How famed director Billy Wilder's career hinged on a crucial face-to-face meeting in Mexico

Also, Abraham Lincoln captured on film and remembering Charles Schulz.

Dear reader,

This week I begin with a story told by Hollywood director Billy Wilder. It’s about his desperate gambit to remain in the United States in the early 1930s. Wilder had fled from his native Austria after witnessing the rise of the Nazi Party and growing antisemitism in neighbouring Germany. When I first read Wilder’s tale, I thought about all…