# Movie with great cannon , medieval times
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** movies
**Created:** [November 2, 2024, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577 "2024-11-02T12:58:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Sim77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sim77)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/1 "2024-11-02T12:58:17Z")
So there is another movie i had watched as a kid and i wish to watch again.
Old movie , maybe 1970s , So some people they tried to build a very big cannon.
But it was difficult , every time they tried the cannon explode. So their enemy was getting closer. Maybe they were outside of the city / castle.
It is not “navarone cannons” and it is not “pride and passion”
And in the last moment when the enemies broke the gate and entered the city/castle the cannon was ready to fire and killed almost all enemies.
I remember also the last scene when the enemy king very sad , was stepping over the bodies of his dead soldiers.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/2 "2024-11-02T13:26:37Z")
If that’s the movie I think it is, the cannons kept exploding because the metal wasn’t tempered. They solved the problem by quenching the barrel with cold water right after casting it.
Not sure about the scientific validity of that, but that’s what they did. I think the setting was Constantinople, and the Byzantines were fighting off the Mohammedans, or whatever they called them.
I seem to remember Robert Taylor, or someone who looked very much like him, was commanding the Christians. I must have seen the movie around 1971, when I was 16. I was really into such historical fiction then.
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### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/3 "2024-11-02T13:41:45Z")
My google-fu is weak.
All I could find is a 1951 Turkish film called [The Conquest of Constantinople](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0316041/). But the plot summary does not mention a cannon.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/4 "2024-11-02T13:46:24Z")
At Constantinople, it was the attacking Turks (not the defenders) who were using giant cannons prone to exploding because the forging technology was fairly new in the 15th Century.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/5 "2024-11-02T13:50:36Z")
Right, but remember: This was Hollywood. The Turks would have been the bad guys. Also, the cannon in this movie was made by the defenders, not the attackers.
Maybe it was set elsewhere, but the part about quenching the barrel with water I definitely remember.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/6 "2024-11-02T13:56:07Z")
But would even Hollywood say the Byzantines won that battle? The failed seige of Vienna might be a better fit, but it was outside reinforcements that saved the day; not the defenders’s cannon.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/7 "2024-11-02T13:57:59Z")
I just looked at Robert Taylor’s filmography and could find no such movie, so I guess the leading man was someone else.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/8 "2024-11-02T13:59:03Z")
Again, Hollywood is not known for maintaining historical accuracy.
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### Author:  [@Sim77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sim77)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/9 "2024-11-02T14:24:01Z")
I cannot remember many hollywood movies about byzantium and costantinople. Actually must be very small number comparing with movies with original roman empire or feudal west europe. More chances for the movie to be placed somewhere in spain (like el cid) i think.
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### Author:  [@Sim77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sim77)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/10 "2024-11-02T14:27:32Z")
Thanks everybody for the replies , and i also believe that the part of quenching the barrel with water is sounds to me correct also
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/11 "2024-11-02T14:41:14Z")
Sounds like a depiction of the [Fall of Constantinople](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople). The cannon were probably made of cast iron or bronze. Possibly the exploding cannons were used to dramatize an incident of a large cannon that collapsed under it’s own recoil. Don’t think the quenching idea makes sense for bronze or cast iron cannon.
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/12 "2024-11-02T15:12:38Z")
Isn’t that the battle where (supposedly) the Turks had the cannons and used so much ammunition that they ran out and had to start firing whatever was around, leading to them cut down palm trees, saw their trunks into short segments, and fire those?
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/13 "2024-11-02T16:16:46Z")
If not Constantinople, then maybe Vienna? The whole plot about tempering the cannon could have been fictional.
[Siege of Vienna (1529) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vienna_(1529))
In the film I’m thinking of, the defenders got the idea of quenching the barrel when one character bathed in cold water, thinking it would make him stronger or impervious to pain. Of course, Europeans back then seldom bathed at all, so everyone was surprised when he did.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2024, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/14 "2024-11-07T11:56:48Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> Of course, Europeans back then seldom bathed at all
Of course they bathed.
Medieval Vienna had over 30 public bath-houses and a guild of bath-house keepers.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2024, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/15 "2024-11-07T12:22:52Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Medieval Vienna had over 30 public bath-houses and a guild of bath-house keepers.
True, but the question was about 1529, which wasn’t technically part of the Medieval era. Europe saw a sharp decrease in personal sanitation levels starting from the early 16th century, for some reason.
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### Author:  [@EnolaStraight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnolaStraight)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2024, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/16 "2024-11-07T13:54:22Z")
The Pride and the Passion.
[Pride and the Passion 1957 trailer (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkGOoy_wJ_g)
Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, and Sophia Loren
Yeah, the OP said NOT pride and passion, but maybe looking at this could aid in a differential diagnosis?
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2024, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/17 "2024-11-07T20:37:49Z")
How often did city-dwellers visit the baths? How often did country folk?
From what I’ve read, it was commonly believed that washing off exposed the body to disease.
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### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2024, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/18 "2024-11-07T22:07:20Z")
It varied from country to country, and from century to century.
But we know that bathhouses existed, because the priests and ministers were always condemning the fornication that went on in them.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2024, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/19 "2024-11-07T22:26:46Z")
> [@mbh](#):
>
> But we know that bathhouses existed, because the priests and ministers were always condemning the fornication that went on in them.
… were people actually bathing there?
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2024, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-with-great-cannon-medieval-times/1009577/20 "2024-11-07T22:30:16Z")
The water was far from clean, contributing to things like scrofula and other maladies. The surface of the water had to be scraped clean constantly to remove all the scuz that built up on it.
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