Any good movies about masons and secret societies?

[Yevetha]

. . . Masonry is an international fraternity (much older than the fore-mentioned clubs) and does not recognize the Skulls as an appendant or affiliated body, nor is membership in Masonry by invitation only. Anyone can join if they ask and they know two Masons to vouch for their good character (ideally, for at least a year).

But they wouldn’t let me join, the blackballing bastards!

How was Pinochet selected?

 

[scotpens]

^^ Some sources claim Augusto Pinochet was a Freemason, others say he wasn’t. Anyway, what does that have to do with Monty Python?

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ Heh - Monty Python did a VERY funny sketch on the Freemasons, exaggerating the odd costuming/aprons/modes of recognition, as well as satirizing the preferential treatment that Masons often give one another - in that case, a job interview of an architect who also happened to be a Mason (played by Eric Idle) whose model building exploded in flames during the interview, which was still chosen over the better - and less incendiary - building model of another non-Mason architect, played by John Cleese. He then went on this diatribe about the damn Freemasons ruining everything, etc., etc.

The interesting thing is that there were, in fact, so many cases of unethical behavior at various levels in the U.K. government between Masons that it caused quite a stir. The straw that broke the camel's back, IIRC, is when a number of Masonic police were giving considerable preferential treatment to convicted criminals who were also Masons. This led to any Mason working for the government to register himself as such. Sad thing is, most Grand Lodges have the rule that, if you're convicted of a crime, you are expelled from Masonry - at least here in the U.S. If that was the case in the U.K., such a thing might never have happened. European Masonry is definitely a very different animal from American Masonry. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not so much...

 

[scotpens]

^^^ Heh - Monty Python did a VERY funny sketch on the Freemasons, exaggerating the odd costuming/aprons/modes of recognition, as well as satirizing the preferential treatment that Masons often give one another - in that case, a job interview of an architect who also happened to be a Mason (played by Eric Idle) whose model building exploded in flames during the interview, which was still chosen over the better - and less incendiary - building model of another non-Mason architect, played by John Cleese. He then went on this diatribe about the damn Freemasons ruining everything, etc., etc.

Actually, the central point of the Architect Sketch is that John Cleese’s design was rejected because he designed a slaughterhouse instead of a block of flats! Then he goes into a tirade about how they wouldn’t let him join the Freemasons, which segues into a spoof of Freemasonry.