Article about: In the 60s and 70s many good movies were ruined in the eyes of the collector, because of terrible uniforms, and we went to movies with a similar attitude as going to see another collector's
In the 60s and 70s many good movies were ruined in the eyes of the collector, because of terrible uniforms, and we went to movies with a similar attitude as going to see another collector's collection, always trying to weed the bad out from the good.
Now the accumulated body of knowledge in the form of books and advances in computer graphics have made huge letdowns at the theater much rarer for average collectors. But that is only because propmasters have come to share the same resources we have and are working off checklists similar to ours. But one step out of that typical radar span, and chaos still reigns like the days when breast eagles looked like pigeon cookies and Japanese soldiers all wore glasses and had buck teeth.
Yesterday, I showed you specs for an army Gunto stand, but here are some more items from the army furniture catalog. I chose some samples of the very mundane, and some that must be exotic to Westerners.
Now a movie's esteem will rise or fall, because of chairs. and mail boxes.
By the way, notice how the original dimensions are all crossed out and rewritten? That is because the catalog was originally issued in 1917, but was still in use in 1926. The IJA switched to the metric system on 1st July 1924, remember?
I'm surprised to see they went to the detail to design different chairs for officer and NCO! Thanks Bob - you ruined WWII movies for me now, HA! I'm already thinking of a couple of movies that I will have to go back and watch to see what chair the POW camp commander was using!
To start with, you need to walk out of the movie, if the flag is already a rising sun flag instead of the meatball one as correctly shown, Bob's your uncle.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 11-01-2016 at 09:04 PM.
OK, looks like I've got everyone's attention, so here is another one from the catalog. It's a personal items box where the soldier keeps his pass book and other personal belongings.
Unlike the IKEA items that get discontinued in a year or two, the 1917 furniture catalog was still in vogue even during WW2. They merely reprinted it with proper metric dimensions.
This one is for tomp, an Army Pay Book cabinet for a Master Sergeant, which he asked me about a while ago. The company "Der Spieß" needed to collect the men's booklets to record combat entries, so he needed a lockable storage for all the books while the entries were being made by a Sergeant and 3 EM serving at company HQ as the personal affairs staff. Each company and Regimental HQ was thus equipped with one of these. This comes from the 1917 catalog, but it is absent from the 1926 and 1944 catalogs, so it may be that they used the other multipurpose cabinets for this purpose in the latter days.
Speaking of analyzing movie props, it looks like Hacksaw Ridge is being released today. Hopefully it will be good.
Tom
Just saw it today! Fabulous movie. The real interviews at the end had all of us in tears. No gunto used that I could see, but uniforms and weapons looked pretty legit.
Here's another item that most American movies get wrong
Nick, that might be a carry-over from British influence in the navy. The British Army salutes palm showing, but the RN salutes with the hand "knife-edge" -- this hand position obviates the possibility of strong sea gusts catching the flat palms and hitting themselves in their faces.
Propmasters will never get it right
.
by tomp
Bookmarks