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.
i know. But put the chunky guys in the back, at least.
I remember that!
The Da Vinci Code.
Patton. Loved it when it came out but I’ve learned it was a caricature of the real man. No much better than Battle o the Bulge. patton was a brilliant modern general, not a cartoon figure romantic stuck in the past.
As for Battle of the Bulge, it’s a cartoon but oddly it contains the main elements of what happened. There was a single general who was warning of an impending counterattack, etc.
The final scene on the pier was kinda depressing though. Two dozen tourists in aloha shirts greeting the fleet returning from one of the most epic victories in naval history. Prolly shoulda ended the movie differently.
The Confederates were so emaciated that their dead didn’t stink nearly as bad as the well-fed dead of the North, or so I’ve read somewhere.
“Munich”- there’s a scene towards the beginning where one of the Israeli hostages/athletes takes a knife and jams it into the skull of the of the terrorists after pushing him against the wall- never happened- none of the pali terrorists were killed in the olympic compound and none of those who died did so at the hand of any Israeli....
completely and totally unnecessary scene- glad i never paid to see the flick...
Inglourious Basterds. I keed. I keed.
Man on the Moon; The People versus Larry Flynt; say..Milos Foreman made those..I see a pattern..
My favorite is KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS, with Rex Harrison all corked up as Saladin. Hilarious.
Generally speaking, I don’t know why Hollywood insists on inserting fiction into movies based on historical events when the facts themselves would make fantastic films. Midway and the Patriot are examples. There was no reason at all to embellish the truth.
Hirohito’s order to switch ordinance from torpedos to bombs. But for that one decision, this world would look quite different today.
Robin Hood; Prince Of Thieves with Kevin Costner playing the “Yankee hick version”.
I remember it quite well..we all laughed when a disclaimer was announced before the flick..too bad I dislocated my spine..but it was worth it!!!!!!!
But The Conqueror was historically immaculate. Genghis Khan was too from Texas.
Mission to Moscow: According to that movie Stalin was correct in his paranoia about Trostkyite spies working for the Germans and sabotaging factories.
Like I said, the truth was fantastic enough.
I agree but Clive is mega-hot so who cares?
LOL
Pop quiz (don’t Google it!):
Name two other films shown in SENSOROUND.
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