// Read more here: // https://my.onetrust.com/s/article/UUID-d81787f6-685c-2262-36c3-5f1f3369e2a7?language=en_US //
You are using an outdated browser.
Please upgrade your browser
and improve your visit to our site.
Skip Navigation

Ugly Americans, The Movie

number smart unexpected
[O]ur people have shed more blood for the liberty and freedom of other peoples in this country than all the other countries put together.
Hollywood
A couple of examples: the movie U-571 was not a great hit (or a great film for that matter), but it was notable for another reason. It told the story of how an Enigma machine was captured from a crippled German submarine - and thus set in train a sequnce of events that was vital to winning the Battle of the Atlantic. The film was a conflation of a number of true stories with one significant exception: the submariners who captured the code machine and carried out other operations were in real-life British - in the movie they became American.

This was not a new phenomenon. Errol Flynn's 1945 movie Objective Burma was not released in Britain after an outcry over the fact that it gave the impression that the Burma campaign - a British-Australian venture - was actually an American operation.

The point is not that movies should emphasise or even acknowledge the allied nature of the war effort (though it would do no harm if they did. Yes, that means you Mr Spielberg). Nor do I mean to denigrate or cheapen the sacrifices made by American soldiers. I merely make the suggestion that Hollywood could surely find enough genuinely American stories to tell without having to pinch acts of heroism that properly belong to other countries.
hereChristopher Orr