One of my favorite movies - 1970's Kelly's Heroes - showed up on cable tonight. Led by Clint Eastwood as Kelly, the all-star cast includes Don Rickles (Crapgame), Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland (as hippy-dippy Oddball: "Don't hit me with those negative waves so early in the morning."), Gavin MacLeod, Carol O'Connor, Stuart Margolin, Harry Dean Stanton and even Seinfeld's Uncle Leo, Len Lesser. They're a renegade World War II Army outfit heading into enemy territory to steal $16 million dollars in gold from a German bank. The film is the antithesis of the same year's Patton: the heroism is tangential to greed and entirely accidental.
As I do often these days, I checked the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) to see if it could tell me what song Oddball's Sherman tanks were playing (pre-dating Apocalypse Now by ten years, the Shermans feature huge PA horns that blast loud music when on the attack: "It calms us down...") when they attack a German railway yard. In the "Goofs" section of the movie listing, I found this:
Anachronisms: The song Oddball plays during the tank attack on the railway yard ("All for the Love of Sunshine") was not written until 1970.
Well, duh. The Mike Curb song (Curb also contributed Burning Bridges) was written for the movie so I'm not sure that's an actual goof. But I did find some other great anal-retentive comments, the kind that make the IMDB so much fun. I don't know who the men are submitting the goofs (and they're most CERTAINLY men) but these guys desperately need hobbies. Check out some of Kelly's Heroes "Goofs":
Factual errors: The German said there were 14,000 gold bars. Crapgame says that's "$16 million". When Kelly breaks open the box, it appears there are 12 bars per box (three wide, stacked four high) As they load it Crapgame says the 12 remaining men get 125 boxes, at $8,400 a box, totaling $10.5 million. But it's $84,000 per box. Also, at 12 bars per box, 125 boxes is only 1,500 bars. The errors go on from there (the boxes should weigh 146 lbs each) even if the value is about right for 200 troy ounce bars of gold.
Anachronisms: In Crapgame's supply tent, there is a box of Almond Joy candy bars. This movie is (obviously) set in World War II and the Almond Joy candy bar was not introduced until 1946.
Continuity: The 50cal MG on the half-track changes throughout the film. It's shown at some points to have a perforated barrel jacket (like on an M1919A4 30Cal), and then at other times seen to have a normal barrel.
Anachronisms: The sniper rifle used in the church bell tower is a Russian made Moisin Nagant 91/30 with a 4X power sidemount telescope, which is correct for the rifle and time period. However, the rifle fires Russian ammunition, in a caliber unique to the Russian military, which would not have been available to U.S. soldiers in WWII. The 91/30 sniper rifles were however imported in great quantity after World War II by many U.S. importers, and would have been readily available to serve as props in movie making.
I also found this in the "Trivia" section:
The "Tiger" tanks used in the film were actually Russian T-34 tanks which had been specially modified to look like Tiger tanks. This is apparent when you look at the suspension of the tanks (T-34s used a modified Christie suspension, whereas the Tigers' wheels were much more elaborate.)
One thing not in the "Trivia" section: the cover-art for the LP soundtrack (by Lalo Schifrin) is by one of my all-time favorite illustrators, Mad magazine's legendary Jack Davis. There, I can be anal retentive too.
This is one of my all time favourite films. I own it on dvd. Wow there are a lot of anal retentive oddballs out there. (Ignore the pun)
Posted by: L J | February 11, 2006 at 12:39 PM
these guys just didnt do their home work. i have it on good authority that the hippies in WW2 liked to change the machine guns on their half tracks often. it had to do with what mood they were feeling at the time.
Posted by: joemama | February 11, 2006 at 12:55 PM
Chris, if a movie filled with little facts and numbers intended to impress the audience are called on the numbers by people who know what they're talking about (or who at least did more research), and you're coming along posting these and saying they need to get a hobby.... what does it say when YOUR hobby is telling other people to get a hobby?
Posted by: Jason Scott | February 11, 2006 at 02:08 PM
They filmed the ending scenes in my uncle's little town in Croatia. I I just wanted to see it because of that- it was an ok movie. I was stunned when I found out I've actually walked on those streets because it seems so out of the way when I consider my grandparents are a town away, where they live on simple farm land and nothing much goes on there.
Posted by: Sensei Rebel | February 11, 2006 at 02:39 PM
Also one of my favorite Metromedia weekend timekillers as a kid. But the idea that anyone could take this movie seriously enough to worry about its 'facts' should start to wonder about the yacht, if you ask me - there was a yacht, right? In the middle of France? Being sent home?
One of my more treasured childhod memories was seeing Patton at a drive-in - Patton striding onto the screen, larger than life. Of course, the drive-in pretty much died out before Reagan could save it as another prop, but what a purely American moment at a time when America needed to remember what a good war felt like. And truly, the huge screen did a fair job of showing the tank battles at a real scale.
As a final note of nostalgia - the last time I saw a drive-in working was in the mid 1980s, stopped at a gas station in PA around midnight, and it was the scene where the Toady's fingers are sliced off by the Feral Kid's boomerang - silently, of course.
I think what truly killed the drive-in more than anything else was the lack of over the top moviemaking. Who makes movies for giant screens anymore?
Posted by: Foreign Listener K | February 13, 2006 at 10:14 AM
There was a drive-in in Hyde Park, New York still in operation as of the theatrical run of The Island of Dr. Moreau. What was that - about ten years ago?
It's probably gone by now though...
Posted by: Snarfyguy | February 14, 2006 at 11:37 AM
I saw Jerry Maguire at a drive-in outside of Tampa, FL, in whatever year that was. It was just eh as far as drive-in fare. Foreign Listener K is right about over-the-top movies being best for drive-in viewing. But I think they still make that kind of flick: horror films, actioners, the Star Wars franchise. Drive-ins in the warmer states, where they can be open year-round, fare much better than their Northern neighbors.
I have no idea if that Tampa drive-in is still around, though.
Posted by: frenchee | February 16, 2006 at 07:45 PM
Tulsa, OK has a double screen, back-to-back, drive-in called the Admiral twin, also a local band that stole the name for themselves. I don't know about the band but the drive-i n is still operational
Posted by: Patro Mine | August 21, 2006 at 03:44 PM
Kelly’s Heroes is one of my all time favourite war films, yes there are a number of things wrong in it but it's a comedy please try to remember this!
Large speaker on tank and the battle at the end they had to have influenced Apocalypse Now & Saving Private Ryan.
What model of leather helmet does Oddball wear in the film I would love to know as it isn’t a US tank helmet, as it was filmed in Croatia is it a Croat Tank Helmet?
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Posted by: Oddball | September 30, 2007 at 08:40 AM