Photographic goofs in westerns

[Drayton Calhoun]

Think about Josey Wales. Gatling guns, men falling like flies, yet I don't recall a single horse getting hit...PETA smart bullets?

[Old Doc]

Saw one on the Westerns Channel today. 1934 B&W John Wayne movie wiith Gabby Hayes and Yakima Canutt. Gabby Hayes is trying to get his daughter/niece to town without the bad guys knowing about it. He wraps her in a blanket and ties her to a horse draped over the horse's back (must have been very uncomfortable). They are fording a stream when the horse starts rearing and she and the blanket go overboard. They show the horse exiting the water bareback, no saddle, no girl and no blanket. Fortunately John Wayne is relaxing on the opposite shore and dives in and saves the girl. He pulls her out only to have the bad guys show up and start fording the river to attack them. The three of them, John Wayne, Gabby Hayes and the girl jump on their horses and high tail it out of there, but somehow the girl's horse, the one she was tied to, has now acquired a saddle. Yakima Canutt was one of the bad guys but I hope he was getting paid extra because every time John Wayne leaps onto his horse from behind, it's pretty clear that it's really Yakima.

[Drayton Calhoun]

Saw a good one this week, I think on The Virginian. This particular character is shot in the left shoulder. They take him to the doc who makes a big production of digging the bullet out and having the pretty blonde assistant hold pressure on the bandage. The wounded man is lying in bed with his shirt off and talking to others in the room. They alternate back and forth several times, showing him from two different camera angles. When they show him from the right side, the girl is holding pressure on the bandage. When they show him shirtless from the front, he doesn't have a mark on him. No bullet wound, no bandage, and the girl is not touching him . Miraculous recovery.

Neorsporin, Quinine and Peyote, lol

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[Old Doc]

Here's another. Not so much a goof as illogical. Just now on the Westerns Channel, Cheyenne Bodie is on a train being attacked by hostile Indians. There are women and 4-5 men in the passenger car with him and each seems to have at least one handgun and a rifle. The Indians are about 50 yards away on horseback, firing rifles and arrows. Cheyenne picks up a Winchester and uses it to break out the window, so he can draw his Colt and start firing back.

[Drayton Calhoun]

Here's another. Not so much a goof as illogical. Just now on the Westerns Channel, Cheyenne Bodie is on a train being attacked by hostile Indians. There are women and 4-5 men in the passenger car with him and each seems to have at least one handgun and a rifle. The Indians are about 50 yards away on horseback, firing rifles and arrows. Cheyenne picks up a Winchester and uses it to break out the window, so he can draw his Colt and start firing back.

That is a good one indeed. The comedy TV series 'Best of the West' touched on that one when someone breaks out a window to fire and the guy that owns the saloon says, "Next time, just open the window!"

[Dances With Coyotes]

I've seen the original True Grit I don't know how many times but someone pointed out that Roosters eyepatch switches eyes in the final shootout scene in the meadow. I'd never noticed that before.

[PJ Hardtack]

Don't know if someone already posted on this .....

In 'Dances With Wolves', Kostner is waving around his Henry, dropping great shaggies while the mag follower is down at the bottom of the tube - empty! First thing I noticed.
As a 44-40 Uberti Henry shooter, I have reservations about shooting puny pistol loads at a bison. I have baby sat a friend's buffalo ranch on a few occasions. They got to know me and were relaxed with me. One time I walked into their midst when the calves were their odd orange colour and they were in a dust wallow, rubbing off their winter coats.
I was surrounded and my Henry slung on my shoulder seemed awfully small. The bulls remembered me and didn't regard me as a threat, but the greater danger was from the cows protecting their calves. They eyed me up pretty closely and I was a little nervous for a bit.
Another time, I was baby sitting them over Xmas/New Year and they took off on a 'walk-about' as they are wont to do. I kept tabs on them (to record the damage they did) and they split  into two groups. I lost one group in the fresh falling snow and was about to quit when I checked a likely spot. Sure enough, they were bedded down, covered over and stood up one by one, shaking the snow off.
I was surrounded again. I backed off and threw down some hay from my truck and had to walk through them to get in. They were too busy to pay me any attention. Sorry - got carried away with the memory .....

[Coal Creek Griff]

I had to break out my copy of "True Grit" to check out the eye-patch switch.  There is a brief shot that appears to be "mirror-imaged".  The eye patch, guns and clothes are all switched. I guess they didn't think anyone would notice--and they were pretty much right.

[joec]

This site is great for not only finding out the guns they used it also points out a number of problems with the choice of guns. http://www.imfdb.org/index.php/Main_Page There is a lot of historical mistakes in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly besides just wrong guns used not created at the time the movie was supposed to be happening.

[Dead I]

The 92 Winchester was made long after "Statecoach" was set. 

I remember an old Audie Murphy western.  He's given a Henry rifle.  He's told he'll enjoy the gun once he gets used to the heavy recoil.

Of course all of the old Civil War movies that use Trapdoor Springfields as muskets.  Then there are the ones with flintlock like hammers welded to trapdoors.

All of the Hollywood created costums in "Gettysburg".  Lee's beard isn't right either.  The reinactors, while too well fed, wore the best uniforms in that movie.

 

[Coal Creek Griff]

I watched "Santa Fe Trail" last week (1940, with Errol Flynn, Olivia de Haveland and Ronald Reagan).  this is set in the time period leading up to the Civil War.  Of course the "history" is all mixed up, but I thought the guns were interesting.  At the beginning of the movie, it looked like they all had muzzle-loaders and cap and ball revolvers.  I was kind of impressed.  As time went on, I started seeing more and more trapdoor Springfields.  Eventually, the guns all morphed into 1873 Colt revolvers and (mostly) trapdoors.  Sometimes it seemed as if they started a battle scene with an 1860 Colt Army and ended with an 1873 Peacemaker!  It is amazing how fast technology was developing at that time.

CC Griff

[Major 2]

The 92 Winchester was made long after "Statecoach" was set. 

I remember an old Audie Murphy western.  He's given a Henry rifle.  He's told he'll enjoy the gun once he gets used to the heavy recoil.

Of course all of the old Civil War movies that use Trapdoor Springfields as muskets.  Then there are the ones with flintlock like hammers welded to trapdoors.

All of the Hollywood created costums in "Gettysburg".  Lee's beard isn't right either.  The reinactors, while too well fed, wore the best uniforms in that movie.

 

It's Reenactors ....and everyone know the camera adds 25 lbs 

[Johnny McCrae]

In "The Searchers" John Wayne carries an 1873 SAA and an 1892 Winchester. The film appears to have taken take place just a few years after the end of the Civil War.

[Grigori_Storri]

I was watching the Westerns Channel around a year ago with my youngest. I can not remember if it was a Gene Autry or the Cisco Kid, but there was a horse chase tat showed a closeup of the riders drawing and firing. We noticed that the riders passed the same wooden picnic table no less than twice in every close up scene.

[Major 2]

In "The Searchers" John Wayne carries an 1873 SAA and an 1892 Winchester. The film appears to have taken take place just a few years after the Civil War.

For me the most glaring Wayne film in terms of anchronisms is The Comancharo's

Wayne states he is a Texas Ranger in the service of Republic of Texas ... "which existed from 1836 to 1846."
The film while set in 1843 .... characters all use  Winchester 1892 lever action rifles and 1873 Colt Peacemaker pistols.

[The Elderly Kid]

It's been pretty rare for Hollywood filmmakers to pay much attention to the proper dates for firearms. The important thing has always been: will they shoot the 4-in-1 blanks used throughout the film industry? If they would, and they looked vaguely 19th century, they got used.

[Major 2]

The 5-in-1 is designed to function in .38-40 and .44-40 rifles and .38-40, .44-40 and .45 revolvers.
Head stamped 5 in 1...I lost a lot of them in my Building fire.   

They had about 3 doz. Springfield Trapdoor Rifles rented from Western Costume LA.
these had a protuberance of a mock flint hammer....on "13 days to Glory" Pretty lame pieces 
I've had seen the like in Disney's  "Swiss Family Robinson" 

[Shotgun Franklin]

In the John Wayne 'Alamo' there's a Mexican Infantryman wearing a wrist watch.

There's a great old movie, 'The Light That Failed' set in England and North Africa.
The whole British Army is armed with Trapdoors.

I vey many of the old Oaters the 'Indians' all speak Spanish I don't care
where they happen to be.

[joec]

I just caught one in the Eastwood movie "For a Few Dollars More". I've seen this movie at least 15 times over the years but the first time I notice Indio smoking a filter cigarette. The way he holds it hard to see but brown filters on white paper cigarettes didn't exist till the 1900's. Filters where new when I was a kid and even them few brown filter ones.

[Old Doc]

I got the impression Indio was smoking dope.