The Best Muzzleloading Movies

[Col. Batguano]

Mutiny on the Bounty (the 1962 version). Not much ML'er action, but they're in it.

 

[brushblind]

I would like to see a modern, more accurate remake of Jeremiah Johnson!

 

[Tanglefoot]

Awhile back in this thread, somebody (I think it was Coinneach) mentioned Victoria Racimo, who was the female lead in the movie "The Mountainmen." She and Charleton Heston were cast members who attended the 1980 Joint NAPR/NMLRA Rendezvous in La Veta, Colorado. I had occasion to spend a little time with her there. I had expected a self-centered Hollyweird prima donna but found that she was a real lady, pleasant and considerate of others' feelings as well as being fun to talk to and very nice to look at. Both of those stars mixed right in with us buckskinners and took part in the rendezvous activities. My personal memories include Charleton Heston shooting in a Rifle Match and Victoria learning to throw a tomahawk effectively.
.

 

[stephenprops1]

I thought it was "Crazy Cora" in Quigley Down Under.Not sure who Alice is. My wife has a niece named Cora so it kind of stuck. Plus she's alittle crazy too.

You are correct. Here name was Cora.

 

[Coinneach]

View attachment 182812

Black Robe! Great Canadien movie from the early 90's based on a book by Brian Moore. I used to live in the Northeast and the movie was very evocative of long desolate winters. The movie offers an interesting perspective on first impressions, and the misunderstanding the Europeans and natives had of each other's culture.

It was a gravelly account of how like in that environment would have been then, as a long term well respected ML BP friend of mine once said, there was little room for the "noble savage" BS in reality, it was down in the dirt cold hard survival.

 

[Coinneach]

Awhile back in this thread, somebody (I think it was Coinneach) mentioned Victoria Racimo, who was the female lead in the movie "The Mountainmen." She and Charleton Heston were cast members who attended the 1980 Joint NAPR/NMLRA Rendezvous in La Veta, Colorado. I had occasion to spend a little time with her there. I had expected a self-centered Hollyweird prima donna but found that she was a real lady, pleasant and considerate of others' feelings as well as being fun to talk to and very nice to look at. Both of those stars mixed right in with us buckskinners and took part in the rendezvous activities. My personal memories include Charleton Heston shooting in a Rifle Match and Victoria learning to throw a tomahawk effectively.
.

You must be one of the reenactors who were a part of the movie, Man I'm so tickled to read your post !
I still have a dozen or so of the old "Muzzle Blasts" magazines from way back when, and one of the features was an account of Charlton Heston and Brian Keiths involvement with the Extras during the making.
Thanks for you input I really appreciate it.
Would you mind contributing an article here about your experiences on the movie set please ?

 

[Stantheman86]

Free State of Jones has the only depiction I've seen on film of a soldier loading a Rifle-Musket while laying behind cover . There are some good battle scenes within an otherwise mediocre movie

The Last of the Mohicans

The Revolution with Al Pacino

Sharpe's Rifles (a series but still cool)

 

[Coinneach]

Free State of Jones has the only depiction I've seen on film of a soldier loading a Rifle-Musket while laying behind cover . There are some good battle scenes within an otherwise mediocre movie

The Last of the Mohicans

The Revolution with Al Pacino

Sharpe's Rifles (a series but still cool)

All of them great delights for we in the BP ML fraternity, I'm addicted to the Sharpes series, and had the occasion to enter some correspondence with Bernard Cornwell the author some years ago.

 

[GREENSWLDE]

Not mzzle loading stuff but very enjoyable.
A New film from a novel.
"The English."
Streamed on UK BBC 2 as a serial. Mosty filmed about US NW Counties post CW
1860-1903.
About emigrants and their problems. Some of it not for Kids.

 

[kipcarter]

Awhile back in this thread, somebody (I think it was Coinneach) mentioned Victoria Racimo, who was the female lead in the movie "The Mountainmen." She and Charleton Heston were cast members who attended the 1980 Joint NAPR/NMLRA Rendezvous in La Veta, Colorado. I had occasion to spend a little time with her there. I had expected a self-centered Hollyweird prima donna but found that she was a real lady, pleasant and considerate of others' feelings as well as being fun to talk to and very nice to look at. Both of those stars mixed right in with us buckskinners and took part in the rendezvous activities. My personal memories include Charleton Heston shooting in a Rifle Match and Victoria learning to throw a tomahawk effectively.
.

I am beginning to think that you and I are the only two on this thread that were at the 1980 Joint in La Veta. You must be as old as I am! I am about to turn 80.

 

[64Springer]

Centennial, parts of the last of the Mohicans , parts of the Patriot, a movie from the 50’s Deerslayer. Alamo, Gettysburg.Jeremiah Johnson, parts of Sargent York

Took 110 posts to get to the Alamo.

The original 1960 version is fantastic. The Billy Bob Thornton 2004 version is very good. The 1987 version just plain stinks.

 

[thomasgunn]

I am beginning to think that you and I are the only two on this thread that were at the 1980 Joint in La Veta. You must be as old as I am! I am about to turn 80.

While I wasn't at the Old LaVeta Pass shindig, I did get to spend a few minutes chatting with Mr. Heston when he had lunch at The Covered Wagon restaurant in LV. Because of the screen blowing down during the attempted premiere of The Mountain Men during the rendezvous, it was moved to the Trail Drive-In outside of Walsenburg. Frank Piazza (the owner) graciously opened it for the event.

 

[Coinneach]

I am beginning to think that you and I are the only two on this thread that were at the 1980 Joint in La Veta. You must be as old as I am! I am about to turn 80.

70 years here and still enjoying life.

 

[Black Dog]

Have to pick Master and Commander as my all-time favorite muzzle-loader-era film; think it a cinematic tragedy the miser-minded investors cancelled the intended sequel. Second would be Glory; because I am more than casually acquainted with the Black church from my boyhood and young-adult years of living and working in the South, that spiritual being sung in the final pre-battle scene always gives me chills. Then, as others say, judging on the basis of accuracy in ML representation, parts of the '92 version of Last of the Mohicans (read the book as a boy c. 1950 or so); parts of Jeremiah Johnson; parts of the Sharpe's Rifles series; parts of the Hornblower series (all the books of which I read as a boy); and parts of Gettysburg (though its portrayal of Lee as bordering on senile dementia is grotesquely misleading).

Must also confess that both as a near-lifelong student of history and the descendant of Loyalists -- my ancestors settled in what is now Connecticut c. 1630 or thereabouts but were driven out after 1789, exiled to Canada or back to England and Scotland, returning only in 1902 (my late father, Massachusetts-born in 1910, was thus first generation this time around) -- I bristle at the German Nazi atrocity falsely attributed to the Loyalists in Patriot and for that reason despise the film. ('Twas the German Nazis herded people into churches and barns and burned them alive, not the troops of the fictional representation of Banastre Tarleton.) Also the film does grave injustice to the revolutionary cause by ignoring the pivotal contribution of Morgan's riflemen, the over-mountain volunteers who actually set up the U.S. victory at Cowpens by shooting many of Tarleton's officers (including an ancestor) as the Loyalist cavalry rode out of the forest at real-world ranges of up to about 250 yards.

 

[waksupi]

Here in Australia its regarded as a crap PC movie, Whites being typecast and pilloried.
BTW a fella would have to be built like a Gorilla to hold a full length Sharps rifle, off hand steady enough to hit anything out to range.

We used to shoot off hand at 750 yards at the old Virginia City Buffler Runners matches. We were hitting, and no one seemed to be bothered by the weight. I was shooting a 14# Business rifle.

 

[Black Dog]

Lots of muskets, pistols and hand to hand in the mud in this one.

Did not know of this series. From the glimpse -- for which many thanks -- appears quite well done in terms of ML use. Could someone please summarize it...and perhaps tell me if (and where) it is findable on the Internet?

 

[t_carlyle]

The Sharpe's Rifles series. For the pre-flinter type, Alatriste and Admiral.
The "shoot the bad guy with your ramrod" scene:





Some of these are also available on Prime.

I’m very glad someone mentioned Sharpe in this thread. Such a fantastic overlooked series that really deserves more praise over the loads of Hollywood trash

 

[tenngun]

Here in Australia its regarded as a crap PC movie, Whites being typecast and pilloried.
BTW a fella would have to be built like a Gorilla to hold a full length Sharps rifle, off hand steady enough to hit anything out to range.

I liked the movie, mostly because I’m a Sellaik fan. But yes it is an Anti Australian movie so I understand you pov.
But boys, and some girls try this crazy shooting

 

[Iron Jim Rackham]

Have to pick Master and Commander as my all-time favorite muzzle-loader-era film; think it a cinematic tragedy the miser-minded investors cancelled the intended sequel. Second would be Glory; more than casually acquainted with the Black church from my boyhood and young-adult years of living in the South, that spiritual being sung in the final pre-battle scene always gives me chills. Then, as others say, judging on the basis of accuracy in ML representation, parts of the '92 version of Last of the Mohicans (read the book as a boy c. 1950 or so); parts of Jeremiah Johnson; parts of the Sharpe's Rifles series; parts of the Hornblower series (all the books of which I read as a boy); and parts of Gettysburg (though its portrayal of Lee as bordering on senile dementia is grotesquely misleading).

Must also confess that both as a near-lifelong student of history and the descendant of Loyalists -- my ancestors settled in what is now Connecticut c. 1630 or thereabouts but were driven out after 1789, exiled to Canada or back to England and Scotland, returning only in 1902 (my late father, Massachusetts-born in 1910, was thus first generation this time around) -- I bristle at the German Nazi atrocity falsely attributed to the Loyalists in Patriot and for that reason despise the film. ('Twas the German Nazis herded people into churches and barns and burned them alive, not the troops of the fictional representation of Banastre Tarleton.) Also the film does grave injustice to the revolutionary cause by ignoring the pivotal contribution of Morgan's riflemen, the over-mountain volunteers who actually set up the U.S. victory at Cowpens by shooting many of Tarleton's officers (including an ancestor) as the Loyalist cavalry rode out of the forest at real-world ranges of up to about 250 yards.

Movies aren't history, but dramatizations of historical events or periods. While I know of no incidents of civilians being rounded up and burned in churches, the British Army, Loyalist auxiliaries and Germanic mercenaries behaved abominably during the war. Rape and pillage were routine and the British frequently gave no quarter, and those prisoners they did take were horribly mistreated.

The historical Banastre Tarleton was at least as villainous as the Patriot's fictional Colonel Tavington. Banastre Tarleton came from a family of slavers and purchased his commission after having squandered most of his inheritance on the usual vices of women and gambling. He was less introspective than the Biblical prodigal son, thus having no father to return home to, he joined the army of the original "evil empire." Tarlton's conduct so alienated the colonial population they flocked to the patriot cause. His massacre of Americans at the Waxhaws enraged the patriots and contributed directly to reprisals against loyalists. It's worth noting that the patriots executed the loyalists who surrendered at King's Mountain because of "Tarleton"s Quarter".

The British occupation of New York City and the New Jersey campaign were designed to unleash as much terror as possible on the colonial population. Thousands of American soldiers were intentionally mistreated to encourage them to enlist in Royal service. Lord Rawdon wrote to his uncle on September 23, 1776, “We should (whenever we get further into the country) give free liberty to the soldiers to ravage at will, that these infatuated wretches may feel what a calamity war is.” Writing of American women living under British "protection" in New York he stated: “The fair nymphs of this isle are in wonderful tribulation as the fresh meat our men have got here has made them as riotous as satyrs. Should a young woman innocently step into the bushes to pluck a rose, she ran the most imminent risk of being ravished and they are so little accustomed to these vigorous methods that they don’t bear them with the proper resignation and of consequence we have most entertaining courts-martial every day." In other words, a British aristocrat, a "stakeholder" in the imperial oligarchy found the resistance of women to being raped as laughable as it was futile.

The behavior of British forces encouraged Americans to fight against, rather than submit to Royal authority. The murder of Jane McRae perfectly illustrated the meaninglessness of British "protection." If a good girl like Jane McRae who was betrothed to a loyalist officer in Burgoyne's army could be slaughtered, and her murderer's unpunished, what sane or decent person would wish to swear fealty to a tyrant or seek protection from such terrorists.

Whatever the "historical" shortcomings of Mel Gibson's movie the Patriot are, it memorably portrayed the brutality of a British army of occupation that encouraged the population to resist and assert their independence.

 

[Coinneach]

We used to shoot off hand at 750 yards at the old Virginia City Buffler Runners matches. We were hitting, and no one seemed to be bothered by the weight. I was shooting a 14# Business rifle.

Thats hard to believe IME, I've an Army background and was a Small Arms Coach; our Sniper teams with their Parker Hale 7.62mm Rifles and Kahls Helier Scopes coudnt replicate off hand what you've described.