MovieChat Forums > Battle of the Bulge (1966) Discussion > Producer lying about tanks in Making Of

Producer lying about tanks in Making Of

posted 17 years ago by DM-DAAN
16 replies | jump to latest

I was watching the vintage 60's making of-programme of this movie (it's on the dvd) and in there the producer is asked about the authenticity of the battlescenes. The producer, himself a former frontline cameraman in WWII, states that they scavenged tanks from all around Europe to ensure that they had the right model german and american tanks. He was, as we all know now, lying his a** off. Ofcourse nowadays Battle Of The Bulge is known as That Mediocre Warfilm With All Those Wrong Tanks In It but even back then he must've known it was blatantly obvious for anyone mildly interested in WWII that the tanks used were not the correct tanks. Even in '65 when this picture was made, these rumours/facts would quickly become common knowledge. So why hang on to an obvious makebelief story. It seems especially disrespectful considering the events depicted.

P.S.
Sorry if this particular topic's been posted earlier.

[–] DD-931 17 years ago

Yeah, the producer was lying. But I have to wonder how many people actually believe it would ever be feasible to come up with authentic GERMAN WWII tanks for any movie, much less in the numbers necessary for a movie like BATTLE OF THE BULGE.

Just doesn't sound rational to expect that kind of authenticity in a film.

[–] DM-DAAN 16 years ago

I agree, but my point was about the obvious lying. Why not just say you tried your best to make the US tanks look like german ones, for example?

[–] DD-931 16 years ago

Sadly, honesty like that would not have sold very many tickets to the movie.

[–] ghpcaubo 16 years ago

Maybe even more sad is the fact that in one of the greatest War-movies
ever made (Saving private Ryan) the German Tanks are actually Russian
T34 tanks, changed to look like Tiger-tanks.
You actually can see one of them at the Tank museum in Bovington (UK).

It's much smaller than a real Tiger but looks very realistic.

By the way; i actually live in the Ardennes, not far from Malmedy,
and the landscape here looks nothing like the movie.

[–] StM-1 16 years ago

Yeah, no snow-covered mountains in the Ardennes that I'm aware of..

[–] zeroalias 16 years ago

But you gotta hand it Spielberg/Hanks at least they tried to make authentic looking equipment. Who in their right mind would risk possible damage to something as rare as a real Tiger (there probably aren't many in running condition today).

[–] karl-lambley 16 years ago

Its not that hard to do, given the cash.

A british challenger recovery tank makes a good tiger, apart from the drive being at the wrong end.

To screw ECHELON please add "heroin, kiddy porn, terrorist, bomb, president, allah" to every email

[–] zeroalias 16 years ago

Yeah, but that's still better than modern tanks just simply given a coat of panzer grey or yellow.

[–] richimorton 12 years ago

It's not sad at all - what's wrong with you ? There are still thousands of T34's knocking around , how many Tigers ? The Germans LOST by the way - sooooo - not many Tigers ever survived did they ? Think man !

That which does not Kill me makes me Stranger

[–] finala1 15 years ago

It's almost impossible to find a real, authentic German WW2 tank from the era. Remember, most of them were destroyed during or after the war. Wrecks were salvaged for their scrap metal in post-war europe due to the extreme poverty there after the war ended, and some surviving tanks were sold to Syria in the Middle East, and were even used against the Israelis in the 6 day war.

As for Tiger tanks, Tiger 131 in the Bovington Tank Museum is the only working Tiger tank left in the world, and even then it's not a completely 100% accurate as it uses the engine from another King Tiger tank.

[–] Selish70 14 years ago

Awesome lie - it took some real balls to come up with that one seeing as the Spanish Army was renting out M47's for probably $10/day back then.

[–] beingthehero 14 years ago

I dunno, I think the producer was talking about the M24 Chaffees which were used in place of Sherman tanks. The M24 was a WWII-era light tank and first used during the Battle of the Bulge, so the producer's white lie had some small degree of truth to it.

[–] Selish70 14 years ago

Maybe so, but if it does have truth (and yes, you're right about the Chafee but it saw action in very limited numbers at that point) I think it's more an accident than anything. The statements would be misleading at best, and I think that's charitable.

[–] superman1 14 years ago

So I wasn't going crazy when they said, "TIGER" and "PANTHER?"

Or, perhaps they intended to scavenge the right tanks, but as was said, were not in existence - now deadly dead dinosaurs, fossils of the Warassic Period.

"If you had kept loose, I could have killed them all. Oh well. Now we'll be killed or concentrated. Nevermind"

[–] R011DaveAAA 14 years ago

To use the right equipment, they would have needed about a dozen each of Shermans (preferably the M4A3(76)W version with the T23 turret and VVS suspension) and Pzkw VIb Tiger II.

I doubt there were a dozen Shermans of any type in private hands available to the producers at the time - at least within any reasonable budget and timeframe.

There were NO King Tigers - not one. The best they could do would be to get some other tank and visually modify it. T-34-85's would probably be the best bet, though any modern postwar tank would also do. The problem with that is that there would have been no T-34 tanks in private hands at the time. The ones in Kelly's Heroes, for instance, belonged to the Yugoslav Army. Nor were there any post-war tanks in private hands at that time.

Even if you got them, you'd then have to get trained crews to operate them, a maintenance staff qualified to keep them running, and at least one tank recovery vehicle, like an M88 or Centurion ARV.

Or, you can find a co-operative army who will let you paint their tanks as US and German vehicles of the time and provide crews etc. I think Spain was one of the very few willing to do that at the time.

This requires a necessary suspension of disbelief on the part of the few people in the audience who know the difference.

[–] Bry-2 14 years ago

I wonder if the producer's interview was given while the film was in pre-production, and is what they EXPECTED to be able to do, rather than what they actually could and did do? When The Battle of Britain was in pre-production at the time this was released, producers assumed they could find entire squadrons of Hurricanes and Spitfires mothballed, just waiting to be used, but they too were slightly disappointed (I think there were only four or eight flying Hurricanes and a similar number of Spits).

--If they move, kill 'em!