Favourite historical film?

[Leman]

My all-time favourite is April 9th, and I don't even do WWII gaming.

[d_Guy]

"Cromwell" despite all the warts (sorry!) it got me (and a rather large number of others I suspect) crazy interested in the ECW.
Favorite line: Robert Morley as Manchester just prior to Edgehill, "Missed me breakfast- damned tricky things, stomachs!"

[FierceKitty]

"Cromwell" despite all the warts (sorry!) it got me (and a rather large number of others I suspect) crazy interested in the ECW.
Favorite line: Robert Morley as Manchester just prior to Edgehill, "Missed me breakfast- damned tricky things, stomachs!"

One of the greatest fantasy films ever.

[d_Guy]

I think when I saw it in a theater here in 1970 it had a disclaimer that said something like "based on actual events in England centuries ago - the ones with the feathers like the king - the one that look like pilgrims, not so much".

[Leman]

Ah yes, anything before 1776 is ancient history.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Thought the idiots did actually recognise 1492 ?

[d_Guy]

Growing up in a small WV town in the 1950s the essential dates we had to know in elementary school (to the best of my recollection) were:
1066, 1215, 1492, 1517, 1607, 1688, 1776, 1789, 1863, and 1941. I have no idea what dates are now required, if any.

[fsn]

Battle of Hastings, Magna Carta, Columbus joins the long line of people who "find" America, Martin Luther starts social media with a note on a cathedral, death of Mary Stuart, William of Orange?, Publication of Gibbons "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", French completely lose it, Red Cross founded, Barbarossa.

[Dr Dave]

Publication of Gibbons "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"...

[Leman]

None of those dates are from Ancient History. Funny how the word ancient (I know DG didn't actually use it above) means totally different things depending on which side of the Atlantic you are.

[d_Guy]

fsn you were doing extremely well until you began to diverge (from an American POV) at 1607 - not too bad however. 

Leman - we did not get to ancient history until Junior High School (now called Middle School), IIRC. Until then any formal education in ancient history was handled by the churches. 

The major courses through our secondary education at that time were Ancient and Medieval (often lumped together unless you were doing honors), Renaissance and Reformation, Modern European, and United States and State history. I am ignorate as to when ancient history ended, currently it seems to be around 1992.

[mollinary]

Does no one like The Last of the Mohicans? I remember seeing it in London immediately on release and being blown away by it. Gladiator probably also deserves a mention, if only for the 'Zulu' tribute, and its ancient predecessor, 'The Fall of the Roman Empire' with Alec Guinness as Marcus Aurelius, and Christopher Plummer as a magnificently bizarre Commodus,
had a certain je ne sai quoi. Even Anthony Quayle, James Mason and Omar Sharif got bit parts, not to mention Sophia Loren!

[Leman]

Talking of sword and sandals movies, does anyone remember Anthony Quinn in  Barabbas. It came out not long after Spartacus. I was taken to see it as a boy and was really frightened by the scene in the mines.

Re. ancient above, in a fair number of American films it is used simply to mean a bit old. I always imagine Dead Sea Scrolls when someone in the film says, "We found it in these ancient writings;" and it turns out to be a book from 1807! 

I remember another occasion when a friend of mine was looking after an American visitor and suggested he visit Chester, only about 40 minutes on the local train from Liverpool.
"What's so special about Chester?" he asked.
"It has a lot of shops older than your country," was the reply.

[fsn]

Does no one like The Last of the Mohicans?

I remember the TV series in the 1970s in which that very Welsh actor Philip Madoc played Magua.

In a line that has passed into family myth, Magua, disgruntled by something uttered the immortal line "I spit on your wigwam."

And he did.


In answer to the question, can't abide Daniel Day Lewis, so never watched that variant.

How about "Northwest Passage" with Spencer Tracy leading Roger's Rangers? Can't remember the name of the character he played.

[fsn]

(from an American POV)

The who? 

I think I have opined on American history programs. "long time ago the Chinese invented something then king Arthur Probably used it so we can show some c15 armour, and the French did something really cool. Then on the 29th August 1874 in Bumkiss Missouri , Abe Abeson painted one blue and the history of the world changed forever."

[d_Guy]

It's true, Leman, unless Washington slept in it or a battle was fought on it, we tend to bulldoze things every twenty years or so. 

There is not twenty miles from where I write a large Hopewell burial mound that is at least a thousand years old (and likely much older). The various mound building cultures have left mounds and artifacts strewn all over the landscape some dating back to 3500 BC. Of course we didn't build them do we generally ignore them.


I also like the last of "The Last of the Mohicans" which followed the book well and whose uniforms, costumes and weapons use met re-enactment standards (at the minimum). I had forgotten "The Fall of the Roman Empire", saw it when it was released but can now recall little. Did it have a chariot chase on a mountain road?

How about "Northwest Passage" with Spencer Tracy leading Roger's Rangers? Can't remember the name of the character he played.

 

The rangers looked like Interwar US marines with fringe.

[fsn]

I enjoy "Time Team" which is an archaeological program fronted by Baldrick from Black Adder.

In Britain the trick seemed to be "hmmm ... bit of discoloured grass ... send in the digger!" In the US it was "bit of discoloured grass ... let's remove the top layer by hand and then used trowels to dig down the next 3 feet." *

Shows how aware the US is of its historical legacy.


*One of the things the US does right is to retain the Imperial system of measurement.

[Leman]

As a kid I loved the old black and white TV series of Hawkeye. It was not until I was a teenager and saw Northwest Passage that I realised the burning of the fort in the opening titles of Hawkeye was lifted directly from Northwest Passage. Given how tense the situation could be in the Eastern woodlands at that time, the ferocity of the Iroquois and the sheer frontier feel of the period, I'm surprised the FIW is not used more frequently as a setting for feature films.

[Wulf]

I remember another occasion when a friend of mine was looking after an American visitor and suggested he visit Chester, only about 40 minutes on the local train from Liverpool.
"What's so special about Chester?" he asked.
"It has a lot of shops older than your country," was the reply.

I once told an American tourist in Edinburgh "We have public toilets older than your Constitution". Not sure it's true, mind you, but it made him think a bit.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Public toilets - IN SCOTLAND !!!!!