Posted on 09/24/2011 4:19:32 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
I am a huge history buff so and enjoy watching movies about events in the past. However, many of these movies really irk me because they are incredibly inaccurate as to the historical facts. Here is a sampling of movies that have bugged me due to their historical inaccuracies:
1. Battle of the Bulge: So just how inaccurate was this 1965 movie? So inaccurate that former President Eisenhower who was Supreme Commander of the Allies in Europe denounced this film in a press conference. To watch this movie you would think that some Boston detective was able to predict all the German tactical moves based on such police work as shutting off the engine of a spotter plane in the middle of a fog bank in order to hear sounds of tank treads. Oh, and the German Panzers looked exactly like M47 Patton tanks which is what they were. As to the heavily forested Ardennes forest, at times it looked like a deforested western prairie.
2. Gunfight at the OK Corral: Couldn't Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp have bothered to grow a mustache or at least wear a fake one? The cleanshaven Earp in that movie is a slap at the intelligence of anybody with even a little knowledge about Wyatt Earp. Also the real life gunfight took just a few seconds, not at all like the extended gunfight in the movie which did not take place at the OK Corral but NEXT to it.
3. Huns. Why is it that every movie depicting Huns make them look like white guys? In actuality the Huns were a nomadic tribe from deep inside Asia who looked like ugly Mongolians with scarred faces. And the movie Attila the Hun looks like Jack Palance which is just wrong.
4. Confederate uniforms. This really bugs me. Civil War movies which depict Confederates late in the war wearing immaculate uniforms. Only officers had uniforms at that stage of the war that were in decent shape. The uniforms of the average foot soldiers were either one step up from rags or were stolen Federal uniforms dyed a beechnut color. And even those latter uniforms were usually in bad shape.
5. Pearl Harbor: Did anybody else cringe when Franklin D. Roosevelt rose from his wheel chair and walk a few steps to make a point? Guess what? That never happened.
6. The Alamo: Final Mexican attack took place in the dark before daybreak not in the middle of the day as depicted in the film. Also Col. Travis in the movie spoke with a clipped British accent. Oh, and the character of supposed frontiersman Smitty from Tennessee looked and sounded like he was an urban guy from South Philly.
That was filmed onboard Enterprise months before I reported aboard. I only watch the opening scene of flight ops, then I put it back in the case
Why would you even care about that?
This was a really excellent back-story in "Unforgiven" with Gene Hackman and Richard Harris, where Hackman's character sets Harris' "biographer" straight about an event he had "documented."
Ditto for shooting from the hip. Experts say you couldn't hit anything with the revolvers of that era unless you aimed it. And no one shot the revolver out the hands of the bad guy ala The Lone Ranger and countless other good guys.
From what I've been told, once the Colt SAA revolver came out, it was pretty accurate from the outset. And there have been and are some shooters who were perfectly capable of accurate shooting from the hip. The late Bill Jordon (with the US Border Patrol) was a very good example.
Mark
***for instance, they will call a black person “boy”, without being an evil Nazi hater.***
What was the name of the dog in THE DAM BUSTERS? I can’t remember! It is right on the tip of my tongue! Afro-American? No. Blackie? No. Negro? NO. Man this is tough!
Kind of like the cat in THE RATS IN THE WALLS by H P lovecraft.
You are really far off the mark. Roots, the miniseries is based on a work of fiction. Alex Haley wrote a NOVEL and included some characters loosely based on some of his ancestors. I don’t recall him ever saying it was an accurate historical representation of true events and it is listed as literary FICTION. It is not even considered an historical novel of actual people and events such as the book The Killer Angels and the corresponding miniseries Gettysburg. The Roots miniseries departed even further from the novel in order to make it more acceptable for television.
***Reminds me of a movie. It had Tony Curtis in a final scene getting shot with a pistol while wearing full armor.****
TARAS BULBA.
“Cheyenne Autumn” in which Oklahoma looks remarkably like Monument Valley. Also there is an Indian in that movie who looks like he should be pitching “Riiiich Corrrrinthian leather.”
In contrast to the rather plain looking Frida of real life, the movie Frida was really hot (outside of that unibrow) and had great breasts.
—Who were you, TK-421?__
“Man in the Iron Mask.” Sorry. I just don’t buy Leonardo DeCrapio as King Louis XIV. Absolutely no physical resemblance plus DeCrapio was way too modern American.
—Who were you, TK-421?—
Obewan and Darth vader and princess Leia were all a “reverse composite” of me.
It’s complicated. things were different. It was a long time ago and, to be frank, it was in a whole different galaxy. And not even one of the closer ones. It is far, far away.
I guess I used a bad example. “sigh”
At least you didn’t call me a Roots hater.
But then the Boston Bruins chopper in and start kickin’ ass! The Bruins save the American Revolution! Wicked pissa movie!
***Very few cave women had auburn hair.****
Ah yes, I’m thinking of the older version with Victor Mature and Carole Landis.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032871/
I’m sure there are horribly inaccurate nonfiction movies about slavery, but I can’t think of one at the moment.
Spielberg’s Amistad is supposed to be based on a true story of a slave ship, but I never saw the movie, so I’m not sure what inaccuracies it has.
Amistad has numerous inaccuracies according to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amistad_(film)
LOL!
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