Historical events that should be turned into movies

Cafe Society
41

Tuckerfan, there was a TV movie about the Indianapolis. What’s his name, John-Boy Walton played a ships doctor or something.

And Danimal, someone DID make a movie about the life of Mohammed. Since there are Muslim restrictions on depicting him, I heard it was told from his POV, as if his eyes were the camera. But I never saw it. When it came out in New York a number of years ago, Islamic extremists took over the theater or something, and there was a big hostage situation. Kind of killed the show. Apparently they had heard info they didn’t like, although they themselves had never seen it. Kind of reminds me of folks who picketed “The Last Temptation of Christ” without seeing the movie.

42

The life of Richard Halliburton (1900-1939). Halliburton was a dilettante and professional loon who made a career of undertaking daredevil travel adventures and writing florid accounts of them. On a trip to Latin America (New Worlds to Conquer), for example, he dove into a Mayan sacrificial well, swam the length of the Panama Canal (paying the lowest toll on record - 36 cents - based on his tonnage), bought a monkey and became an organ-grinder for a while in Argentina, spent a night locked in the cell block on Devil’s Island, and re-enacted the Robinson Crusoe story on Tobago, dressing in goat skins and hiring a bemused local black guy to play the part of Friday (who he called Toosday) in a grass skirt. On another trip he rode an elephant across the Alps in imitation of Hannibal. He drowned when the Chinese junk he was sailing from San Francisco to Hong Kong as yet another publicity stunt went down in a storm.

I also agree with magdalene that the story of the Cortez expedition to Mexico, as seen through the eyes of the foot soldier Bernal Diaz, is one of the most extraordinary stories in world history. Cortez burning his ships behind him to prevent any retreat - the utterly insane bravado of marching straight into the capital of an exotic and ferocious empire and taking the emperor hostage - the defeat of the Noche Triste, when the Spanish survivors battled their way out of the city only to watch from a distant hillside as their captured companions were dragged to the temple altars to have their hearts cut out - and the final conquest, abetted by smallpox and an alliance with the Aztecs’ subject peoples.

43

The Zepplin bombing raids over London in World War 1. From the view of the attackers/airship crews, the defenders {AA gunners & pilots}, & from the civilians view.

Picture this-- someone working quietly in an English garden. A dark shadow covers her. She looks up. And up. And UP! A look of horror, nay, terror comes over her face. A huge airship, covered in German Crosses fills the sky, the roar of it’s engines booming through the theatre.

The bombing raid on London. Everybody thinks they’re in a non-combat zone, a rear area. Safe. For the first time in history, all Hell breaks loose from the sky in a major city.
Nobody in the British government expected anything like this. However horrible, a historic first.

44

Sofa King there was a recent TV movie about the battle of Trenton called The Crossing. I thought it was pretty good in fact.

45

I assume you mean “…not as depicted by Shakespeare”? :smiley:

(Suddenly, I feel like watching Henry V again…)

The Wars of the Roses would be a good one, too, Shakespearean text or no.

46

Actually such a movie has been made, since I saw part of it on the TV. Sorry, but I don’t remember any specifics, like what was the title or who was the realisator. I didn’t really payed it the attention you think it deserves.

47

Don’t you think that probably a lot of german movies have been made about German’s unification? Concerning the japanese unification, I know there has been japanese movies about it, since I read threads about them on another board (dedicaced to a game made about this war). And by the way (I don’t know that much about cinema), don’t several of Kurosawa’s movies take place during this era?

48

How about the Canadian/British/US raid on Dieppe in 1942?

http://www.valourandhorror.com/DB/BACK/Dieppe.htm

49

I did see such a movie, years ago, on the TV. I don’t know if it is the one you’re refering to. In the one I saw, Mohammed appeared, but was always seen from the back (you never see his face).

50

After re-reading this thread I am wondering why so many(not all) of the events we would like to see are about wars. I’m a military veteran and not a pacifist by any means, but this has just made me curious.

51

WWII, oh wait…

52

Already done. OK, it’s a mini-serie, but…

53

tells a different story than the one Preminger did. It’s extremely interesting reading.

54

Tuckerfan, there’s already a couple of movies about the Johnstown Flood, but they’re both strictly documentary-type things. You can see them at the two flood museums in Johnstown (downtown, and at the dam site). If you want a Central Character to build the movie around, one candidate would be the railroad engineer who tied down the cord on his engine’s whistle, and pulled out all the stops on the route from the dam to Johnstown, trying to warn the townsfolks.

55

Yeah, but what about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919?

Incidentally, dirigible bombing was covered pretty well in Hell’s Angels.

(You know, I’m starting to get the impression that a lot of these stories go get made, just not for major release.)

56

Probably with the media’s fondness for sex and violence the only one I can think of making it on to the screen would be,

“The Rape of the Sabine Women”

Actually, one I would love to see would be based on Gene Fowler’s book Timberline. It is the biography of the Denver Post founders and is delightful. The two guys who started the paper were a bartender and a conman. Among other things they did: they painted their office bright red, got shot up, collected circuses, funded children’s hospitals, started people like Damon Runyon on their journalistic paths and pretty much built a city.

57

There already is one. In tradition of Finnish war movies, it doesn’t beat, CAN’T beat, The Unknown Soldier, the essential Finnish war movie and book (book being required reading in all schools). Still, I’m being told it’s quite good, actually.

Now, Marshall Mannerheim. That movie might actually be quite interesting. Marshall Mannerheim certainly lived an interesting life - born in Swedish-speaking family of aristocratic lineage, enlisting in Russian army, being sent to China as Czar’s envoy/spy, then fighting Japanese in Russo-Japanese war, leading the White side against Reds in Finnish civil war, and after all this, finding time to inspire Finns to fight Russian armies to standstill in Winter War and negotiating an end to Continuation War as a President. Having Renny Harlin direct it is, however, a slight drawback. You half except to see Marshall speaking Nokia MT or taking a sip of Finlandia vodka.

58

My favorite would be the life of George W. Bush.

No, not THAT one. George Washington Bush.

I’m not making this up. This Bush was the man most
responsible for Washington state being part of the US
instead of Canada.

As a successful middle-aged businessman he bankrolled
(and participated in ) one of the first wagon trains over
the Oregon Trail in the 1840s. When they arrived in
Astoria the British tried to convince them to go
south of the Columbia River, because the Brits wanted to keep Americans out of what is now Washington, but his whole
group chose to take the riskier choice north.

Why? Because Bush could not legally enter Oregon. There was a law against Blacks there, and Bush was a free Black.

Apparently one of the reasons he succeeded in the North
was that he could speak French and got along well with the
Quebecois voyageurs who didn’t like the British anyway.

He founded Tumwater, WA and when virtually no one had
crops, he gave his harvest away for free, or at cost.
When the Indians rebelled the leader, Leschi, told
him no one in Tumwater had bothered the Indians so
his town would not be bothered.

One of the first acts of the WA territorial legislature was
to ask Congress to make an exception to the law
that no Blacks could own land in Washington. Bush’s family
was allowed to do so.
Other stories:

Stephen Decatur in the war with the Barbary pirates. Especially the time he and a few sailors swam to a grounded
US ship, fought off the enemies on board and destroyed
it.

Robert W. Carter III, the obnoxious, elitist, patronizing,
snob - who just happened to free his 500 slaves, more
than any other individual in US history.

And a crazy little story I read about 19th century Birch Bay, Washington,about a non-sailor who accidentally wound up sailing a ship solo across to Vancouver Island - three days with no food but an uncooked goose.
On the bright side, Hollywood would probably screw up the stories if they ever did them…

59

How soon they forget. The big-budgt Life of Muhammed was Mohammed: Messenger of God, also released under the tiele The Message. It was made by a Muslim cmpany and starred Anthony Qinn as one f Mohammed’s relatives (Ali?) It was being shown in Washington D.C. when a group of Hanafi Muslims took some people hostage and demanded the film be withdrawn. After that there was understandably little interest in running the film elsewhere.

It quietly made its was onto video, but I’ve only seen it in two video stores. It’s now available on DVD, if you’re interested.

I’m sorry, myself, about the incident. American understanding abut Midle-Eastern culture in general and abut Islam in particular has always been pretty shaky at best. It’s all well and good to sa that Americans don’t care about other cultures, but there’s little opportunity, either. The historical epics from the 1960s – El Cid and Lawrence of Arabia cast Muslims in a good light (I’ll argue for that point), but there has been less of it since.

Since the film’s backers were Muslim, they understood the need to be respectful of the subject matter. The Prophet was never shown - his presence was indicated by his items (his cane, etc.). I think at one point you saw his shadow. You did’t see him from behind.

60

Here’s the IMDB on The Message. Anthony Quin plays Hamza. Irene Pappas and Michael Ansara are in it, too!

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0074896