Movie errata

[Jim]

In the United States, the TCM channel is televising four
great Humphrey Bogart films in tandem:

"Maltese Falcon"
"Casablanca" (which is on now)
"Treasure of the Sierra Madre"
"The African Queen"

"Casablanca" is so iconic that practically every dialog
has a one-liner which has become famous although
one "famous" one-liner, "Play it again, Sam"
is never actually said by anyone. I think Woody
Allen is the source of the misquotation.

--

I am at p.150 in the 700-page biography
_Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His
Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story
Behind 'The List'_ by David Crowe published
in 2004.

We have established, true to the film with
his name, that Oskar Schindler arrives in Krakow
as an opportunistic womanizing Nazi party
member. However, Thomas Keneally
and Steven Spielberg's alterations of
facts, seemingly committed for simplification
of story line, are disturbing. I had
read _Schindler's Ark_ in the early
1980s when it was still in its original edition,
and even knew of Leopold Page's
luggage shop in Beverly Hills. (Leopold
Page was the adopted name of
Poldek Pfefferberg who ran errands
for Schindler in the story.) I knew it
was a novel "based on fact", whatever
that means and while on one hand
it is easy to condemn Keneally for
falsifications that for instance, feed
a Holocaust denier like Hal Womack
who has enough personal problems,
it is a fact that Oskar Schindler arrived
in Krakow an amoral money-grubber and left a
living saint. That part was not invented.
And yet his amazing story probably would
never be so widely known in a purely historic
account. This book is that account.

I'll have more to say about it when
I've finished, probably early next week.

[Don Phillipson]

"Jim" <j.co...@cross-comp.com> wrote in message
news:c3dbcde5-a633-42e3...@r5g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...

> "Casablanca" is so iconic that practically every dialog
> has a one-liner which has become famous although
> one "famous" one-liner, "Play it again, Sam"
> is never actually said by anyone. I think Woody
> Allen is the source of the misquotation.

Woody Allen made a film with this title in 1972
(when he was certainly employable but not yet
famous), which suggests the phrase was current
(well-known) before that date.

> I am at p.150 in the 700-page biography
> _Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His
> Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story
> Behind 'The List'_ by David Crowe published
> in 2004.
>
> We have established, true to the film with
> his name, that Oskar Schindler arrives in Krakow
> as an opportunistic womanizing Nazi party
> member. However, Thomas Keneally
> and Steven Spielberg's alterations of
> facts, seemingly committed for simplification

> of story line, are disturbing. . . .

It overstates the case to judge an "untold
account" of wartime events is "true to" a
film treatment of 1993. Doubtless the author
claims his "true story" is more nearly true to
the authentic facts than to later narratives. The OP
is quite correct to cite "alterations of fact"
when he can detect them: but the simplifications
necessary to produce a coherent story line have
long been debated by historians.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)