# Are there any Spanish-American War movies?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-spanish-american-war-movies/431045
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 23, 2007, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-spanish-american-war-movies/431045 "2007-12-23T20:33:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-spanish-american-war-movies/431045/1 "2007-12-23T20:33:39Z")
Followup on [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=448795) thread. The [Spanish-American War](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish-american_war) established the U.S. for the first time as a Great Power on a global scale and almost finished off Spain as an imperial power – and it had Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders in it – and it won us the permanent possession of Puerto Rico (a necessary precondition to _West Side Story)_ – yet I can’t remember ever seeing a movie about it. Are there any?
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### Author:  [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-spanish-american-war-movies/431045/2 "2007-12-23T21:22:21Z")
TNT had a miniseries (4 hours) on Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders a few years back.
Tom Berenger played Teddy Roosevelt. It wasn’t too bad. It actually showed how hard it was to find any sort of action in that war.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-spanish-american-war-movies/431045/3 "2007-12-24T18:10:35Z")
[QUOTE=BobT]
It actually showed how hard it was to find any sort of action in that war.
[/QUOTE]
I do recall one of the leaders at that time, I forget which one, said, “It wasn’t much of a war, but it was the only war we had.”
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### Author:  [@Saratoga\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saratoga_Sam)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-spanish-american-war-movies/431045/4 "2007-12-24T18:20:51Z")
There were a couple of early silent film shorts about San Juan Hill and the “Battle” for Manila Bay made before WWI. Though its not strictly about the combat, _Yellow Jack_ (1938) covers Dr Walter Reed’s struggle against Yellow Fever in Cuba during 1898-1900.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-spanish-american-war-movies/431045/5 "2007-12-24T18:25:05Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
I do recall one of the leaders at that time, I forget which one, said, “It wasn’t much of a war, but it was the only war we had.”
[/QUOTE]
I think that was T.R. himself. Someone later joked that, in typesetting his book about the war, the publisher had run out of the letter “I.” Someone else joked that it should be subtitled _Alone in Cuba_.
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### Author:  [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-spanish-american-war-movies/431045/6 "2007-12-24T18:57:35Z")
[QUOTE=BobT]
TNT had a miniseries (4 hours) on Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders a few years back.
Tom Berenger played Teddy Roosevelt. It wasn’t too bad. It actually showed how hard it was to find any sort of action in that war.
[/QUOTE]
Hearst is supposed to have said to one of his reporters covering the war, “You give me the local color and I’ll provide the war.” Welles later cribbed that for _Citizen Kane._
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2007, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-spanish-american-war-movies/431045/7 "2007-12-26T17:58:24Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
Hearst is supposed to have said to one of his reporters covering the war, “You give me the local color and I’ll provide the war.” Welles later cribbed that for _Citizen Kane._
[/QUOTE]
The way I read it, it was, “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.” Welles changed “pictures” to “prose poems.”