I came in to toss Argo on the pile. The film frames it like the US spearheaded the extraction operation while the UK and New Zealand declined to get involved. My understanding is that Canada actually spearheaded the operation, and the UK and NZ embassies also assisted. The US was one of several players, rather than the only ones to step in after everyone else chickened out, as the movie suggests.
The movie at least had the refugees hiding out with the Canadian ambassador, but then used the ambassador’s departure from Iran to push the plot forward.
They should gotten this guy (next to Brando) to play Perot. The only time I’ve ever yelled out in a movie theater was when he made his first appearance–“Hey! It’s Ross Perot!” and people cracked up.
Sadly, we all have to be disabused of our childish conceptions. No barely-restrained giants who can take a dagger to the eye without too much complaint, or armored war-rhinoceros, or magicians with gunpowder bombs.
I’ll let you keep the scorpion-shaped arrowheads, though. That’s not too much of a stretch.
Just don’t go to see any Santa Claus movies with me.
I think the only accurate thing about the Errol Flynn as George Custer biopic “They Died With Their Boots On” is Custer did love eating onions. But most every Custer film has with with long hair when he died at the Little Bighorn. He actually got his hair cut short(for comfort) when he left on the expedition.
A few years ago C-Span re-enacted the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 at the actual locations. The man playing Lincoln had a beard. Apparently even C-Span feels its viewers are too stupid to recognize Lincoln without the beard he grew after the 1860 election.
Earlier posters have mentioned “The Great Escape” for having Americans in the breakout (they had been transferred earlier, although there was one American serving in the Canadian army who was 200th on the list) and Steve McQueen’s character. A few other other things: the escape is shown happening in good weather. Actually there was a snowstorm which forced the prisoners to seek shelter, which made it easier to capture them. The movie shows a huge number forced out of a truck and machine-gunned. Actually they were shot in much smaller groups of two or so.
The prisoner making it to Spain is supposed to be Australian (played by the American James Coburn). He was actually Dutch. The two who escaped by rowboat were actually Norwegians. They actually went to a brothel set aside for neutral Swedish sailors. They met some of these sailors, who smuggled them into their ship’s cargo hold accessible by a ladder that made it difficult to get dogs into.
One thing that is reasonably accurate is the ringleader played by Richard Attenborough was caught when an inspector spoke English and Big X’s companion (Gordon Jackson) replied in English.
I remember when the events it portrays actually happened. I saw a sign on a hotel marquee: “Canadians stay free”. While we didn’t know the details of how the Canadians got the hostages out, we knew that they were sheltered and hidden in the Canadian Embassy, and that Ambassador Ken Taylor was the real hero of the story.
The blog *An Historian goes to the Movies*has reviewed several of movies mentioned in this thread such as 300 and *Elizabeth *. My favorite is his *Robin Hood*review.
In addition, the only prisoner to have escaped was a Brit, not an American, and he never returned leading a raiding party. Plus the bridge’s eventual destruction was due to aerial bombing. The bridge still stands today. The angular sections are the replacements after the bombing, the curved sections are originals. We were just there again three months ago.
