The Gentlemen on Netflix: Did Cher Am the Pigeon Really Exist?

The Gentlemen on Netflix: Did Cher Am the Pigeon Really Exist?

Warning, spoilers. Before continuing reading this article, it is recommended to watch the TV series Gentlemen.

Available on Netflix since March 7, The Gentlemen is a new series created, written, produced and partially directed by Guy Ritchie, and it has quickly become a success on the platform.

The director of Scams, Crimes and Botany and Snatch was inspired by his film Gentlemen to develop this fiction into 8 episodes that follow the adventures of Eddie Horniman (Theo James). The latter unexpectedly inherits his father’s vast fortune before discovering that it is part of a veritable cannabis empire.

Eddie tries to take on Britain’s dangerous organized crime figures who want their piece of the cake, but he develops a taste for crime. The Divergent and The White Lotus actor meets such famous names as Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad), Vinnie Jones (Fraudsters, Crimes and Botany), Joel Richardson (Nip/Tuck), Ray Winstone (The Legend of Beowul) and Kaya Scodelario (Skins, The Maze Runner).

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Bobby Glass and his pigeons

In the eighth and final episode of The Gentlemen, Eddie and Susie fall out after many low blows, and Bobby Glass brings them together to reconcile. Then he gives them a little lesson about the famous dove, Cher Ami:

“In the last year of the Great War, 500 French soldiers were trapped behind enemy lines. They had their own bomb. So the commander sent a pigeon to help. The pigeon was shot in the side, lost an eye and only had part of a leg left. But it returned to base, delivered a message, and the troops were saved. . Thanks to this pigeon. The French awarded him a medal for bravery.”

This explains why Bobby Glass likes to have pigeons in his “cage” and why he asks Eddie and Susie to cooperate in finding him a successor to take over the business (but we later learn that this was just bait).

To do this, potential buyers have to write their offers on a piece of paper, which is then delivered by pigeons, which Bobby Glass considers symbolic. “Harmony between man and nature”.

Did cher ami pigeon really exist?

Yes, Cher Am really existed! This bird actually saved soldiers during World War I, but they weren’t French soldiers! Indeed, the Cher Ami domestic pigeon is a gift from British pigeon fanciers to American pigeons.

After training, he was sent to the United States Army Signal Corps to serve American soldiers in France during World War I. He helped rescue a lost battalion of the US 77th Infantry Division during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in October 1918.

These men found themselves close to enemy lines and caught between the Germans and the Allied forces, who bombed them without being there. This is soldier Charles Whittles, who uses pigeons to send messages so that they can be saved.

Two pigeons die without delivering a message and in the end it is the third bird, Cher Am, who successfully completes his mission despite his injuries. A true hero, Cher Am was treated and saved by military doctors and then returned to the United States, where he was awarded the Croix de Guerre, but also a gold medal from the organized American pigeon fanciers’ body in recognition of his prowess.

Cher Ami died of wounds in 1919 during the final battle. His stuffed body is now part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, one of the largest complexes of American museums and research centers.

TV series Gentlemen Available on Netflix.


Source: Allocine

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