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Guy Coombs in The Star Spangled Banner (1911)

We are shown the spirit of the time of eighteen hundred and twelve, and here we are introduced to Dr. Beanes and his family; their friendship for the young loyal Key and the doctor's sympathy for the wounded and sick, the humiliation and insult in his own home and eventually his capture by the British soldiers. We also see Key's prompt action in arranging to secure his release through the help of President Madison. From there on the story carries us to his arrival on the British battleship and the release and exchange granted to Dr. Beanes, who is held there a prisoner, and shows us why Francis Scott Key was on board the ship a prisoner during the bombardment of Fort McHenry, which takes us up to the inspired moment when Key first wrote his wonderful first and second verse of the "Star Spangled Banner," on the back of an old envelope. We are also shown the patriotism and the emotions of the man on the night of September fourteenth in a room in a hotel in Baltimore, where he finished his work with, "And this be out motto, 'In God is our trust.'" The following day, when the "Star Spangled Banner" was sung for the first time in an old tavern next to the Holiday Street Theater, there one named Ferdinand Durang, mounted on a table, sang the soul-inspiring strain and words that caught the enthusiasm of the time and the old walls of the tavern echoed and re-echoed with cheer after cheer, which has continued to echo on down to our day and will still echo far into the future, every time the strains of the "Star Spangled Banner" reach the ears of the friends and daughters "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

Guy Coombs: Francis Scott Key

The Star Spangled Banner

Guy Coombs credited as playing...

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