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Old June 30, 2014, 07:45 AM   #1
mikthestick
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The problem with Hollywood

Many people see movies and think they are getting the truth. While the OK corral type of gunfight is not a lie it is probably not too realistic as portrayed on screen, however entertaining it may be. Ask yourself if you knew you were going to have to fight would you leave your winchester at home. I think you were more likely to be shot in the back on the way to the corral. All gun fighters shaping up for a fight make sure they have six loaded not five. The colt has a safety, half cock and full cock notch, which is designed to allow six cartridges to be carried safely. In movies you often see heroes check cylinder rotation, never seen one load an empty chamber just before a gunfight. Modern health and safety may demand five for everyday carry purposes.
When Hollywood make a movie where an old gun fighter tells young wannabe load five then almost everyone will believe that's how it was done.
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Old June 30, 2014, 08:05 AM   #2
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I think they got the OK Corral fight pretty close in Tombstone. Distances measured after the fight were an average of nine feet. But you are right, Hollyweird has made a lot of people believe things about the old west that simply aren't true. That and the fact that modern day people tend to view the old west with modern eyes and modern thought processes.
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Old June 30, 2014, 08:16 AM   #3
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hollyweird

Why until recently there were no movies on this, there were a lot of movies based (loosely) on the actual events.
Do a little historical reading on the Johnson County war in Wyoming.
There was finally a movie on it in the last couple years Haven't seen it yet though.
The movie Shane and others were based on the concepts.
Part of the Lonesome Dove series also.
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Old June 30, 2014, 08:34 AM   #4
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Quote:
The problem with Hollywood

Many people see movies and think they are getting the truth.
I think you completely missed the problem. It isn't Hollywood's fault and it isn't their problem that people see movies and think they are getting the truth. That is the problem with people.

Quote:
While the OK corral type of gunfight is not a lie it is probably not too realistic as portrayed on screen, however entertaining it may be. Ask yourself if you knew you were going to have to fight would you leave your winchester at home.
Instead of asking yourself what you would do, shouldn't you be asking yourself what really happened? After all, we are talking about historical accuracy here, right?



Quote:
I think you were more likely to be shot in the back on the way to the corral.
While that might have been more likely, the reality of the gunfight at the OK Corral is that they were not shot in the back on the way there.

Quote:
All gun fighters shaping up for a fight make sure they have six loaded not five. The colt has a safety, half cock and full cock notch, which is designed to allow six cartridges to be carried safely.
So everybody was carrying Colts now? Nope.

You are going to have to show me the design plans stipulating half/full cock carry is for safety. I missed that somewhere.

Quote:
In movies you often see heroes check cylinder rotation, never seen one load an empty chamber just before a gunfight. Modern health and safety may demand five for everyday carry purposes.
In the movies, you never see folks do a lot of things.

Quote:
When Hollywood make a movie where an old gun fighter tells young wannabe load five then almost everyone will believe that's how it was done.
Again, that isn't the fault of Hollywood.
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Old June 30, 2014, 10:42 AM   #5
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I have to agree with Hawgie on the Tombstone OK corral shoot out, don't know about the rest of the movie. 'And Die in the West', a well footnoted book that I believe was written just before or just after the movie came out. Using newpaper accounts, diaries and oral history type stuff, the movie version was very close to the real version. The book also speculated that the Ringo character probably committed suicide, not shot by Doc.
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Old June 30, 2014, 11:08 AM   #6
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If I remember right in The Shootist John Wayne tells Ron Howard to only load five for carry, but six if you’re going to need them.
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Old June 30, 2014, 11:14 AM   #7
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In Hollyweirds defense they're not historians, they have a business based on telling stories. Most of the fault lies with researchers and prop people that have an ahh hell nobody will notice attitude. If Hollyweird did portray the old west as it really was nobody would watch it. They are getting better tho. I just wish they'd make more old west and fur trade movies for us to gripe about and argue facts as we think we know them. As for Ringo he probably did commit suicide as history records him as a depressed drunk and the facts seem to confirm it. His death report IIRC says probable suicide.
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Old June 30, 2014, 05:06 PM   #8
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The fact is that even when directors bring in "historical experts" on movie sets, thet are often ignored by the creative team.

I read an article by an ancient warfare academic that worked on a movie depicting a Greek epic (he didn't name the movie, but I guess that is was Helen of Troy, which was terribly wrong in almost every sense.) He wrote that he mentioned many, many inaccuracies in the script and was basically ignored. His job basically was to sit on set and drink coffee; even when they did ask his opinion, they didn't listen. They (movie makers) just want to put someone in the credits is make it look as though they made an attempt to make a historically accurate film.

My guess is that it is no different in westerns.
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Old June 30, 2014, 08:33 PM   #9
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The media is for entertainment, not training or history.

If a movie is based on a historical event, summarize it in three words or less and you've got a good grasp of the historical events.

Tombstone: OK Corral Shoot-out.
The Patriot: Americans beat British.
Gettysburg: Lee Loses Offensive or Meade beats Lee.
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: They're all bad.
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Old June 30, 2014, 09:24 PM   #10
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In Rough Riders the Spanish are defending Kettle Hill with Maxims-they did NOT have them-and of course there are the scenes showing the Maxims feeding from the left and the Spanish soldiers with those left handed M1893 Mausers. Jim Bowie carrying a Nock Volley Gun in the 1960 production of The Alamo. Again, it's entertainment, not history.
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Old June 30, 2014, 11:14 PM   #11
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just go to the walmart movie section. youll find so many modern, direct to dvd westerns at the moment, made in the last 3 years youll cry.

i mean some have them using jacketed hollowpoints. one featuring a current on the way out male country star as "the virginian' has him using FMJ for a 44-40.

they dont care about anything other then the correct blend of

violence + sex + female nudity that will result in them getting twice the production cost when the sales are added up. Its proven that most major movies now are just calculated on

'will opening weekend gross revenue exceed cost to make and market film?"
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Old June 30, 2014, 11:30 PM   #12
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In the movies:

  • 6-guns have 20 - 30 rounds
  • Auto's aren't that bad, because switching mags is cool
  • In Fatal Beauty the bad guy has two 30-round banana clips taped together. Flipping them over causes the empty clip to majically refill, so he can shoot for minutes at a time. . .
  • And of course, the reason American Indians were almost made extinct is because they used to ride around wagon trains in circles to make it easier for the white men to kill them all.

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Old July 1, 2014, 01:19 AM   #13
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5 v. 6

Actually, I think it was pretty common knowledge with the early Colts, in the early days, to in fact load 5. As we modernized and domesticated, that bit of knowledge was lost and people started shooting themselves with dropped SA's and blows striking the hammer and shearing off the notch, and rounds in the chamber discharging. Which led to the "modern SA", the transfer bar, and the safety hammer in DA's.

Know a guy who is dang lucky to be alive. He swung an early Ruger Single Six into a tent onto the floor. The revolver was fully loaded in a Western style loop holster. The hammer spur landed just so on a rock under the tent floor, jumped the notch, and fired. The slug went through the brim of his hat. Stupid handling to be sure, but in 1970 couple, , he had never heard of "load 5".
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Old July 1, 2014, 08:31 AM   #14
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Steve McQueen's next to last move "Tom Horn" seemed accurate to the facts.
"Heaven's Gate", was the movie about the Johnson County War.
It was much better than the critics said.
Look for the original version, not the chopped up one that is usually shown.
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Old July 1, 2014, 01:08 PM   #15
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carrying the colt

It seems you could also carry a Merwin Hulbert, Smith and Wesson or Remmington (thats my order of preferance) the US Government tested the last two against a Colt SA army which they finally adopted. The Colt worked best during the rust test. It makes interesting reading. I suspect most people carried the Colt because of price reliability and availability. The Colt has a very distinct triple click due to the three notches in the hammer the first of which was to keep the firing pin off the round underneath it when six were loaded. I forgot hollywood had indians doing stupid things. At least they have cowboys doing equaly stupid things eg riding through towns shooting pistols in the air at about 22$ a 1000 rounds a days wages won't last long. Don't forget anyone intent on stopping a stage coach never thinks to shoot at horses.
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Old July 1, 2014, 01:25 PM   #16
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Quote:
The Colt has a very distinct triple click due to the three notches in the hammer
Actually there's four clicks. 1st is the safety notch, then half cock, then the bolt rising into the lead. The 4th is actually two simultaneously, the bolt locking in and the hammer going to full cock,
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Old July 1, 2014, 04:27 PM   #17
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I stand corrected
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Old July 2, 2014, 07:24 AM   #18
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Hell, even the History Channel gets a huge amount of their stuff absolutely and completely wrong.
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Old July 2, 2014, 07:42 AM   #19
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I agree with you Mike. Saw one episode about the Boston Massacre and they presumed that folks who were shot dropped dead right there. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Couldn't finish that show.
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Old July 2, 2014, 07:47 AM   #20
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Go check out the thread I started a few weeks ago on their series about World Wars I and II.

Holy crap on a cracker...
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Old July 2, 2014, 08:31 AM   #21
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Quote:
Many people see movies and think they are getting the truth.
You mean we really didn't beat back an alien invasion in the late 1800's as shown in "Cowboys and Aliens"?

I'm shocked...

Next, you'll be telling me that light sabers aren't real...
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Old July 2, 2014, 10:07 AM   #22
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I enjoyed that movie. With the exception of aliens I don't think it was to bad. Nice to see cowboys and Indians on the same side.
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Old July 2, 2014, 01:28 PM   #23
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But "Cowboys and Aliens" was real.
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Old July 2, 2014, 06:15 PM   #24
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But "Cowboys and Aliens" was real.
Yep and they caught it on film.
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Old July 2, 2014, 09:10 PM   #25
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IMHO, the really unrealistic part of "action" movies is that they talk. And talk. And talk. I am under the impression that if a mob hit man wants to kill someone, he just does it; he doesn't talk about it. He and the intended victim don't carry on a long conversation until the cops come to the rescue.

I have never been in combat, but I doubt troops on the move in enemy country carry on an endless stream of chatter about the morality of war, thus neatly giving away their position to every enemy soldier within a ten mile radius.

I guess I am lucky, but I have never shot anyone, or been shot. But I tend to think that someone hit in the chest by the charges from both barrels of a 12 gauge shotgun would just die, not carry on a ten minute philosophical discussion of the meaning of life.

But then just dying, without talk or theatrical moaning would not win an Oscar.

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