MovieChat Forums > The Wild Bunch (1969) Discussion > "They're gonna use them in the war."

"They're gonna use them in the war."

posted 8 years ago by amkatz
4 replies | jump to latest

Says Pike Bishop about the flying machines the old man refers to.

Never could quite figure out what he meant by that. I know the setting's supposed to be 1913, but then there's the Browning M1917 machine gun, an anachronism in an otherwise well staged film.

Also, what war is Bishop referring to? The Great War? Nobody saw that coming in '13, or even in most of '14. Might make sense if the setting was late in '14, after the war had begun, but before military aviation was fully developed. But then there's still the issue of the machine gun.

Am I missing something here, or was it just a bit of carelessly written dialogue?

[–] pullgees 8 years ago

The US Army were using the Maxim machine gun in 1911 according to the link, although the gun in TWB was a 1917 Browning. Anyhow the army had a similar weapon, so pretty close on the part of the props dept. Scroll down about half way good pic.
https://www.britannica.com/technology/machine-gun

As for aircraft, they were used in the Mexican civil war, but not until 1915 as far as I can gather. But if Pike was referring to WW1 then it would be careless writing.

[–] amkatz 8 years ago

Didn't occur to me he might have been referring to the Mexican civil war. Even if they weren't being used at the time, perhaps Bishop was referring to some plan he was aware of to put them into play in the future.

Thanks for the M1917 reference. Explains a lot.

[–] NutMustardx 8 years ago

In one of the deleted scenes, pike finds a bottle and rubs it and a genie comes out. He wishes for a machine gun from 1917 and that one shows up. They should have kept the scene I think

[–] Kawada_Kira 8 years ago

He was referring to the Mexican civil war, no question. There was no apparent prospect of the US going to war with anyone at the time, and the only war going on around them was the one in Mexico.