Posted on 03/11/2010 8:50:27 AM PST by 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.
Then there’s the proverbial seventh shot from a six-shooter.
some of you guys are missing one of the more authenticate western movies, at least I haven’t seen it listed here and that was “Will Penny” starring Charlton Heston. It’s a great movie.
PJ doesn’t know WTF he’s talking about.
I don’t mind the horses being large and well-groomed. I mind them clearly being AQHA registered Quarter Horses. Or, worse, in movies about English history, having Andalusians. Mel Brook was riding around on an Andalusian or Lusitano—magnificent horses respectively from of Spain and Portugal—in 1300s Scotland. Uh, no.
What annoys me are those good old fashioned fist fight brawls where every has a good time crashing stuff over each others heads and smashing mouths with fists and everyone gets up and walks away as if nothing happened, like daffy duck after dynamite explodes in his face.
I always got a kick out of the sailor that stepped out on the deck of the ship carrying the M-60 machine gun to fire at the Japanese Zero aircraft in the movie "Pearl Harbor"...
The flip side is Westerns supposedly taking place in the 1880’s (or later) but the characters are running around in outfits circa 1850... or the odd penchant for giving characters “Wild Bill/Buffalo Bill” hairstyles even when that look was long out of fashion... or the “historically correct” firearms that weren’t worth a damn at the time but that are fearsomely capable on film...
Huh? You mean the western costumes in most movies ARE accurate?
It does appear that way.
I can not imagine why.
Besides I have seen some that were believable (that is I did not see any problems).
I just figured the person responsible was lazy. There is enough reference material out there (especially on the internet now) that it should not be an issue.
It is a minor pet peeve.
In one scene, Costner walks up to a guy and asks him if he shot Costner's friend. The guy says yes or words to that effect. Costner shoots the guy dead. No warning, no fast gun draw, just shoots him on the spot.
PS: the clothing looked right also. And great cinematography. Canada substituting for Montana.
“I find it hard to believe that all women rode only side-saddle.”
They didn’t. they mostly rode like the men did. On McClellan saddles, the ones with the holes in the middle.
The side saddle was primarily used by the upper classes as they were extremely expensive. I have seen women on side saddle jump fences on the hunt and it is impressive.
In one scene, Costner walks up to a guy and asks him if he shot Costner's friend. The guy says yes or words to that effect. Costner shoots the guy dead. No warning, no fast gun draw, just shoots him on the spot.
PS: the clothing look right also. And great cinematography. Canada substituting for Montana.
For me if its a re-creation of an historical event like the Battle of the Little Big Horn, a Civil War battle, the Revolution, Pirates on the high seas, or something, then I agree. The more authentic the better.
But for just a good old fashion Western such as Silverado, the Magnificent Seven, Once Upon the Time in The West, and many many others, then I could gives a rats rear end when the hat style they are wearing came into being. Why ruin a good movie over details like that?
Oh and did we mentioned the women of the old west? Authenticity would also demand that the women in the movie not look like the Mom on Little House on the Prairie – but more like Nancy Pelosi without makeup, and dressed from toe to neck in black.
One day I was saying that I doubted his sincerity, how could one GI, a mere Corporal see that much combat?
He pulled out a 1200 page photo album, it had him mugging for photos of dead Tiger tanks! Dozens and dozens of knocked out Kraut vehicles. Now, get this, his self propelled gun worked remarkably well against german tanks, if they were engaged upon paved roads! They could bounce the shells under the tank and kill it!
At one point he showed me a picture of Creighton Abrahams, then top dog general in Viet f-ing Nam.
'This m-fer almost got me killed a dozen times' I just thought that he was nuts! Upon sober reflection, I don't think he was lying at all!
Likewise darn near any movie involving a computer: user interfaces all too often are slick hyper-stylized dreamworks having little (if any) resemblance to any GUI past, present or future.
And ... well ... movies in general are depictions of an alternate universe. People don’t talk that way (perfectly delivered witticisms, nary an “um”, “er”, or stutter save for deliberate effect), act that way (always timely and perfect), dress that way (good luck finding a matching outfit), work that way (heck, they never work), or even die that way (”BANG!” “thud!”, no mess). Whatever is shown isn’t history (past present or future).
Movies are in a sense a “seventh Platonic solid” - idealized perfection we think/talk about, but don’t exist.
There are many documtented cases in the old West of shootouts in saloons with mulitple shots fired at very close range and no one hit.
women in the 1950s westerns
I remember even as a kid thinking how tight fitting the bodice of the dress was- absolutely stretched to the max like sewn on.
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