Well done Wellington, and thanks Blucher for saving our bacon.
Anyway it's as good an excuse as any to show this clip from the 1970 Waterloo movie:
I remember watching this scene as a kid and thinking it looked terrific. Though in truth the bit that really sticks with me (sentimentalist that I am) was when the Lancers catch them just after this and a locket gets lost in the mud. There's a fair bit of that anachronistic 1970's War is Hell stuff in the film. Including a guy running from the square in an 1815 style recreation of the Why? poster that adorned most student bedrooms in the '80's
One day, when I'm grown up and have infinite time and money I shall have a Napoleonic army (or two) and it will include a unit of French Lancers.
In the meantime the uniforms terrify me!
I always thought that scene (where he runs from the square) was so out of place compared to reality. It was a nod to the politics of the time I suppose but in reality soldiers were more likely to run into a square than out and anyone daft enough to would have his backside kicked by a sergeant or be hacked down by the opposition.
ReplyDeleteWas it Kelly's Heroes where Donald Sutherland was a 'hippy' type who shot paint projectiles from his Sherman's gun and was all 'laid back, man". He wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes because if the Germans hadn't killed him, his crew would have. Another 'nod' to the drug culture of the time the film was made in (the whole film was awful, to be fair) but a million miles away from reality. No tank crew who's seen comrades brew up would consider having a paint shell to 'colour up' the opposition. What bloody nonsense.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Kelly's Heroes is rubbish!
ReplyDeleteLove Waterloo, though, and can remember seeing it when it first came out. I've still got the souvenir programme (from when they used to sell programmes at cinema's).