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Barry Lyndon movie fakery.

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Barry Lyndon is a great movie if you can look past Ryan O'Neal's terrible acting. It won several Oscars (but not for Best Actor). Too bad they didn't cast someone that seemed to care about the role, and get the guns right of course!
He probably wasnt the best choice. Probably picked because he was well known at the time. Who would you have chosen? I cant remember who played Captian Feeney, but I think he nailed the part of a highway man.
 
Interesting. I've been bingeing Hogan's Heros lately, and wondered about the Krag.

I think my favorite period series is Sharpe's Rifles.
The Krag jumped out at me also. Somewhere in the series, there is a guard walking around with a Thompson submachine gun also. Probably more. I discovered the Sharps series last year and worked my way through them fairly quickly. Got me started on the books as well.
 
How ‘bout Travis’s American long rifle in Old Yeller?
 

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I watched the Sharps Rifle series also. Found it amusing when fresh British troops marched in with Charlevilles . Later the French had bess muskets. Same people with different costumes??
 
In the John Wayne movie the Undefeated which takes place months after the end of the Civil War he and his men are carrying 1873 pistols and 1892 Winchesters. The Rebs are using 1873 trapdoors.

Much the same as in "The Horse Soldiers", when the Rebel soldiers are charging up a Street scene the Union cavalrymen are firing 1873 Trapdoor Springfield carbines.
 
Much the same as in "The Horse Soldiers", when the Rebel soldiers are charging up a Street scene the Union cavalrymen are firing 1873 Trapdoor Springfield carbines.
Look at all the old west movies where the US Cavalry soldiers are carrying lever action Winchesters. Lever actions Winchesters were never issued to the Custer Little Bighorn era US Cavalry. Springfield trapdoor carbines only. I always get a kick out of the guys wearing a bandoleer of 30.06, 8mm Mauser, or some such long rifle round and they are carrying pistol caliber lever action saddle ring carbines. Bigger rounds look cooler in a bandoleer. Never ever see anyone reloading from one of the bandoleers. Tough to get an 8mm Mauser round to fit in a 44-40 chambered rifle.

By the time the Spaghetti Westerns came into popularity they were using .45 Colt caliber lever guns which the Italians made in huge numbers. Made it easy for the prop guys to supply blanks when the pistols and rifles were using the same blank ammunition.
 
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Another thing that I have found amusing. Every wagon attached to a military patrol has kegs of black powder that eventually gets blown up or used to blow something else up. No artillery, but then they used bag charges. They wouldn't be reloading empty brass so why is there always the kegs of powder? Sometimes a whole wagon of powder. Got to have something to make a big boom the audience.
 
I watched the Sharps Rifle series also. Found it amusing when fresh British troops marched in with Charlevilles . Later the French had bess muskets. Same people with different costumes??

Yes they were (the same extras). In a funny twist of fate they were actually Ukrainian Army conscripts and the filming was done in Crimea...

A slice of my childhood, I watched them when they were broadcast in the UK and I am enjoying showing them to my kids now.

I can live with the silliness and inappropriateness because the characters are fun and they have made my kids interested in the period just as they did for me.
 
In the John Wayne movie the Undefeated which takes place months after the end of the Civil War he and his men are carrying 1873 pistols and 1892 Winchesters. The Rebs are using 1873 trapdoors.
You'd think "big stars" would take one look at the script and the wrong props that go into a movie and balk. John Wayne and his Winchester and Peacemaker or Clint Eastwood and his dynamite, etc. I'm no lawyer but I would think that sort of clause about correct props could or would have easily been inserted into the movie contract. Hollywood must have had a pretty good legal department (or were good at bluffing). From what I've read about John Ford and John Wayne they both fancied themselves as fairly knowledgeable about the Old West.Wrong props say otherwise.All about the dollar!
 
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4-5 of Hogan's Heros lineup were Jewish actors portraying Germans. It seems like that show went out of their way to make the Germans look like buffoons.
I cant remember his name off hand, but the actor that played Klink had it written into his contract that the character could never have anything work out in his favor.
 
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