Question:
Matching the "axe" to the era!
Just been watching the 2001 remake of South Pacific. Correct me if I'm wrong, was it based in WW2? The reason is, in the concert scene towards the end, the tenor player seemed to be playing a very modern looking mouthpiece with a Rovner or BG fabric lig! The alto looked very much like a modern horn with a F# too! Very 40's, not!
I remember noticing this kind of flaw in the DeNiro/Minelli film New York, New York, where in the opening scene at the VJ Day celebrations, the baritone player was playing, what looked like a low A Mk6? Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know the first Low A was the Selmer SBA, which came into being in 1952?
It gets me when these film/Tv guys seem to spend time and money getting the props right, but cock up on a simple thing as getting the right horn for the era! As far as I'm concerned its bit like having a WW1 film with a Spitfire flying through!!
Has anybody else noticed this, or am I the only paranoid one!!!!!!!.............:?

Answer:
I'm always spotting saxes in movies, drives people mad!
Period (or ones with some scenes set 'in the olden days') movies/tv with saxes... try 'New York, New York', 'Bird', 'Last of the Blonde Bombshells' for starters.

Answer:
As an amateur Historian and Living History Reenactor among my many interests, I can't help but be perturbed by historical faux pas such as this/ and especially the misinformed actors who can't even hold, let alone finger their instruments correctly..... compliments of Hollywoodland.
Petty perhaps, but an annoyance none the less.

Answer:
..but it's even more fascinating when they have the "right" horns. Or watching movies from the period and seeing the Conns and Bueschers. I always wondered if one of my horns ended up on some newsreel footage somewhere. I like the World War II unit orchestras photos...some are so good you can pick out the difference between a Buescher and Conn that they are playing.

Answer:
Well, I dunno...
Let's look at this from two angles for two different situations, just for the hell of it.
First, from the eyes of the movie's producers, the folks who pay the costs.
Two different movies. One is a World War II epic. Let's make it difficult - a film pitting the Marines against the Japanese.
Marines and Japanese infantry and vintage weapons - no problem. You can buy the old uniforms made new, and there are armorers in Hollywood who can outfit either an American Marine unit with period weapons, or a Japanese infantry platoon, with rifles, light machine guns, infantry "knee" mortars, and two or three medium machine guns, all on a standard rental basis.
Location: Well, that's a bit more difficult. Doing stuff on the old back lot ain't quite the same as the real McCoy. Want it to look "right", particularly for an exotic location, and your costs go up alarmingly. If you're shooting for Iwo Jima, you do what Clint Eastwood just did and go to Iceland (which has very similar terrain).
Howzabout the hard stuff:
American armored vehicles:
Expensive, but still doable. There are a number of rental firms and several collectors that can give you one or two of any number of vehicles, from halftracks (pretty common) to Sherman tanks (a little more rare, but still available for rental) to amphibious tractors (very rare, and hard to come by) - all of them in running order.
But, here comes the real problem. You want to do it right, so that means coming up with Japanese tanks and heavy artillery (150 mm range).
H'mmm. Big problem. There are currently three "runner" Japanese tanks in the world, and all of them are of the wrong era (1930's). Those vehicles that match the ones on Iwo are found here and there (one in Indianapolis, scheduled for restoration to runner status, one in MD (static), one in Fredericksburg TX (static and a hulk), the rest overseas in Russia, mainland China and Australia.
No rental option there, and even fewer for the big artillery pieces (they're all in government museums). So, what do you do?
Eastwood went with CGI, and what I've seen of it to date tells me that he did a pretty good job. Not as good as "reality", but pretty good.
The same held true for the aircraft generated for the horrid Pearl Harbor. Kate Beckensdale notwithstanding, those hundreds of Zeros, Kates and Vals were the best looking imagery in the film. (They certainly looked better than the 1980's vintage ships that filled in for much of the US fleet.)
Roll back the clock a few years, and suddenly you are up the historical creek without a paddle. To date, there has been precisely one accurate Japanese tank in an American movie, that being the wreck that appeared behind John Wayne in one scene of Sands Of Iwo Jima. All of the rest are either poorly done fakes or rebadged American vehicles.
So, Mr. Producer, what do you do? Do you go the Kelly's Heros route and create "fakes" that look pretty damned real? No, not unless the vehicles are central to the story as were those three fake Tigers in the earlier Eastwood film. (They were created with old Soviet vehicles with fake upper works.)
Instead, you go to my buddy Fred Ropkey, over in Indianapolis, and you rent a Sherman, paint a meatball flag on the side, and go make your movie. Sure, it costs about five hundred dollars a day plus transportation costs (and the driver, who likely as not will be Fred himself; he's there in the original Blues Brothers movie), but it looks and sounds like a tank and that's good enough.
Until the movie is released, that is. Then, you get a clown like me in the audience, the kind of guy who not only knows what a Japanese tank really looks like, but who can even tell you how many rivets are along the top side of the gun mantlet. He's the dweeb who stands up and says, "Hey, that not right!" to anyone who will listen.
Of course, there are few who will. Good Lord, it's the story that matters, and who cares if a vehicle that's on camera for maybe five minutes is an early Type 97 Chi-Ha medium tank or the correct late war Type 97 Shinhoto Chi-Ha.
Of course, some films get it right. With CGI, it's easier, but even before CGI was there, some producers made the effort. The above mentioned Kelly's Heros has a scene early on, where Kelly (Clint) is hustling a captured German officer along a line of burning vehicles. In that line, on screen for only a matter of seconds, is a SWS halftracked artillery prime mover (only one in the world, this in Russia and not accessible to the makers when the film was made) that appears to be towing a German 155 mm gun (plenty of these around (Evanston IL and Benton IL, to name two), but hard to transport).
Now, I'm sure that what is seen is mocked up, even though I can't tell from the film. To go to that much trouble for a few throwaway seconds in a darkly lit scene is the kind of detail that would please the most meticulous of World War II history buff. And, even though I've never met another person who noticed this before I pointed it out, at least one person (me) appreciated it. That's attention to detail.
Still with me at this point? Good. Continued in next posting, where I promise that saxophones will be brought into the picture.

Answer:
I think movie producers have other things to worry about than the authenticity of saxophone mouthpieces ;)

Answer:
Now, instead of tanks, let's look at saxophones, in the same sort of context (with history and musical instruments subbing for history and tanks).
You want to do a period movie, let's say a remake of the Benny Goodman Story or the one on Glenn Miller. No problumo, my producer friend: let's start renting the props.
Musicians? Well, the AFM does get in the way a little here, but there are a lot of folks willing to work for the movies and the makeup folks can make them fit in just fine to any era.
Costumes? Once again, not a problem, easy to either find old inventory, or to run up new ones at greater cost (but still not out of reach). Maybe these guys don't play up to snuff, but they look good enough, and besides, the music is always brought in later in movies, so we're good to go.
Locations? Many of the same locations are still there, and the back lot is pretty flexible for the rest. Check.
Equipment? Uh, maybe we have a problem. Vintage horns can be had, and many folks still play them. However, matching the right people, available for your movie, with the right horns (from the right period, etc.) is a big problem.
Usually, when musicians appear in films, they bring their own equipment. (Or, to be more precise, the two that I know who have done this have brought there own stuff, and I have heard stories of other who have done so.) And, why not? That way, the handling of the equipment is in the hands of the owners, you don't have to round up the horns, and so forth.
So, your 2007 film will have a sax section that is pretty typical of the modern distribution of horns. Certainly one or two Selmers, a Yamaha, and perhaps some of the cheaper horns scattered here and there. After all they're all saxophones (and even the correct ones, damn it). Who's going to be looking for the naked ladies and the Bueschers, for God's sake?
Then arise the citizens of Sax On The Web, pointing out that the cigar cutter seen in the front row wasn't manufactured until two years after the date in the film. And, "Isn't that a low A baritone out on the end of the group?"
Of course, you're going to be received the same way as I am when I bring up the cleats on the side of the Japanese tank used to attach a temporary long wave radio antenna. Face it, most people have little idea as to what a saxophone is. (I get sax related questions about my bass clarinet all of the time at gigs - "What kind of saxophone is that; it sure is pretty...") As long as you've got five of them up front, and there's some variegation in size, it's going to pass muster with 99.9999999% of your viewing public, and that's good enough when most folks are more interested in your version of June Allyson than they are in a Conn Micro Tuner.
The worst howler of a saxophone problem in a movie (from a sax player's perspective, that is) that I have seen was in the Tony Curtis vehicle The Rat Race. It's a story of a young hot sax player from the sticks arriving in New York to make it big in the music scene. He shows up at some session work, makes some connections, and meets a "dance hall hostess" (1950's Hollywood code for a hooker - cf Donna Reed's role in From Here To Eternity), whose boss/pimp just happens to be a young Don Rickles.
So, our Tony shows up at a "studio" in a "loft" to "jam" with some "hot cats". (Hey. I can talk like a musician with the best of them.) They could be just actors, of course - the music is always plugged in later in post-production - but in this case one of them just happens to be played by a guy named Mulligan (ever heard of him?). The horns were right for the period as well (no low A baritone that I can recall).
In any event, Tony sets up his rack of Selmers, plays for a while, and then gets nominated to go out for coffee. He does, and when he returns the loft is empty and his horns gone. (Duh!)
Lucky for him the hostess/hooker has the proverbial heart of gold. She steps in with her earnings from taxi dancing (yeah, right - 10¢ a dance x 20,000 and you might have enough for a period Bundy...one, that is) and buys him a complete new set of horns, all of which arrive in the 1960's Leblanc (!!!!) tweed covered cases. Happy for this help, he pecks her on the cheek (yeah, right) and then takes a job on a cruise ship to tide him over until his big break comes.
Next scene, he's seen playing on a cruise ship bandstand (with far less space that I used to have on the boat), but the Leblanc horns are nowhere in sight. Instead, it appears that Leblanc is now selling Selmer horns. Amazing! (Or, scary, depending on your point of view...)
Of course, what really happened was they brought in a different set of cases (and there were few more different in the case line of things than those tweed monstrosities) to make the visual change from his earlier cases (standard Selmer TrayPacks and a contour baritone case). As they were just a visual prop, no need even to take the horns out of the case (if they were ever in there in the first place).
(Tony played (or maybe still plays) sax, so it is possible that he was using his own horns. Not much about this film in his biography - not nearly as visible as his role in Spartacus, after all. He also moves his fingers around in a more or less prototypical fashion on what appears to be a vintage Selmer tenor in the Wilder classic Some Like It Hot.)
So, it's a logistic problem, and most everyone in the world (except for the likes of you and I) will never give it a second thought. Those who do are known in the Civil War re-enactor world as "Farbs", from the opening phrase of their comments on in-accurate depictions: "Far be it for me to criticize, but...", always immediately followed with a torrent of nit-picking criticism.
It's not considered a flattering title, by the way...
So, the best thing for us detail freaks to do is to sit there, shut up, and keep it all to ourselves. Just as no one cares about whether the turret machine gun on a 1935 Japanese tank is magazine or hopper fed (don't ask), no one cares if it's a Searchlight or a True Tone.
And, does that mean that movies don't bother to get things right when it come to musical stuff? Not in the least. Two examples:
In the early going of the Steve Allen version of The Benny Goodman Story, young Benny shows up for a private lesson with Crusty Old Music Professor, just as another student is packing up. The dialog goes something like this:
Other Student: "Hey, new clarinet, huh?!?!"
Young Benny: "Yeah"
Other Student: "It's a Selmer, right"
Young Benny: "Yeah"
(You will notice that it wasn't a Buffet, by the way. I don't think that Leblanc, or B & H, or Yamaha ever got such a mention, either. I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions here.)
The second is more subtle, but a hell of a lot more impressive, both for detail and for the setting:
In the film LA Confidential, about five years back, they were going for a 1950's mood. Period settings, period cars, period looking actors (except for Kim Bassinger, who is as out of place in this film as a tuxedo at a Star Wars convention), and period music (1950's mix).
In one scene, a local politician is holding a fundraiser on a sound stage (press conference and light entertainment, booze, girls - you get the picture). After the press conference (with Kevin Spacey in attendance, no less), the action shifts to an off to the side discussion between two of the characters, while in the background (and almost out of focus) the party continues.
The music for the party is provided by a combo, but not a normal one. Instead, they've got the movie equivalent of Mulligan, complete with buzz cut, long lanky appearance and (and this is the good part) a silver plated baritone with range to low Bb.
Slick enough for you? I should hope...
Once again, the scene was on camera for maybe four seconds, and out of focus at that. (The music continued in the background of course, and it was probably an original Mulligan track of "How High The Moon".) I'd wager that not one person in ten thousand knew that it was the right baritone for the period, or that the player was supposed to be Mulligan.
(He's credited that way, by the way - ImdB has him listed in the role, as it has my friend Jim Bruggman for his role on the tenor in Bedknobs and Broomsticks; it lasted all of seven seconds but (and this is the neat part) he made the "lobby card" for the movie's PR kit (he actually has a copy up on the wall at home).)
But, for the guys like you and I, who notice that sort of stuff, it's the kind of attention to detail that "makes" the film. Cool.
One last digression, this time to Disneyworld:
There is a ride in the Magic Kingdom there, called "Pirates of the Caribbean". Pretty tame, no real thrills, but a lot of Audio animatronic figures and scenery done with the usual Disney touch. More eye candy than a "ride" per se.
While the ride is charming enough, if sanitized rape and pillage is your cup of tea, the neatest thing there is probably never noticed by that 99.99999% that movie producers shoot for when depicting Japanese tanks or period saxophones.
To see it, you have to be in on the secret. When you enter the ride through the pre-ride waiting area, stay to the right. (It's the slower line, by the way.) Follow the line through the decorated castle passageways, past the two skeletons playing chess, and start down the ramp to the boat boarding area. Tell the wife and kids to be quiet for a a few seconds, for you need to concentrate.
About a third of the way down, as you face down the ramp, stop and listen. If you do, you will hear muttering (typical Disney-pirate-ese, with your "Arrghs" and your "Shiver me timbers, ye scurvy scum!"), combined with muted sounds of shovels digging in sand.
Turn to your right rear, and you will see what appears to be a cave passage running off from the boat ramp. Deep in the passage you will see the light cast by the flickering of two different candles. There's enough evidence there to get the message that something's going on, although you have to think a bit to figure it out for yourself.
Very neat, very subtle, very clever, and very Disney. From the amount of plastering involved, along with the electronics and lighting, I once figured that this bit of "magic" probably cost the Disney folks an extra $3,000 (above the cost of building everything else in the area). All this, for what is a throwaway effect of which probably not one person in ten thousand ever notices the existence.
For those of us who pick up on the old horns, for those who notice the control surfaces (complete with functioning control tabs, no less) moving on the flight of Japanese Zeros in Pearl Harbor, for those who notice the digging pirates that they never ever see at Disney, and for all of us (more now, I hope) who see that silver baritone in LA Confidential, it's enough that it's there and that we appreciate it.
Call me a 'Farb' if you like; the pleasure that I get from all of these is compensation enough to make up for the slur.

Answer:
I've spotted saxophone anachronisms a couple of times in period movies. Usually the movie is set in the '30s or '40s, and the sax player in the nightclub scene is playing a MK VI. No one except horn players notice this but it still bugs me.
Here's an idea though. Some of us who have the older Bueschers, Conns, Martins, etc, could rent out our horns for the movie and make some $$. I have a friend who deals in vintage automobiles and he occasionally gets such a contract.

Answer:
Ooooo! Bad idea,J.L.. Have you ever worked on the set of a movie?The abuse everything gets...Just imagine handing over your precious horn to people who could care less about it's sound or feel but to whom it's 'just' a prop. As long as it looks like a sax it will do. I'd rather loan my horn to a high school marching band, it would be returned in better shape.