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.
Ben Hur; I’m not positive but I think it took some liberties with the historical record...;-D
Earthquake 1975 and I can’t think of the other..probably saw it though..
LOLOL
I’ve forgotten the show’s name but I just saw some piece of History Channel junk with a CW officer riding a freaking Friesian stallion into battle.
Looked great...never would’ve happened.
I don’t think Moses ever set foot near a chariot.
Earthquake?
He said -historical- movies, not fiction.
:)
Wholly Moses!
Rider played the part of one of the troubled girls who started the whole thing. All the girls involved with this event were too young to have an affair with anyone.
The whole movie was filmed on the estate of Rebecca Nurse/Nourse, in Danvers, Mass.. I know this from my genealogy.
Braveheart was rubbish.
Rollercoaster was the other. And apparently, I’ve been misspelling it. Very interesting story on the short-lived fad:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround
One of two movies my parents took me to as a kid!
The other was “The Sound of Music”. (Hmm - I wonder how accurate that one was!? I’m thinking it might have been halfways okay?)
As for another accurate one: “We Were Soldiers Once and Young” was fairly accurate I believe.
Windtalkers: Each Navajo Codetalker in WWII Pacific theater was assigned a white marine who would act as their personal buddy as well as assassin the moment it looked like the Navajo might be captured by the Japanese. I saw the History Channel doing a “Hollywood or History” segment on this with several of the Navajo Codetalkers (they never used the term “Windtalkers”) and it was clear they found the idea of having assassins assigned to watch over them ridiculous.
Live & Let Die cranked it on for the poppy field blowup scene & the theme song....
PT-109, any other PT boat Captain that allowed his boat to get rammed by a Destroyer would have been court-martialed.
“Memphis Belle”
Every bad thing that ever happened to every B-17 crew was jammed into this poor excuse for a historical movie.
If you want to watch the REAL story, here’s William Wyler’s version: http://www.archive.org/details/MemphisBelle
The worst would have to be the new Star Trek movie.
~Ordnance~
:)
???
That movie is still the gold standard for boat chase scenes, imho.
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