March 10, 1901 [Why Mr. Nation Wants A Divorce]
[To watch the film, go HERE.]
Earlier this year the Kansas City Star reported that Carrie Nation had been summoned by God to smash joints in Topeka, and they'd gotten wind of her approach and barricaded themselves like boys up a tree-house. But she just knocked on the door and called out, "Boys, boys, come and let me in. Your mother wants you. Your mother would like to talk to you." More chilling words had never been spoken to a man hiding in a saloon.
Why Mr. Nation Wants a Divorce considers the woman with a hatchet—and with, as the ungenerous put it, a face to match—and decides it's not the hatchet after all, but the hectic home-life Mr. Nation suffers without a wife—and without a little something to warm his lonely night. The children refuse to sleep, he spanks, he steps on a nail, he tries to read the newspaper but throws it down, enraged—perhaps it's the Star—and takes a belly-warming sip—just as kindly Mother Nation walks in and bends him over her knee. A twist on the old Lumière short, The Sprinkler Sprinkled: the spanker is spanked. If I'd been a drinking man, I'd have pulled my flask from my pocket and taken a swig. As it was, I simply wondered what fun a lesser man could've had with the forceful ex-Mrs. Nation and her sudden outbursts of smashing passion.
Earlier this year the Kansas City Star reported that Carrie Nation had been summoned by God to smash joints in Topeka, and they'd gotten wind of her approach and barricaded themselves like boys up a tree-house. But she just knocked on the door and called out, "Boys, boys, come and let me in. Your mother wants you. Your mother would like to talk to you." More chilling words had never been spoken to a man hiding in a saloon.
Why Mr. Nation Wants a Divorce considers the woman with a hatchet—and with, as the ungenerous put it, a face to match—and decides it's not the hatchet after all, but the hectic home-life Mr. Nation suffers without a wife—and without a little something to warm his lonely night. The children refuse to sleep, he spanks, he steps on a nail, he tries to read the newspaper but throws it down, enraged—perhaps it's the Star—and takes a belly-warming sip—just as kindly Mother Nation walks in and bends him over her knee. A twist on the old Lumière short, The Sprinkler Sprinkled: the spanker is spanked. If I'd been a drinking man, I'd have pulled my flask from my pocket and taken a swig. As it was, I simply wondered what fun a lesser man could've had with the forceful ex-Mrs. Nation and her sudden outbursts of smashing passion.
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