Question: What exactly happened to Iggy? Are we ever supposed to know exactly how he died?
Answer: The movie insinuates that he was killed horribly but doesn't provide many details. Books about Iwo Jima have quotes from witnesses about what happened to him and they all say that he was very brutally tortured, including having his eyes cut out and his genitals removed and stuffed in his mouth. The book "Flags of Our Fathers" contains the following quote, "A few days later someone yelled that they'd found him. They called me over because I was a corpsman. The Japanese had pulled him underground and tortured him. His fingernails... his tongue... It was terrible. I've tried hard to forget all this.
Question: In the John Wayne film, Frankie Avalon is riding into Sam Houston's camp and is stopped by two sentries. The one questioning him appears to bear a striking resemblance to Robert Mitchum. Is this him?
Answer: No, that's not him. Robert Mitchum has no part in this movie.
Question: Why wouldn't Shmuel escape? It would've been very easy. He could've done it the same way he let Bruno in.
Answer: Samuel knew the dangers of the camp and knew that trying to escape would result in death. He knows Bruno is likely to be allowed IN to the camp as he is a German and Germans are running the camp. Plus, if Shmuel did escape, where would he go? He's 8, on his own and alone in the woods.
Question: In the scene where the American 82nd Airborne is storming the river bank at Nijmegen, there is a brief shot of one of the German defenders, who looks quite startingly like a puberescent boy. Anyone know whether this assumption is correct, and if so, what's the background to this story?
Chosen answer: The Germans did use some Hitler youth movement in the war.
Question: I have heard that the role of Bloody Mary was dubbed in this movie. Who dubbed her, and why isn't that person listed in the credits (given that Giorgio Tozzi, who dubbed Emile de Becque, is credited)? Also, were Nellie and Lt. Cable dubbed? Again, no one is credited, but their singing voices sound dubbed to me. Can anyone shed some light on this?
Answer: See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052225/fullcredits#cast. Bloody Mary's singing voice is Muriel Smith, Lt. Cable's is Bill Lee. Mitzi Gaynor (Nellie) does her own singing. For most of these "on-location" musicals, the singing is recorded in a studio, so even the actors who do their own singing are, in effect, dubbed by themselves.
Question: What is the deal with Mac? Why isn't he in the Armed Services like a majority of the other men in England?
Chosen answer: He could have flat feet or a bad back or many other problems which don't really inconvenience him but make him ineligible for service.
Question: Was this film based on an true story, or was it fiction based on the true warring states as the backdrop?
Answer: It was a fiction based on the true historical period as backdrop, althought it sorted of resembled a true event that the deserter general of Qin gave his head to an assassin as a pass to get close to the Emperor, who was then still a king of a state among the warring states.
Question: Why does the play start with The Van Daans already at the Annex when it's clear that they arrive a week later in the diary?
Answer: Movies do not always exactly follow the books they are adapted from. Oftentimes scenes and/or characters are changed, deleted, or streamlined, often because there is a limited amount of time in a movie to tell the story. In this case, it just simplified the plot by having the Van Daans already at the Annex, eliminating the need for two separate arrivals and instead focusing on the Frank family's reactions to their situation.
Question: How come Hilts could not answer the German at the end of the movie when he said he could speak German to Colonel von Luger?
Answer: He could have only known a small amount of German, enough to answer a question or two, but not enough to carry on a full conversation. Also, the German seemed to be wanting to have a full conversation with him. He was on the run and didn't have time to talk. He was most likely being a smart ass saying he knew German.
Answer: .And, just to add to the previous answer: even if he could speak conversational German, he would likely do so with a very strong American accent (as he does when he speaks the few words to the Commandant earlier), so the guard would have picked up on that right away, anyway.
Question: What was Lokar hiding? And why did he want to keep it a secret?
Answer: Lokar was conducting a genocidal campaign against the Bosniak population, a severe war crime. The photos of the mass grave would have exposed him.
Question: I first saw the movie in a cinema when it was first released. I'm quite sure I saw a scene which was later edited out, perhaps to accommodate the ratio of television screens. Before the attack various soldiers stop to listen to a strange sound echoing over the hills - "like a train" someone says. After we hear the sound twice my memory is that the movie cut to a panoramic view of thousands of Zulu warriors running across the veld, banging their shields with their spears, on their way to Rorke's Drift. This is what was causing the "train" sound, a phenomenon that is not explained subsequently anywhere in the edited version of the film. The dramatic effect of the shot, panning across what looks like thousands of armed Zulus, was riveting and served to emphasise the impossible odds faced by the British. Am I the only one who recalls this scene?
Answer: Absolutely correct. This exact scene is in my DVD of Zulu. They may have changes when the TV version aired, but this definitely in the original.
Question: What type of Allied fighter destroyed the units vehicles? It doesn't look like any allied combat aircraft I've seen before.
Answer: It's a Yugoslav Soko 522 Ikarus.
Chosen answer: From the markings it looks like a P47 jug. Strange thing is it was equipped with rockets, which I have only seen outfitted on the P-38 lightning and the P-51 Mustang. Kelly's is a great movie but far from historically accurate. There is a country song Odd Ball Plays as the blow up the rail yard that not even close to having been released at the time.
Question: I've heard that, because the film was shot in sequential order, some of the actors were unaware who the spy is until the last three days of filming. When they were offered their roles, wouldn't they have received a copy of the script to read in advance to learn their lines?
Answer: The cast would have received copies of the script but with parts of the last scene omitted. They would be given the missing pages during the last days of the shoot, in which time they learn their lines, rehearse, then film the ending. Considering the time involved in filming a movie, actors do not necessarily memorize the entire script beforehand, but do so as each scene is shot. Also, it's questionable as to whether or not any of the cast did not know the ending as the movie was based on the Broadway play.
Question: I just loved the music. Can anyone tell me whether there's a soundtrack or anything, or who are the main performing artists?
Answer: There is a soundtrack to the movie which has two oscar nominations for best original song and a nomination for original score - go to amazon.com to find out the artist info.
Question: Was Josh Chamberlain really given mutineers like in the movie?
Answer: Yes. After the 2nd Maine Infantry was disbanded, there were 120 men with 1-year of service left. They mutinied because they said they only agreed to fight under the 2nd Maine flag and the Army disagreed. So they were marched under guard to the 20th Maine, led by Chamberlain. Chamberlain was able to convince most of them to fight, even though he was ordered to shoot any who did not fight.
Is there a reason why a few of them refused to fight?
Yes. The same reason why they mutinied.
Question: What does the "hurt locker" mean?
Answer: It's a term similar to "a world of hurt". It's both outside of you and within you. The outside definition is that a hurt locker is anywhere you go to find pain. In the film's case, war-torn Iraq is the hurt locker. Inside, your hurt locker is the place you bury your anguish.
Question: Mary's attire looks more like 1960s than 1940s. Any info on this?
Chosen answer: This is not unusual in older films. Earlier costume designers were less attentive to historical accuracy and freely incorporated current fashion trends into period movies. It was just an accepted practice and movie audiences back then were often less discerning and/or unaware of inaccuracies. Today's costumers have greater access to historical information, do more research, and strive for authenticity.
Chosen answer: Chris has "shooter's strawberries" on his elbows, which are red callouses caused by lying in the sniper's position for long periods. He notices the same marks on the elbows of the father, and realizes that he too is a military sniper.
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