"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"
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.
Great...another Roots hater. Yes, it was fiction, we know that. But don’t give us any damn stories about happy singing slaves.
I always get a kick out of The Commancheros. Clean shaven, showered Texas Rangers in freshly pressed shirts riding around pre-statehood Texas in disciplined column of twos like Prussian lancers. Equipped with copious quantities of repeating Winchester rifles and Colt revolver models not designed for another thirty to forty years. Fun movie.
>>> At least Midway tried to maintain a thread of historical accuracy
Mainly what Midway tried to do was see how many clips they could steal from older war movies to keep production costs down, and thereby take away time from Charleton Heston’s over-emoting regarding his son to the bare tolerable minimum. Midway recycles much of Tora Tora Tora’s attack scenes, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, Away All Boats, and about a dozen more.
I was probably way too young but would have probably loved that.
Wss Moses in Ben Hur? Or was that the Pharoah?
Jailhouse Rock.
Chuck Connors as a tall blue-eyed Geronimo.
I win.
Concur about Battle of the Bulge. The one thing I liked about it was Robert Shaw’s performance as Col Hessler. Whenever I think of a stereo-typical Nazi officer, I think of him. Paradoxically, Robert Shaw was Jewish.
I wanted my money back after watching that horrible letdown.
The Bustert Keaton Story. It was as if there was a generic Hollywood biopic script sitting around and the studio execs just shoehorned a few actual Keaton bits into it.
"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"
Pearl Harbor. Even a very not guilty Kate Beckinsale could save that turkey.
Bridge on the River Kwai
Great movie study of human character, but really bad history.
About the only historical accuracy in “The Patriot” is the costuming.
I sure hope your female... nah, not really.... but are you blonde??
/joking
Forget it, he’s rolling...
Historical accuracy about King Arthur?
I’ve only found a few, The Longest Day, Tora Tora Tora, A Night to Remember, and unbelievable Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center are some of them. Military movies do better, I guess because they are better documented with a little less political spin.
There are some errors but the filmmakers made an effort. Midway, the original uncut which is difficult to find, has some good accurate military stuff but they insisted on adding a totally inane idiotic love story and drama.
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