For example - Robert Shaw is simply awesome as the (fictional) German commander. Here's a general rule of thumb that I apply to the film as a whole - the scenes with the Americans are stupid, and the scenes with the Germans are good. I still like this stupid movie! The tank battles are fun, the music is great, and the cast is really top-notch. And it's not as though the inaccuracies make the film better in fact, I'm confident that a more realistic portrayal of the battle would have made the film far more exciting, even-handed, and worthwhile. However, I would argue that "Battle of the Bulge" is SO inaccurate that such a defense doesn't hold water. Anybody with even a vague understanding of the real battle knows that the Americans won simply by counterattacking - what a novel idea! Some commentators on this site have argued that the film's historical inaccuracies don't matter, and that only World War II nerds will be offended by the script's tinkering with history. The film suggests, in a somewhat insulting fashion, that in point of fact the Americans did not win this battle in the traditional way - we only won it because the Germans ran out of gasoline and decided to walk home! What complete rubbish. What a versatile guy, huh? And yes, even my inexperienced child-self found it rather weird that, in this movie, the Americans are depicted as being utterly incapable of fighting the Germans. Throughout the course of this movie, Fonda's character predicts the battle (rather like a psychic, or someone with access to the script), uncovers every weakness in the German plan, and then finally plays a key role in stopping the entire German offensive. I had difficultly believing, for example, that every Allied soldier in World War II was an incompetent nitwit except for the all-knowing, all-seeing Henry Fonda. But even back then, my young and usually trusting mind could detect a strong whiff of baloney from this movie. When I was a little kid, I watched "Battle of the Bulge" approximately 58 million times.
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