Non Civil War Books and Movies

[Sgt. Tyree]

Imho ACW those grey uniforms aren't German, are they?

I don't know, but those are definitely 1873 carbines on an 1863 raid. Just go with it, okay? Enjoy the movie and overlook a few oddities.

 

[Wehrkraftzersetzer]

I don't know, but those are definitely 1873 carbines on an 1863 raid. Just go with it, okay? Enjoy the movie and overlook a few oddities.

weapons in US movies, muah they often have dynamite before it was invented. And tzhe blue boys and the grey boys shooting each others, well if not WW or ACW maybe the war of independence.

 

[Sgt. Tyree]

And the song in Horse Soldiers. It's not a true period song, even though it sounds like it could be. It was written for the movie in 1959.

So it's not a historical song. But still good, huh?

 

[Wehrkraftzersetzer]

excellent song, You were quicker in posting.

 

[rittmeister]

I don't know, but those are definitely 1873 carbines on an 1863 raid. Just go with it, okay? Enjoy the movie and overlook a few oddities.

i'd not be surprised if '73s were issued to the minutemen - ffs, it's hollywood. has the duke ever done an independence movie? someone needs to check whether he carried his beloved winchester in it.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

i'd not be surprised if '73s were issued to the minutemen - ffs, it's hollywood. has the duke ever done an independence movie? someone needs to check whether he carried his beloved winchester in it.

These are the only two that were closest to the Revolutionary era that I can recall that Wayne was in. Cain't guarantee the flintlocks were any more accurately portrayed to that era than the 20+ (actually 6) shooters--and the winchester magazines never ran out-- or other weapons that were used in those Hollywood shoot-em ups. I doubt that they were, the producers used whatever was laying around in the prop-department warehouse to save $$.

Claire Trevor was a babe

in her day.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031033/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041361/

 

[Jim Klag]

These are the only two that were closest to the Revolutionary era that I can recall that Wayne was in. Cain't guarantee the flintlocks were any more accurately portrayed to that era than the 20+ (actually 6) shooters--and the winchester magazines never ran out-- or other weapons that were used in those Hollywood shoot-em ups. I doubt that they were, the producers used whatever was laying around in the prop-department warehouse to save $$.

Claire Trevor was a babe

in her day.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031033/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041361/

What about the Duke in his own movie, The Alamo. He starred and directed.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

What about the Duke in his own movie, The Alamo. He starred and directed.

I thought about that one but that was the 1830's.

 

[Matt McKeon]

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, of course!

All of John Ford's cavalry trilogy, in fact. Add to that Horse Soldiers.

Just as the some of the events in Horse Soldiers were inspired by the Grierson Raid, some of the events in Rio Grande were inspired by Ranald "Bad Hand" Mackenzie and the 4th U.S. Cavalry. Lots of artistic license, of course, but still fun old movies to watch.

I love Fort Apache.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

I love Fort Apache.

Cuz, The Natives won?

 

[Matt McKeon]

The Station Agent.
Peter Dinklage is now famous as the sardonic Tyrion Lannister is Game of Thrones. In this earlier film he plays a solitary almost silent man, who is obsessed with trains. One of his few friends dies and leaves him an abandoned train station in rural New Jersey. Under his stoic exterior the often mocking attention gawking he gets for his physical appearance is driving him bananas, so he decides to live as a hermit in the station.

 

[Matt McKeon]

The Station Agent.
Peter Dinklage is now famous as the sardonic Tyrion Lannister is Game of Thrones. In this earlier film he plays a solitary almost silent man, who is obsessed with trains. One of his few friends dies and leaves him an abandoned train station in rural New Jersey. Under his stoic exterior the often mocking attention gawking he gets for his physical appearance is driving him bananas, so he decides to live as a hermit in the station.

Of course he is immediately pestered by a bored and lonely coffee truck operator who practically forces himself into Finn's orbit(Fin is Dinklage's character). Fin also makes friends with a grief stricken woman mourning the loss of her child. At one point, struggling to maintain her composure, she says "don't look at me," something Fin wishes for himself.

Very funny, melancholy and moving feature about friendship, and loneliness.

 

[Matt McKeon]

Cuz, The Natives won?

They do! Henry Fonda as the martinet commandant, Wayne as the tough and capable Yorke, even John Agar tolerable for once as a shavetail fresh from West Point. Ward Bond, a real prick in real life, as the flinty top sergeant. When the snobbish Fonda wonders how the sergeant's son got an appointment to West Point. "It reserved for congressional appointments, or the sons of Medal of Honor winners!" Bond dryly replies "that is my understanding as well," shutting up Fond for a minute. He backs down the domineering Fonda when the colonel enters his family quarters without permission. Fonda, regular army through and through, acknowledges his transgression and withdraws.

Fonda makes his martinet believable. Wounded in his career, touchy, with touches of humanity and integrity, he deliberately sparks an Indian war, stupid out of pride, he loses the battle.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

Fonda makes his martinet believable.

Life imitates art, upon occasion.

But, I still find some things at present to be...

The old Chinese proverb is, "May you live in interesting times." Which is actually a curse, not a good wish. Wise words, and here We is.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

Life imitates art, upon occasion.

Fonda makes his martinet believable.

Upon review, I may have had my above quote backwards.

 

[Matt McKeon]

Knives Out
A classic, suspenseful, witty who dun it. When Christopher Plummer's aging mystery author dies, who of his greedy, resentful children committed the crime? Or did he commit suicide? Daniel Craig plays the Louisiana born genius detective, assisted by the victim's caretaker, who is also his prime suspect. Outstanding.

 

[Matt McKeon]

Ardennes 1944
Respected historian Antony Beevor's account of the Battle of the Bulge.

The Bulge is extremely hard to follow, consisting of series of small scale vicious actions between handfuls of tanks and men in small villages. Beevor prints several maps to try to make sense of the chaotic violence in the snow choked woods and hamlets.

Strengths: He is able to focus the action from the highest levels of command: Bradley, Montgomery, Eisenhower, Hodges and Patton, to the exhausted tankers bazooka teams and freezing foot soldiers. He also pays more attention to the Belgian civilians, caught in the fighting, who in some cases were deliberately massacred by the SS and in others killed by the sheer volume of bombing, shelling and other weaponry. Beevor also puts the Bulge in the context of the Allied advances in the fall and early winter, and the subsequent German Northwind offensive, and the Soviet offensive.

Beevor faults Bradley and Hodges for both not foreseeing a German advance and losing control of the battle in its early stages. Patton wins high marks for his midwinter pivot from his own planned advance to moving north to relieve Bastogne. Beevor however thinks his often preferred strategy of attacking the Bulge at its base was impossible because of the inadequate road net. Montgomery gets credit for sound strategy in backstopping the Americans but his overbearing manner and contempteous treatment of his American colleagues, as well as his politicking for the role of overall commander backfired, sidelining the British for the rest of the war.

Eisenhower, calm, cool and collected, managing his own generals, dealing with de Gaulle and Montgomery, and asserting himself in the emergency as a military commander.

On the German side, the offensive was an unworkable gamble, that stripped the eastern front of vital armor and troops. Advancing in terrible weather mix of SS and regular German troops cooperated poorly, and when the Americans didn't fold, the delays and destruction of bridges doomed the advance.

 

[jgoodguy]

Ardennes 1944
Respected historian Antony Beevor's account of the Battle of the Bulge.

The Bulge is extremely hard to follow, consisting of series of small scale vicious actions between handfuls of tanks and men in small villages. Beevor prints several maps to try to make sense of the chaotic violence in the snow choked woods and hamlets.

Strengths: He is able to focus the action from the highest levels of command: Bradley, Montgomery, Eisenhower, Hodges and Patton, to the exhausted tankers bazooka teams and freezing foot soldiers. He also pays more attention to the Belgian civilians, caught in the fighting, who in some cases were deliberately massacred by the SS and in others killed by the sheer volume of bombing, shelling and other weaponry. Beevor also puts the Bulge in the context of the Allied advances in the fall and early winter, and the subsequent German Northwind offensive, and the Soviet offensive.

Beevor faults Bradley and Hodges for both not foreseeing a German advance and losing control of the battle in its early stages. Patton wins high marks for his midwinter pivot from his own planned advance to moving north to relieve Bastogne. Beevor however thinks his often preferred strategy of attacking the Bulge at its base was impossible because of the inadequate road net. Montgomery gets credit for sound strategy in backstopping the Americans but his overbearing manner and contempteous treatment of his American colleagues, as well as his politicking for the role of overall commander backfired, sidelining the British for the rest of the war.

Eisenhower, calm, cool and collected, managing his own generals, dealing with de Gaulle and Montgomery, and asserting himself in the emergency as a military commander.

On the German side, the offensive was an unworkable gamble, that stripped the eastern front of vital armor and troops. Advancing in terrible weather mix of SS and regular German troops cooperated poorly, and when the Americans didn't fold, the delays and destruction of bridges doomed the advance.

Good summary. It was for the Germans a last throw of the dice, desperate gamble, but was choice was there for Hitler. He is dead if captured so he is happy to fight to the last soldier.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

He is dead if captured so he is happy to fight to the last soldier.

He was also totally afraid of being put into a cage and displayed like an animal--those were some of his supposed words according to his fellow füher-bunker inmates--and being put on trial in a Soviet court. Why not fight to the last man if you have perpetrated such atrocities, not that Uncle Joe gave a shit about that considering his past and future score-card.

It was the stab in the back after the 1939 pact that Joe made perfectly ready to pull out toe-nails an teeth over zhat.

 

[Matt McKeon]

John Keegan's Mask of Command paints a vivid picture of the last weeks in Hitler's bunker. "He had come full circle" from his days as a messenger in World War I. Again he was in an underground bunker, surrounded by the instruments of command: chinograph, map table, telephones. As in the old days, when anxious officers turned to Corporal Hitler for a message promising relief, his generals looked to him. But the only relief he had to offer was his own death. The knowledge of his inevitable suicide permeated the bunker. Only that would end the war.

"Suicide is seldom a courageous act, and Hitler's was no exception. A bankrupt gambler's leap into oblivion."