Talk:Waterloo (1970 film)

Political significance?
Wasn't it significant that western powers and the soviets collaborated at a relatively tense time during the Cold War for this film?--Exander 05:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I've always wondered about this. Why on earth did the USSR agree to help make a film about how a British aristocrat defeated Napoleon?  Maybe it was a cultural element of détente?  --Corinthian (talk) 21:38, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Or maybe it was because they decided that it was history and that truthfully, then and today it has, Waterloo has no current political meaning. Just a thought... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.224.133 (talk) 22:09, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It wasn't a collaboration between "Western Powers" and the Soviets, but between a private Italian producer and a Soviet state-owned film company, done at a time of relative ease in the Cold War (the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 was the peak in the Cold War - after that, things had become gradually more relaxed), when the Russians were looking for a functional relationship with the West.Thomas Blomberg (talk) 06:04, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Film duration
Is marked incorrectly in the info box. I have seen this film, perhaps 15 years ago on old fashioned VHS video or similar, and it was about 3 hours (a little longer). This should be said in the article? Sianska79 (talk) 21:45, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I am afraid that you may have this film confused with another one. I saw this in the theater on its original release and on VHS and DVD. Its run time was just over two hours in all formats. The only VHS still available is this one whose runtime is listed at 123 minutes. Be aware that the memory plays tricks (for years I thought that Richard Harris had played Finn Malgrem in The Red Tent (film) but when it was finally released on DVD it turned out that it was a Russian actor who I had not heard of) and 15 years is a long time. Having said that there is an outside chance that there is some version that was released in Europe of a slightly longer length - but I doubt it reached 180 minutes - you might do an internet search to see if you can find anything. MarnetteD | Talk 23:20, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I have also seen a version of this film nearly 3 hours long. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.14.58.62 (talk) 21:13, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * When and where. Please provide some evidence beyond just your memory. The only way that can have happened is if you saw it on TV with commercials. MarnetteD | Talk 22:21, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I saw it way back in the 1970s at the cinema and it was DEFINITELY around 3 hours long. It isnt my memory playing tricks, I know it was 3 hours because we had to leave to catch the late bus and we missed the end of the film. My Dad was well annoyed. (Had the film been the usual 1.5 or 2 hours we wouldnt have had to miss the end. We went to the cinema most weeks and never normally had to leave early!) 213.114.44.178 (talk) 23:45, 7 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I saw this film in 1970. It was 3.5 hours long or just under. There was an interlude due to the length of the film. All films of 3 hours in my local cinema had such an interlude even where the director had not put one in. They just paused the film and brought up the lights for people to go and get ice cream. So those who say "It is just not so".. wrong.. it was so. When first shown in the West it was over 3 hours long. 2A01:CB05:45D:5B00:B9D7:46B:DA0D:FA46 (talk) 20:28, 22 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Sorry people, Mandela Effect. There are plenty of historical sources that indicate the running of the time of this film. You may have seen another Napoleonic film (possibly a cutdown version of the Soviet adaptation of War and Peace or a re-release of the Hollywood version from the 50s, or Kubrick's Barry Lyndon) but no version of this film ever approached three hours. I have access to an archive of sight and sound/the monthly film bulletin, and it lists the running time as 134 minutes when released in the UK.  DVD and VHS releases in the UK and Europe are shorter largely because the frame rate is faster at 25 frames a second, so you lose about 4% of the running time, but nothing is cut, the film is just running faster.  Duckwalk71 (talk) 20:50, 20 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Indeed. Comparing historical records (even diary entries from years ago) of film releases against one's own recollection of the date is an excellent commentary on the unreliability of human memory.Paulturtle (talk) 15:48, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Military personnel a bit over-dressed?
It appears that while great attention was paid to detail in uniforms, the movie has a great many men wearing dress uniforms as they go into battle. I've seen one unconfirmed assertion that some French troops had essentially no uniforms at all. This was presumable due to the fact that Napoleon had to very rapidly increase the size of the French Army in a short period of time, making it impossible to have them all properly uniformed. RogerInPDX (talk) 12:00, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
 * They DID go to battle in their dress uniforms.. the night before the battle had been a ball. And many of the officers had had to go straight from the ball to the fight. 213.114.44.178 (talk) 23:48, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Napoleon's hissy fit
I visited the Waterloo battlefield two years ago. The film shows Napoleon storming off in a huff in the mid-afternoon to lament how his genius is deserting him etc etc, leaving Ney to launch his ill-judged cavalry charges against the British squares. IIRC our guide mentioned that in reality Napoleon was supervising the defence against the arriving Prussians at Plancenoit at the time. I defer to any Napoleonic specialist who is able to shed more light on this.Paulturtle (talk) 23:31, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

For dramatic purposes, the film foreshadows Bonaparte's death from stomach cancer by suggesting he was taken ill during the battle, which he wasn't. In his absence, Ney launches the great, futile cavalry attack. In reality, Ney did this because he was running out of infantry and because he'd observed Wellington's stretcher parties taking wounded to the rear and mistook it for a retreat that cavalry could exploit. Bonaparte wasn't ill, he was distracted by the arrival of the Prussians at Plancenoit, but, although that was significant, because the Prussians were threatening to cut in behind the French, it was a quite boring to-and-fro battle that Wellington couldn't see and knew nothing about -- so, again for dramatic purposes, the film misses that out and just shows the moment when the Prussian I Corps very belatedly went into action on Wellington's flank, which was the deciding psychological shock. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:35, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I'd misremembered the film. He is shown being taken ill ("of course, Napoleon was a sick man by the time of Waterloo" I remember by late father and uncle saying sagely to one another back in the 1970s after seeing the film). In reality he was supervising the French defence at Plancenoit.Paulturtle (talk) 00:38, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Ponsonby
I've changed the article's claim that General Sir William Ponsonby, commander of the Union Brigade of heavy cavalry, as played by Michael Wilding in the film, is 'wounded' by 'Napoleon's Polish lancers'. He is clearly and correctly shown as being killed, and the lancers were French. I also removed the remark, 'He was robbed a number of times that night, but was rescued the following day and survived his injuries.' Someone was thinking of the wrong Ponsonby, Sir William's cousin Colonel (later General Sir) Frederick Ponsonby, commander of the 12th Light Dragoons, who was indeed wounded when the light cavalry launched to cover the heavies' retreat, and was then ridden over, robbed and eventually used as a rifle rest by a French tirailleur of the Garde who thought he was dead, till a British soldier found him and stood guard over him all night, and he did survive -- but that's not in the film. See Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: The Years of the Sword, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1969, pbk Panther 1971, pp.559, 582. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:35, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * There is an article on both men William Ponsonby (British Army officer) (1772–1815), and Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby(1783–1837). -- PBS (talk) 18:15, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

De Lancey's Advice
When N. starts the battle with the diversion at Hougoumont,  De Lancey  advices Wellington to send the 95th Regiment to counter the move. W. refuses because he realises the bait.

But the advice itself is wrong: The 95th was a light regiment, armed with Baker rifles, used for stand-off combat. It was not meant to go into close-combat against massive line-infantry units. A normale line-infantery unit, which had a light coy. would be have been the correct suggestion.

--109.90.240.119 (talk) 23:58, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Deletion of an edit
Wikiwarrior Marnette D has just taken it on herself to delete an edit I made in the 'Historical Inaccuracies' section, regarding the film's most notorious historical inaccuracy -- the helicopter shot shows a British square breaking under Ney's cavalry attack, a thing that never happened, to the despair of the French -- because it's 'unsourced'. The entire section is pretty much unsourced, of course, and if you gave me long enough I'd hunt out the sources, but Wikiwarriors do like to jump on things, don't they? The film-makers were clearly aware of the issue because the script specifically identifies Donal Donnelly's character, the only British (or in this case Irish) ranker played by a featured actor, as a member of the Inniskillings, the regiment famous for sustaining the highest casualties at Waterloo and never breaking square. Marnette D's behaviour basically sums up why everybody hates Wikipedia and decent people seldom bother to contribute to it. So suit yourself, Marnette D, I don't bloody give one. Khamba Tendal (talk) 20:16, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Alot of angst and fury when you could simply supply a reference at any time and add the section back in. Either you can and this is much ado about nothing or you can't and its a moot point. Either way, taking this to Talk isn't going to accomplish much.Ckruschke (talk) 15:44, 11 March 2020 (UTC)Ckruschke

Historical Inaccuracies: Massacre of the Old Guard by cannon
Some clarification is needed for the Inaccuracies section. The Old Guard's formation disintegrated like the rest of the French forces. The article as stated there was a controversy over the surrender of the guard over the years but that's beyond the scope of this article. The massacre as depicted did not occur. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.66.181.108 (talk) 00:07, 3 July 2020 (UTC)