Just watched Heavens Fall, about the “Scottsboro Boys” case, which is set (of course) in Scottsboro, Alabama. And all the trees in the movie are just dripping with Spanish moss, because, you know, it’s the South.
Except that Scottsboro is in northern Alabama, at least a couple hundred miles from any Spanish moss (which in Alabama is found only in the extreme southern part of the state, near the Gulf coast).
This happens a lot in movies set in the South. Directors just can’t resist that Spanish moss visual, I guess. I understand the choice, as it makes the South seem an exotic, vaguely foreign place. (And I’m sure the sinister-looking parasitic plant draping the trees is probably a visual metaphor for racism in Heavens Fall.) But geographically, it’s just wrong.
But that doesn’t work. In the movie the Nazis were in hot pursuit. The nuns disabled their car. The Von Trapps are then seen walking over the mountains into Switzerland which is actually all the way across the country to the south. To climb over the mountains from Salzburg you hit Germany. To the west. And there are certainly mountains there. I don’t know if they are offically called the Alps there but I always thought so. There is no way the Von Trapps could have made their escape on foot. If they were going to Switzerland by foot the Nazis would only have to calmly find another car while the family was on their trip of several weeks on foot. In the movie the Nazis couldn’t follow because the family was up in the mountains heading into Switzerland. I know you can get from Austria to Switzerland over the Alps. But not the way it was shown in the movie. Which is the point of the thread.
No one’s arguing that point with you. It is indeed stupid to walk to Switzerland from Salzburg, especially if Nazis are chasing you. If you should choose to do so, however, you will encounter a few mountains.