Lafitte, Jean Lafitte, Galveston discussed on Key Battles of American History

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Wearing black or brown or gray, these really dull earth tones, but in reality, people did wear colorful clothes. And the movie totally gets that right. And I appreciate that about the movie. Anyway, I got off on a little tangent there, but so at the end of the movie, after the celebration, the boy appears in people start asking, well, how did you survive the Corinthian? And he's trying to cover for lafitte. Even though it's not lafitte's fault, it was done in violation of lafitte's orders, nevertheless, the boy, you know, spills the beans and says, well, the ship was attacked by one of lafitte's men and burned. And lafitte personally takes responsibility for that. He doesn't try to Dodge it. He doesn't say I ordered it, but he says I was responsible for it. And the people just go nuts and they start to hang him and all this and finally Jackson comes out and saves him and but says you've got to get out of here. And so he's given what is it like 48 hours or 24 hours? I can't remember. Maybe just ten hours. He gives them just a little bit of time to get on a ship with his man and sail away. And so that's the final scene. Total nonsense. It's great drama. And that sailing to destiny is like, what's he going to do next? It's almost like they were setting up for a sequel. But Pirates of the Caribbean part two, lafitte. Lafitte goes to Mexico. But they don't show where he's going, but in reality, lafitte was continued to be both the feats again. Remember there were two brothers in reality. They were hailed as heroes, and they hung around New Orleans for quite some time. They eventually did leave and they moved their base of operations to Galveston of all places, and were there for quite a while. In fact, today you can go down and take the Jean lafitte tour in Galveston. It's kind of cool. I haven't done it, but there's a lot of Jean lafitte swag that you can get in Galveston. And that's going to be their new base of operations. But they didn't leave because they were afraid the Americans were going to hang them or something. They left because their base had been destroyed and they were looking for the next adventure. They were wanting to start a new business, start a new mini kingdom. So that's the reality. They relocated to Galveston around late 1815 and set up shop there. They'll stay there for quite some time. I thought that part of the movie was a little infuriating because I did respect that Jean lafitte owned it, but captain Brown was under his command and he was responsible, but he could have explained himself a little further than he took care of brown. I think that might have tempered it a little bit with the angry mob. Yeah, that part is the weakest part of the entire film in my opinion. I agree with you. The real lafite would not have fallen on his sword for captain Brown. I mean, these guys are pirates. As I mentioned, they're looking out for number one. The real lafitte, even if that had happened, would have said, hey, look, this guy was acting not on my orders. In fact, he was violating my orders. I had the guy hanged for crying out loud. So give me a break. And I think in reality, people would have calmed down and he might still have had to have left, but yeah, that's just pure Hollywood all that. Go find a rope. Right now, let's hang him right now. It's ridiculous. I think one of the other things that I had to keep reminding myself of was this is really a long time after the classic age of pirates. Really, in a lot of ways, Jean lafitte was an international business man. He had a legal right to some of the piracy that he was doing. He was not a full blown pirate. He was a privateer and he was doing trading. That this was not just our and killing people. It was a business. It really was. And he saw himself as a businessman and even the leader of a community, as we said, he liked fine clothes. Wine women and song. He didn't go around. It's even funny because they allude to that in the movie. The British are looking at them when they're having dinner and they're making their offer to him. And one of the British officers says, well, you're not really what I expected. And he says, did you expect me to have a peg leg and an eye patch? That was really funny. Character of lafitte is just wonderful in this movie. And as is yule Brenner. Now let's talk a little bit about the historical accuracy. This movie is very theatrical and a play like style. Our mutual comrade at a microphone and friend Sean mciver, he's spoken to this point and other movie based podcast episodes of the movies of this time. They were not filmed in a realistic fashion at all. And I don't think I saw a single setting in this movie that wasn't obviously a sound stage. So what was maybe one of the big things of accuracy? Because I mean, in a lot of ways, we don't want to get too hung up on accuracy. It is a film. But what's something that may be really ground your gears about this movie? Well, again, the number one problem with the movie, which we've already discussed is that there's no Pierre. Jean lafitte and pier doesn't get the credit for the things he did. But again, I think they were just trying to simplify it and the Jean lafitte in the movie combined features of pier and the real Jean lafitte. But we don't need to beat that dead horse anymore. Let's talk about Andrew Jackson also played by one of my all time favorite actors Charlton Heston. I love Charlton Heston. I love ten commandments. I love Ben Hur. So many good movies with him, but you've done an episode on el cid. Just a legend of the screen. But he's pretty good as Jackson. He is shown in the movie as being much older than the actual Jackson was. He's got the big shock of white hair just purely white, but the real Jackson was 47 at the battle of New Orleans. His hair was not yet white. And heston tries to do a southern accent, of course, Jackson was from Tennessee. He grew up in the Carolinas and very southern man. He would have spoken with a southern accent. But again, heston tries the accent goes in and out, like a lot of actors and movies at that time. I just don't think until maybe the 80s maybe that they tried really hard to be really accurate with things like accents and hair styles and things like that. Like you look at the movie tora tora tora, which is a fantastic movie about Pearl Harbor, came out in 1970, but the haircuts are not 40s haircuts. They're 1960s haircuts. Things like that. And so yeah, it's just that just wasn't a big concern that type of accuracy, whereas if you watch the 2019 midway movie, those are 40s haircuts. Anyway, that's kind of a minor thing. Hair and beards are one of my pet peeves, but they should have made him look a little younger. The actual heston was about the right age, but for some reason they tried to make him look way older. They did the same thing with governor cleburne. Now, having said that, there are some really nice little details that I like, they threw in there about halfway through the movie, Jackson is always whining and dining and talking to people and all that. And then he goes into his office and he unbuttons his uniform coat and he touches his side very gingerly. You can tell he's got a wound and old wound there, and he's just kind of, he makes a face. It obviously hurts. And that is a wonderful detail. Most people probably won't even notice that, but Jackson actually did have a bullet in his chest from a duel that he had fought in 1806. And I won't go into the details of the duel, but during this scene, lafitte sneaks in through the window, threatens to shoot Jackson if he doesn't give him a pardon, which is I could not find any evidence that that is accurate. I've read several biographies of Andrew Jackson, I've read about lafitte. I've read about the battle of New Orleans and nowhere have I ever seen anything written that lafitte actually threatened Jackson, but it's good drama and Jackson tells

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