Torture Yourself! (1 Viewer)

[gk5717]

I think someone posted about the worst movies before but there can be none worse than "The Battle of the Bulge" with Henry Fonda , etc..
I had seen it before and new it was bad, but I forced myself to watch it tonight, all the way thru.
From the improper armour, every one shot, thru up both arms did a half twist and fell into a puddle of water, the German headquarters which looked like a seen out of star wars. But as I said I stayed to the very last. The ending tank battle was fought on what appeared to be desert conditions. Dry barron ground, dust, etc. The Ardennes, winter!
Obviously this was not a B movie, but a major production.
Is there anyone out there that liked this movie even a little?
This movie made the Combat TV series as real as SPR!
Gary

 

[Fubar]

Gary, I saw this one when I was 6 . I didnt think it was very good then. But, sometimes it is a guilty pleasure thing for me. I like Telly Savalas and some of the scenes. It is bad , but I think there are even worse 60's WW2 movies.Sometimes as I'm channel surfing and catch it, I'll watch for a while.
Hey, The History channel had " THE HISTORY OF DUNG" { I ---- you not!}
the other nite. I'd watch BOB , or most anything over that!
FUB

 

[Spitfrnd]

I think someone posted about the worst movies before but there can be none worse than "The Battle of the Bulge" with Henry Fonda , etc..
I had seen it before and new it was bad, but I forced myself to watch it tonight, all the way thru.
....Is there anyone out there that liked this movie even a little?
This movie made the Combat TV series as real as SPR!
Gary

It has the problems you note Gary and it is not one of my favorites but it is not my worst example. I would suggest that Thin Red Line and Wind Talkers were both much worse; and then there is the Green Berets None of these were supposed to be B movies either. FWIW, I think Combat did a pretty good job given its budget limitations. It was no Band of Brothers but I still enjoy watching it from time to time.

 

[UKReb]

A pretty dreadful turkey but worth remembering when first released it was in and I quote "Glorious Super Cinerama" and the makers tended to concentrate on set-pieces to show off the giant curved screen process whilst authenticity went out the door.

Even the opening dialogue got it wrong "Montgomery and his 8th Army were in the North........Montgomery might have been but the 8th were in Italy!

I suppose we come back to the old premise of how many of the great unwashed movie-goers would know the difference between Tiger and American tanks. Problem was though that in 1965 there was still a hell of a lot of WWII vets around who laughed it off the screen including Eisenhower himself who commented to the press that "That was the biggest crock of (the proverbial) I have ever seen and an insult to our veterans who were there".

Reb

 

[theBaron]

Good points, all. We watch "Battle of the Bulge" just as an enjoyable war movie, and not as a documentary. I enjoy it like I enjoy watching "Godzilla" movies, they don't mean much, they're not supposed to be deep, and they're entertaining.

Plus, for as bad as the movie is, Robert Shaw is good in it, as are Henry Fonda and Telly Savalas, heck, the cast is a veritable Who's Who of the more popular actors of the day.

Over at the IMdb, someone posted a comment about the movie, calling it a western disguised as a WWII movie, and that sounds pretty insightful. That's really what it is.

As to the error on the 8th Army, well, the screenwriters were Americans but the director was the Brit Ken Annakin, so he should have known.

Prost!
Brad

 

[gk5717]

I will give it one plus, when the German panzer commanders sang "Panzerlied", it stirred my German blood!
Gary

 

[Warrior]

As others have pointed out, seeing this movie as a kid was a thrill for me. As I got older and actually learned the history behind the event, it has become a guilty pleasure movie for me. Some of the dialogue is comical and the inaccuracies are endless.

I thought I read somewhere that the tank battle at the end was filmed in Spain on a military base and in some of the scenes, you can see observation towers where generals would view the manouvers from.

The 60's and 70's practice of using modern tanks in WWII films (Patton, Tobruk, Raid on Rommel) was in effect here as well. As were the 60's
GI uniforms and equipment. Also, the Panzerlied, although somewhat inspiring, repeats the first verse over and over, that's as far as it goes.

To be frank, if it were on tv, I'd still watch it..........

 

[uksubs]

check this web site out witch show the mistakes made in the film
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058947/goofs
http://www.moviemistakes.com/film1864

 

[Warrior]

That is quite a laundry list of errors in the movie, some are rather ticky tacky, but whatever.

Iamgine having that job, watching a movie and nitpicking it to death, what fun that must be.

Did either of those reviewers spot Waldo in any of the frames?

 

[Spitfrnd]

That is quite a laundry list of errors in the movie, some are rather ticky tacky, but whatever.

Iamgine having that job, watching a movie and nitpicking it to death, what fun that must be.

Did either of those reviewers spot Waldo in any of the frames?

Good one, LOL. Frankly most of those kind of silly little errors don't bother me in the least.

 

[Warrior]

"Frankly most of those kind of silly little errors don't bother me in the least.'

Couldn't agree more, some were over the top silly. I also really like the soundtrack to the movie as well, the song in the beginning and the one that closes out the movie, both the same but I like it........"Tell him the Germans have abandoned their tanks and are walking back to Germany'........

 

[Rob]

That sure is a long list!.Obviously contains huge errors and mistakes and is not to be taken seriously.However and i don't know why,perhaps because as i grew up its was always on tv,its still enjoyable somehow!.Even though factually its laughable,it still appears to have cemented its place in the list of classic War films.

Great quote from Eisenhower Reb

Rob

 

[binder001]

It's interesting that the imdb states that the "Battle of the Bulge" movie was filmed at the US Army Yakima firing range. My information was that the bulk of the filming was done in the mountains of Spain. All the tanks, etc came from the Spanish Army - there was a site once that even listed the regiments involved. All the equipment in the film was from the early NATO era, all this stuff would have been hard to come by at Yakima, WA in 1964-65. That's also why the funky artillery in the movie - none of the towed guns is American or British.

Anyway - its a delightful "guilty pleasure" to sit back and watch the tanks. I still want my own M24 to run around in!

Gary

 

[Saber]

This is one of those family fight movies for me. My father loves it and I can't stand it, sorry, even for entertainment. If it tried to be funny and not too series like Kellys Heroes I might could stomach it every now and then same as KHs. It's a shame Hollywood hasn't remade a few more of these movies over the last 5-10 years. With CGI and Historical information a fingertip a way on the WWW they could really correct many of the glaring errors that made SOME of the older movies somewhat silly. If I see another M48 posed as a Tiger/Panzer I'm going to....

Cheers, Saber

 

[Spitfrnd]

Actually it depends on the audience and what you expect from a movie. The glaring "historical" errors in BotB are certainly not apparent to the vast majority of American movie watchers. As I assume we all know, those with knowledge of the correct military equipment, not to mention factual details of a given battle, represent a very small fraction of our population. Even then, many of those with knowledge are willing to suspend their criticism of such issues if the movie otherwise has merit, either through the acting or the general impact of the story being told. To me, solid performances of actors like Robert Shaw, Henry Fonda, Telly Savalas, Charles Bronson and Robert Ryan more than compensate for such hardware and historical accuracy defects. As oft said here, popular movies are NOT documentaries.

This discussion brings to mind another war movie which is also overly maligned for similar flaws from my perspective. I just watched Midway again last night and as always, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes it uses much stock combat footage of aircraft like F6Fs and F4Us that were not in service at that time and yes no F4Us or Buffaloes are present. The crash scenes and battle scenes are a mishmash cobbled together from Tora, Tora, Tora, Battle of Britain, Away all Boats and stock navy footage with many examples of aircraft and ships from the wrong era or theater. That said, the story line is generally consistent with the actual events and the drama conveyed by such excellent actors as Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda (again), Glen Ford, Hal Holbrook, Toshiro Mifune and Robert Wagner make it work very well for me. Would I prefer a better set of battle scenes done with the current generation of CGI, sure; the problem is there is no current set of actors that come close to those who appeared in that film so I have doubts that any remake would be a real improvement. So for my taste, it is always best when they get it all right, as they came very close to doing in BoB and SPR but if I have to chose, acting and drama trump hardware and accuracy IMHO. It is notable that BoB and SPR were great, in no small part because of their acting and drama.

 

[gk5717]

Let me chime in one more time on this.
Agreed most people watching this movie wouldn,t know a tiger tank from pershing tank , or a U.S. half track from a hanomag.
But don,t call the movie "The Battle of the Bulge", thus suggesting some historical depiction of this event.
Even the story line is ludicrous, with the Germans finally defeated by rolling burning barrells of oil at the approaching German tanks, thus destroying them and bringing victory to the Allies.
Strickly my opinion, but I just can,t see anyone from this board, asssuming they are collectors of military figures and vehicles, ever finding anything entertaining about this movie.
As I started this thread, "torture yourself", which I did while watching this.
P.S., I even thought the acting was carney, all they needed was a tough guy from Brooklyn!
Gary

 

[Spitfrnd]

...Strickly my opinion, but I just can,t see anyone from this board, asssuming they are collectors of military figures and vehicles, ever finding anything entertaining about this movie.
...Gary

Well Gary, there are several posts that suggest there are a number of such folks, so what can I say.

 

[theBaron]

Speaking of "Midway", what bothers me about the movie is the fact that the producers could have done a movie of the quality of "Tora! Tora! Tora!" but were either shooting for something else, or tried and failed in the attempt.

"Midway" followed TTT by six years (1976 vs 1970), yet it represents a step back in terms of the special effects of at least 10. The wrong stock footage (not just F6F's and F4U's, but also SB2C's and SB2U's (in the wrong place and time in the battle), but also using the same Oriskany-class carriers for American and Japanese exterior shots, just reversing the film images was bad enough. Add to that the lame love story between Heston's fighter pilot son and the Nisei girl, and it really ruined that movie for me.

Remember, too, that a big selling point for that movie was the use of Sensurround, introduced in Irwin Allen's disaster pic "Earthquake!" That was the use big subwoofers to carry sound effects like explosions, and shake the heck out of the audience.

If I happen to see it on TV now, I will watch some of it, to enjoy the acting performances. But otherwise, I think it failed to live up to its expectations.

Prost!
Brad

 

[Canadian Samurai]

Frankly the Battle of Hoth in Star Wars Empire Strikes Back is a more accurate depiction of the Ardennes fighting than the joke that is "The Battle of the Bulge". Worst big-budget war movie ever made IMO.

 

[Spitfrnd]

Speaking of "Midway", what bothers me about the movie is the fact that the producers could have done a movie of the quality of "Tora! Tora! Tora!" but were either shooting for something else, or tried and failed in the attempt.

"Midway" followed TTT by six years (1976 vs 1970), yet it represents a step back in terms of the special effects of at least 10. The wrong stock footage (not just F6F's and F4U's, but also SB2C's and SB2U's (in the wrong place and time in the battle), but also using the same Oriskany-class carriers for American and Japanese exterior shots, just reversing the film images was bad enough. Add to that the lame love story between Heston's fighter pilot son and the Nisei girl, and it really ruined that movie for me.
...

Well you should rent the dvd and watch the production commentary; it answers some of those questions. As I noted there are many "hardware errors" but I am not sure what limits they had on access to more accurate alteratives. I think they picked the action they wanted to show, usually correctly and then tried to find some stock or available footage to match; admittedly with very odd results. The SB2 issues don't bother even an ole air dog like me, at least they used dive bombers mostly where they were supposed to. On the carriers, they used the Essex class carrier Lexington for both sides because it was the one they had access to; there were no surviving Japanese or Yorktown carriers left at that time. There are only three other surviving Essex class carriers, all preserved as museums but all modernized after the war. The love story was certainly not the greatest but it did have a place; I didn't find it sufficiently developed to add or hinder. When I watch it, I ignore the visual blunders and just ride with the story, which I think is pretty well told.