Historically incorrect guns.

I just remembered something that happened decades ago along this line. My father in law was a shooter, and yes, he used to pitch a fit when he saw something wrong, even when it was just a C movie western like cisco kid. Oh, boy, that man had a lot of anger.

When roach studios and turner started to colorize the old musicals, the real rage started. It wasn't just about a mistake anymore. He would sit and yell at the television that the colors were wrong. He was also a very busy photographer and he was absolutely certain that he knew what color a b+w print would be, and that he could tell when the color was wrong.

every once in a while I'll point out a car, gun, etc to my wife but I'm far more likely to shout about bad science. She is always surprised by how little I care if I see a thompson SMG in an episode of roy rogers, or a red ryder BB gun in spartacus.
 
In the 1930's Hollywood did some seriously dangerous gun stunts.
James Cagney figured in two of them..
Hollywood employed an expert with the Thompson SMG to do the trick shooting WITH LIVE AMMO.

I think it was 1931's "Public Enemy" Cagney and a gangster friend are fired on by two water cooled machine guns from a window across the street.
That's fake.
In reality, as Cagney ducks around a corner of a building and peeks back a line of bullets stitches up the wall VERY close to him.
There's a photo of the filming of the scene showing the Thompson gunner kneeing on a table just behind and to the right of the camera and Cagney standing behind the corner.

In another movie, Cagney was to stand in an open window while a Thompson shoots around him.
This time Cagney had reservations so they faked it by superimposing him in the window after the burst is fired.
As the gunner fired the burst, one bullet hit the steel window frame and bounced off.
Had Cagney been actually standing there the real bullet would have hit him in the head.
 
This begs the question, why did brandon lee die? Because some idiot pointed a gun that was supposed to be filled with ordinary blanks at his heart.

Now how exactly does aiming a blank gun at an actor's heart make the B Movie any more believable, or any better? Cagney lived because someone involved in the scene thought 'hey, maybe I should follow the most basic rules of handling a firearm."

So, again, why in the world did someone get a hole blown in his chest by some pinheaded stuntman who forgot that you shouldn't point a gun at someone unless you want to kill him?

In a way this is related to the original question. Should they be using real guns, replicas, or even blue guns? If you should give some of the people in the united states the opportunity to do it, well, they would forbid anything but blue plastic guns in entertainment.
 
The rifle in the catalog is a WWII German semi-auto rifle.
He's also stating that a rifle can fire a bullet at over 8,000 feet per second.
Click to expand...

Sounds just like the typical gun store counter talk.
 
Due to a lack of K98 Mauser scoped sniper rifles during WWII...some German snipers used there own scoped hunting rifles or captured M91/30 Russian sniper rifles.
 
Ian Fleming received a letter from the noted British handgun authority Geoffrey Boothroyd about the mistake he made in Bond's armament. In the next story "Major Boothroyd" had been appointed Bond's armo(u)rer.
Every now and then they get it right. There's a brief scene in Rough Riders where Patrick Gorman as Colonel Wallace A. Downs of the 71st New York addresses his troops. one soldier has the rod bayonet of his M1888 45-70 extended.
 
Since I was a kid I always wanted one of those revolvers that they used in Westerns that never needed reloading. Who needs a Glock when you have a 6 gun that carries hundreds of rounds?
 
There was also an actor in what was becoming a hit TV show who put a .44 Magnum loaded with blanks to his own head and killed himself by accident.

Point is these people are TV and movie actors and directors. No one ever claimed they needed to be gun experts or historians.
Usually there's someone on-set who IS (or is supposed to be) a gun expert and in charge of safety but bad/stupid things happen.

They usually hire experts in arms and history as advisers but it's questionable how much they're paid attention to, and many actual historians really know nothing about arms, just the people and places.
 
There was also an actor in what was becoming a hit TV show who put a .44 Magnum loaded with blanks to his own head and killed himself by accident.
Click to expand...

I remember hearing about that one. Reportedly, he put the gun to his temple, and the blast from the (.44Mag) blank caved in his skull, killing him.

I have noticed a change, recently, in movies, anyway. There are quite a few of the more recent movies (the last couple decades or so) where there are obviously pains taken to get something that at least looks period correct. I'm sure CGI handles that for the big items (tanks, planes, ships, etc.,) but it seems that many of the recent westerns, and other movies have tried to use the proper guns when possible. Made for TV shows (especially those made in England) much less so...

As to "backwards" bolts and such, its not a matter of the film being run backwards, I've been told its the film negative being "flipped over" not backwards.

GOOD CGI should handle that, but sometimes, doesn't. Its a matter of both budget, timing, and the guys doing it knowing what they are doing.
There is a glaring (to me) CGI error in Enemy at the Gates that most people would never notice. The scene is the tank park at German HQ. Two rows of beautifully rendered CGI Panzer III tanks facing each other. The tanks on one side have the bow machine gun in the right spot (on the right front of the hull), the tanks in the facing row are reversed, with the machine gun on the left. I'm pretty sure this was done as a shortcut, to save work (money). After doing the digital rendering of the row of tanks, correctly, they apparently just flipped it over for the opposite facing row, rather than doing another CGI creation.

it bugs me, because I've built a lot of those tanks as models. Most folks would have no clue.

I thought they did a pretty good job on Saving Private Ryan (aside from the sniper switching scopes and muttering about windage while cranking on the objective lens (focus). But there is a guy wearing a belt of 06 "ammo" where you can clearly see the holed in the cases making them dummy rounds, and a friend pointed out that the markings on the Mustang that blows up the Tiger tank are incorrect for the time and place depicted.

I give them a pass on the Tiger, its a mockup not a real Tiger, but at least they TRIED.
 
There are essentially 3 levels.

Documentaries, which are supposed to be true stories.

"based on" a true story, which is where some things will be inaccurate, and often include things that never actually happened, or mis-tell things that did happen

and

"inspired by" a true story...
Where the only connection to real events can be some character and place names....

FLYBOYS, RED TAILS, and FURY are examples of movies "inspired" by true stories, with very, very little actually being historically correct.
 
John Wayne movies were the worst, they made no attempt whatsoever to be accurate. "the Camancheros" is the worst - took place years before the Civil War and they Rangers are using SAA pistols and '92 Winchesters!
 
No, no, no AZRetired,

"The Comancheros" is accurate. The 1873 SAA were actually
prototypes sent to Texas for testing but with the coming of the
war, that project was put on a back burner. Those prototypes
were known as the Johnnie Walkers.

The 1892 Winchesters were also developed at that time and
again sent as prototypes to Texas for testing. Those
prototypes were known as the
OHenry. But the
schematics and other details for the gun were misplaced,
only to be found by a guy name John Browning years late.

And the rest is history!
 
If more Confederates were armed with Trapdoor Springfields, they may have won more battles. Saw it in the Jimmy Stewart movie, Shenandoah.

Similiarly, if the Union were equipped with Trapdoors, they may have won the war earlier. Saw that in the Audie Murphy/Bill Mauldin film, The Red Badge of Courage.

If only a few more British soldiers had SMLEs, they could have forced the Zulu regiment at Isandhlawna (sp) to surrender.
 
in the movie "WAKE ISLAND" or "GUADALCANAL DIARY" Japanese soldiers are using KRAGS & M1903 Springfields

I remember a scene with a Japanese soldier armed with a KRAG
 
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Sgt Schultz on Hogan's Heroes carried a Krag, so what? hehe

One really can't fault movies made during (or a year or three after) WWII, for not getting the right enemy guns, planes, tanks or ships.

They simply weren't to be had for filming. Even if the producers had wanted them, which most of the time, they didn't bother. It's a movie, it doesn't have to be right, just look close enough...
 
Congratulations Glenn, you're one of a small group who knows this. :D

I have a Norwegian Krag. Three digit ser# 1897 date cal 6.5x55mm

cool rifle.

While I've met a number of people who scoff at Sgt Schultz's Krag, and I freely admit the most likely reason he carried it on the show is that was the rifle the prop room handed out, its not beyond plausibility that a real Luftstalag guard might have something other than the Mauser 98.

Air Force troops, acting as POW camp guards, not the high priority for first line combat weapons. You've captured Norway. You have quite a few of their arms under your control. You need some to arm the guards. How tough is it to put a couple dozen cases of rifles and ammo on a Ju 52 and fly them back to Germany??

Did they actually ever do that? I don't know, but they could have. After D-Day the allies fighting inward from Normandy came up against a lot of former Soviet SVT 40 rifles, so many they at first thought they were a new German design.

Germany sent captured Soviet anti-tank guns to North Africa, too. Very thrifty folks, in some ways. If it still worked after they captured it, they used it, somewhere...
 
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