Pedantry And Hair-Splitting Ahoy!

My Two Finest Qualities!
(Your view may vary).
     Okay, we are back to picking holes in the plot of "Where Eagles Dare" - and for all that title, we never see even ONE eagle let alone the many eagles that necessitate a plural -

"You pickin' on me again, Conrad?"

     Bear in mind that what follows is a bit spoilery, but come on, the film's fifty years old and it gets screened at least once per year, so you can't whinge too much.
     Okay, so the whole romp is an incredibly elaborate sting operation, dreamt up in order to root out the traitor at the very top of British Intelligence - except they already know who that traitor is. Art?

Colonel Traitorous Turner!

     Alright, "very strongly suspect" rather than "know".  But Very Strongly Suspect enough that he ends up being given a gimmicked Sten gun that won't fire. 
     Here an aside.  Did the makers of WED consciously decide that the aircrews of Perfidious Albion were utterly expendable cannon-fodder?  Recall, if you will, the crashed Mosquito that began the whole shemozzle - no mention of what happened to the aircrew there.  If Traitor Turner had managed to kill the three surviving members of our crack Alpine rescue squad, what then?  He'd have to kill the pilot and co-pilot, too.  How's he going to explain that away?  "O they're just aircrew, nobody bothers about what happens to aircrew," is a bit thin.

NONE OF THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS!

     Anyway, are you telling me that Vice Admiral Rolland, the sly old dog who dreamt the whole shebang up, is not clever or crafty or cunning enough to come up with a scheme to uncover the traitor that does not involve incredibly involved planning and wild coincidences galore?
     I believe, jumping wildly from one subject to another, that Coleen Rooney, whom nobody can claim is an intellectual ball of fire, managed to set up an information trap that revealed who had been selling lies about her to the yellow press.  All Rolland had to do is something similar involving Traitor Turner; send out a bit of tailored guff about an amphibious assault on Nether Hampstead and see who bites.

Target for tonight: Nether Hampstead

     Now, motley, let us roar off into the night on our Harley Hogs*!

The Fetishisation Of Numbers
Gosh, that sounds heavy and serious.  Because it is.  If you are not interested in TANK or statistics I shall graciously allow you to move on, though only this once.
     Okay, you may recall me banging on about Michael Wittman, the Nazi tank ace who proved to be not very ace at all, and very mortal.  He had amassed an enormous number of kills on the Eastern Front, which is where we run into trouble.

A most excellent blog

          Peter Samsonov, who runs the above site, has done a lot of analysis on Teuton claims of knocking out stupendous numbers of Sinister tanks.  He cross-references these with Sinister army records, which frequently show no such engagements ever took place, or that the "Lone panzer ace" was actually part of a large unit with supporting arms, too.
     Gosh, Nazis lying about the facts!  Who could possibly have seen that coming!
     Back to Witters.  He was feted as a heroic war-winner because he'd knocked out X number of Allied tanks; the Nazis loved them some numbers.  As James Holland pointed out in "Normandy 44", they promoted aces of all descriptions, with accounts of how many planes shot down, ships sunk or tanks knocked out.  Numbers, numbers, numbers.  And the metal steeds like Witters' Tiger were also hailed as war-winning wonder-wagons.  Art?

Big!  Scary!  Unreliable!

     The South Canadians and Perfidious Albion never had this attitude to their tanks or other hardware.  If your tank broke down, you got a new one.  If your tank was knocked out, you got a new one.  There was never any shortage of hardware, and so no need to romanticise it, cherish it or take it to bed with you on a cold winter's night.
     Oh, that crack about Sherman's being known as "Ronsons", after the lighter?  Urban legend, since the Ronson lighter in question didn't come out until after the Second Unpleasantness**.

WRONG!

BOOJUM! Reviews Films
You'll have to allow me a minute here, as I've merely written "Films" in my notebook for a couple of weeks, which means going back to when I actually itemised them.
     Don't forget our rules: 1) We make it up as we go along and 2) We generalise wildly based on titles alone, except I may go beyond this because I've seen some trailers preceding "Ad Astra".
"Judy": Judy who?  Is that a first name or a surname?  Why should I care?

A possibility.  Okay, a slim one, but one all the same

"Joker": You know, I don't think this one is a jolly romp for all the family that you can take the kids to, so perhaps the marketing people got their title assessment wrong, and it should instead be called "A Descent Into Raving Homicidal Psychopathy".  I admit, this will take up a lot of space on the posters, yet you can never be too well-informed about what you're taking the children to see.  Unless you like sending little Timmy for psychiatric counselling.

Some might.

"Gemini Man": Wow, another film where not only does the trailer give the whole premise away within seconds, SO DOES THE PUBLICITY POSTER!  There's Will Smith, see, and there's another Will Smith, see, and they both go head-to-head, with explosions and guns and shooting and shizzle like that, and now you've read my review, you don't need to see the film, saving you at least £5 and ninety minutes of your valuable time.  And you're welcome.

Real Gemini men

"Jonah Hex": I know, I know, this one came out years ago, it's just that I wanted to keep the "Jay" theme going a bit longer, and "Gemini" has a soft "G" that sounds like "Jay", so there.  Art?

Oldie not goldie

     I assume it's all supernatural twaddle and guff like that, wrapped up in a Western skin.

     And with that, we are done!


*  Okay, so it's daylight and they're really a pair of mopeds.  Poetic licence.
**  I bet Neil Moran a.k.a. The Chieftain has a few words to say on this