MovieChat Forums > Fort Apache (1948) Discussion > One of the goofs is wrong

One of the goofs is wrong

posted 15 years ago by jgroub
2 replies | jump to latest

A good listed as being an anachronism is incorrect. The goof says the flag has 5 lines of 7 stars, 35 total, putting the timing of the movie during the Civil War. This is not right. The flag had 3 lines of 7 stars, and 2 lines of 8 stars. You can see this during Thursday's charge, when the flag is streaming back. 38 stars puts it somewhere between 1876 and 1889.

By the way, this is still a problem because Cochise died in 1874.

I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

[–] magolding 14 years ago

In real life and even the movie Taza Son of Cochise. However, Fort Apache says that Cochise was at war withe US, made peace, and then left the reservation because of the fictional evil Indian agent Meachum. I think that Cochise was was never on any kind of reservation before the out break of war in 1860, nor did he leave the reservation after making peace in 1872. So Fort Apache is probably in an alternate universe with a different history and this movie's Cochise could be alive in 1876 to 1889.

Or more states were admitted sooner.

[–] magolding 14 years ago

The flag during the charge would be a national standard, which could be years or decades old and might have an outdated number of stars, making the events happen later than the number of stars indicates.

And of course the actual prop flag used might not have been made for Fort Apache and nobody might have thought much about the proper number of stars even if it was made for Fort Apache.