Movies about time period

[Jeremiah]

I was just thinking about the movies that depict this timer period. Off hand I could only think of Dead Man's Walk and part of Comanche Moon, both based on Larry McMurtry's books. Any others?

[Drayton Calhoun]

North and South, first one, One Man's Hero Mexican/American War, Walker.

[Sacramento Johnson]

Howdy!
 
There are a number of films that occur in this era, but the guns/gear etc. are usually wrong (they're usually from a later period) (Think "Comancheros"!)  
I guess "How the West was Won" also covers part of this era, but authentic gear/clothing wasn't its strong point in my opinion.
Just about any film that covers the 1850s California Gold Rush, for instance would be in this era.  (I never watched "Paint Your Wagon" from an authenticity point of view; maybe I should!)
"La Fanciulla del West", an opera also set in California in the 1850s, usually is not costumed/geared correctly (although the filmed Covent Garden production did seem to try.)

Hollywood had a real adversion to cap and ball pistols and single shot rifles of this era.

[Advertising]

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

"Gone to Texas", aka The Outlaw Josie Wales hits the end of the Civil War and the CSA refugees heading West. 

My wife comes from Missouri.  Her younger brother married into a family from the bootheel area.  5 grown men joined the State militia, fought in the Army of the CSA before returning home to protect their families.  3 of the 5 survived the war, NONE survived the peace!  When I learned that, the movie was put into context for me.  I believe the rural Missouri families are still identified by their affiliations from 150 years ago!

[cpt dan blodgett]

Hard to stage a real shoot em up with a single shot muzzle loading rifle and pistol.
2 good guys 10 indians 2 rifle shots 2 dead indians 4 pistol shots 4 dead indians then it is 2 knife and tomahawk fights with each of the good guys fighting off 2 indians at one.

Much better to have 14 rifle shots each and 6 pistol shots.  2 guys hold off 40 indians and win

Just sayin

[Major 2]

 Working withTom Berenger on Gettysburg...  there were several films ,Tom was talking about.

Last Of The Dogmen, One Mans Hero and Avenging Angel, several good friends of mine went on the work with him on the first two.
He did not make Avenging Angel , the story of the Danites ( I know why, but it's not for open forum).

Instead Kevin Sorbo made a water down version, for Halmark ...to bad the berenger script was good.

other films .....

Dream West  ( Mini Series )
Into the West  ( Mini Series )
and "Legacy: A Mormon Journey"

John Waynes   The Big Trail

[Caleb Hobbs]

Major 2:

I'm curious. Berenger was in The Avenging Angel in 1995, a TV movie. Was this a different version from the one he talked about on Gettysburg? I've always liked Berenger as an actor, especially in Rough Riders. I don't know how accurate he was to TR's actual character, but I thought he portrayed the man in great light in the movie.

I really liked John Wayne's The Big Trail, too. Probably as accurate a depiction of what a wagon train on the move really looked like as anything Hollywood has ever produced. My understanding is that they used a lot of real muleskinners for the trail scenes.

[Tascosa Joe]

Sante Fe Trail w/Ronald Regan.  The weapons were not very authentic, but the uniforms were somewhat better.

[Ranch 13]

Jerimish Johson, a goodly share of Mischners Centennial, and I can't think of the name of it at the moment, but Richard Chamberlain played Capt Fremont and the exploration of the west and the taking of California.

[Tascosa Joe]

I have a pair of Richard Chamberlain's moccacins when he played Alexander McKee in Centenial.  The movie company left them at Bent's and I eventually wound up with them.  I really liked that series.

[Major 2]

Major 2:

I'm curious. Berenger was in The Avenging Angel in 1995, a TV movie. Was this a different version from the one he talked about on Gettysburg? I've always liked Berenger as an actor, especially in Rough Riders. I don't know how accurate he was to TR's actual character, but I thought he portrayed the man in great light in the movie.

I really liked John Wayne's The Big Trail, too. Probably as accurate a depiction of what a wagon train on the move really looked like as anything Hollywood has ever produced. My understanding is that they used a lot of real muleskinners for the trail scenes.

Let rephrase my part ....Berenger did do a TV movie Avenging Angel ... but the script were through a bunch of revisions,
I got booked on another shoot and was not involved.... Several friends did work on it though...


Rough Riders was  fun to do ....

Here's a bit of Trivia ...On the Big Trail ( the heavy ) was played by Tyron Power Sr.  Yep... that Tyron Power's father

[The Elderly Kid]

The Way West, based on A.B. Guthrie's sequel to The Big Sky, a not-very-good movie about a wagon train headed to Oregon in the '40s, despite having a stellar cast -Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, Lola Albright, a very young Sally Field, Stubby Kaye, Jack Elam, Harry Carey, Jr... Lord, how could they have messed up? But set in the Plainsman period. Mitchum plays Dick Summers, the mountain man of The Big Sky now turned wagon train guide to the Oregon Territory.

[boilerplatejackson]

A very good film worth mention is the Wide Awake Production titled "Bad Blood".  This film was aired on regional PBS
and tells a very good story of Bleeding Kansas from 1854-1860. The film was made in and around the Kansas City area.
Two of my personal favorites are by Lone Chimney Films out of Wichita Kansas. I had a short speaking role in the film
Touched by Fire, just before bing shot by John Brown. The other film was Bloody Dawn. Both films became PBS
docudramas. The three films can be obtained thru your inner Library Loan system.

[captmack]

Sante Fe Trail w/Ronald Regan.  The weapons were not very authentic, but the uniforms were somewhat better.

Santa Fe Trail is completely historically inaccurate both with the characters involved and weaponry but it is a fun movie to watch.

Capt. Mack

[captmack]

I was just thinking about the movies that depict this timer period. Off hand I could only think of Dead Man's Walk and part of Comanche Moon, both based on Larry McMurtry's books. Any others?

Dead Man's Walk is a great book and film about the time period.

Capt. Mack

[captmack]

If you have not read it, "Gone for soldiers" by Jeff Shaara is an excellent novel about the Mexican War told first person through the eyes of Capt. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Winfield Scott.

Capt. Mack

[Tascosa Joe]

I agree with CPT Mack , "Gone for Soldiers" is a good read.

[Tsalagidave]

I still love The Mountain Men and Jeremiah Johnson. Any historian can pick them apart on historic inaccuracies but I still absolutely love both films.

-Dave

[Major 2]

If you watch closely , in the open minutes of Red River , note that John Wayne carries a Colt Conversion & a single shot rifle.

 

[James Hunt]

I still love The Mountain Men and Jeremiah Johnson. Any historian can pick them apart on historic inaccuracies but I still absolutely love both films.

-Dave

+1 on that!!! I love the Mountain Men - reminds me of rendezvous circa 1970's (probably because those guys were exactly that) which was great fun if not horribly inaccurate. How many of us began by sweating our a$$ off wearing chrome tanned orange leather and a dead furry critter on our head in mid-summer?

Jeremiah Johnson probably sold more "Hawkin Guns" than all of the ads Thompson Center ever funded, I know it is what convinced me that I had to own a Lyman Plains Rifle (because I could not afford a Johnathon Browning Mountain Rifle). That rifle - and I still have it - started me down the road of trying to relive frontier history. I still love it.

Sometimes the spirit of the event overcomes the lack of accurate history.