Brownsville Girl, Dylan and Gregory Peck

While watching C-SPAN Book TV this weekend, I caught the wonderful presentation by Princeton historian Sean Wilentz on his remarkable new book Bob Dylan in America.

Professor Wilentz remarked that he loves giving talks on Dylan because if he gets some fine point wrong, there is always someone in the audience to correct him. Or if he doesn’t know an answer, someone inevitably will. He is right.

However, one audience member asked a question that Wilentz did not know. And no one in the audience apparently knew either. But Glenn knew! And so, that gives me the chance to display my Jeopardy-level knowledge of Dylan facts.

The question: What Gregory Peck movie was it that Dylan said he stood in line to see in the song Brownsville Girl?

“Well, there was this movie I seen one time, About a man riding ‘cross the desert and it starred Gregory Peck. He was shot down by a hungry kid trying to make a name for himself. The townspeople wanted to crush that kid down and string him up by the neck.”

The movie was the Gunfighter (1950). Good movie, but the sheriff did not “beat that kid to a bloody pulp” as Dylan explained and as I would have liked to have seen.

Now you have something impressive to bring up at your next dinner party.