Photographic goofs in westerns

[MedicineMan]

How is the belt AND suspenders a goof ? Some people dress that way ?

Even today this is commonly seen.....

I hear it said all over the place.
"How can you trust someone who doesn't even trust his own pants ??"

It's more pointing out the "tard effect" of the look.

[MedicineMan]

Encore Westerns has touted "HIGH NOON" for the past month.
After all the hype, I failed to see why it won any awards at all.

But I only mention it because when he is walking about the town looking for the next bad guy to shoot, you can see the buildings and power lines and poles (complete with transformers) of the other parts of the studio lots over top of the set they are working.

[Old Doc]

A couple more . In a Westerns Channel movie the other day , the bad guy pulls a Derringer and is holding it with his hand directly in front of his body . The good guy facing him  distracts him and then shoots directly at him , shooting the gun from his hand but somehow , the bullet does not continue on into his body .
Chester in Gunsmoke has a bad right leg . When on horseback, the stiff right leg is always sticking straight out from the saddle in an elongated stirrup . In an episode the other day, there is a long shot of Chester riding across a meadow with his LEFT leg sticking straight out . Probably a stunt double who couldn't remember which is the bad leg .
I read once that the irony of Gunsmoke was that James Arness actually had a bad leg from a war wound and walked with a limp.
When the cameras were rolling, he had to make a conscious effort to minimize his limp and Dennis Weaver had to remember to walk with a limp. Only in Hollywood !

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[litl rooster]

Some stuff is the fault of the cutting room.

I saw the scene as it was before it was edited. Costner is carrying 4 revolvers. It actually shows him changing guns but then the scene was 'fixed'. It doesn't change the fact that the gun action is wrong but at least someone tried to make it right to start with.

there would be a lot of boring time in a action movie if they had to stop and reload. delete delete delete

[The Trinity Kid]

Notice in Rio Bravo, when Chance jumps through the barn door his hat falls off.  When he stands up in the barn, it's back on his head,

--TK

[Will Ketchum]

I have a movie "Blood River" starring Wilfred Brimley and Ricky Schroeder (if I remember right)  in one scene they are trapped in a boat house and a couple of the posse members are blasting away with Ruger Super Blackhawks.

Will Ketchum

[The Trinity Kid]

Well, not exactly a western, but the movie O Brother Where art Thou, there is a guy with a Glock......Nothing big, just a modern semi-auto in the nineteen twenties.  Or the exploding UPS truck.....

--TK

[Dances With Coyotes]

In The Searchers there is a part where they are in the snow and riding through a creek or something. In the background you can see cars driving.

In The Good Bad and Ugly during the bridge blowing up scene you can see a car in the background.

Count how many times Doc fires in Tombstone...especially at Ike Clanton

[nagantino]

It's good fun spotting these wee things. One of the most difficult continuity problems is the guy smoking a cigarette/cigar. Long ash, then short ash then long ash. You have to pity an actor who has to eat heartily because if you have to do the take again he has to eat heartily again, and again. One thing not mentioned is hair styles. It's not so important in a western cos hairy scruff is good, but old photos show meticulously groomed lawmen and Cowboys. I don't mind it in a western but when it's a WW11 movie and we see officers and men sporting curls and locks it's just infuriating. I think I read that in the past the star could refuse period haircuts especially short cuts but now they are contractually bound to submit to authenticity. But me favourite are the clothes especially trousers, sorry pants, worn in the old westerns of the 40,s and 50's BIG wide trousers, sometimes the waist band coming up to the chest just like your grand dad. Now Pappy O'Donnell in Oh Brother Where Art Thou he had some serious trousers in fact when I looked at the movie a week or so I could not look at anything else.

[The Elderly Kid]

On that point (though not western) we seen the opposite long-hair problem when WWII German soldiers are depicted. In otherwise meticulous movies like "Saving Private Ryan," all the German soldiers are depicted as near-skinheads, with only a short stubble of hair. But if you study photos from the period, German soldiers almost always had hair noticeably longer than their American and British counterparts. The problem is, modern neo-Nazis favor the skinhead look, and filmmakers project that look back onto the original Nazis. Ah, well, the medium has always been a fantasy.

[HolliferADollar]

I have a movie "Blood River" starring Wilfred Brimley and Ricky Schroeder (if I remember right)  in one scene they are trapped in a boat house and a couple of the posse members are blasting away with Ruger Super Blackhawks.

Will Ketchum

Tried watching a western movie on Netflix, I can't remember the name, that was about a soldier returning home from the war of northern aggression.  He was armed with a 94 Winchester that had Uncle Mike's sling swivels.  When I saw that, I stopped watching.

Holler

[PJ Hardtack]

Before we all became sophisticated gun handlers and collectors, we didn't care one whit about the kind of goofs that now irritate the hell out of us.

If I'm enjoying the story line and the characters, I tend to ease up on looking for the errors and omissions. I have a friend who looks for incorrect medals on British Officers. He can identify them by the colour of the ribbons.

But, having said that, some mistakes are simply unforgiveable. Film makers now have no excuse for period incorrect firearms, uniforms, haircuts, etc. The information is out there and available.

[Buck Stinson]

In the movie High Noon, Gary Cooper is running through a back alley, with an air conditioning unit hanging out a second story window. Watch for the car driving down the highway off in the background, during the opening shots in Shane, with Alan Ladd.