Not to bash the special effects in 1965, but has any one noticed that throughout this film that everytime someone gets shot, they usually (not always) jump in the air and then flail (most of the time)? I know this was before the invention of the blood pack but why do the actors always jump and flail? I've also noticed this in other war pictures at the time (and other films too).
shareYes it`s not good is it.One of the worst has to be just as a soldier attempts to throw a grenade & then seems to try and attempt some sort of backflip.
shareLOL...Yeah, it makes the film feel amateurish. Overall though, the best action scenes were in the Ardennes battle (Hessler's invasion of the Allied ground), the battle and capture of Ambleve, the huge battle in the "desert" and the fall of Hessler at the American fuel depot.
"We'd better get up into the tower, Lieutenant."
"We don't have a tower, sir."
"No tower?"
"Just a bridge, sir."
"WHY THE HELL AREN'T I NOTIFIED OF THESE THINGS?!?"
There was plenty of footage available after WWII so that if the film makers cared anything for realism, they could see that mostly, a man hit by a single .30 cal. rifle bullet doesn't jump, flail. They simply crumple to the ground as their body's nervous system is momentarily paralyzed. The human body takes the energy of the high velocity bullet and dissipates its force in the tissue and organs.
What does it feel like to get shot? It has been described as a sensation that one has been run through with a red hot poker, followed almost immediately by total loss of muscle control, most frighteningly, the inability to breathe, as if punched hard in the stomach, simultaneously, the lost of bowel and bladder control, and if an artery is opened the body temperature drops so fast it's like freezing. Of course, this is immediately followed by unconsciousness and death, but obviously those with the personal experience have not told anyone what that felt like.
People go to the movies to be entertained. That's why they love to see bodies flying through the air, stunt men exploding their innards like firecrackers, splattering blood everywhere. People are mostly ignorant of what real violent death looks like. It's mostly mundane and un-photogenic. And that's what makes it all the more sad. Would that the value of any man's life be at least worthy of a spectacular end like a Hollywood movie, jumping and flailing, their precious blood making a crimson halo around them as if the sum of all their life experience, the beauty of being alive, at least ends with some dramatic exclamation point. But soldiers simply stumble and go to the ground ignominiously, in shock, and perhaps trying to grasp one desperate final thought of home and loved ones.
That's hard to film.
Very true.
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Outstanding analysis and description, thank you. I have always thought that movie deaths are far too dramatic. Death is a matter-of-fact thing. An actor who has been fatally shot should not be staggering around, moaning, or even worse, flailing and doing back flips to make the death look exciting. They should just crumple to the ground; like gravity acting on dead matter. That would be so much more realistic, and hard-hitting.
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I wonder where the producers found the extras to play the soldiers. Actual American troops or no?
To the informative post on being shot
Some years ago in a sasian country I took an sks round that missed the collarbone, and shoulder, and exited my back. No serious damage, The obligatory cig after being shot tasted like crap, but your description of being shot is spot on. I didn't crap, but did urinate myself. I unholstered my .45 but couldn't bring it bear (I was shot inthe left shoulder) my whole body weny numb for 30 secs then it I felt the pain.
I can now tell when it's going to rain!
I'd rather go hunting with Dick Cheney, than driving with Ted Kennedy
That's one of the things that dates a war movie. The Jump and Flail Academy was fashionable in the '50s and '60s.
It isn't so much of an issue with Battle of the Bulge, which is purely fiction and not even a good representation of the actual event, but I always thought it odd that we see the same kind of jump and flail in To Hell and Back. Audie Murphy, who probably saw more men get shot than any living American at the time (and probably shot more men than any living American at the time as well!) played himself in a movie based on his autobiography, insisting on authenticity as a prerequisite, and yet either he never complained to the director or his complaints fell upon deaf ears.
The jumping, flailing and flying back irritates me so. When you consider Newton's third law (for every action, there is an EQUAL and opposite reaction), if a bullet is able to drive a body back through the air 8 or 10 feet when it hits it, then what must be happening to the shooter?
I was an RN in my previous life (before I left it for the more sedate world of IT) and I was witness to many people dying who were lucid up to point of death. In not one instance, none, did I ever observe their heads jerk to the side after uttering their last words and their eyes close without assistance. Most of the time it was almost as though they had stopped to collect their thoughts and if you weren't aware of what was going on, you would have missed the passing.
Best Regards
How about "The Jump and Flail and Scream Academy of Death"?
Did you all notice that most of the Germans screamed "Aaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!!" when they got hit?
I think if they showed everybody crumpling to the ground in a heap every time, people would instead be complaining that they can't even TELL when people die.
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