Time Killers

Japanese Zero fighters from six aircraft carriers are en route to Pearl Harbor. As depicted in the 1970 docudrama "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (co-produced by the U.S. and Japan), the planes fly over a large white cross that actually memorializes American soldiers strafed by the real Zeros as they approached Pearl Harbor. This, for movie fans and history buffs, is a classic example of an anachronism, a gaffe in time.

In the 1939 production of "Mutiny on the Bounty," set in the 18th century, Captain Bligh (played by Charles Laughton) uses the word "sabotage," which didn’t enter the language until the early 20th century, circa World War I.

"The Lodger," a 1944 version of the oft-told tale of Jack the Ripper (most recently remade and updated in 2008, starring Alfred Molina and Simon Baker), included a view of London’s Tower Bridge, a decade before its construction.

Ossie Davis, in the comedy western "The Scalphunters" (starring Burt Lancaster and Telly Savalas), mentions Pluto, the dwarf planet that wasn’t officially discovered until 1930.

Eddie Murphy’s 1989 directing debut, the Depression-era gangster melodrama "Harlem Nights," features such 1980s phrases as "I’ll let you have your space" and "…get my head together."

In "Demetrius and the Gladiators," a religious saga set in the year 53 CE, one of the statues surrounding Roman emperor Caligula’s throne is Michelangelo’s David, which wasn’t sculpted until 1503. Not surprisingly, a number of extras in various Biblical epics and sword-and-sandal spectacles can be spotted wearing wristwatches, even sneakers.

Especially in period films, the appearance of a particular car model or a business that didn’t exist in that era can often be dismissed as a forgivable oversight, or, in the use of a song predating its composition, artistic license.

But it’s a whole different story when a single character is an obvious anachronism, so glaringly out-of-time that it can’t escape our screening in the moviehouse.

Elvis Presley in "Love Me Tender"

During his much-publicized stint with the Army, Elvis Presley made it clear that he wanted, most of all, to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor. In 1956, he did a screen test for Paramount Pictures, performing a lip-synched rendition of "Blue Suede Shoes" and enacting a scene from N. Richard Nash’s play "The Rainmaker." He even stated his confidence that the movie version of "The Rainmaker" would be his first starring role. The part went to the more established Burt Lancaster.

Hollywood studios recognized Presley’s potential to tap into a youth market that was looking for the successor to James Dean, who died in a 1955 car crash. In an interview for Sunday "Parade," Presley said, "I’ve made a study of Marlon Brando. I’ve made a study of poor Jimmy Dean. I’ve made a study of myself, and I know why girls, at least the young ‘uns, go for us. We’re sullen, we’re broodin’, we’re something of a menace. I don’t understand it exactly, but that’s what the girls like in men. I don’t know anything about Hollywood, but I know you can’t be sexy if you smile. You can’t be a rebel if you grin."

Presley signed a seven-year contract with Paramount and was promptly loaned out to 20th Century-Fox for his film debut in "Love Me Tender" (1956), a post-Civil War western loosely based on the exploits of the real-life Reno Brothers, an outlaw gang that started operating in the Midwest during the war. Although their larcenous career was short-lived (their crime spree came to an inglorious end after a series of ten lynchings by various vigilante mobs in 1868), they made history with the first three peace-time train robberies in the U.S. The year before "Love Me Tender," the saga of the Reno Brothers was depicted in "Rage at Dawn," a B-western starring Randolph Scott and Forrest Tucker.

Originally called "The Reno Brothers," the title was changed to "Love Me Tender" to accommodate the last-minute casting of Presley, whose role (slated initially for Cameron Mitchell) was subsequently expanded. Elvis portrays a young Southerner who stayed behind while his three older brothers went off to fight for the Confederacy. News of eldest brother Richard Egan’s death prompts Presley to marry the former’s sweetheart (Debra Paget). The surprise arrival home of Egan and his siblings, along with the post-war robbery of a Northern payroll, results in predictable melodrama and tragic conflicts.

Producer David Weisbart (who also produced "Rebel Without a Cause," starring James Dean) insisted that acting lessons would probably ruin Presley because the young man’s greatest asset seemed to be his natural ability. In fact, Richard Egan told Elvis that the trick was just to be himself.

Of course, he played a handful of songs onscreen. Although the tunes were given a folksy twist to fit the down-home atmosphere, they remained painfully out-of-touch with the historic setting, no more so than in a rocking performance at a country fair, highlighting the very 1950s swinging pelvis and a swooning audience of squealing teenage girls.

In one scene, Presley strums a Gibson guitar that wasn’t invented until 1922. (Another anachronism depicts a Confederate soldier zipping up his trousers, a half century before the zipper was invented.) Presley’s presence did turn what would have been another routine, mediocre western into one the year’s biggest box-office successes for 20th Century-Fox. Critics were of another mind. Comparing Presley to Brando and Dean, a writer for "The Reporter" said he possessed "mannerisms by Brando out of the Actors Studio…First of all, he does not walk; he slouches, ambles, almost minces. His hand gestures are all tentative, incomplete, with arms out in front as though he were feeling his way along a wet-walled underground passageway, or folded back against his body as though he were warding off a blow."

Undaunted, Elvis told reporters that he envisioned a lifetime career in movies, long after he stopped singing. "I’m not going to quit," he declared, "and I’m not going to take lessons because I want to be me."

The title song for "Love Me Tender," a reworking of the Civil War-era ballad "Aura Lea," was performed by a ghostly image of Presley’s deceased character, superimposed above the grieving family at his grave. Elvis’ mother, Gladys, was reportedly so upset that her son was killed in a movie that he told his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, he never wanted to die in any future films. Although Gladys passed away in 1958, the Colonel kept his word.

Morgan Freeman in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves"

Roger Ebert called it "a murky, unfocused, violent and depressing version of the classic story, with little of the lightheartedness and romance we expect from Robin Hood." 1991’s much-anticipated "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," starring box-office darling Kevin Costner (on the heels of "Field of Dreams" and "Dances with Wolves"), was called a "bent-arrow epic" by Washington Post critic Hal Hinson, "much more of a chore to sit through than it should be." Ebert noted, "The most depressing thing about the movie is that children will attend it expecting to have a good time."

For filmgoers expecting historical relevance to King Richard I’s England of the 12th century, the movie proved equally disappointing. You know you’re in trouble early on when Costner’s Robin and his newfound Moorish companion Azeem (Morgan Freeman) find themselves at the foot of the white cliffs of Dover on the shore of the English Channel, and the former declares, "By nightfall we will dine with my father," regardless of the fact that the two must travel on foot the 165 miles to Nottingham.
The film was produced at a point in Morgan Freeman’s career when he frequently appeared as the time-worn, worldly mentor of a movie’s protagonist, playing wise men to Matthew Broderick in "Glory," Tim Robbins in "The Shawshank Redemption" and Keanu Reeves in "Chain Reaction." In "Prince of Thieves," he comes across as a medieval "MacGyver" who repeatedly must bail Robin out of one scrape after another.

Bill Givens, author of a series of humorous Film Flubs books published in the 1990s, noted, "When Azeem uses gunpowder, he’s getting the jump on Marco Polo, who not only hadn’t yet brought it back from China, but wasn’t even born until 1254 and didn’t make his famous journey until 1271." Actually, although black powder was first used in 9th century China, there is evidence that Arabs acquired knowledge of gunpowder some time after 1240.

As for Azeem’s use of a crude refracting telescope, Givens pointed out that this predates "both Dutch optician Hans Lippershey, who is credited with inventing the telescope in 1608, and Galileo, who built his first one in 1609."

The tirelessly innovative Azeem even demonstrates an unlikely adeptness for at-home surgery when he performs an emergency Caesarian section in the Sherwood Forest. Caesarian deliveries were not unknown in medieval Europe. One of the earliest was that of the 1204 birth of Saint Raymond Nonnatus, from Catalonia, Spain. Because his mother died in childbirth, his surname is a translation from Latin for "not born." During the Middle Ages, Caesarian sections inevitably resulted in the death of the mother. One of the first recorded incidents of a woman surviving the invasive procedure was in 1500 in Switzerland, although such deliveries continued to result in a high mortality.

Overlooking such dialogue shortcomings as the use of words like "twit" and "f***," not to mention Costner’s sporadic attempts at a British accent, which, according to Bill Givens, "seems to originate more in Southern California than Northern England," attention must be paid to Sean Connery’s cameo as the returning King Richard I. Connery, who graciously donated his day’s pay to charity, was 61, while the Lionheart was only 37 when he came back from the Third Crusade in 1194. Historically, Richard spent a mere seven months of his reign in England, and, like his father, Henry II (memorably portrayed in two Oscar-nominated performances by Peter O’Toole in "Becket" and "The Lion in Winter"), spoke little English.

Donald Sutherland in "Kelly’s Heroes"

Finally, we come to a presence so singularly out-of-whack that it deserves to be celebrated and exalted for its inspired audacity. In his 1996 biography of Clint Eastwood, Richard Schickel simplified 1970’s "Kelly’s Heroes" as "the story of some misfits who take some time out of World War II to do a little free-enterprise," namely a behind-enemy lines heist of $16 million worth of gold bullion from the Germans. Among the misfits is a tank driver aptly named Oddball (Donald Sutherland), a ‘70s hippie transplanted to WW II.

Reflecting on his early acting career in a 2005 interview, Sutherland said he usually played twitchy, weird villains with a foreign accent, on such British TV programs as "The Saint" and "The Avengers" (above). "I was always cast as an artistic homicidal maniac," he recalled, "but at least I was artistic!"

"Running more than two hours," Richard Schickel noted, "‘Kelly’s Heroes’ is a messily contradictory and never fully resolved movie. Besides being, occasionally, an anti-war satire, it is also from time to time a caper (or bunch-of-guys-rob-a-vault) comedy, an old-fashioned service (or bunch-of-goldbricks goof-off) comedy and yes, a straight bunch-of-guys-on-a-mission piece." According to Schickel, "It tried to be all things to all audiences and so, naturally, ended up a muddle."

Schickel called Eastwood "essentially the straight man to the assembled pranksters," including Don Rickles (as the appropriately named Crapgame) and Telly Savalas, "and their leader in the action sequences…an ungratifying role" for the actor, whose "work, at best (was) stern, even grim, and perhaps the least interesting he had done as a star." Eastwood himself would remark, "Our styles are inconsistent. People off on different trips. No cohesion."

"Kelly’s Heroes," which was released the same year as the iconoclastic anti-war comedy "MASH" (which also featured Donald Sutherland), was advertised as a "War Movie for the Peace Generation!" The hippie subculture arose in the early 1960s, culminating in the four days of peace, love and music at Woodstock in 1969. One would be hard-pressed to even attempt to associate Oddball’s beloved, freaky behavior with beatniks, the underground, anti-conformist movement of the ‘50s and early ‘60s, introduced in 1948 by writer Jack Kerouac’s phrase "Beat Generation."

Not unlike such comedy cult favorites as "Animal House," "Caddyshack" and "Stripes," many of Donald Sutherland’s spaced-out lines have become quotable, say-along dialogue:

"It’s a mother beautiful bridge!"

"I’m drinking wine and eating cheese and catching some rays, you know."

"It’s a wasted trip, baby."

"Always with the negative waves, Moriarty, always with the negative waves!"

"Woof! Woof! Woof! That’s my other dog imitation."

"Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?"

Incidentally, in Crapgame’s supply tent a box of Almond Joy candy bars is plainly visible. Almond Joy didn’t appear on store shelves until 1946.

On a final note, the director of "Kelly’s Heroes," Brian G. Hutton, a former actor ("Gunfight at the O.K. Corral") had earlier endeared himself to action film fans with the slambang World War II cliffhanger "Where Eagles Dare," starring Eastwood and Richard Burton. After directing "High Road to China" (1983), a 1920s-era adventure similar to "Raiders of the Lost Ark" starring Tom Selleck (the original casting choice for Indiana Jones), Hutton abandoned show business for the obviously more lucrative career as a plumber!