Horses in non Cavalry Military Films.

Pat Holscher · Fri May 06, 2005 7:07 am

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by selewis
 I don't know if it would qualify as a military film but Ron has reminded me of Dr. Zhivago.
Sandy
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I've always thought of it as sort of a military film, set in the Revolution. Or perhaps a romance/tragedy, with the background of the Revolution. It is a great film. While not centered on horse themes, it shows, as background if nothing else, the dependance the Russians had on horses at that time.

Pat

Pat Holscher · Fri May 06, 2005 7:13 am

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by selewis
 
<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by selewis
 I don't know if it would qualify as a military film but Ron has reminded me of Dr. Zhivago.
Sandy
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Which brings to mind Eisenstein's Potemkin
S
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I can't recall a mounted seen in The Battleship Potemkin. Is there one? I have the film but haven't watched it in years.

The seen that I, and probably everyone else, tends to recall is the one where the crowd is forced down a huge set of stairs in panic, and a baby carriage is loose on the stairs. The seens, which is masterfully filmed, was lifted for the same seen in The Untouchables.

Eisenstein is remembered as a great Soviet filmmaker. What's often forgotten about him is that, after making a few films, he came to New York to try to break into American films. He thought that his excellent work in his early films, all of which, of course, had a propoganda element, would be appreciated so that he would be able to use his skills in the American film industry, the world leader. He couldn't break into American film, so he returned to the Soviet Union and resumed his career of films with great cinemotography, but propogandistic themes.

It's really a tragedy. Had he been able to break into American films he'd probably be remembered as a great dramatic filmmaker, rather than a mixed artist, skilled but propogandistic.

Pat

Pat Holscher · Fri May 06, 2005 8:35 am

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Tom Sullivan
 Pat,

Re: Salvadore

This film was supposedly set in the early 1980's, as you said. Interestinly, it is set at the time that Phil O'Rielly was there as a journalist. I arrived in this particularly nasty little fight in 1984 and left in late 1986. There was no documented "mounted charge" by the rebels, nor anyone else.

In fact, mules were important because of their great utility for transportaion of material, but were never used in the attack mode. One of the greatest problems with the Salvadoran Civil War was that few recognized that the entire country existed on a subsistence-only economy. The rebels could never afford horses and never used them for any "charge."

It also should be noted that the Salvadoran Army did not use horses either. There were just too many mines, rebel produced and laid, to use horses in the field.

Tom Sullivan
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Sort of related to this, I note that wondering around the Corbis site brought up some photos of pack horses in use in Nicaragua in their war, but I'm not providing the numbers. They were being used, in the photos, to recover the bodies of dead Sandinistas, and they are not pleasant to look at.

Pat

Hobie · Fri May 06, 2005 1:48 pm

I believe it was in "Legends of the Fall" (if I have the title correct) that German Lancers are protrayed in the scene in which Brad Pitt's character's brother is killed. The period is WWI.

Sincerely,

Hobie
"Duty is the rent you pay for life." The Queen Mother
"Do your duty in all things. You can not do more, you should not wish to do less." T. J. Jackson

Pat Holscher · Fri May 06, 2005 8:27 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Hobie
 I believe it was in "Legends of the Fall" (if I have the title correct) that German Lancers are protrayed in the scene in which Brad Pitt's character's brother is killed. The period is WWI.

Sincerely,

Hobie
"Duty is the rent you pay for life." The Queen Mother
"Do your duty in all things. You can not do more, you should not wish to do less." T. J. Jackson
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

That one also has Pitt with long shaggy hair, as a serving Canadian cavalry officer. Taking quite a bit of license there.

Pat

selewis · Fri May 06, 2005 8:34 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Pat Holscher
I can't recall a mounted seen in The Battleship Potemkin. Is there one? I have the film but haven't watched it in years.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Oops, er, I was almost late for work this morning and it was faster to type out 'Potemkin' than 'Alexander Nevsky'.
It's been 30 years since I saw it but I recall that the Germans (?) were mounted. They are swallowed up by Mother Russia when the ice gives way under their horses. What sticks in my mind is a closing scene of cloak sliding away through a crack as the ice closes over them.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Eisenstein is remembered as a great Soviet filmmaker. What's often forgotten about him is that, after making a few films, he came to New York to try to break into American films. He thought that his excellent work in his early films, all of which, of course, had a propoganda element, would be appreciated so that he would be able to use his skills in the American film industry, the world leader. He couldn't break into American film, so he returned to the Soviet Union and resumed his career of films with great cinemotography, but propogandistic themes.

It's really a tragedy. Had he been able to break into American films he'd probably be remembered as a great dramatic filmmaker, rather than a mixed artist, skilled but propogandistic.

Pat
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Thanks for the details, I knew nothing about the man.

Sandy

Pat Holscher · Fri May 06, 2005 8:49 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by selewis
 <blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Pat Holscher
I can't recall a mounted seen in The Battleship Potemkin. Is there one? I have the film but haven't watched it in years.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Oops, er, I was almost late for work this morning and it was faster to type out 'Potemkin' than 'Alexander Nevsky'.
It's been 30 years since I saw it but I recall that the Germans (?) were mounted. They are swallowed up by Mother Russia when the ice gives way under their horses. What sticks in my mind is a closing scene of cloak sliding away through a crack as the ice closes over them.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Eisenstein is remembered as a great Soviet filmmaker. What's often forgotten about him is that, after making a few films, he came to New York to try to break into American films. He thought that his excellent work in his early films, all of which, of course, had a propoganda element, would be appreciated so that he would be able to use his skills in the American film industry, the world leader. He couldn't break into American film, so he returned to the Soviet Union and resumed his career of films with great cinemotography, but propogandistic themes.

It's really a tragedy. Had he been able to break into American films he'd probably be remembered as a great dramatic filmmaker, rather than a mixed artist, skilled but propogandistic.

Pat
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Thanks for the details, I knew nothing about the man.

Sandy
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I've never seen the film Alexander Nevsky, but it is supposed to be a real classic. Eisenstein was a good filmmaker. He was actually Latvian by birth.

I've always thought that Alexander Nevsky was an odd hero for the Soviets as he is regarded as a Saint by the Russian Orthodox Church. The thought of Stalin commissioning a film to honor him is odd, but then he did defeat the Teutonic Knights, so I suppose that's the reason.

Pat

george seal · Tue May 10, 2005 10:29 am

That's exactly the reason, he deafeated the Teutonic Knights. The movie is supposed to be a foreshadowing of Hitler's defeat in Siberia (the kigths are armoured, like panzers and the movie is from 1938)
Oh, and it's the Scarlet Empress (1934) very exiting film. Love the cavalry charge in the corridor and the half with Grand Duke Peter.

Ron Smith · Tue May 10, 2005 11:15 am

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by george seal
 That's exactly the reason, he deafeated the Teutonic Knights. The movie is supposed to be a foreshadowing of Hitler's defeat in Siberia (the kigths are armoured, like panzers and the movie is from 1938)
Oh, and it's the Scarlet Empress (1934) very exiting film. Love the cavalry charge in the corridor and the half with Grand Duke Peter.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Thanks George,
I somehow thought I might have the title wrong, those troops coul;d really ride, the Corridor and stairway rides were something.

regards,
Ron Smith

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