is only open on Saturday.)
Finally, there is a walking tour that will show you many of the locations used.
The people at the museum and on the walking tour (they are run independently) will fill your head with enough details about the film to satisfy the most dedicated IMDb reader
Patrolling the Ether (1944)
Historically interesting mediocre short
FCC has a video of this film and with the studio's permission uses it for training - hence I saw it. It was part of a series of WWII propaganda films on how obscure agencies were contributing to the war effort. There is some truth to the wartime role of the FCC in listening for axis spies who used radio and having armed agents look for them. This mission left FCC after the war. The details of the film are highly fictionalized and the acting reminds one of Reefer Madness.
J. Edgar Hoover was reportedly annoyed about the film saying it gave the FCC too much credit.
If you are interested in radio technology or FCC this is a good movie to watch with a beer in hand. It is historically significant in that it was the first film shown on TV before theatrical release - but at that time TV was an experiment and viewership was minimal.