# Historically based movies with gross inaccuracy **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 23, 2010, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712 "2010-07-23T14:09:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/101 "2011-04-24T20:28:56Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Every movie made about the battle of the Alamo has sucked. I think one reason is they rarely address the issue of slavery, which while not the only reason for friction twixt Texicans and Mexicans was definitely on the short list. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/102 "2011-04-24T20:36:21Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I think far more short, plump, very fair-skinned, strawberry-blond actors should be cast in movies. In fact, I think they should be cast in every conceivable part. You’ve got my E-mail address. Let me know when you’re ready to start filming. Can I get your autograph next month at Balticon?🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/103 "2011-04-24T22:50:14Z")
In fairness, with the thread title in mind, I should say that I don’t think elements of a person’s appearance can constitute gross inaccuracies. These are details, and while it’s nice when all the visible details conform to what’s known of the facts, it’s the _characterization_ and _events_ that are really important. Appropriate personal appearances for the actors, like period-correct clothes and weapons and so on, is all good, but can’t make or break the legitimacy of the depiction. ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/104 "2011-04-24T23:50:01Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Ah yes, here we go: [The New Mexico Campaign of 1862](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico_Campaign) by Confederate General Sibley, who I believe is mentioned in the film. A lot of Americans don’t realize how much of the war was fought west of the Mississippi or even in New Mexico. It was even further to the west: the [Battle of Picacho Pass](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Picacho_Pass) is your Confederate high-water mark in the American west while [Stanwix Station](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanwix_Station) could constitute the splash of the high-water. And, for reasons that don’t really have to do with the OP, the current border delineating the Arizona and New Mexico territories was a political move against the Confederacy. My complaint is Apollo 13’s scene involving the explosion of the LOX tank–it suggests that they were flopping around in space like a boat in a squall after the explosion. Nothing like that happened; there was a pop, the attitude control thrusters fired automatically to compensate for change, and the electrical bus voltage dropped in an unexpected fashion, and only when they saw the venting through the windows did they then realize that something very, very bad had happened. It seems to me a better way to build up tension is to have all these problems develop and you don’t know why–until you see a external shot of spacecraft with a Service Module panel blown open venting away and a bugged-eyed astronauts looking out of the Command Module windows. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/105 "2011-04-25T01:04:12Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > In fairness, with the thread title in mind, I should say that I don’t think elements of a person’s appearance can constitute gross inaccuracies. In _general_ I think this is can be a reasonable argument. Henry II probably didn’t look like Captain Picard ( remake of the **Lion in Winter** ), but I don’t think it matters. And a very fat Richard the Lionheart ( and he probably was by the time of his death ) might even confuse people. But there are some pretty egregious exceptions. I think something like a non-fat old Henry VIII in the **Tudors** is kind of distracting. But the queen of them all ( _ahem_ ) is **Elizabeth** with Cate Blanchett. Really that whole film is a horror story of bad history, but what I’m thinking about is ‘Virgin Queen’ facade that is supposedly adopted as a deliberate look by a young Elizabeth for the final visual. As a bit of history it is quite a spit in the eye. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/106 "2011-04-25T02:23:57Z")
Heh. I just watched that, and its sequel, recently. And yes, they belong in this thread. They wouldn’t have been bad movies if they hadn’t been presented as history. The bit about the Virgin Queen “look” in this case I’d call a matter of characterization and event, because it speaks to (or doesn’t) her thinking and decision. It’s much more important than whether she’s shown with red hair or not. ---
**Author:** ![Lethal\_Babydoll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3be4f8/32.png) [@Lethal\_Babydoll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lethal_Babydoll)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/107 "2011-04-25T03:20:50Z")
When the makers of “Quiz Show” were confronted about all the inaccuracies in the film, their defense was basically, “Hey, we had to do it for the entertainment value.” Which – to my delight – was exactly the explanation the quiz show people gave for rigging the games. And which this overly serious and not very factual film was on it’s high-horse about. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/108 "2011-04-25T03:44:44Z")
> [@user\_hostile](#): > > It was even further to the west: the [Battle of Picacho Pass](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Picacho_Pass) is your Confederate high-water mark in the American west while [Stanwix Station](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanwix_Station) could constitute the splash of the high-water. And, for reasons that don’t really have to do with the OP, the current border delineating the Arizona and New Mexico territories was a political move against the Confederacy. What I think of as odd when it comes to _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_ actually has to do with the first film in the trilogy, _A Fistful of Dollars_. There’s a scene in a small cemetery, and several dates of death are clearly in the 1870s. And yet we have the third one set during the Civil War. Of course, Sergio Leone had no way of knowing at the time how successful it and the second film would be, leading to the five-star third instalment, but it’s still amusing. I suppose _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_ could be considered a prequel, at least to the first movie (Blondie meets Angel Eyes for the first time in the second one, _For a Few Dollars More_), but then why would he need to get mixed up in a town’s troubles like that just to pick up some cash? ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/109 "2011-04-25T04:55:59Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > In Biblical stories, Jews often have a British accent instead of sounding like Fran Drescher or Gilbert Gottfried, which would be much closer to the truth. Not up on their biographical details as much as I should be, but don’t their accents trail through Germany and Brooklyn, which the Jewish diaspora would not drag their families through for one and two millennia after the later Biblical stories occurred, respectively? (Hard to have a Yiddish inflection when the language was still centuries away from being invented…) ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/110 "2011-04-25T06:44:53Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Oliver Stones JFK > > I shudder to think how many people think it’s history. Absolutely disagree with you here. The movie clearly states that the movie was based in large part on two books. 1. On the Trail of the Assassins, by Jim Garrison and 2. Crossfire, The Plot that Killed Kennedy by Jim Maars Should it be viewed as the events of record for the assassination? Absolutely not. Stone himself made it very clear that he took license with certain scenes to make the movie flow better and/or make characters more interesting. For example, the man that Garrison fires right before the Clay Shaw trial was a combination of people in the AG’s office, and Stone collapsed them down to one. So many things attributed to him were not actually said by him, but by someone else in the AG’s office. I say big deal to this, especially if the underlying facts aren’t corrupted. I read both of those books. Not just once, but a number of times each, as well as many other books focusing on the assassination. They are all fascinating reading. If you disagree with the premise that Oswald was part of a conspiracy, I understand your concern. But to me, this version is just as valid as any warren report-centric movie that focuses on Oswald only and doesn’t look at anything that might point away from him. I don’t know what happened in Dallas that day, but I think JFK is a lot closer to the truth than the fictional Warren Report. And it’s not like Stone tried to hide what he was doing. He documented the movie and its sources; if someone were really interested, all they had to do was read the books he said the movie was based on. There is only one thing in the movie that did not correspond to either book, and was always used as an example to discredit Stone. Mr X, played by Donald Sutherland on Garrison’s visit to Washington wasn’t actually unknown. Mr. X was in actuality Fletcher Prouty, and he’s written a book or two on the subject as well. The meeting also didn’t take place in DC, but Chicago (if memory serves). This was the creative license Stone used to put the meeting in Washington, right in the capital of the country. That sounded better to Stone, so he did it. I say Big Deal. If it makes the story more interesting from a viewers standpoint, fine, but to me what is important is the information exchanged by Mr. X and Garrison. I think the movie was significantly discredited enough during its run that I’m guessing people who believe the movie is accurate history isn’t as large as people think. I do understand your concern, though. If people don’t view this movie as a catalyst for them to start digging deeper into the story instead of listening to people tell them the movie is BS, I’m also concerned. Most people are lazy, though and aren’t going to read the books the movie was based on and assume the BS label is the correct on. I don’t want to take this to GD, so I apologize for the slight hijack. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/111 "2011-04-25T07:45:04Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > Not up on their biographical details as much as I should be, but don’t their accents trail through Germany and Brooklyn, which the Jewish diaspora would not drag their families through for one and two millennia after the later Biblical stories occurred, respectively? (Hard to have a Yiddish inflection when the language was still centuries away from being invented…) Yeah. If anything, they should look and sound like Oded Fehr in _the Mummy_. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/112 "2011-04-25T08:48:42Z")
> [@user\_hostile](#): > > My complaint is Apollo 13’s scene involving the explosion of the LOX tank–it suggests that they were flopping around in space like a boat in a squall after the explosion. Nothing like that happened; there was a pop, the attitude control thrusters fired automatically to compensate for change, and the electrical bus voltage dropped in an unexpected fashion, and only when they saw the venting through the windows did they then realize that something very, very bad had happened. It seems to me a better way to build up tension is to have all these problems develop and you don’t know why–until you see a external shot of spacecraft with a Service Module panel blown open venting away and a bugged-eyed astronauts looking out of the Command Module windows. OOO I could just see that, it would have been a fantastic scene done that way. > [@spark240](#): > > Heh. I just watched that, and its sequel, recently. And yes, they belong in this thread. They wouldn’t have been bad movies if they hadn’t been presented as history. > > The bit about the Virgin Queen “look” in this case I’d call a matter of characterization and event, because it speaks to (or doesn’t) her thinking and decision. It’s much more important than whether she’s shown with red hair or not. I don’t know about the dialog in the movie, but looking at a google image of collections of headshots from the movie they got the look down pretty well - the dead white face was a fashion thing, it was generally arsenic based white, which then sort of forced you to keep using makeup as arsenic caused sores on the face. Hair, check - she wore a wig almost her entire adult life [rumors of smallpox causing her hair to fall out abound], clothing - excellently done. I found a direct batch in one of her court portraits in a blue and gold gown that is matched by a shot from a scene. Disappointment in no ‘armada gown’ scene, I recreated that on contract for a fellow SCAdian and would like to see a hollywood professionals version of it. Only problem I can see with the costuming is they keep her in late period clothing when she was a young girl instead of in earlier style clothing, but that is not something that would stand out to anybody except a costumer =) [Hm, Janet Arnold upset? LOL] And let me mention a nice historical tidbit - all the portraits of good old Liz were not actually all posed by her - she had a habit of having a reference head portrait made, and the artists would use a maid in her clothing to do bodies and the reference portrait for her hands and face … she was very particular about how she appeared in portraits… ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/113 "2011-04-25T13:11:43Z")
> [@GythaOgg](#): > > Catherine of Aragon has almost never to my knowledge been portrayed by an actress who resembled her known portraits in the slightest; the historical Catherine was short, plumpish, very fair skinned, and strawberry blonde. They almost always cast tall, think, dark-haired types for her, though. This one always annoys me too. The closest I’ve seen to a physically close-to-real casting of Catherine is Annette Crosby as a petite blond in the 1970s miniseries about the six wives of Henry VIII. Although it has some shortcomings in budget and historic details, it doesn’t make my teeth clench the way The Tudors does, and it also gives us Keith Michell playing Henry from handsome and strapping young prince in tights to bloated monster. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/114 "2011-04-25T23:47:01Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > I don’t know about the dialog in the movie, but looking at a google image of collections of headshots from the movie they got the look down pretty well… It’s not the look itself that’s in question, but the suggestion about Elizabeth’s reasons for adopting the look. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/115 "2011-04-25T23:52:42Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > I don’t know what happened in Dallas that day, but I think JFK is a lot closer to the truth than the fictional Warren Report. . ROFL! I can only hope you’re not serious… ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/116 "2015-03-28T05:39:26Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Yeah. If anything, they should look and sound like Oded Fehr in _the Mummy_. Canaan region was a melting pot even before the coming of Israel, so not necessarily. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/117 "2015-03-28T14:10:31Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > What I think of as odd when it comes to _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_ actually has to do with the first film in the trilogy, _A Fistful of Dollars_. There’s a scene in a small cemetery, and several dates of death are clearly in the 1870s. And yet we have the third one set during the Civil War. Of course, Sergio Leone had no way of knowing at the time how successful it and the second film would be, leading to the five-star third instalment, but it’s still amusing. I suppose _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_ could be considered a prequel, at least to the first movie (Blondie meets Angel Eyes for the first time in the second one, _For a Few Dollars More_), but then why would he need to get mixed up in a town’s troubles like that just to pick up some cash? You’re missing a big point. It wasn’t a trilogy of films about a single character. It was three films, with the same lead actor. The three protagonists are similar, but there are noticeable differences in the motivation. Joe, Monco and Blondie are three different characters, just like Hackenbush, Driftwood, and Firefly. Colonel Mortimer clearly isn’t Angel Eyes, either. ---
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/118 "2015-03-29T00:16:17Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > What I think of as odd when it comes to _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_ actually has to do with the first film in the trilogy, _A Fistful of Dollars_. There’s a scene in a small cemetery, and several dates of death are clearly in the 1870s. And yet we have the third one set during the Civil War. Of course, Sergio Leone had no way of knowing at the time how successful it and the second film would be, leading to the five-star third instalment, but it’s still amusing. I suppose _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_ could be considered a prequel, at least to the first movie (Blondie meets Angel Eyes for the first time in the second one, _For a Few Dollars More_), but then why would he need to get mixed up in a town’s troubles like that just to pick up some cash? The Good, the Bad and the Ugly\* is\* a prequel; it takes place before the other films in the series. Blondie picks up the poncho he wears in the rest of the movies at the _end_ of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Colonel Mortimer clearly isn’t Angel Eyes, but Clint Eastwood most definitely is ‘the man with no name’ in all three movies. Leone wanted to get the trio back to be killed by Charles Bronson in the opening shootout of Once upon a Time in the West but couldn’t make it work. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/119 "2015-03-29T01:05:10Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Jumping a motorcycle over the border fence? Please. Especially on a 1930s-vintage BMW. Which is why apparently the Germans were in possession of a Triumph Trophy from the future. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712/120 "2015-03-29T03:13:05Z")
> [@FluffyBob](#): > > The Good, the Bad and the Ugly\* is\* a prequel; it takes place before the other films in the series. Blondie picks up the poncho he wears in the rest of the movies at the _end_ of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Colonel Mortimer clearly isn’t Angel Eyes, but Clint Eastwood most definitely is ‘the man with no name’ in all three movies. > > Leone wanted to get the trio back to be killed by Charles Bronson in the opening shootout of Once upon a Time in the West but couldn’t make it work. No, it is not a prequel. Angel Eyes first meets Blondie in one of the the earlier films, _For a Few Dollars More_, and he clearly already knows him in _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_. He makes a remark to that effect I believe it’s when we first see him in Santa Fe, and his face telegraphs recognition. As well, we all know what happens to Angel Eyes at the end of _Ugly_, so he couldn’t very well appear again later in time. No, the makers just didn’t plan on a trilogy, that’s all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-based-movies-with-gross-inaccuracy/547712.md?page=7)