Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.BZ

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ

[soft string music]

[goat moaning]

♪ ♪

- This is a film about John Romulus Brinkley,

a doctor, amongst other things,

a man who succeeded against terrible odds

and powerful opposition,

a man who changed the world.

Brinkley's story begins in 1902,

when he stood before the dean of Johns Hopkins University,

17 years old,

in a shirt and a pair of trousers

and nothing else.

He told the dean he wanted to be a doctor

like his daddy was.

The dean surveyed the boy and laughed.

He said doctors were not made from people like Brinkley.

But 15 years later, Brinkley had a diploma

from the Eclectic Medical University

in Kansas City.

Then he married a pretty young woman named Minnie,

and they looked to the West,

with little money but big dreams.

They arrived in a place that barely needed a name,

but the few people that lived there

called it Milford, Kansas.

Brinkley dolled up an old soda fountain

and stocked it with medicine,

attempting to drum up business.

John and Minnie slept in the back of the shop.

[goats bleating, rooster crows]

Just a few days after they arrived,

a farmer named Stittsworth visited Brinkley's store.

- How do you do?

- Well, I'm all-in, Doc.

I'm a flat tire.

- "Flat tire"? What does that mean?

- Well, for 16 years,

I've been trying to have a child with my wife.

- Well, I can't help you.

Modern medical science has not yet solved the problems

of sexual weakness and childless homes.

- I see.

[goat moaning]

That fella out there sure is something.

- Huh, something...yes.

- It's too bad I don't have billy goat nuts.

- [chuckles] Too bad.

- Say, Doc...

why don't you just put some in me?

- Beg your pardon?

- Put some goat nuts in me.

You know, graft them on.

- To cure your impotence,

you want me to implant goat testicles

into you?

- Well, Doc, they can't be worse than the nuts I got.

[goat bleats]

- Well...

there'll be a small fee.

[Andrew Kingslow's "He Is a Hustler"]

♪ ♪

- ♪ Sweet sugar, honey bunny ♪

♪ ♪

♪ You can't buy my love with your money ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Work on the verge of the devil's work ♪

♪ I ain't got time for that, ain't you heard? ♪

♪ He ain't my man ♪ - ♪ He ain't my man ♪

- ♪ Don't you understand? ♪ - ♪ Don't you understand? ♪

- ♪ No, he ain't my man ♪ - ♪ No, he ain't my man ♪

- ♪ Don't you understand? ♪ - ♪ Don't you understand? ♪

- ♪ Oh, the rooster threatened to take his share ♪

♪ And I don't ever want him back ♪

♪ He's a hustler ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Oh, yeah ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Don't you understand? Yeah ♪

♪ Don't you want that man? ♪

♪ ♪

♪ I don't understand ♪ - ♪ I don't understand ♪

- ♪ Oh, he's a rooster in the chicken shed ♪

♪ And I don't ever want him back ♪

♪ He's a hustler ♪

♪ ♪

- Milford, Kansas, in 1917, when Brinkley went there,

was described as a one-horse town,

and it was very dull and boring

until Brinkley got there. [chuckles]

[horn honks]

- The outcomes of experimental surgeries

are difficult to predict.

But the gland transplants

worked every time.

Brinkley would put goat testicles

inside an impotent man...

and nine months later,

that man would call himself a father.

His patients and advocates

were increasingly wealthy and respectable men...

Huey Long, William Jennings Bryan,

Rudolph Valentino.

It was rumored that President Wilson

had secretly visited the Brinkley Hospital.

And everyone knew

Buster Keaton was no stranger to the power of goat glands.

[movie audience laughing]

[easygoing music]

♪ ♪

[laughter continues]

[applause]

[horns honking]

- Well, Milford changed because of Dr. Brinkley.

He brought a lot of people into town,

and these people had money.

He made Milford a better place by far.

He began to develop the Brinkley Sanitarium,

and as he developed the grounds,

he made them a community center,

and they had church and revival meetings there.

He became very active in the Methodist Church.

The whole community benefited

from having the Brinkleys there, and they loved him.

[indistinct chatter]

[children shouting happily]

[distant telephone rings, indistinct chatter]

- In the early '20s, just based on word of mouth,

he had people starting to flock into Milford, Kansas, right?

This little town.

At first, they came bringing their own goats.

Pretty soon, he had his own herd of goats

out back.

The patient would come.

Brinkley would take them out back.

They would browse the herd.

The patient would select a goat

with which he felt the most connection.

Then they would come in and do this sort of double operation.

But soon...

and we're talking 1923, I think,

very early on, when radio was just, just, just beginning...

Brinkley realized what radio could do.

He saw the future.

[radio static buzzing]

- You're listening to the voice of Dr. J.R. Brinkley

of the Brinkley Hospital,

and I trust that I may have your attention

for the next few minutes.

I wonder how many of you men and women are sick?

Have you been taking treatments

and not getting better?

Do you continue to be ill?

Do you have gland disease?

Are you going downhill?

[wind whistling]

[radio static buzzing]

- Brinkley gave Milford, Kansas,

America's fourth radio station.

Broadcasting at 5,000 watts,

it was the most powerful station in the world.

[people cheering]

- We visualize you sitting

around your radio-receiving sets...

- Dr. Brinkley was a pioneer of radio.

There's no question about that.

I mean, when he started KFKB in Kansas there,

it was in 1923.

Dr. Brinkley stretched boundaries

in quite a lot of ways.

Talking about sex just wasn't done at that time.

And he was kind of like the Dr. Ruth Westheimer

of the '20s and '30s.

- You men and you women who are sexually dead,

sexually weak,

men and women who have lost their sex glands by accident,

injury, or surgery,

men and women who have long despaired

of ever having any sex life again...

- [coughs]

- NBC and other stations would broadcast

what they called "potted-palm music."

It was music that was real nice and sweet and safe.

[gentle music playing on radio]

♪ ♪

The programming on KFKB ranged from comedy programs...

- Don't argue with me, Amos.

You don't know what you talking about.

- And then your hillbilly singers and musicians.

[country music]

You had your singing cowboy.

[person singing indistinctly]

- Brinkley was really the first guy

to blast country music across the nation.

It was an incredibly popular radio station.

People never knew what they were gonna hear next.

[upbeat bluegrass music]

- Mrs. Brinkley and I appreciate our listeners

over this station.

We appreciate our friends out yonder in radio land.

And I know from the letters that I receive

what Mrs. Brinkley and I tell you is appreciated

by thousands of people.

- By the late '20s, he was on the radio

with something called "Medical Question Box," right?

Where people would write in, describe their symptoms,

and then he would prescribe for them over the radio.

Bags and bags and bags of mail are coming every day.

He's got a team of secretaries

pawing through it every morning.

It becomes so successful that then he works out

this whole thing with druggists.

He had a network of hundreds of druggists

around the Midwest,

where they would stock Brinkley medicines.

And he was so agile, and he was so convincing

in an era when everybody thought radio

was...

a novelty or...

At best, at best,

he saw that he could use it to rule,

just rule commercially

and turn himself into a king, which is exactly what he did.

[orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- When I left my little cabin home

in western North Carolina,

I had known very few of the comforts

and conveniences of life.

Tender ties bound me to those scenes

of my early boyhood,

and I loved every rail fence

and smoky chimney and coon dog,

but I wanted to do better.

I had seen my father wear himself out,

struggling in those mountains,

and I knew that it would be necessary for me

to find a more promising field.

I'd learned the story of Lincoln,

who rose from obscurity to the highest peak of fame,

and found inspiration in his early struggles.

Being ambitious, I wanted the best,

and I was determined to acquire it.

But I realized that the best was a choice prize

to be won only by those with the grit

to fight doggedly for it.

- In 1927, a decade after that peculiar request

from Bill Stittsworth,

Minnie Brinkley gave birth to a son...

John Brinkley, Jr.

They called him Johnny Boy.

[gentle music]

♪ ♪

[birds chirping softly]

- Hmm.

One of the flowers are coming in awful well...

[sniffs] Early bloom.

- Johnny Boy, go fetch Daddy the newspaper.

- I want you to go see Willy Thurston today.

Those roses he has, the red ones,

the deep, deep, deep, deep,

deep red ones...

mm, buy all of them.

What you don't plant here,

we'll just bring to the sanitarium.

Mm. Johnny, you'll go see Mr. Thurston with Mama today.

- Yes, Daddy.

- I think it's time we find a tutor.

- For Johnny Boy? It ain't too soon, you think?

- No, no, not too soon.

The school alone won't educate him proper.

He is gonna make a man for you to be proud of.

What?

Ah, these bastards!

- What's that, Daddy?

- Oh, that AMA, the medical association...

they're after me.

They're after us.

[dramatic music]

- A blatant quack, one John R. Brinkley,

claims to provide an impotence cure

through goat-gland grafting.

Though he is based in an obscure Kansas town,

Brinkley has performed this procedure

over 10,000 times.

The American Medical Association

cannot allow this snake

to operate unopposed.

- The AMA, founded in 1847,

was an attempt to consolidate

and increase the esteem...

of...medical professionals.

It had a very selective membership,

in that all the members were male.

All the members were white men.

- The common man cannot be trusted

to understand

the workings of his own body.

We must rely on regular doctors to keep us healthy.

The practices of the irregulars...

the chiropractors, osteopaths, homeopaths,

midwives, acupuncturists, and herbalists,

all the so-called alternative practitioners...

must be stopped.

- Morris Fishbein was the editor of

the "Journal of the American Medical Association."

He abandoned being a practicing doctor

and became a crusader,

a medical crusader for the AMA.

- Morris Fishbein had a lot of concerns,

but the concern that gained him the most attention

and, some would say, the most notoriety,

was his campaign against what he called quackery.

- Fishbein became so narrow in his thinking

about what a real doctor was

that he had to be slapped down now and then

for going too far.

- The AMA is doing its part to destroy quackery

and is depending upon the Federal Radio Commission

to swiftly put an end to KFKB,

where Brinkley spews forth his irregular filth

into the ears of millions.

- The Federal Radio Commission was created to rein in

all these maverick broadcasters

and to try to keep radio safe for corporations and families

and to try to impose some order

on the wild radio dial

that flourished at the time.

The beast that we know today as the FCC

had its beginnings in the FRC back in the late '20s.

- 1930 should have been Brinkley's year.

Voters in a national poll

named KFKB America's favorite radio station.

Brinkley was planning a $1 million expansion

to his hospital,

but because of Fishbein's campaign,

the AMA and FRC targeted Brinkley,

with the goal of ending his medical practice

and radio broadcasts.

Brinkley's practice, his entire livelihood,

his life's work was at stake.

Two separate hearings were scheduled.

The first was in Topeka,

with a local chapter of the Medical Association.

The press lined the walls and filled the corridors

amidst hundreds of Brinkley's patients and supporters.

- There he is. There's Brinkley.

- Dr. Brinkley! - Dr. Brinkley!

- Dr. Brinkley! - Dr. Brinkley!

- Have you talked to Morris Fishbein?

- Are they shutting you down? - Doctor, your thoughts?

- Well, it's a strange day,

having to defend a proven, successful practice.

But as it is said, first they ignore you,

then they ridicule you, then they fight you,

and then you win.

- The hearing began with the board members

hurling their callous accusations.

- This goat-gland surgery is absolute flimflammery.

- Never mind the goat glands.

His operation for bladder troubles

is amateurish.

- I agree, it's nuts. It's ridiculous.

No, it is nuts.

- Oh, I've been keeping track of the Brinkley goats.

The number of goats in that herd never changes.

The supposed doctor isn't even using

goat balls at all. [audience gasps]

- Then Brinkley addressed the board.

- I'm forced to be here today because of a ruling class

intolerant of progress

and ignorant of the benefits of alternative medicine.

I have, all physicians have the right to adopt new methods.

Patients have the right to the best treatments,

even those not yet approved by the AMA.

- Mr. Brinkley,

gland transplantation of any sort

is only in experimental stage.

- [scoffs] Of course gland surgery

is in the experimental stage for some people.

In my case, it is past that experimental stage.

I do it daily. It is a boon to humanity.

- Is your form of medicine found in any textbook?

- I highly doubt it.

- Did you learn it in school? - Of course not.

- Then how do you know it works?

- Let me tell you a little story

about a doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis.

Now, 100 years ago, doctors didn't wash their hands.

Semmelweis saw the doctors in his hospital

going right from performing an autopsy

to delivering a baby.

Now, a lot of those mothers caught ill and died.

Semmelweis, in his experimentation,

discovered that if a doctor washed his hands

between the autopsy and the delivery,

almost no deaths occurred.

Now, everyone here knows that soap and water

kills the germs on a doctor's hands,

but back then, the idea was ludicrous.

They didn't know what a germ was.

It didn't fit comfortably into mainstream medicine.

And Semmelweis was endlessly ridiculed

for this absurdity, exiled.

He died in an insane asylum.

But he knew...

he didn't know why, but he knew he was right.

He knew it worked.

He could plainly see the evidence before him,

when others were blinded by the status quo.

Look at all the patients before this board.

You all have an awful lot of evidence to ignore,

and I think you should hear it from them.

- Dr. Brinkley was the only doctor I visited

that said my condition was curable.

- My wife just gave birth to our first child.

I am living proof...

- That the goat glands in my scrotus are working.

- I'd show all of you right now,

if the ladies weren't present.

- I used to have a flappy dong,

but it ain't flappy no more.

- We waited so long for a child.

Now we have hope.

- Since 1926,

I've been delivering 20 goats a week to Dr. Brinkley.

He must be doing something with those goats.

- I should be the one choosing my doctor.

I should be the one choosing my treatment.

The government is telling me what to do,

and I'm not gonna let them get away with it.

- That's right. You tell 'em.

- Yes, the government should stay out of all of this.

They should stay out of all of this!

[cheering]

- In all my life,

I never had an instance of normal sexual intercourse.

I never attempted intercourse prior to marriage.

Otherwise, the tragedy might have been saved.

My sexual excitement at all times

resulted in ejaculation

prior to the penis entering the vagina

or immediately thereafter.

My wife had all the pain

of attending the birth of two boys

without a particle of the pleasures

of sexual life.

Had it not been for those two boys,

I would have put a gun to my head

and triggered it to end my wife's misery.

Furthermore, on account of the small size

of my sexual organ, I...

- That's enough!

I think we've all heard enough! [gavel bangs]

- The hearing adjourned so the board could deliberate.

Brinkley then traveled to Washington, D.C.,

to confront the Federal Radio Commission,

to fight for the very existence

of his radio station.

A train full of KFKB listeners followed him.

[train chugging, horn blows]

[laughter, indistinct happy chatter]

This hearing began just as the first.

- Pornography in the airwaves. - Hardly.

- Salacious innuendo. - I beg your pardon.

- Hillbilly music. - No.

- Brinkley's supporters spoke up.

- KFKB is more than a radio station.

It's a community. It's our community.

- Next.

- This is actually a very simple First Amendment issue.

Just because you don't like

what Dr. Brinkley is saying doesn't give you any right to...

- Next.

- Has anyone on this committee ever visited Milford, Kansas?

As the doctor says, Kansas folks know best

what's best for Kansas folks. - Next.

- This committee here is scared of losing control.

Well, you've never controlled us.

And the more you try to silence country music,

the louder we're gonna sing it! [audience clamoring]

- Stop it. Thank you.

Mr. Brinkley, the commission has called this hearing

to determine if your station

is operating in the public good.

Exactly what sort of good is your station providing

the public, Mr. Brinkley?

- The kind of good the public likes.

[audience clamoring]

- And the hearing was over.

Brinkley spent some idle days in Milford,

enjoying the company of his wife and son,

awaiting final decisions from the medical board

and radio commission.

[indistinct whispering]

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[door slams]

- They revoked both of Brinkley's licenses.

♪ ♪

He was barred from practicing medicine

and barred from broadcasting.

♪ ♪

None of the members of the medical board

or radio commission fared well following the hearings.

Dr. Jenkins was instantly killed

and horribly mangled limb from limb

by a railroad train.

Dr. Hissom died of a broken heart

following the death of his only son.

Dr. Ewing and Mr. Fulcher lost their businesses

and most of their friends.

Dr. Ross lost his wife and mind.

His neighbors found him walking around

dressed in his wife's clothes.

The others who were involved in this malicious fight

had lost everything they had or their health...

or had died before their times.

Prohibited from his work,

Brinkley took a quiet walk through the streets of Milford

and pondered his place in the world...

and the good he had done for it...

and that which had been taken from him by lesser men.

[bird caws]

- Johnny Boy?

Johnny Boy?

This is Daddy talking to you.

Daddy is sitting here and making this record...

because I believe

that you would like to hear daddy's voice

after he is gone.

I have longed to hear the voice

of my own daddy,

who passed away

when I was just ten years of age.

And as I stood by his unfilled grave,

in my little heart of hearts, I resolved to be a doctor,

which required many years of hard work.

So, when you came,

Daddy did not want you, Johnny,

to be left in the condition he was.

Daddy had things mapped out for you in the future

so that you could have a good education,

a college education.

And Daddy is speaking to you from the depths of his heart,

because you are my only little boy,

your mamma's only little boy.

And you're the only little boy that we ever expect to have.

And, Johnny Boy, this talk to you comes to a close.

And when Daddy's gone and you hear it,

I want you to know that it's given to you

with all the love of a loving father.

Goodbye.

[insect chirping]

- Doc.

- Afternoon.

- Just heard the news.

What are you gonna do?

Are you worried about your future?

[chirping continues]

- Do I look worried?

[thunder booms]

[gentle music]

♪ ♪

- They had tried their hardest

to force Brinkley out of Kansas.

- The harder they hit me, the higher I bounce.

That's my slogan.

- So John Romulus Brinkley

ran as a write-in candidate, as an independent.

- A man without a party...

no name on the ballot, no platform, no nothing,

not a chance.

He proposed that there would be a lake

in every county in Kansas.

- When God made Kansas,

He blessed her with everything but lakes.

- Something free for everybody...

free schoolbooks, free medication,

free everything.

- The first thing I'll do is provide the poor

with quality medicines,

absolutely free in every drugstore.

- Let's pasture the goats on the statehouse lawn.

- Dr. Brinkley is not going to say "please" anymore.

That's my slogan.

- The slogan was "Clean out, clean up, and keep clean."

- Clean out, clean up, and keep clean, that's my slogan.

- But that slogan he actually borrowed

from a laxative.

- Brinkley only had a month to campaign,

so he bought a plane from Charles Lindbergh,

flew it from town to town

and put on shows in dozens of counties,

featuring the stars of KFKB.

- Only 4% of the people control 85% of the wealth.

That inequality will be a thing of the past.

[crowd cheering]

"Every man a king." That's my slogan.

And now, ladies and gents, the singing cowboy.

- Ultimately, he built a sound truck

that would go from town to town

with loudspeakers on it.

That had not really been thought about before.

It was widely imitated later.

Huey Long did it, and a lot of other people did it,

but Brinkley was really the first one.

- The motto of our fair state

is "ad astra per aspera"...

"To the stars through difficulty."

I say to you that difficulty

will soon be a thing of the past,

and the stars are so very near.

[crowd cheering]

- Brinkley's opponents soon realized

that Brinkley was going to win.

[indistinct chatter]

- How much money could he really have?

- Brinkley isn't going to stop until he's dead.

- Gentlemen, gentlemen...

allow me to present a reasonable solution

to this Brinkley matter.

He is a write-in candidate.

Surely, the only votes for him that should count

are those which spell his name correctly.

Wouldn't you agree? - Yes.

- [laughing wickedly]

How many of these Brinkley bumpkins can spell?

- You had to write his name in.

And not only did you have to write his name in,

but Attorney General Smith

ruled that the only acceptable vote

cast for Brinkley would have to be

J-period, R-period, Brinkley,

not John Brinkley or Dr. John Brinkley

or Dr. Brinkley.

That's curious in the sense that the law itself said,

whatever the intent of the voter is to prevail.

You don't have to be perfect.

You don't have to spell it exactly right.

Legally, Smith's holding was not correct.

[car horn honks]

- My dear Kansans, tomorrow is Election Day, friends.

You will be writing in... say it with me...

J-period, R-period, B-R-I-N-K-L-E-Y.

J-period, R-period, B-R-I-N-K-L-E-Y.

- The Election Day broke very calm and clear

and a very nice day.

And when the polls closed, then the counting began.

And no one knew at the time

that that counting would continue for 12 days...

the longest vote count

ever held in the state of Kansas,

probably one of the longest vote counts held

for any kind of state office anytime in the country.

[cheers and applause]

People wrote in Brinkley's name

for almost every office on the ballot...

the Supreme Court, for the Senate,

for judgeships.

And believe it or not, there were even 20,000 ballots cast

in Oklahoma for John Brinkley.

- After 12 days and 12 nights of counting,

56,000 votes for Brinkley were thrown out

for misspellings.

Brinkley officially lost the election

to Harry Woodring by 30,000 votes.

Attorney General Smith was promoted

to the Supreme Court of Kansas.

- The election was really stolen in 1930

in the state of Kansas.

So, if he'd won the election,

why didn't he demand a recount?

The truth of the matter is

that Brinkley really didn't want to be governor of Kansas.

Here was a job that paid $12,000 a year,

and he could make that much in a week.

He was already grooming himself for the next move.

[gentle music]

♪ ♪

- Well, here we are.

We're coming out of the residence,

and we're all set to get into the 16-cylinder Cadillac

and drive to the airport.

There's the Lockheed Orion.

We're going to trade this plane after this trip

and get a new one... the Lockheed Electra.

There's Mrs. Brinkley and Johnny Boy,

and I'm trying to catch up with the procession.

We're getting on this shot,

and we're in a hurry to get away.

And we're underway, folks.

And here I am, out fishing... Tampico, Mexico,

just at the mouth of the Pánuco River.

And look at that tarpon jump.

[whoops] Watch that tarpon jump!

Oh, he wants to get off of there if he can,

but he's securely hooked.

Watch that fella fight, will you?

He brings out the very best there is in a fellow.

Here we are at Tower Island,

the first of the group of the Galápagos.

And look at the birds.

Oh, these birds are tame.

They've not been scared or killed or injured by a man.

And look at that little fella.

Oh, he says, you get away from me.

I'm afraid of you, but get away from me.

He says, get away.

And here's Johnny Boy,

standing on top of his seal

that he killed.

And here's Daddy saying,

you are a good shot, my young fella,

but I'm sorry you killed that seal.

The little fella didn't know any different.

This fella made some delicious green-turtle soup.

And look at the birds.

Oh, they're beautiful.

And there is the fish...

the 788-pound tuna

that broke Zane Grey's 12-year record.

Those are some fine fish...

at 757-pounder, 650, 620.

Some string of fish... enough for breakfast, anyway.

[gentle music]

♪ ♪

- He was a wily guy.

He, you know, was sitting there in Kansas,

stroking that goatee, and...

I'm not exactly sure how he got this idea,

but somehow the idea came along.

Well, let's see.

If I had a radio station, say, in, oh, Mexico,

then the FRC couldn't reach me there, you know?

And I could broadcast my programs northward

to an American audience in English.

And the Mexican officials were very receptive to this

because the United States and Canada

had divided up all the long-range radio frequencies

between themselves,

and they had allotted none to Mexico.

So they saw this guy with his goatee and his goat glands

as a bargaining chip.

You won't give us any long-range radio frequencies.

We're gonna put this dude

on our soil just across your border,

and we're gonna let him build

a really high-powered radio station

that will knock "Amos 'n' Andy" off the air

in Philadelphia.

- Amos, I was glad this... [radio static buzzing]

- The Sunshine Station Between the Nations.

- I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

- Brinkley's defunct station, KFKB,

operated at 5,000 watts

and reached most of the United States.

The signal from his new station, XERA,

reached 17 countries

and operated at one million watts.

[rock music]

♪ ♪

- XERA was the world's

most powerful broadcasting station.

There was just nothing like that anywhere near it

anywhere in the world at that time,

which is hard to imagine.

♪ ♪

Sometimes, they say, if you saw birds flying near the antennas,

they would fall out of the sky, dead.

[electricity zapping]

People could pick up the station

on fillings in their teeth.

[radio static ringing, distorted speech]

June Carter Cash liked to say that, you know,

you can pick up the Carter Family

on any barbed-wire fence in Texas.

- ♪ Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side ♪

- In addition to in-house bands

like the Carter Family and the Pickard Family,

Brinkley's programming expanded.

He developed an innovative and entertaining format

for advertising.

- Lengthy commercials would go on for 5 to 30 minutes,

and they would be repeating things over and over and over

and spelling out the names of the towns

where you'd send your dollar

to get your astrology lessons...

- The secrets of the stars.

- Burial tombstones...

- The elegantly deceased.

- Bow ties that light up in the dark.

- The height of fashion.

- Guaranteed bedbug killer.

- Stop bed pests.

- Toenail adjusters...

- Most toenails are not properly adjusted.

- Hemorrhoid medicines...

- For the inferior posterior.

- Autographed photo of Jesus Christ.

- Signed in your choice of ink or blood.

- Kolor-Bak was real popular as a hair dye.

- Kolor-Bak is a solution for artificially coloring hair

into your gray hair, and it's guaranteed, yes, sirree!

- Kolor-Bak actually had some kind of lead in it.

[person screams]

- Dr. Brinkley built an estate in Del Rio, Texas,

just across the border from Villa Acuña, Mexico,

where XERA's tower was constructed.

He was not barred from practicing medicine in Texas,

so he took over the top floor

of the Roswell Hotel in Del Rio,

as the new Brinkley Hospital.

Brinkley didn't want to lose time

in his busy schedule traveling,

so a phone line was run from Brinkley's home in Del Rio

to the tower in Mexico,

so he could deliver his evening radio talks from home.

- Thank you, Don.

And good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm happy to be with you again this Sunday evening,

August the 27th.

Have you done as I have told you and been telling you?

Have your neighbors, who do not have a radio set,

come into your home and gather around yours

and listen to these Sunday-evening talks?

Bring the children in.

I can assure you what I say will be helpful

and never hurtful to your boys and your girls.

I have a lovely son,

a young man just reaching almost the age of adolescence.

And I would say nothing or do anything

that would in any way mar his future

or blight his character.

Ladies and gentlemen, you can support these talks

and...

- Doris.

Doris!

Get me the radio commission. [person groans]

- If you spend only $1... [door closes]

Spend a dollar...

- In 1934, the Federal Radio Commission

put its foot down on Brinkley's border blaster

and pressured Congress into passing the Brinkley Act,

which prevented the arrangement

under which Brinkley was operating,

sending a signal from the U.S. to a tower across the border

to broadcast back to the U.S.

- "No person shall be permitted to locate,

"use, or maintain a radio broadcast studio

"or other place or apparatus from which or whereby

"sound waves are converted into electrical energy

"or mechanical or physical reproduction of sound waves

"produced and caused to be transmitted or delivered

"to a radio station in a foreign country

"for the purpose of being broadcast

"for any radio station there

"having a power output of sufficient intensity

"and/or being so located geographically

"that its emissions may be received consistently

"in the United States without first obtaining a permit

"from the Federal Radio Commission

upon proper application therefor."

- Brinkley circumvented this attack,

recording his broadcasts on 16-inch aluminum-coated disks

and sending them to the tower in Mexico,

instead of using his phone line.

This recording method soon became an industry standard.

- Everything I say on these Sunday-evening talks

is intended to raise men and women and boys and girls

to a higher level.

- Brinkley was doing in Del Rio, Texas,

what he had done in Milford, Kansas,

but amplified 100 times.

[Brinkley speaking indistinctly over radio]

With his hospital and radio station,

he employed thousands.

His charitable contributions were endless.

He gave Del Rio its first library.

He had his record-breaking tuna stuffed

and gave it to the high school.

[gentle music]

♪ ♪

Every Sunday evening,

people drove in from miles and miles away,

gathering at the Brinkley mansion,

where Brinkley put on a show...

[people oohing]

Operating a player organ

and controlling the flow of water in his fountain...

And the lights shone against it.

♪ ♪

- I hope you people have enjoyed

these lovely flowers from our gardens

here in Del Rio, Texas.

You know, I've told you that...

I have called our home here in Del Rio

a little bit of heaven.

The flowers you have seen were cut

for breakfast this morning

and put here in the room

to be put in this picture for your enjoyment.

And...

when you see flowers

and hear the song of birds...

and see the sparkle of a dewdrop

in the sunshine...

think of the great power in the universe...

and the giver of all good gifts...

that makes these lovely things possible

for we mortals here below.

For many years, I've been transplanting

the living glands of young goats into men

as a means of curing sexual weakness,

insanity, sluggish temperaments,

and a host of other diseases.

I announce today a wonderful breakthrough.

It is no longer necessary to transplant goat glands.

We at the Brinkley Hospital have developed the means

by which we can inject glandular preparations,

rendering the surgical technique obsolete.

It works every bit as well as the surgery

and is safer and simpler.

This miracle of medicine is called Formula 1020.

- No longer anchored by the need to perform surgeries,

Brinkley expanded his reach.

He erected two hospitals in Little Rock, Arkansas.

He built another in San Juan, Texas.

- Remember, Del Rio for the prostate,

San Juan for the colon.

Now, those of you looking to be saved

from certain early death

should look no further than the Brinkley Hospital,

for I am your savior.

And it is through awful hard work

that I have achieved this miracle of medicine

that I can bless you with.

You, out there, hearing this,

must know that I shall be the one

to bring you true happiness.

♪ ♪

- Seven years have passed

since Brinkley was driven out of Kansas.

If only other doctors had the wisdom

to cooperate with the inspired healer from Milford.

But the doctors had no more sense than the geese of Rome

that could only call out "quack, quack,"

when the city was being attacked by Gauls.

Brinkley had cause to celebrate.

[birds crying]

[upbeat music playing]

♪ ♪

[indistinct chatter]

♪ ♪

[glasses clink]

- For all of the back-and-forth between them,

Brinkley and Fishbein had never met.

[chair scrapes on floor]

[dramatic music]

It became only a matter of time until they collided,

which they finally did.

♪ ♪

[ding]

[upbeat music resumes playing]

It's a great sort of nonconfrontation confrontation.

What it did, though, was galvanize Fishbein,

recommit him to try to bring Brinkley down.

And it was what finally initiated

sort of the last act.

- In John R. Brinkley,

quackery reaches its apotheosis.

With consummate gall greater than that

of anything ever revealed by any other charlatan

and notwithstanding the efforts

of various governmental departments and agencies,

he continues to demonstrate his astuteness

in shaking shekels from the pockets

of credulous Americans.

Brinkley has made as much as $55,000 a week

as a result of his various quackeries...

- Dr. Fishbein, there are many people out here waiting.

- Doris, would...you...mind?

[Doris sighs, door closes]

- He has been the possessor of three fine yachts.

He travels abroad in the finest suites

on the finest boats.

Neither he nor Mrs. Brinkley engage in conversation

with the other passengers.

The money rolls in,

which proves that the wages of sin

is not always death.

[audience murmuring] - [clears throat]

- It is time for all arms and departments,

all systems within the government

to work together in ending Brinkley's defrauding

of the public!

[dramatic music]

- [bleep].

♪ ♪

- Brinkley sued Fishbein for libel.

The trial began on March 22, 1939.

- The trial took place in the county courthouse

in Del Rio, and it was packed.

It was packed out the door, a lot of women.

He had a sort of weird sex appeal

that was inexplicable,

except to a certain stratum of middle-aged woman.

- [giggles]

- But there were a lot of them,

so he had his whole cheering section there.

He also had a big team of lawyers.

He had at least five lawyers.

Fishbein didn't have anything

like that kind of legal firepower or money.

He's still just the editor of a fairly obscure magazine.

[indistinct whispering]

What Brinkley also had in that courtroom

was a series of satisfied customers,

which were the foundation of his legal strategy.

[gavel bangs] - All rise.

Court is in session.

Honorable Judge RJ McMillan presiding.

- [coughs, groans] Please be seated.

- We call to the stand William Stittsworth.

♪ ♪

- Do you swear to tell the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

- I certainly do.

So help me God.

- Mr. Stittsworth...

do you know Dr. Brinkley?

- I do. I was a patient of his.

- Objection.

This witness is not an expert,

and you're asking him to offer expert opinion.

- What? - That's not fair.

[chair scrapes] - Your Honor...

these people have traveled a long way to be here.

- Mr. Fletcher...uh, Fishbein's article accuses my client

of being a fraud.

These witnesses are all here

to testify to the opposite.

- Gentlemen, the testimony provided by patients

is not admissible as evidence.

We will hear only from experts in the field of medicine.

[audience murmuring]

- "Experts"? What do they know?

- Order, order! Sit down!

Mr. Brown, please call your first expert witness.

- Yes. The defense calls Dr. Richard Ross.

Doctor, have you been keeping up

with any literature on the subject

regarding the nature and construction

of the human testicle? - Objection!

I see where this is going.

We are here because...

Well, you tell 'em.

- My client has not performed that operation

in over five years.

These gland surgeries are no longer relevant.

- Oh, for Pete's sake.

Overruled. [audience murmuring]

- [whispering] What is happening?

- So... - So, um...

- Testicles. - Testicles, yes.

I'm a practicing physician.

I've been practicing for over 31 years.

I'm a member of several medical societies,

including the American Board of Urology.

I try to keep up with as much current literature as possible.

- Could you briefly describe for the court what occurs

during Mr. Brinkley's gland-transplant procedure?

- Well, the doctor makes an incision in the scrotum

and then places a thin slice of the goat gland

on the cremasteric muscle, or fascia.

- To be clear,

it is not actually grafted to the testicle?

- No, it's placed within the layer of tissue

between the testicle and the skin.

The goat gland is supposedly expected to fuse

with the scrotal tissue.

- And does the goat gland fuse?

Does it live on with the human gland?

- No, of course not.

- Would you please explain to the jury why that's the case?

- Because nothing is internally sutured,

there is no supply of blood to it.

I'm quite hesitant to even call it transplantation.

It's just some foreign matter stuck underneath the skin,

like a splinter.

- What would happen to that foreign matter?

What would happen to the goat gland?

- It would die, and then it would either be sloughed away

or form scar tissue.

- [coughing]

- Is it possible for any glandular transplant

from one animal to another to be successful?

- Xenotransplantation of this sort is not viable.

One could simply make a slit in the scrotum,

sew it up immediately,

and it would be just as effective.

- Now, whether or not the transplanted gland

remains alive,

would the mere transplanting of the goat gland

affect this man's impotence?

- No, not a particle.

- Would it have any effect whatsoever

upon reducing high blood pressure?

- None at all.

- Would it have any effect

in treating hardening of the arteries?

- [chuckles] No.

- Would it have any effect in creating energy in a man...

- It would not.

- Or in curing epilepsy? - No, sir.

- Locomotor ataxia? - Definitely not.

- The insanity of the type known as dementia praecox?

- No.

- Diseases of the stomach? - No, sir.

- Would it have any effect in treating constipation?

- None at all.

- Are there any quantifiable effects brought upon

by Mr. Brinkley's cancer-fighting toothpaste?

- It does not fight cancer.

And it's actually a fairly ineffective toothpaste.

- What about his Mayan Vision-Improving Cream?

- It does not improve vision.

- The Incan Vision-Improving Cream?

- It's some sort of moisturizer.

It's not clear exactly how a cream

could improve one's vision.

- Now, Doctor, if you'd take a look at this.

[paper rustling] What do you see?

- I see an article titled "Brinkley's Formula 1020."

- It appears to be an article,

but it is an advertisement paid for by the Brinkley Hospital.

You are familiar with this Formula 1020

that the plaintiff prescribed? - I am.

I have analyzed it, and it is my understanding

that 6 ampoules of Formula 1020 were sold

to nearly every patient of Brinkley's.

Each ampoule cost $100.

- And for $100 each, the advertisement you hold

claims that the formula

replaces the gland-transplant procedure

to increase virility and so forth.

Would you read aloud the sentence I've indicated?

- "It works every bit as well as the surgery,

and it is safer and simpler."

- Doctor, what is Formula 1020's composition?

- The makeup of Formula 1020

is 1,000 parts of distilled water

to one part blue dye.

- What?

- I paid $600 for goddamn colored water?

- Thank you, Doctor.

Thank you very much.

- Dr. Fishbein, referring to the article

upon which this suit is based,

you were the author of that article, weren't you?

- Yes, sir.

- Do you know John R. Brinkley in person?

- No.

Have you ever met John R. Brinkley?

- No.

- Yesterday every surgeon, physician, biologist,

and chemist testified

to John R. Brinkley's standing as a quack.

Do you agree with that assessment?

- Allow me to say a few words about what a quack is.

I have studied and collected in my work at the AMA

hundreds of thousands of examples of quackery.

I have found every charlatan, every quack

to exhibit a consistent list of three qualities.

One, the quack will wrap himself inside a legend,

half-truths and anecdotes warped,

twisted, and formed into a grand lie...

a tale too good to be true.

Brinkley's story is that he is some sort

of brave, maverick doctor

fighting against the powerful mechanisms

of mainstream medicine...

some modern Semmelweis.

Brinkley claims he discovered a miraculous cure

to a great number of diseases and conditions and ailments

that they don't have.

This miracle cure, the calling card of the quack,

will often be a distortion of true science.

Yes, the world of medicine two decades ago

was discovering the power of the body's glands,

especially through the study of animal glands.

Brinkley and other quacks before him

preyed upon this gland mania, distorted it,

and harnessed that momentum for himself.

- Now, Doctor...

- Two, let me stress, this is all for himself.

If Mr. Brinkley was a real doctor,

if his methods were truly effective,

he would share these discoveries

with the medical community.

The exact makeup

of all of Brinkley's formulas and tonics, his magic potions,

whatever you want to call them, are secret.

A true doctor would jump at the chance

to share a curative breakthrough

with even a tenth of the supposed power

of, say, Formula 1020.

But, of course, Brinkley kept these for himself.

More money could roll in. - All right, very good...

- Three, the quack is, above all, a manipulator.

Those discovering him

will be told everything they want to hear,

will be promised hope where there is none.

Those bilked by him will desperately want to believe

that a miracle took place.

Whatever the effect they felt,

whatever healing they believe took place

would have occurred naturally,

or it was the result of what real doctors call

the placebo effect.

Brinkley played each and every one of these people

with his incessant pitches on the radio,

those deceptive ads in print,

and the endless torrent of postcards and brochures

to every mailbox in the Midwest.

He made over a million dollars just last year,

while the rest of us suffer through the worst depression

this country has known.

No doctor has an income as great as that!

It is not medicine Mr. Brinkley is practicing!

It is big business!

So, when you ask me if Mr. Brinkley is a quack,

I must say he is the most crude and greed-driven quack

I have ever had the displeasure to research!

He is a monstrous quack!

He is a tumor on the body of science,

and he must be excised!

[thunder booming]

- There are many unruly

and vain talkers and deceivers,

especially they of the circumcision,

especially they of the circumcision,

whose mouths must be stopped.

You must realize, ladies and gentlemen,

that millions of my enemies and your enemies are at work

with millions of dollars behind them

to put over their program

and destroy my liberty and your liberty.

I pay for these radio programs out of my own pocket,

and I'm glad to do it, but I cannot do it all alone.

You men and women who believe that I am worthwhile

and that my work should be continued...

how many of you, I repeat,

are willing to do a little something about it

and not just sit there and listen and do nothing?

All of we Protestants have either got to hang together,

or we're going to hang separately.

And when you are faced by a Red

and a bullet has been placed through your heart

or the brain of your son or daughter,

remember what Dr. Brinkley's told you.

We've got to stand together, folks.

You can help me by sending $1.

You can help Mrs. Brinkley and me

by coming to our hospital...

[wind blowing]

- Do you swear to tell the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,

so help you God?

- Yes, always.

- This court has heard an awful lot of nasty things

about you, Mr. Brinkley.

- This court has only allowed people

with that opinion to speak.

- I notice on one piece of literature

from the Brinkley Hospital, it says, "J.R. Brinkley, MD"?

What is that MD? - Doctor of Medicine.

- So you are a doctor? - Yes, of course.

- Yesterday my client sat where you're sitting right now,

and he said that doctors don't make over $1 million a year.

Can you tell us how much money you made last year, sir?

- To the best of my recollection, I made...

- When you say "to the best of my recollection,"

do you mean you are not certain?

- I'm quite certain.

I'm modifying the word "certain."

- What?

- Well, one can be relatively certain or absolutely certain.

- You mean you're not positive?

- Not absolutely positive.

- "Not absolutely positive"? - No, sir.

- But to the best of your recollection,

not completely certain or absolutely positive,

but as accurate as you can be,

please tell the court your income for the previous year.

- To the best of my recollection,

I made eleven hundred thousand dollars last year.

- Sir, wouldn't most people say

you made $1,100,000, $1.1 million?

- Others might say that.

I prefer to say I made

eleven hundred thousand dollars in 1937.

- All right, that's fine.

Let's resume with these degrees.

It says here in the same pamphlet, J.R. Brinkley, CM.

What is that CM? - Master of Surgery.

- Then it says DRPH.

- That is Doctor of Public Health.

- SCD? - Doctor of Science.

- Do you also put LLD on your name sometimes?

- Uh, I don't know.

- Have you ever claimed to have a Doctor of Law degree?

- I don't remember. - All right.

Now I would like to enter into evidence a certain book,

"The Life of a Man" by Clement Wood.

Interesting reading, if you have the stomach for it.

This is your authorized biography, is it not?

- Yes, I authorized that biography.

Mr. Wood is a rather diligent researcher.

- Would you assert that this biography is truthful, sir?

- It is accurate.

- "Accurate"...very good.

[clears throat] "In 1902, a boy stood

"before the dean of Johns Hopkins

"in a shirt and a pair of trousers and nothing else.

"He told the dean his name was John Brinkley

"and he wanted to be a doctor like his daddy was."

How old were you in 1902? When did this happen?

- I was 17 years old.

I don't recall the exact date.

- You were married at the time, yes?

- Uh, yes.

- To a woman named Sally Wike.

- Wike?

- Uh, yes. I was...I was young.

That marriage did not last long.

- It lasted long enough to have two daughters.

I've read this entire book,

and there's not one mention of Sally Wike

or your two daughters with her.

I find that rather queer. - Uh...

- You were nowhere near Johns Hopkins in 1902,

as you and Sally Wike were running

what was called a medicine show in Chicago.

You were selling snake oil.

"The Life of a Man" claims that 15 years later,

you had a diploma from

the Eclectic Medical University in Kansas City.

When did you graduate?

- It was a beautiful day in May of 1917.

- You were on the campus of the Eclectic Medical University

in Kansas City, Kansas, in May of 1917?

- Yes, sir.

It was the proudest day of my life.

- I have here an arrest record from

the Greenville, South Carolina, Police Department.

You were arrested in May of 1917.

You were incarcerated in South Carolina

at the time you just claimed to have been in Kansas City

receiving your diploma.

How do you account for that? - Those documents are false.

- This particular arrest was for a scam

in which you charged $25 for an injection.

This injection was merely colored water.

You called this German Electric Medicine

and said it was based on the teachings of Robert Bunsen.

I believe he invented the Bunsen burner.

And here we are, 20 years later,

and you're still injecting customers with colored water.

How are we to believe that these degrees

with your name on them are legitimate?

How are we to believe anything in this biography of yours

is true? - I have not read that book.

I do declare, I do not know what is in it.

- You don't know it? You've never read it?

- Not...no.

- Well, let me read some more for you.

This is from a part called "The Cobra Strikes."

It discusses your defeat at the hands

of the Kansas State Medical Board and Radio Commission.

It states, "None of the members of the medical board

"or radio commission fared well following the hearings.

"Dr. Jenkins was instantly killed

and horribly mangled limb from limb by a railroad train."

Dr. Jenkins is here today in this courtroom.

He's right here.

Like I said, it's quite interesting reading.

Here's some more from this biography.

"But the doctors had no more sense than the geese of Rome

"that could only call out 'quack, quack,'

when the city was being attacked by Gauls."

Need I remind the court that in doing so,

the geese warned Rome, saved Rome?

But that's neither here nor there.

Page 310...

"Martin Luther, Galileo, Jesus Christ...

"of their company is John R. Brinkley,

"a man a little taller than the rest,

so that the rays of truth strike him first."

Who published this book?

- The Goshorn Publishing Company.

- Who owns that company?

- I do.

- How much did you pay the author?

- [groans] $5,000.

- I find it odd that you would pay someone $5,000

to write this biography,

hand out thousands of copies for free at your hospitals,

and say you've not even read it.

Well, I've read it, Mr. Brinkley,

and I can tell you it is pure fiction.

What purpose would a fictitious life story serve

a legitimate doctor?

- I have never hurt anyone.

- You've never harmed a patient of yours, not once?

- No.

- Have you ever performed a surgery while intoxicated?

- No.

- I have sworn affidavits from 26 of your former nurses

and assistants that attest to your drunkenness

during many surgeries.

- Now, listen, a doctor needs...

- They've also said you openly mocked your patients,

called them old fools and pigeons,

that you knew your treatments were a hoax.

How many surgeries did you perform...

- Over 6,000.

- While intoxicated?

How many of these surgeries resulted in irreversible harm

in your patients?

How many prescriptions were merely colored water?

Is goat-gland transplantation possible, really?

- I never said it was a true transplantation.

No, I just put a little...

It seemed to work.

[somber music]

- How many of your patients would be alive today

if they had seen a real doctor,

received real treatments?

Are you capable of understanding

the effect that you have?

Are you capable of telling the truth?

Why have you done these things?

Why are we here today?

♪ ♪

What is it you want?

♪ ♪

- That night, Dr. Brinkley had a dream.

[thunder booms]

- [snarling]

- He saw a graveyard on a mountaintop,

with the graves open.

Heavy cloudbursts washed the bones

and the rotting corpses right out of the graves,

until they lay around him everywhere.

He could not get a foothold.

There seemed no way to stop his fatal fall

into that yawning abyss.

- [bleats loudly] [thunder booms]

- Suddenly, three figures dressed in white appeared.

One took his arm on either side.

The third, leading the way,

pointed out how he could march straight to safety.

The three figures were Brinkley's childhood heroes...

Abraham Lincoln, Thomas A. Edison,

and William Shakespeare.

At this time, I must step out of my role

as biographer and narrator

and into my role of psychoanalyst.

Dream analysis is one of the many subjects

I've explored in my published works.

It is my expert reading

that there is not an element in Brinkley's dream

that can be twisted into the attitude

or expression of a fake, a quack, a charlatan,

a pretender, a drunkard, a roisterer,

or a would-be murderer.

John Romulus Brinkley, this dream of yours

has cleared you more definitely

than all the legal evidence in the world

could conceivably do.

America will know your story increasingly,

as your star rises out of the opposition murk.

I predict that by the turn of the 21st century,

there will be a great scurrying of the rats

and other creatures of darkness

and that John R. Brinkley's star

will burn brighter than ever.

- The trial lasted three...

perhaps into the fourth day.

The jury was sent out.

They were back within a few hours...

and ruled for Fishbein.

Suing Fishbein turned out to be the mistake of his life,

because he put himself in court.

And once he had been brought into the bullring, right,

and had a few swords run into him,

once he'd been exposed like that,

then, suddenly, all of these people

who'd been off licking their wounds,

you know, who had been victims of Brinkley

but hadn't had the power or the encouragement

or who had been too ashamed to come back at him,

now they were emboldened, and he was getting sued.

Over the next year, two years,

he was getting sued from all directions.

Suddenly, this empire collapsed.

Suddenly, he's bankrupt.

Financially, he and Minnie are fighting for their lives.

His health collapsed.

He went straight downhill after that.

He was dead...

in less than three years.

[somber rock music]

♪ ♪

- Honey, it seems my heart will break since you phoned

that XERA was being torn down.

As long as this did not happen,

I had a faint hope,

but now the patient is dead.

We have struggled along for almost 29 years,

had our happy and sorrowful days.

We've had lots of blessings and good times.

We've traveled and enjoyed the luxuries

of yachts, steamers, planes,

palatial homes, et cetera.

We have loved much,

and you shall always be my beautiful angel of hope

and wife of love.

Lend your time and talents to our son, John.

He will make a man for you to be proud of.

He is a delicate flower like his father.

Your own devoted husband,

Doctor John R. Brinkley, MD.

♪ ♪

- Oh, he's absolutely worth remembering.

In the course of perpetuating

this massive and complex fraud,

he had a million ideas and had a huge influence

on the course of popular culture,

in spite of the fact that, personally,

he was out for nothing but personal gain.

Well, I would call him a psychopath,

but I'm not medically qualified to say so.

I don't think he had a feeling bone in his body.

♪ ♪

- A lot of people who went and had his operation died,

but Dr. Brinkley was a folk doctor.

People went to folk healers

when they were on their last leg.

People went to folk healers hoping for a miracle,

and not everybody's gonna find a miracle.

But, you know, I've talked to people

who talked to people who had the operation,

who swore it did them a lot of good, so who knows?

- I don't have any doubt that 50 years from now,

we'll look back at some things that are routine right now

and say, oh, my God...

how could they ever do that?

But I don't know what that's gonna be.

- Did he know he was a fraud? Sure, he knew he was a fraud.

He practiced charlatanism from the very beginning.

And I think he was always trying

to make himself legitimate,

but deep down, he knew he was a phony...

all the way to the grave.

♪ ♪

- I knew he was bilking me...

but I liked him anyway.

♪ ♪

- What made you select the goat?

- Dr. Brinkley found out that the goat

was the healthiest animal.

The Toggenburg, not the billy goats, you know?

- Not an Angora? - Not an Angora.

They'd have smelled to high heaven.

[laughter]

♪ ♪

- No, I never considered myself a radio personality.

I was too young to think about it one way or another.

I was just talking into a black box

that didn't talk back.

I understand I'm the first kid to ever sing

"Happy Birthday to You" over the radio,

and it usually came out "happy birthday to 'zhu.'"

I couldn't pronounce "you." [chuckles]

♪ ♪

- Johnny Boy?

Johnny Boy?

This is Daddy talking to you.

Now, listen, Johnny, always tell the truth.

Never tell a lie under any circumstances.

You might have all the money in the world,

but if you have not come by it

honestly and fairly and squarely,

that money is going to haunt you,

and that money is not going to do you any good.

And I speak to you from experience.

And we're looking to you

and depending upon you, Johnny, to carry on.

[gunshot]

If you put your gold way up yonder,

if you shoot at the stars and the moon and the sun,

you're going to be shooting high and rising high.

But whatever you do, do it with a will

and do it with a zeal.

And remember that you can conquer and that you can win.

♪ ♪

[record hissing]

[Andrew Kingslow's "He Is a Hustler"]

♪ ♪

- ♪ Sweet sugar, honey bunny ♪

♪ You can't buy my love with your money ♪

♪ You work on the verge of the devil's work ♪

♪ I ain't got time for that, ain't you heard? ♪

♪ He ain't my man ♪ - ♪ He ain't my man ♪

- ♪ Don't you understand? ♪ - ♪ Don't you understand? ♪

- ♪ No, he ain't my man ♪ - ♪ He ain't my man ♪

- ♪ Don't you understand? ♪ - ♪ Don't you understand? ♪

- ♪ Oh, he's the rooster in the chicken shed ♪

♪ And I don't ever want him back ♪

♪ He's a hustler ♪

- ♪ He's a hustler ♪

- ♪ Oh, yeah ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Don't you understand, yeah? ♪

♪ Don't you understand? ♪

♪ ♪

♪ I don't understand ♪

♪ He's a rooster in the chicken shed ♪

♪ And I don't ever want him back ♪

♪ He's a hustler ♪ - ♪ He's a hustler, yeah ♪

♪ Yeah, he's a hustler, he's a hustler ♪

♪ ♪

- ♪ He ain't my man ♪ - ♪ No, he ain't my man ♪

- ♪ Don't you understand? ♪ - ♪ Don't you understand? ♪

- ♪ No, he ain't my man ♪ - ♪ He ain't my man ♪

- ♪ Don't you understand? ♪ - ♪ Don't you understand? ♪

- ♪ Oh, he's a rooster in the chicken shed ♪

♪ And I don't ever want him back ♪

♪ He's a hustler ♪

♪ ♪