Historian John McManus weighs in on the accuracy of the Henry Fonda movie Battle of the Bulge. The 1965 film depicts the World War II battle of the same name, which became the last major offensive of Axis forces on the Western Front. Battle of the Bulge was directed by Ken Annakin, and Fonda’s co-stars included Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan and Dana Andrews. The movie received only mixed reviews from criticsLargely due to its historical inaccuracy.
It seems that historian John McManus agrees with this critical assessment at the time. In a video for InsideHe shared his name on Battle of the Bulge and pointed out her many wrongs. His full quote and the video are below:
Oh boy. Where to start? You depict tank battles. Maybe you should get your hands on some real WWII tanks, rather than post-war and sort of end-of-war chaffes on the American side and M47 Pattons on the German side. It is so badly portrayed. The way the tanks are moving, the way their formations are so linear and just wrong on so many levels.
Well, they try to depict some of the terrain challenges here, the cold, the wet, the trees, and forests, and some of the mud, but even that doesn’t look quite right. When you know the Ardennes Forest, where much of the Battle of the Bulge was fought, Trees are spaced out a little too far rather than fir forests That would be quite limiting to vehicles. The infantry are really quite vulnerable in the sort of ditches they are in.
Tank ramming is pretty rareAnd for the Germans it really doesn’t make sense because you don’t want to be close to the Americans, you want to use your gunnery advantage, and you want to nail them from a distance because you have heavy guns, more armor. .
You can hide from a tank because the line of sight of a tank is not very good for the driver. It’s basically like a vision block that you have in front of you, so you don’t have too much peripheral vision, so whatever you rolled past, you probably wouldn’t see. That’s why it’s really important to have a lot of infantry support on the ground that can act as your sort of eyes and ears. Why is there no German infantry with the tanks? It’s that too. Then it looks so inauthentic. I will give it a 3 out of 10. I’ll admit, this movie overall is a really bad movie, so maybe that colors my bias a little here.
What historians consider the Battle of the Bulge to be his legacy
John McManus echoes past criticisms of the movie
McManus is not alone in his harsh take on it Battle of the Bulge. Even back in 1965, critics were quick to point out its historical inaccuracies, with The New York Times Critic Bosley Crowther calls the film “Offensive“and”A cruel deception” compared to what actually happened during the battle. Some of the other criticisms of the film are in line with what McManus also says – for example, it makes sense that the location does not look right, as The movie was shot in both Madrid and the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range rather than the Ardennes forest.
It doesn’t help the movie’s legacy that the Battle of the Bulge was depicted much more accurately in band of brothers. The 2001 mini-series took great care in its depiction of the battle and was celebrated for how much it is right.
Our take on the battle of the bulge criticisms
Time is not good for the Battle of the Bulge movie
When assessing a movie that, at this point, is nearly 60 years old, I think it’s worth keeping in mind the limits of filming at the time. for example, band of brothers Filmed the Battle of the Bulge scenes indoors, recreating the Ardennes forest using a mix of real and artificial trees to get the look just right. This would not have been an option for a movie made in 1965 when both budgets and filmmaking techniques were more limited.
yet, I think McManus is fair in his criticisms – One or two inaccuracies may be forgiven in time, but the sheer number is Battle of the Bulge is surprising. It is also worth remembering that the same critics who spoke against Battle of the BulgeThe inaccuracies when the movie was released were well aware of the limits of filmmaking at the time and still did not hold back in their criticism. Battle of the BulgeThe creative team may have had good intentions, but it is clear that they failed to deliver a historically accurate film.
Source: Inside