A friend said his father saw ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and said that if you’d had a camcorder there that is pretty much what it would have looked like.
Glad I never had to find out
(tried to join the army 3 times as but “too deaf to fire artillery”)
Theres a 1960 british horror movie called the flesh and the fiends (us title: mania). Its based on the true story of serial killers burke and hare who sold the bodies of their victms to medical teacher doctor knox. Not too sure, but it looks pretty accurate.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flesh_and_the_Fiends
Heres the full movie
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmt9ht_the-flesh-and-the-fiends_shortfilms
When a movie begins with the words Based on a True Story you have no way to gauge how accurate it is. Those weasel words can describe anywhere from 1 to say 99% accuracy in what you see following on the screen. But most assume it gives the movie authenticity and if it is a well done movie it often becomes the accepted history of whatever the movie is about.
The stuff about 5 shillings a month and freedom for every black who joined the Continental army is utter hogwash. The brutality perpetrated by the British is fantasy as well -- "Tavington," presumably supposed to Tarleton, (who survived the war, contrary to the film), got his reputation for brutality mostly from Waxhaws, which wasn't even as brutal as commonly thought. Burning down churches filled with women and children? No, not so much. Speaking of Waxhaws, Abraham Buford was in command of the continental forces, not General Gates. The scene where someone on a horse, shoots somebody else galloping on a horse in the distance with a pistol -- I don't know how many of you have actually shot flintlock pistols, but I can tell you, hitting a tree at 20 yards is iffy, never mind a galloping man 60 yards away! Great Danes, were not known by that name until much later than the movie is set. The guy talking about "killing a thousand redcoats" at Bunker Hill -- British casualties were actually about 200 killed, 800 wounded. There is when the Patriot is talking about butchering French soldiers and sending their remainders up the Ashuelot River...Which is in New Hampshire. Oops. The Patriot pays for supplies with a five dollar bill bearing Abraham Lincoln's mug. I could go on and on. They got the uniforms and a lot of the other clothes wrong, the weapons wrong, they even got the spurs and the window blinds wrong! The film is a joke. An absolute joke.
Idiocracy.
Shoah.
Twelve O’Clock High
Memphis Belle
The Battle of Midway (John Ford)
Jim Thorpe, All American
Knute (with Ronald Reagan)
King of Kings
The Greatest Game Ever Played
Add:
A Night To Remember
Far and away the most historically accurate film I’ve seen was The Last Emperor (1987). Bertolucci (the director) nailed it with that one.
“Moneyball”.
I talked with people who had a lot more knowledge than me and they said it was fairly accurate.
Great movie.
.
RUSH, race car movie.
Comments?
Gimme Shelter
Son of the Morning Star about Custer. Ruined only by the occasion whiney Indian women narration.
Idiocracy.
Depicts the events prior to the election of Barak Obama.
Only the race was changed.
The Final Countdown. I was on the Nimitz when we hit this storm, and by damn, the whole Jap fleet was sitting out there. I was just a cook, so they didn’t tell me if we got them or not.
John Adams, the HBO mini series.
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” was right on the money