Western Movies RUINED by Anachronistic Costumes

Self | March 11, 2010 | PJ-Comix

[PJ-Comix]

I have a HUGE pet peeve. It is western movies in which the characters are wearing embarrassingly modern clothing. Most often it is the hats. If you look at photos or illustrations of the Old West at the time, the hats look very different from what we usually see in the movies. For example, yesterday I watched "September Dawn" about the Mountain Meadows Massacre but I couldn't get over the fact of the silly looking hats that folks back then did NOT wear. One IMDB commenter stated that those hats looked like something people wear on their way to a Garth Brooks concert.

One of the few movies that seemed to get authentic Western look was "Tombstone" which helped in appreciating that excellent movie. Unfortunately most of the Western movies are completely off-base in their costuming. Another thing that really bugs me about Western movies is when they have women dressed in jeans. Back then women ALWAYS wore dresses. NEVER pants. Any exposure of female legs or even outlines of their legs was considered as nudity back then. Oh, and when women rode horses...they only rode side-saddle.

Okay, sorry for the rant but way too many Western movies are RUINED by costume designers too lazy to research for authentic clothing.

[Inyo-Mono]

If one is unable to suspend their disbelief, it will not be a good experience.

Yes, but fo me, it certainly adds to that experience when you see a film like Tombstone where they get the clothes and dialog right. Imagine a film made 50 years from now about the 1960s showing everyone using PCs, cell phones and Blackberry's? That is what it is like watching a Western where they don't get it "right."

[Spok]

And interestingly, Lt. Col. G. A. Custer was fond of thoroughbreds and whippets.

[Brugmansian]

Yale University students in 1872:

"The third Yale College Scientific Expedition was the smallest of the 4 student expeditions that O.C. Marsh took into the field. The plan of attack was to work the Cretaceous chalk around Fort Wallace and then later move base of operations to Wyoming. An Army escort commanded by Lieut. James W. Pope, and the assistance of Ed Lane as guide, were secured before the party set out from Fort Wallace that summer."

"The early portion of the field season, in Kansas, was especially successful. Specimens of both Hesperornis and Ichthyornis were discovered" . . . more

Yale Students in 1970:

[wbill]

Tossing in my uninvited $0.02....

A long, long time ago....I watched the movie "The Battle of Bulge" with my Grandfather. Dunno if you've ever seen the flick; it was a real 60s barn-burner with Henry Fonda and (I think) Telly Savalas.

Anyway, after it was over, I asked Grandpa (who had seen the movie up close, personal, and in full technicolor when it was first scripted, lol) what he thought about it.

Grandpa replied that "It was a fine movie..." (he'd never say anything bad) "But the people in it didn't look cold enough."

Now, everytime I watch any war flick, that's how I rate it. How miserably unhappy to be there do the characters look?

Not to hijack the thread, but Band of Brothers knocked the "misery index" out of the park, IMHO. I never watched BoB with Grandpa, though. Wish I had.

[bcsco]

The Colt .45 (Peacemaker) came out in 1873 as the Cold Army Model with 7-1/2” barrel. It was accepted by the military as the officer/cavalry side-arm. The 7th Cavalry carried them at the Little Big Horn. It also came in .44-40.

Their long arm was the 1873 ‘Trapdoor’ Springfield in .45-70. It came in both rifle (infantry) and carbine (cavalry) models.

Both Remington and Smith & Wesson had competing models. The various S&W model 3 came in various configurations including the Russian, the Schofield and the American. And Remington had its 1875 model.

I have a Winchester 1886 in .40-82 hanging on my office wall behind me. It shipped from the factory in 1895. That’s a heavier frame model with heavier octagon barrel. The 1886 was marketed for big game.

[La Lydia]

Each to his own. Howling anachronisms distract from my enjoyment of movies and TV.

[Inyo-Mono]

All true, but that was the Army, and they had the latest equipment. Your average “Westerner” in the 1870s ould have carried a Remington or Colt conversion. Colt made thousands of conversion models in the early 1870s.

I have a Model 1873 Winchester in .44-40 hanging on my wall, but the Henry Rifle and Model 1866 Winchester (like the guy in the Yale picture in the post above is holding) were more common in the 1870s.

[niteowl77]

Just because something is long out of fashion doesn’t mean there won’t be people dressed that way.

Of course there are anomalies, but it is ridiculous to have -for example - the majority of characters in a "riverboat" interior scene dressed up like someone's idea of an antebellum Natchez dandy when a film is set in the 1890's.

[bcsco]

To me, Tombstone is the better movie. I see more accuracies in it than in Wyatt Earp. I’ve spent decades reading on the ‘Old West’, so have some knowledge of the Earps. Kurt Russell WAS Wyatt in that movie. I have trouble seeing Wyatt in Costner’s portrayal.

However, Quaid’s portrayal of Doc Holliday was more accurate in some ways than Kilmer’s was in Tombstone, though both were strong characterizations. Holliday was more affable than Kilmer portrayed him. He was a Southern gentleman and dentist by profession, who slid into gambling, once diagnosed with tuberculosis.

My major problem with both movies is ‘encapsulating’ time. For instance, both show Virgil and Morgan Earp being ambushed at, or near, the same time. Actually, they were ambushed 3 months apart. Some of the vendetta material is encapsulated as well, as is Holliday’s death.

[oyez]

My great grandfather was German, not long off the boat, at that. He ventured west and became the first sheriff of Winslow, Arizona.

[bcsco]

All true, but that was the Army, and they had the latest equipment. Your average “Westerner” in the 1870s ould have carried a Remington or Colt conversion. Colt made thousands of conversion models in the early 1870s.

Oh, I know. I wasn't trying to correct you. There were far more conversion models during the 70's than newer Colts. And the Colt/Remington Army Models from the Civil War were still carried by many, un-converted ones I might add.

For some time, it was thought that Earp carried a Colt Buntline Special at the OK Corral shootout. Ned Buntline, the author, had supposedly given five of the pistols with 16" barrels to people like Earp. However, Earp was known to have carried his pistol in his coat pocket that day. Kinda hard for a pistol with a 16" barrel. Later, it was believed that he carried a silver-plated and engraved .45 S&W American. Yet that's been pretty much debunked, and it's been discovered that Buntline indeed did order and receive a number of 12" barrel special Colts. Still a long gun for a coat pocket, but who knows... That's just one of the many interesting 'arms' stories that came out of that era.

[oyez]

"Battleground" with Van Johnson rated high on the misery index, if you ask me.

[the long march]

then I guess you won’t watch much in the way of period pieces.

[La Lydia]

Actually, I do. “Marie Antoinette” from 2006 was meticulously accurate. As was “The Ideal Husband” and the delightful “Cold Comfort Farm.” As was the British version of “Life on Mars.” Also: “The Wings of the Dove,” the flash-back segments of “Dead Again.” It can be done.

[Inyo-Mono]

Oh, I know. I wasn't trying to correct you. There were far more conversion models during the 70's than newer Colts. And the Colt/Remington Army Models from the Civil War were still carried by many, un-converted ones I might add.

Sorry I didn't mean to give the impression that I thought you were trying to correct me. What you say is true, in fact the notorious gunfighter ("man-killer," or "gunman" as they were called in the 1870s), John Wesley Hardin, was carrying a cap 'n ball Colt Army .44 when he was captured in 1877.

[bcsco]

Cowboys, when working, also often didn't carry pistols or rifles on them. It was too dangerous. If they carried a pistol, it was more likely in their saddle bag than on their hip. And some holsters were attached to the saddle. Pistols for a long time were known as 'saddle guns'.

In fact, holsters weren't that much a common commodity in the West. The average town person had little need for one. Nor did all law enforcement officers wear them as a matter of course. Hollywood overplays that fact as well. Any number of cities, even in the far West, had police departments where uniformed officers (just as today) were the norm. This photo of Ben Thompson as city marshal of Austin, TX is an example...

[Canedawg]

Both of the women in those photos look very masculine.

I suppose we should be happy that Hollywood directors have the actresses look like women (Sharon Stone in Unforgiven for one) in their films.

[Inyo-Mono]

Yes, even Wild Bill was carrying only a pocket pistol, a S&W .32 rimfire, when he was killed in Deadwood in 1876.

[ottbmare]

Well, they did have Thoroughbreds in this country in the 1860s, so Custer on TB is not an anachronism. And I don’t really mind Aragorn riding around on a baroque-breed horse, the Lord of the Rings is fantasy. I tell you what, though, cowboys in the nineteenth century surely did not ride Appaloosas, and there were no Aps in the War Between the States.

[Little Bill]

My Family went West in the 1840’s, you never went to Church smelling like a goat. It was the one time of the week when the community got together and how you looked determined who you where.