Things I've learned from War Movies

Ethnically, you’re correct, though it’s a difference that probably only matters to a Brit or Welsh. Politically, not so - Wales came under English rule & English law in the 16th century.

Like the P-51’s in Saving Private Ryan. The Cavalry always rides to the rescue in the nick of time. It’s an old trick, but it seems to work.

Give 'em a break. If they kept their masks on they would all look the same.

At least one person in the unit/squadron/whatever will always be referred to by the name of a geographic location like Brooklyn, Bronx, or Hollywood. While folks will usually be from that location or close by, if they’re named Hollywood, they’re almost certainly not.

If an elite group of n parachute in behind the lines, n - 1 will actually touch the ground with their boots again.

The USA was so racially integrated in the 1940’s that you wouldn’t even notice that a black man can’t really masquerade as a Nazi until you’re actually in a plane getting ready to parachute into Germany.

This was was a boner occasioned by the fact that movie was based on a book written by an actual soldier. I’m surprised it was left in the movie.

:confused: What movie was this?

The Dirty Dozen, though Jim Brown didn’t actually put on a Nazi uniform.

Actually, The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission, a straight-to-TV disaster. The entire team really did parachute into Germany in Wermacht uniforms, and they really didn’t notice that the black guy wouldn’t pass as a German until they were already in the air. IIRC, they wrapped his face in bandages to make it look like he’d been injured, but his hands were spotted by a German officer and gave them all away.

In the original, only Lee Marvin & Charles Bronson wore German uniforms. Of course, only of them spoke German, and that badly, but it got them through the mission.

Unless the unit is in training, in which case the nasty NCO is always right about everything, because he cares more about saving lives than anything else.

That’s hysterical! :smiley: I never saw the sequel. Sounds like it could be Ed Wood bad.

There’s no such thing as a bad war movie.

Negro soldiers of the 161st Chemical Smoke Generating Company, U.S. Third Army, move a barrel of oil in preparation to refilling an M-2 smoke generator, which spews forth a heavy cloud of white smoke. These men are engaged in laying a smoke screen to cover bridge building activities across the Saar River near Wallerfangen, Germany. December 11, 1944.

Tricky Nazi captured. German prisoner wearing civilian clothes, sits in jeep at south gate of walled city of Lucca, Italy, awaiting removal to a rear area. Circa September 1944.

So you never get TWO black guys in a platoon?

And according to IMDB they made two more sequels after that. :eek:
Walloon, what’s the point of those pics? Interesting pics, and good ones, of course, but I have the impression you’re trying to make a point with them, and it eludes me, completely.

If you’re trying to offer evidence that African Americans were in the US military, I wouldn’t disagree.

However, it wasn’t until the Korean War era that African Americans were integrated into units with whites.

What, are you mad? That’d throw off the Black/Jew/Guy-Named-Brooklyn ratio! :eek:

Pearl Harbor was a really bad movie.
:smiley:

That was the point.

Others have made mention of the anachronistic performances in WWII movies like Donald Sutherland in Kelly’s Heroes or T.C Carson’s in U-571, so I’d like to add another rule: “Characters in war movies act like people in the year when the movie was made, not like people in the year when the actual war occurred.”