Kelly's Heroes.

[miketherock]

Watched this classic film again!
The interpretations of the Tigers seems to get worse each time I have watched this since I was 7 years of age.
It is a must watch all the same.
Spot the glaring errors.

[DRAGONWAGON]

....On the other hand, the movie itself remains very entertaining....woof woof..

[panzerschreck]

Woof Woof Woof!...Thats my other dog impression man

[miketherock]

Spot on.

[Johnf]

I passed the town where the film was made a few weeks ago driving through Croatia. The Tigers were not a bad attempt by the Yugoslav army at converting 3 T34s. Compared to the Battle of the Bulge I give them a thumbs up. Still one of my favourite war movies.

[DRAGONWAGON]

The funny thing in the (bad) Battle of the Bulge movie, was that no one seemed to see that both the tanks on German and Allied side were the same, only a different paintjob....LOL

[tankmad]

The German and American tanks in the Battle of the bulge were different the German tanks were M48 Patton tanks the Americans used M24 Chaffee's still a great film though.
Stevie

[tanks_for_the_memory]

As far as I'm concerned Kelly's Heroes is one of the greats - an unlikely mixture of Vietnam aesthetics with WWII history - but it works...

And I think the film makers should at least be given credit for trying to get Tigers that actually looked a bit like Tigers. Many films made since with supposedly higher levels of historical accuracy have fallen far more short - e.g. A Bridge Too Far - weren't they Leopards? Although I suppose at least they were German!

Not until Saving Private Ryan did anyone seem to take this seriously. Band of Brothers also made a good attempt at mocking up German tanks.

Mind you, isn't there a real-looking Wespe seen briefly in the English Patient? And a Stug in Charlotte Gray? Or did I just hallucinate about that?

[seafire]

Kelly's heroes is a great movie. But I dont actually see it as a classic war film. First and foremost it's a bank robbery caper. Sort of 'Ocean's Eleven' set in 1944. The tigers were a very good effort for the time. A lot better than 'Battle of the Bulge' - M47s with German crosses and a landscape that looked nothing like the Ardennes. Not a bad film on it's own terms but absolutely nothing to do with real history.

[miketherock]

Film plots aside. The efforts of some production teams to get a reasonable facsimile of realism to WW2 vehicles has been deplorable but it has improved dramatically, concidering these vehicles are getting more rare as years pass. As mentioned, the "Bulge" film budget seems to have all been spent on paying the allstar cast instead of setting an accurate scene. Kelly's is just as guilty. But the minor details like the Spandau sticking out of the drivers hatch at one point and the drivers hatch in a later scene not being even slightly accurate. It looked like the driver was lowering a piece of wobbly cardboard. Even the tiger being revved up at night in the rain near the start of the film, had what looked like ply rear mudguards.
What I appreciate with the new school of film making is if they do not have very accurate tanks, they only include fleeting glances of the mock ups so detail errors are not so obvious.