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.
Obewan and Darth vader and princess Leia were all a reverse composite of me.
Its 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.
Who would have ever thought that Chewbacca would ever be living in the White House?
Chewbaccas actually a woman.
I thought it was funny, considering the topic...;D
The Ghost and the Darkness. I had read the book years before, written by the man who killed the lions. When the movie came out, a boring railroad engineer who had to face down man-eating lions was not exciting enough, so they tossed in a fictional Yankee character named Winchester to steal most of the glory.
You can still have the thrill of smoking while at your computer (though for PC reasons, it seems that they've renamed the ashtray "cup holder.")
Mark
Inglourious Basterds is actually on TMC right now.
And none of them had shampoo, conditioner and hairspray. Very few, if any, had combs or brushes.
Did you miss Ted Danson in Saving Private Ryan? He played an LT in the 101st, and was over 50 years old when the film came out.
Ironically, fellow Cheers alum John "Cliff Claven" Ratzenberger had played an LT in the 82nd, years earlier in A Bridge Too Far.
Other inacurate movies...
THE FAR HORIZONS with Charlton Heston and Fred MacMurray. The Lewis and Clark expitition was far more exciting than they made the movie!
Randolph Scott did several movies, one had the OK Corral shootout at NIGHT, and in another there a shootout with outlaws in Ingalls OK. No lawmen were killed but in the real shootout at Ingalls several lawmen were killed.
And in GUNFIGHT AT OK CORRAL there is a discussion of going into a bar in Oklahoma City years before there was an Oklahoma City.
In THE COMMANCHEROS John Wayne talks about Yuma Prison before there was a Yuma.
There is also a deleted scene in the movie which gets mentioned. When Wayne and Whitman reach the Commanchero hideout, they are recognized by the woman there, and she mentions it to one of the men. Where did she see Wayne?
In the first run on TV of the original movie there is a scene where she is leaving the riverboat as John Wayne is also boarding the riverboat to arrest Paul Regret. they pass each other and he tips his hat to her and makes eye contact. That scene is missing from all COMMANCHERO movies since then.
Disney’s DAVY CROCKETT. One of my favorites but very inaccurate.
Scenes missing...When Davy first meets Thimblerig he tries to find the pea under the thimbles. Davy says the pea in in the middle thimble, then grabs the two outside thimbles and lifts them to show there is nothing there, therefore denying Thimblerig the chance to cheat him.
Back in the 60’s and 70’s we smoked everywhere.
Back in those days people weren’t pussies like today.
Quit complaining, trooper, and get back to your post. ;-)
****The Ghost and the Darkness. I had read the book years before,***
THE MANEATERS OF TSALVO. I read it many times. the movie is very much like the book except for the addition of the Michael Douglas character, and the lions were maneless males.
This part takes up just several chapters in the book, the rest is mostly about building the railroad, and hunting.
FWIW, the train scenes in the desert with the fight scene on the logs was filmed using a locomotive of the Magma Railroad and most of the film footage was shot behind the high school in Superior, AZ. I had graduated from that high school and was working at the mine and waiting to be drafted at that time. The steam locomotive was in use until 1972 when the local smelter with it’s machine shop was closed (parts for the locomotive all had to be fabricated).
King Arthur can’t be that bad because it’s a fictional character. You get more license with fictional characters for obvious reasons.
I get that SENSAROUND experience every time some asshat with a souped up subwoofer playing hip hop cruises down my street.
Braveheart. Those who don’t know the real story adored the film. Those who do, cringed.
The movie I was babbling about is “How the West Was Won”.
And then there is BRIGHAM YOUNG with Tyrone Power. The true story of the mormon leader is not all true. I’ll stop there as this may lead to a thread hijacking.
There’s the famous one from DeMille: “The Crusades.”
As usual, every detail of costume and setting is nailed down, but when Richard the Lionheart gets married, the priest is using the Book of Common Prayer.
“Gangs of New York” attempted to do a sympathetic portrait of New York Irish gangs which is why the part of those gangs murdering blacks during the NY draft riots is glossed over. Also the Pug Uglies were a Baltimore, not NY, gang.
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