Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

I was channel surfing a couple of days ago and on RTV (retro tv) They has the pilot episode of the old Daniel Boone TV series staring Fess Parker.

Aside from being politically incorrect in many ways there is something that anyone my age or older would have not found odd.

An attack on the fort is launched by British and Indians to keep the colonists from advancing into Kentucky and building a new fort (which would eventually become Boonesborough). If you look at the scenes of the attack the majority of them come from the first rate movie Drums Along the Mohawk from 1939 staring Henry Fonda that I’ve mentioned before.

For decades this was very common, particularly in TV shows (F-Troop, McHales Navy, et/al) for various action scenes or crowd scenes to be recycled from previous movies. In an age before VCR’s, DVD’s, Blue Ray and live streaming it wasn’t all that noticed.

Those days however it is rarely done. One quick example. The movie Amistad has one small scene at the end showing a moment of the US Civil War. It didn’t get even a minute of screen time but I didn’t recognize any movie it came from and suspect a 2nd unit crew spent a day making that shot for that. Why? Because it they took a shot from say Glory a million movie fans would have recognized it like a shot and razzzed them about it.

Does this matter at all? Not really, it makes me feel like the old wizened retired artillery colonel who recognizes the horse holders but it’s an anachronism that will someday be unrecognized.