Indeed. The reason he was in solitary confinement was that he had made sexual advances to another inmate, who spurned him. Stroud was serving life anyway, had nothing to lose, so he knifed the other convict to death. So they put him in solitary, where he got interested in birdies and wrote a book about them.
Recently I have read some people who claim that his book is a bunch of crapola as well. I asked my father the veterinarian about it, but he never treated birds, so he had no opinion.
My choice for most inaccurate is Québec , a 1951 movie whose only bits of accuracy are the title and the fact that there was an attempted uprising in 1837. Everything else in this movie is wrong.
Another note about Titanic: I read that although there was excellent accuracy in many areas, their renditions of the stars/constallations above the ship had some… issues. Anyone want to help me here?
Yes, Anastasia could have been worse. It could have been made by Disney.
One for the “Accurate” column: Apollo 13. This may, of course, be partly due to the fact that most of the major characters are still alive. From what I’ve heard, the only quibble that the astronauts had was that the parties were a little tamer than depicted.
Actually, Warner Brothers beat 'em to it. Animaniacs had a musical episode called Les Miseranimals featuring the godawful Rita and Runt. The antagonist, Camembert (yeah, I know…) was a German shepherd.
The love story is unnesscarily played up (but this was also the case with the most recent film).
There is at least one talking animal with at least one song.
There will be quite a bit of singing (but disney will probably be too cheap to pay for the rights to songs from the musical, so they will make up crappy songs). If they do get the musical songs, songs with mentions of people dying, calling out to god or
Fantine will no longer be a prostitute.
The entire Riot part will be stripped.
Most, if not all, religious references will be cut.
Javert will be simply misunderstood.
The movie will not feature the death of Val Jean or Javert.
All kidding aside, I thought the premise of that film was plausible. Whoever Jack the Ripper was, it’s reasonable to think that he could pass, and would have been found in the company of someone like H.G. Wells.
As far as Titanic, I remember the fracas on the AOL board about the coin Rose gives to Jack for the portrait. Was it a shilling? A Roosevelt dime? A 1912 dime? “Guys,” I said, “this is the scene where she gets naked, n’est-ce pas?..And you’re looking at the dime?!?!”
Gettysburg was as accurate as anything could get. Also, if you think Bible stories count as history, Prince of Egypt was right on the money. I don’t think even Mouschwitz would mess around with the Bible.
Not exactly history, but based on real-life events: Chariots of Fire made a huge fuss about that one guy not wanting to compete at the Olympics on Sunday. He and the IOC are at a stalemate when Lord Thistlebottom comes bouncing in and says, “I can switch with you, old chap!” Delightful! Except that the matter had been brought up, and the schedule hammered out, before the athletes even left England!
I suspect it’s not possible to make a truly accurate historical film. As Peter Stone said (the author of the “book” for 1776, cited above, and one of my favorites), “God writes lousy theater” (Actually, he was quoting a friend, but we’ll let that pass). And it’s true – you have to condense events, simplify situations, and combine characters to get something that’s comprehensible, short enough, and evtertaining as well. Stone spent long hours at the Rutgers library and elsewhere digging up the facts and quotes for 1776.
I love A Man for All Seasons – Robert Bolt used a lot of real situations and quotes (including the who Averill Menchen subplot). Nevertheless, apparently there was a lot of inaccuracy. The History Channel apparently did one of those shows contrasting reality with the movie. I’m sorry I missed it.
In some cases it’s not appropriate to complain about this. Peter Scaeffer never claimed to be accurate. As I’ve noted many times on this Board, Amadeus wasn’t supposed to be historical – it was almost a theological examination of the relationship between God and Man (like a lot of PS’s other work), and he called it a “fantasia”. The movie script differs very significantly from the stage version, by the way, and neither is hostorical, or meant to be.
I’m more annoyed by things like Gladiator. After we finished watching it on DVD, my wife asked if it was accurate, so I dived into the depths and surfaced with my copy of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and flipped to the relevant chapters. The movie is virtually a fantasy. I loved Lawrence of Arabia (written by the same Robert Bolt who did A Man for All Seasons), but you only have to start reading Lawrence’s own The Seven Pillars of Wisdom to see how very far removed from reality the film is.
You know, they wanted to do it like that, but the weather was so bad on location they couldn’t film there, and trying to build a bridge elsewhere would have cost way to much. So, rather than send everyone home and write off the loss (those evil Hollywood pennypinchers!) they made up that section and played the battle out another way.
Most likely because veryf ew totally true tales are both long enough and interesting enough to make a adventure or war movie, without being too silly. An, when it comes down to it, we often simply have no record of people’s ideas, thoughts, conversations, and so forth from 100 years ago, much less 500 or more…
Most likely because few peope outside Britain would get it. I’ve never seen Dover now Hadrian’s wall. That might have been the director’s bit of a joke.
Now the writers who changed the nationality of the sailors in U571 ought to be smacked around. It was a pointless alteration meant to strengthen the American marketability.
There is a line between making a good story and out-and-out greed.
There are a number of books that examine historical epics and comment on their accuracy. One of the better ones is Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies, edited by Mark C. Carnes. Among the movies reviewed:
Glory (nearly all of the soldiers were fictional; only Matthew Broderick’s Colonel Shaw really lived; even Cary Elwes’ character Major Forbes was fictional)
The Molly Maguires, A film about Pennsylvania coal miners starring Sean Connery was cited for trying too hard to be accurate: They tried to film the underground scenes using the same lighting the miners used, but in 1876, the miners used candles, so most of the underground scenes are too dark to see anything!
There are about fifty films examined in this book. Try it out.
Caligula drives me absolutely bonkers – actually, I’m not sure which sends me more into Herbert Lom-style twitches, the horrible historical inaccuracies, or that I’ve read comments on the imdb and met people who think it is historically accurate.
Yes, there are tales of Roman aristocratic depravity in Suetonius and the SHA but the whole point was that such stories were meant to be horrid and scandlous to the contemporary Romans, too. Roman society was probably more prudish than the traditional image we have today of Victorian society.
As an historian, I have a heck of a time looking at historical films (and I understand from chums I’m loads of fun to look at a film with ) Actually, I am harsh on myself here – I can suspend disbelief and have a grand time looking at a movie, even if the wee voice in the back of my mind is trying to figure out why the costumes and ships in, say ‘Pirates of the Carribean’ span about 200 years, etc.
There is a wonderful book on history in the movies called ‘The Hollywood History of the World’ by George MacDonald Frasier – his thesis is that one doesn’t look at historical films for text book accuracy, but rather to get a feel for a time and a place long gone. Where else would you be able to ‘see’ for example, gigantic armies as in ‘Napoleon’ or the English arrows flying against the French at Agincourt…or even what sun baked Jerusalem may have looked like at the time of Christ in ‘Life of Brian’
That said…yeah, I still love to pick apart historical inaccuracies in films
I’m not an expert, but i’ve heard Tombstone is both, depending on who i talk to. The only detail i remember from the cynical guy was during the OK Corrall shoot out that Morgan Earp didn’t get shot in the ankle, i don’t know if that is true or false.
Unless they speak in russian and the movie is presented with subtitles I find it ridicule to demand the actor to fake an accent.
Wrong in fact we are more prudish than the roman in sexual matters. I remember reading once that in Pompey’s ruin they found little bronce penisis that were hanged in the doors of houses for fertility. Historians agree that romans, while not so liberated as greeks, were very 60 about sex.
Do you mean Pompeii? Yes, the Romans (and the Greeks) had fertility symbols, even in the home. But the Roman lifestyle as one, long orgy as depicted in ‘Caligula’ is not historically accurate.
Ms Boods, who is an historian and taught Roman and Greek history at the uni level for 3 years
I know it’s not a movie, but what did you fellow historians think of Deadwood? Plot aside, I thought that the sets and costumes were spot-on-- I was very impressed.
) Actually, I am harsh on myself here – I can suspend disbelief and have a grand time looking at a movie, even if the wee voice in the back of my mind is trying to figure out why the costumes and ships in, say ‘Pirates of the Carribean’ span about 200 years, etc.
in the doors of houses for fertility. Historians agree that romans, while not so liberated as greeks, were very 60 about sex.