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from The Mirror Mar 3 2003 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12694263&method=full&siteid=50143 HOW HOLLYWOOD REWROTE HISTORY By Jane Simon SYLVESTER Stallone looks set to return to our screens as Rambo - this time taking on al-Qaeda. Stallone, 55, is rumoured to be looking at a rush release later this year for Rambo IV, in which the all-action hero ultimately kills Osama bin Laden. How the realities of American policy in Afghanistan will be played out in the movie remains to be seen. For Hollywood has never let historical accuracy get in the way of a good story. Indeed, perhaps the real reason George Bush is so keen to go to war with Iraq is that the only action he's ever seen is at the movies. And if Hollywood is to be believed, America has single-handedly won every battle it's ever been involved in - not to mention several it was nowhere near. Tony Blair needn't expect more than a walk-on part. In Hollywood, America fights alone and some of its most heroic victories have been achieved in the cutting-room. Here some of its finest hours. U571 IN this submarine thriller, the Enigma coding device was captured from the Germans by Harvey Keitel, Matthew McConnaughey - and even Jon Bon Jovi. In fact, British Navy crews got there six months before the US entered the war. OBJECTIVE BURMA Errol Flynn starred in a tale of heroism which ignored the efforts of the British, Australian and New Zealand forces. Churchill caused such a stink that the movie wasn't released in the UK until 1952 - with a belated apology tacked on. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN Steven Spielberg's "realistic" version of D-Day ignored the 72,215 British and Canadian troops who also landed. His company is now planning a film on the "liberation" of the Greek island of Symi by GIs - the Yanks didn't arrive until 1946. COLDITZ Miramax mogul Harvey Weinstein has bought the rights to the British war story and plans a remake with Tom Cruise and Matt Damon. The pesky detail that no US PoWs escaped from the place is unlikely to be seen as a problem. THE GREAT RAID Weinstein's The Great Raid, out later this year, is about Lt Col Henry Mucci, who rescued 511 American PoWs in the Philippines in 1945. More than 400 Filipino guerrillas helped him - but there's not one Filipino name in the main cast list. BRAVEHEART Mel Gibson filmed the Battle of Stirling Bridge on the flat, saying: "The bridge got in the way." "Aye, that's what the English found," said a wag. Wallace did not sleep with the Prince of Wales's wife and isn't an ancestor of Elizabeth. THE PATRIOT In this War of Independence flick, Mel depicted the English as war criminals - locking hundreds of American women and children in a church and setting it alight. Actually it was the Nazis who pulled this one on Oradour sur Glane, France, in June 1944. THE GREAT ESCAPE Even as Rocky the Rooster in Chicken Run, Mel Gibson perpetrated another great movie myth when he copied Steve McQueen's motorcycle leap from the PoW classic The Great Escape. Three words: It Never Happened. PEARL HARBOR No wonder most Americans have such a vague grasp of world events. One woman at the premiere of Pearl Harbor was stunned to discover her country had once been at war with Japan. She was probably none the wiser after watching fly-boys Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett repel a Japanese air attack all by themselves. The families of the other 88 American pilots who were in the air during the raid were rightly miffed. WE WERE SOLDIERS A grim reconstruction of the battle of Ia Drang in Vietnam. Nonexistent is Rick Rescorla, a Cornish man who emigrated to the US and played a key role. It's not just on the battlefield where Hollywood's hijacked history: TITANIC Scots were outraged when Titanic showed real-life hero William McMaster Murdoch, First Officer, shoot and kill a passenger before taking his own life. 10 COMMANDMENTS There's nothing in the Bible about Moses having an affair with Egyptian Princess Nefertiti. THE KING AND I The King of Siam didn't fall in love with the hired help. Governess Anna Leonowens was a wonderful self-publicist whose romantic memoirs didn't just skirt around the truth - they danced a waltz with it in a damn great crinoline. Nice tunes, though. THE UNTOUCHABLES Lawman Eliot Ness never actually met gangster Al Capone - but the temptation to put Kevin Costner and Robert De Niro on screen at the same time was obviously too great for director Brian de Palma. REIGN OF FIRE Dragons did not interrupt construction of London's Jubilee Line. (We'd have noticed). THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON Fans will recall Errol Flynn's General Custer as a dashing cavalier who was kind to Indians and died to save his comrades - not an arrogant Indian-hater who was once court-martialled, and suspended from duty for going to visit his wife. DINOSAUR Disney re-wrote pre-history by putting dinosaurs and mammals on Earth at the same time - with American accents. They also replaced the evolutionary principle of survival of the fittest with the Disneyesque ethos: Let's All Just Get Along. A KNIGHT'S TALE Medieval folk tended not to decorate their armour with a Nike swoosh. THE ALAMO "Remember the Alamo!" said President Lyndon Johnson. But the 1836 siege was a disaster for the US. He meant the film, with John Wayne as Davy Crockett, who goes out in a blaze of glory by burning the fort. _______________________ http://www.mirror.co.uk ===== LMNOP http://lmno4p.org "No War for Oil!" __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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