I’d like to see a film based on the Texian Rebellion of 1835-1836 dealing with something other than the Alamo.
Have there been any films about the Boer War, other than “Breaker Morant”?
The Franco-Prussian War would also be of interest to me.
The Gabriel Prosser Conspiracy would make an interesting movie, even though the ending is sad.
I’m not tired of WW2 movies yet. But I am getting tired of WW2 movies that ignore our allies, and suggest that the U.S. won the war all alone.
Specifically, I’d love to see a good movie about
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The evacuation of Dunkirk. Of course, I’d have to stipulate: NO Americans in the cast! No turning the British soldiers into Yanks (as in crud like"U-571"), no finding implausible ways of sticking Americans into the middle of the action (as when Ben Affleck flew with the RAF in “Pearl Harbor”).
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Bernard Law Montgomery. Whether you love him or hate him, he deserves a bio-epic of his own (preferably with a stunning re-creation of El Alamein).
I am shocked that I never heard of this. Are there any books on it? If not, perhaps you should write one as your description of the event has me enthralled.
As for the OP:
I am also among those who would like to see a film on the Japanese internments during WWII.
Anatoli Kuznetsov’s “Babi Yar” would make an amazing movie.
Oh, and Scythians! Give me some Scythians!
I’ll second that, instead of the Brits though, I would suggest the Soviets, to wit :
[ul]
[li] The siege of Leningrad[/li][li]The battle of Moscow[/li][li]One of the several battles for Kharkhov (probably, the one in spring 1943 would do)[/li][li]Kanev (the Soviet “A Bridge too Far”[/li][li] The battle of Kursk[/li][/ul]
And that’s just for starter
The only good things to come from that wretched film were Bartok toys for my stuffed bat collection, and 2 Rasputin statuettes for my dashboard.
I recommend Rasputin- Dark Servant Of Destiny starring Alan Rickman. Though it perpetuates the false they-poisoned-him-beat-him-and-shot-him-and-he-just-wouldn’t-die story of his death, I feel it presents a pretty accurate picture of the man.
Back To The OP
I’d like to see films about some of the great hoaxes and frauds.
-Piltdown Man
-Any number of alchemists who gained favor with kings with promises of gold or immortality.
-Unfortunately, I can’t find the guy who claimed to have developed a form of free energy machine, successfully bilked investors for decades, and was found to have his whole house rigged with pipes for compressed air (connected to a massive metal spherical tank in the basement) when he died.
I think it’d be awesome if someone made some movies about early Wisconsin history. Okay, admittedly, they’d probably play to a small audience. Unless it was somehow turned into a big ol’ love story. With, um, lead mining. And pasty.
There’s this local ghost story about a miner named William Caffee where the actual events of his death and life are just bizarre. The ghost bit is just silly, but the story probably wouldn’t have lived on without it, alas. Anyway, he got into an argument with another man at a housewarming party and shot him near the heart. By all reports, he was a colorful man, and after being convicted of 1st degree murder and being sentenced to die, he asked for a slice of the judge’s heart as his last meal. He also supposedly drummed out his own funeral march with beer bottles on his coffin as he was taken to the scaffold. Weird guy. But movies have been made on less, it seems.
The Taliesin murders would be, well, not great, but interesting to see in a movie. I’ve never heard of a movie based on Frank Lloyd Wright, but it’s about time if there hasn’t been one. (And I don’t mean a Ken Burns documentary; I cannot stand Ken Burns.) He and McCarthy are probably the biggest historical figures to come out of Wisconsin in the 20th century.
I’d like to see a biopic of Ann Lohman, the turn-of-the-century feminist who killed herself rather than go to jail – she was accused of distributing birth control information, a federal crime at that time (and who knows, if we keep electing Republicans, it may well be again soon). She was hounded to jail by “Mad” Anthony Comstock the U.S. Postal Inspector, a Ken Starr-like prude and asshole. When she killed herself, Comstock proudly pointed to her as the 15th person he’d driven to suicide. Sounds like Marchant-Ivory or Lifetime material – or both. Actually, making Comstock the center of the piece probably makes more sense – lotta nice historical parallels to be drawn here.
Sir Richard Burton (the explorer not the actor) travels in the Middle East and Africa would make a fine action/adventure biopic. Especially if you throw in some Martians and dinosaurs.
I still don’t know why they haven’t done a “women in prison” Lifetime weepers about Joan of Arkansas, aka Susan MacDougal. OK, I do know, same reason there haven’t been a lot of Monica Lewinsky movies, it’s politically hot potatoes. Still, lots of juicy stuff there just begging to be exploited.
A biopic about Danni Ashe’s move from stripper to multimillionaire website owner by learning to code HTML in the very early days of the Web would provide a very nice Horatio Alger kinda story about how a girl witn nothing but enormous breasts, a butt that won’t quit and a sharp mind can make good in America.
Another nice adventure story line would be that of Panfilo de Narvaez, a Spanish explorer who led an expedition to the Gulf Coast of Florida, got wrecked or something and wound up travelling along most of the Gulf Coast back to Mexico as the prisoner of various Indian tribes.
Another good biopic – John Willie, a 1950s bondage freak and comic book artist who penned a comic book called “The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline” that was a very big deal in those days. he was quite a character – always wore women’s underwear under his clothing, and his monthly mag was run on a veyr unbusinesslike basis – once a month, he’d stuff all the cash subscribers sent in into a bag and let each member of the staff reach in and grab a handful – as their salaries for that month. Lotsa weird fun in that guy.
There is so much good stuff out there that I know of that has been totally ignored, it would be tragic if it weren’t funny in an absurdist way.
Character is perhaps more important than setting to make a compelling story, so I’d start there
FriarTed beat me to suggesting Gilles de Rais. Especially perverse in that, because of the celebrity he achieved through his crimes, by the time he was executed more people were sorry for him than for his victims.
"Chinese" Gordon deserves a better treatment than Charleton Heston gave him. A target-demographic plus: during the Taiping and Congo chapters there were plenty of rascally Americans around. A demerit: no sex.
I don’t think there’s ever been a movie about Jack London. Besides the obvious sailing ships and dog sleds, you’d also get the jobless march on Washington (Coxley’s Army?), the Russo-Japanese War, Jack Johnson’s “Great White Hope” fight, etc., plus his personal demons such as alcohol and fear of poverty.
Mata Hari could use an accurate revision. Instead of the duped bimbo we’ve grown to expect, it could point out that she spoke several languages and used the one career path open to women of her era. She could plausibly be portrayed to be as much a victim of WWI as many of the other artists who lost their lives.
Have you read Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld series? Burton is the main character of the books. Of course, rather than detailing his life the books deal with his awakening on a strange planet along with countless humans who all remember dying. Still, the depiction of Burton is well researched and the character is convincing.
My favorite historical event just begging to be a movie is the not-very-violent but excitingly suspenseful Arsoostook war.
It’s pits the U.S. versus Canada (a matchup we’ve all been dying to see on screen) and involves a hostage situation and heated treaty renegotiations. The key players include lumberjacks and President Martin Van Buren.
How about a biopic of Aleister Crowley…Tim Burton directing and starring Johnny Depp as a young Crowley.
The Galveston flood. I read that Sean Austin has the rights to a script about it.
Has there been a good movie about the conquistadors and the search for El Dorado?
A horror biopic about Sawney Beane, the guy who lead a clan of cannibals in Scotland.
How about another horror biopic focusing on Elizabeth Bathory?
I know it’s been mentioned, but I didn’t want to read through the 50+ posts. I really would love to see a Napoleon movie or movie about Nero ceasar. What about a movie about Ghengis Kahn, now that would be cool. Let’s do then all.
On another note why don’t we make some movies about prehistoric man, ya know, Cro Magnon and all. It could be made with lots of Wolly Mammoths and encounters with the lesser Neanderthals. It would be interesting to see how a director would tell the story of the Cro Magnon’s defeat over the Neanderthals. Or a disaster.
I think Ghengis Kahn is the best idea yet. Someone make that movie! Even in ancient Chinese/Mandarin/whateverTheySpoke/w/subtitles, it would be cool…
I’d love nothing more than to see the Mongol Horde raining death and destruction on the big screen.
Sadly, Hollywood won’t produce a big budget epic without a Western lead. Remember they had to get John Wayne to play Genghis Khan. And wasn’t there an Atilla movie recently where he was played by a white actor?
Enemy at the Gates?
How about the assassination and death of James Garfield? The poor guy lingered for weeks. The treatment and mistreatment of his wound were pretty interesting. They also tried to feed him rectally, with the resulting stench said to be quite impressive.
That’s a start, however, how many WWII movies were made where the protagonists were Americans or British, hence reinforcing the myth that the West won the War ? Don’t you think it is about time that we acknowledge how much we owe to the Soviet people for grinding the Germans down and incurring horrific losses while doing it ?
Or Clan Of The Cave Bear
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
The 1871 Chicago Fire.
The Irish Potato Famine.
Or Clan Of The Cave Bear