Emily Blunt Will Play Pinkerton Detective Kate Warne In New Co-Production With Dwayne Johnson
By Joshua Meyer/Aug. 12, 2021 6:16 pm EST
As Wikipedia notes, Warne was the woman responsible for uncovering the plot to assassinate then-president-elect Abraham Lincoln in 1861. The AV Club observes that “We Never Sleep,” Pinkerton’s company motto, “supposedly stems from a restless night she spent watching over president-elect Lincoln during a train journey to Washington D.C.”
The Name “Pinkerton” Makes Some Folks See Red
I’m a fan of Blunt, particularly her work in Sicario, and if anyone could give life to a gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes type, it would be her. That said, I had no idea that Pinkerton’s name was associated with such villainy and I now feel sufficiently guilt-tripped for being ignorant on the matter.
“There’s no clear historical evidence that [Warne] participated in any of the labor violence, strikebreaking, or general violent oppression by the wealthy of the poor that were the Pinkerton’s stock in trade for many decades, and which have rendered the company’s name a go-to watchword for villainy for anyone with even a smidge of labor sympathies in the modern era. (Also, anyone who’s watched Deadwood.)”
