GDG- Movies

[Chet Diestel]

> Esteemed GDG Member John Baniszewski Contributes:
>
>
> In addition to the good movies, I also like the comiclly bad ones, the 
> ones that make GAG look like a documentary.
>
>  "They died with their boots on" is a classic.  My favorite scene is where 
> Winfield Scott is in the telegraph office in Washington, commanding the 
> Union Army at Gettysburg, and his realization that only the three cavalry 
> regiments under Custer can save Washington from being captured.
>
>  I just saw the "Sante Fe Trail".  I liked the West Point graduation 
> scene, where classmates JEB Stuart, George Thomas, James Longstreet, and 
> George Custer got together for the last time.  I also liked the mounted 
> cavalry charge  by 400 men at Harper's Ferry against the building in which 
> John Brown and his 200 men were defeated, just an hour before Brown's 
> force of 1,200 reinforcements from Pennsylvania arrived.
>
>  Who says you can't learn nothin' by seein' movies?  Who needs history 
> books when you got Hollywood?
>
>  John Baniszewski
>
   Jim, you are assuming that history and Warner Bros. action movies ---  
based on real characters or incidents or not --- of the late 1930s have even 
a nodding acquaintance. They were star vehicles and romantic romance for the 
mass public. Whatever their misses as movies, both THE MOVIE and GAG, both 
give more than a passing nod to history.
   But don't be too hard on "They Died With Their Boots On," for you've 
gotta appreciate any movie with lines like "My God, he's got on more gold 
braid than a French admiral," (unidentified colonel on Custer's first 
appearance as the new commander of the Michigan Brigade.) or Flynn's 
response to the aide's question of "Where will the General's headquarters 
be?" Custer: "Headquarters? Headquarters? In front of the charging 
regiment!"
            With regards,
                      Chet