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Historical events yet to be given the full Hollywood treatment

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    #51
    The good stuff based on Darwin would be a BBC-production-values style worldwide travelogue done over about twenty episodes with a lot of gawping at the wonders of nature, I'd have thought.

    If anyone in the relevant production roles is reading this, I'd be happy to present it once we don't need to worry about travel restrictions any more.

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      #52
      I'd love to see a film or TV series about the Battle of Madagascar and Operation Ironclad during WW2, its a little known episode but it involves a ragtag bunch of British, Dutch, Poles, South Africans, Rhodesians, Indians and Australians invading Madagascar and fighting the Vichy French to prevent the island being used as a submarine base for the Japanese.

      The Vichy French, mostly made up of colonial troops, managed to hold out for 6 months and then surrendered one minute after midnight because 6 months was the period of time French troops had to be in combat in order to qualify for their pension. By the end of the War they were the French troops who had held out the longest against the enemy (both Axis and Allies).

      Obviously, this will never get made as it didn't feature the Americans and everyone knows that the only Allied victories in WW2 were down to the Americans.
      Last edited by Tratorello; 16-10-2020, 07:49.

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        #53
        Originally posted by Sam View Post
        The good stuff based on Darwin would be a BBC-production-values style worldwide travelogue done over about twenty episodes with a lot of gawping at the wonders of nature, I'd have thought.

        If anyone in the relevant production roles is reading this, I'd be happy to present it once we don't need to worry about travel restrictions any more.
        If we're doing travelogues with an unlimited budget then this guy's story could fill up those twenty episodes. With an intriguing postscript as well.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-F...Lap%C3%A9rouse

        (La Perouse, I can't do accents, and nor do most of the places named after him, coz Anglo imperialism)
        Last edited by tee rex; 16-10-2020, 11:31.

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          #54
          Fitzroy Maclean is your man for the biopic (or TV series).

          On the subject of Napoleon, I feel like he's been covered a lot in film. But I don't recall seeing the (anglophone - I'm assuming that the Russians must have made many) sprawling epic of the march on Moscow and 1812 that is surely waiting to be made

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            #55
            I think there's a good 'small' movie in the story of Robert Page Anderson. If you're into the Manson family at all, you know that their death sentences were commuted when California did away with the death penalty. That case was The People v Robert Page Anderson. His story was, briefly: he went to a Los Angeles pawn shop to pawn a ring. Anderson - black - felt that the old white proprietor had slighted him, and asked to see a gun. Anderson then shot the owner and holed up inside while the police surrounded the place. An hours-long gunfight followed, with Anderson almost shot to death. He (I think) also shot a cop but didn't kill him. Anyway, he got the death penalty, which was overturned and then impacted the statewide death penalty. Them's the broad strokes, anyway. I'm thinking of taking a crack at that script myself.

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              #56
              As a comedy, right?

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                #57
                Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                I saw the restored version of the Abel Gance film at Radio City Music Hall with a full orchestra

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napol%C3%A9on_(1927_film)
                I’m not familiar with that.

                Waterloo was portrayed in that Vanity Fair series - the one with Olivia Cooke - that was on last year. Nothing glorious or cool about it. Just a lot of people and animals dying a terrible death.

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                  #58
                  Originally posted by Gangster Octopus View Post
                  As a comedy, right?
                  Or a Madea vehicle, probably.

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                    #59
                    Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post

                    I’m not familiar with that.
                    Gance's Napoleon is hardly ever shown, partly because it's a silent with a score that requires a full orchestra. It also uses a split screen technique, revolutionary at the time but which would make watching on a small screen pretty pathetic.

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                      #60
                      The BFI has done a new restoration that looks spectacular (at least to me)

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                        #61
                        Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                        The BFI has done a new restoration that looks spectacular (at least to me)

                        Have you watched the whole film? It's the same Kevin Brownlow restoration that we saw according to that trailer (unless he's updated it again, which is possible as he's pretty obsessed with Gance.).
                        Last edited by Amor de Cosmos; 16-10-2020, 18:52.

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                          #62
                          For my taste, there haven’t been enough proper CGI-laden films about the Age of Sail. We got Master and Commander, but that didn’t turn into a franchise like it should have.

                          We had the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and that one about the real Moby Dick story that wasn’t great.

                          I suppose those only make financial sense if they can make a lot of money, and what counts as a lot of money to studios has been set impossibly high by the Avengers. I guess historical stories don’t sell well enough internationally.

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                            #63
                            Amor, I've only seen the trailer and clips, but understand that it is a new restoration and score

                            https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkerm...0-025b8f6a1ba2

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                              #64
                              Originally posted by Aitch View Post
                              The Black Panther movement
                              Besides the Mario Van Peebles movie mentioned on the first page, there's a movie about Fred Hampton coming out next year. The trailer is excellent:

                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSjtGqRXQ9Y

                              I don't believe that there's ever been a major Hollywood movie about the Haitian Revolution or Toussaint Louverture.

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                                #65
                                Surprised nobody has made anything about the battle of Cable Street.

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                                  #66
                                  Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                  For my taste, there haven’t been enough proper CGI-laden films about the Age of Sail. We got Master and Commander, but that didn’t turn into a franchise like it should have.

                                  We had the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and that one about the real Moby Dick story that wasn’t great.

                                  I suppose those only make financial sense if they can make a lot of money, and what counts as a lot of money to studios has been set impossibly high by the Avengers. I guess historical stories don’t sell well enough internationally.
                                  It’s very much a British 7:30pm Sunday type series, but it’s possible you might like Hornblower. Pretty faint praise from me, but you never know.

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                                    #67
                                    Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
                                    Fitzroy Maclean is your man for the biopic (or TV series).

                                    On the subject of Napoleon, I feel like he's been covered a lot in film. But I don't recall seeing the (anglophone - I'm assuming that the Russians must have made many) sprawling epic of the march on Moscow and 1812 that is surely waiting to be made

                                    Napoleon’s campaign in Russia, including the retreat are covered fairly well in the recent War & Peace mini-series, which I liked a lot.

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                                      #68
                                      Originally posted by Sits View Post

                                      It’s very much a British 7:30pm Sunday type series, but it’s possible you might like Hornblower. Pretty faint praise from me, but you never know.
                                      I’ll look into it.

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                                        #69
                                        Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post

                                        I’ll look into it.
                                        Just looked it up, it’s actually twenty years old, and was “TV Movies” rather than a series. If you happen to like it, there seem to be plenty.

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                                          #70
                                          I didn't watch Hornblower at the time, but it's basically Sharpe at sea, right?

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                                            #71
                                            Neither did I, but as far as I can see, yes.

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                                              #72
                                              Don't you dare say that in books. Sharpe is Hornblower on land.

                                              Well not entirely, the from the ranks thing in Sharpe gives it a different dimension compared to Hornblower's more traditional background. Also, Hornblower the books are from a slightly older genre and less, rough around the edges.

                                              Having been a keen reader of both as a teenager I've never read any of the Master and Commander books for some reason. Did they come out much after Sharpe?

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                                                #73
                                                The Aubrey-Maturin series is the older - Master and Commander was first published in 1969, whilst the first in the Sharpe series (Sharpe's Eagle) was published in 1981.

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                                                  #74
                                                  I want to write a film about the history of Nauru, especially the part where an adviser "invested" 2 million pounds of the country's guano / phosphate mining wealth in an ill-fated West End musical called "Leonardo the Musical: A Portrait of Love"...

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                                                    #75
                                                    I’m sure someone could do an ace miniseries on the Glorious Revolution too, like House of Cards with a bigger wardrobe budget.

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