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.
Did you know in “Daughters Of Satan”, he appears buck naked?
[the only reason to watch it, really]
;D
Back when it played on TV, everyone I knew was under the impression it was a ‘true story’.
Here’s this, FWIW.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45084
I remember! It also has Larry Csonka, the football player! (Love trivia like that)
I love to play “spot the young and upcoming actor.” Just last week, I was watching “The Mirror Cracked” on Netflix with friends, and there was a non speaking part that lasted just a few seconds in a dark room. Suddenly one woman pops up and says “That’s Pierce Brosnan”.
We all looked and said, no, we rewound it, looked again, no, - but then we looked it up and sure enough it was him. He gets to put his head on Elizabeth Taylor’s ample bosom. And how’s that for a starter part?
Earthquake and rollercoaster.
I didnt have to look it up....what do I win?
I love the part when they were on the upturned hull of the Oklahoma, dozens of feet above the surface of the water, trying to cut through to rescue trapped crew. When they cut through, water comes gushing out. I guess the laws of physics don't extend to Hawaii.
You are aware that it was the movie version of a fictionalized account of the trial first performed on the stage, aren’t you? And they never claimed otherwise?
Check again. Danson's character is a lieutenant colonel.
“...and it was clear they found the idea of having assassins assigned to watch over them ridiculous.”
Well, I’m sure they never let them in on that little detail.
In the movie PT-109 the hapless crew having just rescues a squad of marines runs put of fuel and begins drifting back into the japanese infested lagoon. So they didn’t put anchors on PT boats? WTH? If that story is true JFK was incompetent.
In the movie PT-109, the hapless crew having just rescued a platoon of Marines from the beach ,runs out of fuel and begins drifting back into the Japanese Army infested lagoon. So what gives? They didn’t put anchors on PT boats? WTH? If that anecdotal story is true then JFK was incompetent.
“Blue Max” was a great WWI aviation war movie. The actors were mostly great in their roles with the jarring exception of lead actor George Peppard. Way too American for his role as a German.
Of course he did. He was raised as a prince of Egypt, who constantly used chariots in war and hunting.
Actually, I did check again. His character is credited as, “Captain Fred Hamill” making us both wrong. It’s been a while since I saw the movie, but for some reason, I was under the impression he was playing an LT.
I think the winner has to be the recent Robin Hood with Russell Crowe.
Manages to get King Richard killed off in France without ever being captured and held for ransom, which was just the biggest and most important event in English history for decades. Dang near bankrupted the country.
Also has the French launching an invasion of England that never occurred.
Not to mention the obligatory PC Maid Marion charging into combat in full armor.
Although I really like the ending where instead of staying up on the cliffs and shooting the French full of arrows without risk the themselves, they went down in the beach and fought them hand to hand. Even medieval knights weren’t that stupid.
Thanks for posting that. That’s really interesting and the truth is even worse than I knew. I assumed Haley was correct regarding the names of his ancestors and simply fictionalized everything about their lives. This says he even got his ancestors names wrong and he didn’t even write the book! I didn’t know that! Does that sound like anyone we know?
At any rate, to my knowledge Roots has always been listed as a work of fiction and on top of that the miniseries was never an accurate representation of the novel. Those who thought it was actual history are the same type of people who voted obama.
I read that - even she said the father was the nice one...
And let's not forget THE NORTH STAR with Farley Granger and Walter Huston as happy Ukrainian peasant villagers resisting the nasty German invasion of the delightful USSR.
Well bless your little pea-pickin’ heart.
Plagerizing doesn’t indicate whether the original source material is fiction or not. It just says the written account was copied from another source without credit. So I don’t exactly see your point. The material Haley stole may be the only part of Roots that is in any way accurate.
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