Kaiser's Birthday

Kelley wrote:

...Got to remember, Hollywood movies are not known for accuracy, they are to entertain and are not documentaries...

that warning should be written with capital letter at the beginning of every Hollywood creation
trouble is that today's "instant" generation learns history from cinema with predictable results

Kelley, I couldn't agree with you more.

TerryH

Terry,

Todays generation doesn't even go out and play. I hardly see children in the playgrounds, they are usually playing with their I PODs or computer games. Dah, what am I doing....

Robert

Hello Robert,
loadmaster wrote:

Todays generation doesn't even go out and play. I hardly see children in the playgrounds, they are usually playing with their I PODs or computer games. Dah, what am I doing....

I agree, but I also say that that it isn't the fault of the said generation. Over here in Germany we have a word for that (translated on the spot...):

What Joe doesn't learn, little Joe will never have the chance to learn!

What it means is those kids today just do as they are told to do, or as they learn to do. If you just switch on your TV, or just hand out a GameBoy or such when your kids are bored then you don't have to wonder about the resulting kind of behavior later on.

I don't want to damn TV and GameBoy, my son does watch TV and he also has a Nintendo, but we have a close eye on how and how often he use this kind of distraction. Therefore it is just an agreeable part of his activitys, and only a sublement to playing outside, doing sports, reading books, playing LEGO and working on his plane, car and other kits.

The thing to do is reaching the parents to think more closely about what their kids do. And a major thing is doing things together with their kids! Often you see they spend big money for presents or a holiday trip, but as I read somewhere:

It don't has to be the Copacabana or the Grand Canyon, the pond with a beach or the forest behind the next hill is big enough...
...as long as mom and dad are also there sharing the fun.

alaska-rr wrote:

I have both of those movies on DVD. I can try to capture a still from Von Ryan's Express so that YOU guys can identify it, I wouldn't have a clue about European models.

Thanks Karin. If I cannot identify it, I am sure that there are other who can.

Best wishes,
Chris.

Hmm Train movies:
I must admit i'm a junky for train movies. Seams i'll watch a bad movie all the way through as long as it has some train scenes in it. Here's a quick list of a few of my favorites.

#1 would have to be Sam Peckinpa's classic "The Wild Bunch" is my all time favorite. Great train sequences and most of it shot a true speed. All of it is with real trains.... no 3 second shots of models in this one. Great movie!!
#2 The Train with Burt Lancaster: Great movie, good story line, and off course its centered around the french railroad, so great movie again.
#3 Sliver Streak with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor... Classic and funny. Great train shots, and the final scene where the train crashs through Chicagos station is great.
#4 Good the Bad and the Ugly. This ones go some great scenes with Tuco on the prisoner train. Interestingly, these movies by Segio Leon were shot in Spain and Italy, and its clear in the movie that these are not North American cars or locos, but who realy cares when its such a great shot-em-up western.
#5 Joe Kid. Seams Clint Eastwood liked trains to, and decided to run one through the wall of the saloon at the end of this western. Note: this one was a US made movie, not a spagetti western and shot in California by John Sturges.
#6 Von Ryans Express. The Chairman of the Board does a nice jod in this movie. I think most of the equipement is german or italian. this movie was shot on location in italy, so i don't really know.
#7 North by Northwest. Cary Grant.... who dosn't like Cary Grant, and its a Hitchcock classic to boot. All 1950's era trains, but this was also filmed during passanger railroadings last great epoch of class here in the US. Really gives you the feel of the glamor and shine of the 50's passanger era.
#8 Under Siege: Part Two. Now i'm not a huge Steven Sigal fan (actually i think he's sort of a choda) but this flic is set on a train throughout the entire movie. The plot sucks, and purely unbelevable, but then again this movie was not made for its acuracy.
#9 US Marshals with Tommy Lee Jones and Wesly Snipes has some decent train scenes with most notably the big crash scene, but most of this is models.
#10 Butch Casidy and the Sundance Kid. There is the famous scene of the express car being blown up in this movie, as well as the referances to Mr. Harrimann of the Union Pacific Railroad by the clerk, but over all i don't care for this movie much. I'v ready many books about the actual life and times of Rodert Leroy Parker (aka Butch Casidy) and Harry Longbough (The Sundance Kid) and have traveled to The Hole in the Wall, and Robbers Roost in 4x4's, and this movei does not do the fellas justice. Its a well shot and acted western, and is highly regarded as that, but the story it tells is completly wrong, with most notably the robbing of the UP Flyer in Wyoming. In the movie they show the Hole in the Wall Gang robbing it twice on just over one month. This is not true. They did rob the same train in aproximatly the same area as the first robbery, however these events were a year and a half appart, and did not involve the same express clerk. Nore were they ever persued by Lord Baltamor or Joe Lefors. In fact there was never a indian tracker named Lord Baltamor, and Joe Lefors (who was a real man) never persued the Hole in the Wall Gang, and mostly worked out of Texas and the Oklahoma teritory hunting down renagade indians. The list of inacuracys go's on and on. So this movie is fun to watch, but not at all acurate

Well thats enough from me for today.... Please add to this list any other train related movies... i now there's more, and probibly a few i havn't seen yet.

Tony B...
Wasatch Z ClubB)

Zmon I started a new thread about movies. I like the list you have here. Would you mind sharing it on that thread again?