MovieChat Forums > The High and the Mighty (1954) Discussion > An interesting little coincidence

An interesting little coincidence

posted 17 years ago by rsimard
4 replies | jump to latest

The villainous character in THatM has the rather unusual name Humphrey Agnew. A decade later, two consecutive U.S. Vice Presidents would be Hubert Humphrey and Spiro Agnew.

[–] Yojimbo28 17 years ago

whoa, that's weird. Wonder if there's any '60s or '70s movies with characters named Dick Gore? Actually, that's probably the name of a porn star.

[–] dinky-4 16 years ago

And then there's "Barry Lyndon." (Barry Goldwater vs. Lyndon Johnson.)

[–] movieghoul 15 years ago

Which results in an unintentionally funny line when Sidney Blackmer walks up to Robert Newton in the departure olounge and says: My name is Humphrey Agnew (pause) Does that name mean anything to you?"

The scary thing about it is that it may not be a coincidence. Richard Nixon was known to be a movie buff. Is it possible that this character's name inspired him to pick Spiro Agnew as his running mate?

[–] sandrasguy 14 years ago

No, the big lesson from the JFK Assassination is that the VP is Assassination insurance. That is why Obama picked Biden ("Yeah, go ahead, kill me"), Bush 43 picked Cheney (aka Darth Vader), Bush 41 picked Quayle, etc.