HOLLYWOOD'S WAY: TELL IT LIKE IT WASN'T

Although a confessed movie buff from way back, this writer has found ample reason for shying away from any contemporary or future films of a biographical or historical nature. When the facts surrounding a particular event or an individual’s characterization often become flagrantly twisted merely for added audience enjoyment purposes, our rebellious outlook springs to life. Over the years, we’ve watched a good many Hollywood productions which have contained either major or less significant distortions, usually sufficient to convince us we should have better stayed at home and read a book.

We’ve picked out a dozen examples where Hollywood’s penchant for deviating from realism or reality remains indelibly in mind as deplorable misstatements and misrepresentations, where people or situations are involved. There are obviously many more, but it’s the principle involved, not the overwhelming volume of script falsifications, that we’ve chosen to focus upon.

MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935 and 1962)
Captain William Bligh was not a downright schmuck who inflicted harsh and unjust punishments to crew members, apparently for sadistic personal satisfaction. His true character lay on the reserved side, with fairness often guiding his judgment. Although the causes leading to the legendary mutiny still aren’t fully clear, they certainly didn’t arise from his abject cruelty.

KNUTE ROCKNE, ALL-AMERICAN (1940)
This case may be relatively minor, but it stands as an unmitigated insult to one of America’s most revered football coaches, to portray how he decided to alter his team’s backfield coordination strategy after watching chorus girls dance in unison at a night club floor show.

PRIDE OF THE YANKEES (1942)
The immortal Lou Gehrig decidedly did not precede his first ever trip to the plate by clumsily falling over a row of baseball bats lying outside the dugout, nor did the crowd’s uproarious laughter then quickly subside, allowing his eventual missus to loudly cry “Tanglefoot!” from the front row. Yish!

TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY (1946)
This film gives the viewer the distinct impression that Jerome Kern handled the full composition effort, i.e. both words and music, for his countless songs. Credit due to Oscar Hammerstein II and other affiliated lyricists received the absolutely scantest mention. We deem this grossly unfair, especially considering the marvelous talents of those people summarily overlooked.

WORDS AND MUSIC (1948)
As a homosexual, Lorenz Hart could have hardly spent his entire career mooning over a girl who spurned him from the outset. Additionally, the scene with Mickey Rooney (as Hart) and Judy Garland (as herself) singing a number together at a party is completely anachronistic, she having been only a little girl in real life at the time of the film’s setting.

THE STRATTON STORY (1949)
Monty Stratton pitched effectively for a few seasons with the Chicago White Sox, but gained only limited status, not the league-shattering prominence the film depicted, up until his tragic leg loss in a hunting mishap. He tried returning to play with an artificial limb in sandlot games, but never one so important as an all-star event, according to the fabricated script.

THE WINNING TEAM (1952)
Ronald Reagan portrayed National League pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander as a man who received his inspiration for striking out opposing batters just by seeing his wife’s face in the stands. This has to be the most ridiculous giggle in any sport movie ever turned out. As a moundsman of the highest caliber, but encumbered with a personal problem, his hang-up had nothing to do with the need for affectionate looks. He was a lush of the first order, said on occasions to head straight to the ball park following an extended drunken binge.

THE BENNY GOODMAN STORY (1956)
Perhaps the real Benny did possess an innate shyness which delayed proposing marriage to his first wife, as the plot went. However, the scene where he finally pops the question by playing his clarinet and looking out at his lady friend seated in the Carnegie Hall audience wins the all-time preposterousness prize. How silly can those Hollywood folk get?

SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME (1956)
Rocky Graziano was a lowdown street-brawling hoodlum, who could barely control himself, often resorting to his fists when slightly disgruntled, thus leading to continuous trouble. The affable and readily likable Paul Newman should never have been cast in the lead role.

THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957)
Beyond question, this ranks among the finest movies ever produced. The misleading aspect is that British commandos never did sneak up and blow the bridge to smithereens. Factually speaking, it remains standing and in use today, far more sturdily constructed than the film showed.

FUNNY GIRL (1968)
Fanny Brice’s husband (the second of three in real life, not the first of two) Nicky Arnstein may not have had an honest or decent bone in his entire body, being an out-and-out swindler. The boys certainly cleaned up the character for Omar Sharif’s impressive nice upstanding chap performance.

GABLE AND LOMBARD (1976)
This production has to stand high among filmdom’s stinkeroos from the distortion angle. For openers, Carole Lombard did play several successful comedic lead roles in the 1930s, but never once reigned as undisputed queen of the cinema, as they would have us believe. Moreover, the supposed paternity suit filed against Clark Gable was totally fictitious, having been lifted instead from actual cases involving Errol Flynn and Charlie Chaplin during that era.

CLOSING COMMENT
What else can we say except oh, boy?