Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 January 31

= January 31 =

Movie credits where it was the same guy
Does anyone remember a movie where the credits started with

 PRESENTS

A  PRODUCTION

OF A  FILM

STARRING 

Where it was all the same guy. He may have done the music as well.

???

Or something along those lines? I was watching something a few years ago with my friend and he was like "this seems like a deeply personal project" and we were laughing about it.

No, it wasn't Seagal or Wiseau. This was actually a fairly enjoyable movie as I recall.

Any ideas? 146.200.129.62 (talk) 02:04, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Bambi Meets Godzilla was kind of like that. --←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:15, 31 January 2022 (UTC)


 * It's exactly like that. Marv Newland is successively credited as "written by", "screenplay by", "choreography by", "Bambi's wardrobe by", and "produced by". --184.144.97.125 (talk) 22:12, 31 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Does anyone on List of directors who appear in their own films look right? 70.67.193.176 (talk) 15:06, 31 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The Wizard of Speed and Time? --Amble (talk) 22:37, 31 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Life Is Beautiful and Citizen Kane come pretty close. --←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:00, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Bulworth? Deor (talk) 15:03, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


 * There was a parody of this pattern in Mr. Bean's Holiday.Hayttom (talk) 18:10, 3 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Not exactly a movie, but the opening credits of Parrot Sketch Not Included – 20 Years of Monty Python are "STEVE MARTIN presents / a STEVE MARTIN film / STEVE MARTIN is / STEVE MARTIN in / PARROT SKETCH NOT INCLUDED" Chuntuk (talk) 00:39, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

World War 2 sniper duel
I guess most of you here will have seen Enemy At The Gates, or read books that tell the same tale. I was interested to know what the actual truth was. According to the legend, during WWII, Vassily Zaitzev, the Soviet Union's greatest sniper, killed so many Germans (hundreds), that Hitler personally intervened and ordered that the greatest marksman in the Reich - a captain/major/colonel who was the head of the Wehrmacht/Waffen SS sniper school, a highly decorated Bavarian/Prussian/Austrian aristocrat named Koenig/Konning/Torvald/Von Torvalds, be sent to Stalingrad to kill a single man. He failed, after dearly a week of of cat and mouse, sniping and counter sniping through the ruins of Stalingrad. According to the most dramatic version of the story, Zaitzev shot him through his rifle scope as he was aiming at Zaitzev. And the German sniper's rifle and his Iron Cross were put on display in a Moscow museum after the war.

My question is. Was any of this true? If there are so many different versions of the story, I accept that it will have been embellished, for the sake of a telling a good war story. But was there ever any truth to it at all? -- Preceding unsigned comment added by Iloveparrots (talk o  contribs) 04:08, 31 January 2022 (UTC)


 * We have an article Vasily Zaitsev (sniper)... -- AnonMoos (talk) 04:25, 31 January 2022 (UTC)


 * No. Zaitsev mythed it by that much. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:58, 31 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Think about it. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are fighting tooth and claw, and you're supposed to hunt down one specific person? Almost as improbable as locating a particular private somewhere in Normandy. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:03, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * More at Erwin König, "an apocryphal Wehrmacht sniper". Numerous sources also identify the German sniper as Heinz Torwald or Thorwald, who is equally spurious, as is the sniper school at Zossen where these characters were supposed to be instructors. Alansplodge (talk) 17:49, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The Soviets put out a big bounty for Finnish WW2 sniper Simo Häyhä, or maybe launched a hunt for him, supposedly. I thought this was mentioned in his wiki biography but I don't see it there rn.  2602:24A:DE47:B8E0:1B43:29FD:A863:33CA (talk) 23:18, 6 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Carlos Hathcock (US, Vietnam conflict) supposedly shot another sniper through the other sniper's rifle scope. Maybe your Zaitzev story is a confabulation? 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:C115 (talk) 07:28, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The Stalingrad story comes directly from Zaitsev's published memoirs (English title; Notes of a Russian Sniper), although it may have originally been an invention of the Soviet propoganda machine. It certainly predates the Vietnam War. Alansplodge (talk) 12:08, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Baron Le Roy - during reign of Louis Philippe
On page 132 of The Fortnightly Review 1898-07-01: Vol 64 Iss 379 it talks (near bottom of page) of Caroline Reboux's mother being sister to Baron Le Roy. Do we have an article on him?--Doug Coldwell (talk)
 * Possibly in French? fr:Ernest Le Roy de Boisaumarié or fr:Pierre Thomas Le Roy de Boisaumarié - the description of Pierre Thomas fits better, but the age of Ernest (Pierre Thomas's son) fits better. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 17:46, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * From the 1898 article in The Fortnightly Review I understand that Baron Le Roy was a minister in the Belgian government (under Leopold I). The two French barons were regional prefects. Google gives this snippet from its cache from a deads webpage: Caroline was raised in the Court of Belgium. Her grandmother, Emilie le Roy de Gausendrier, was lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Her mother married the writer Charles Reboux, then the whole family left Brussels. I did not find any other hits for the name "Gausendrier". --Lambiam 23:26, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Turning to the next page after page 132 Fortnightly Mme Reboux "has four ministers" involved in her business. Such fantasies left me wondering about what relationship may exist between Alphonse Le Roy - not him - and a french expat named Auguste Baron, then with the King of the Low Countries Guillaume: according to  Congrès professoral, Cahiers bruxellois? In 1848, Le Roy and Baron report to the Minister of the Interior, not yet near a Minister of the Instruction, like according to the Review.  --Askedonty (talk) 14:57, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I think the four "ministers" of page 132 were simply four assistant managers of Maison Reboux, not public servants. --Lambiam 16:14, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The quotes for "ministers" was how I intended it, sorry. At least the part regarding Charles Reboux is not to be hastily rejected, although it is not fully clear how he's been involved in his second effrontery case (Acte d'Accusation) : not directed against the King properly, only one of the government's departments. Haven't at least Charles Reboux political motivations been seemingly reinterpreted by the writer? No, but our contemporary prejudices probably often lead to initially biased interpretations. In the french case he was not criticizing an omnipotent King, but the ruler's surrendering of the symbols of monarchy and the adoption of a still for some feared and largely despised tricolor flag: Presse du Nord et du Pas De Calais.   --Askedonty (talk) 13:39, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Kosher meat in Nazi Germany?
How would Jews get kosher meat during the Nazi era, after Shechita had been prohibited? Only by importing (if that was allowed to them at all)?--Hildeoc (talk) 21:02, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I suspect that (for most) the simple answer was that they couldn’t. (And given the situation, it may not have been a high priority). Blueboar (talk) 22:39, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your interest. So would you rather think they didn't eat any meat at all, or rather that they fell back on unkosher meat then?--Hildeoc (talk) 22:52, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I suspect they had to eat Non-kosher... assuming they could get meat in the first place. Blueboar (talk) 23:07, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Or they could have just not followed the ban. Some may have done that as well.  -- Jayron 32 12:04, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


 * See this, but the gist is that there were different approaches. Orthodox adherents felt that observing the law was better than making an exception, whereas more liberal Rabbis felt it was okay to make exceptions. As that article notes, costs had been rising greatly anyway, so it seems likely that the question was moot for some people. Matt Deres (talk) 17:35, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I pasted your question into the Google searchbar and found:
 * ''Holocaust Scources in Context - "New-Kosher!" which says:
 * a law issued on April 21, 1933, forbade the slaughter of livestock without first stunning the animals by an electric shock. Though Jewish ritual slaughter (shechita) was not referenced in the law, it sought specifically to make the practice illegal.
 * Pre-stunned meat was sold as "New-Kosher", although it did not conform to the Orthodox tradition.
 * This Day in Jewish History - 1933: Nazi Germany Outlaws Kosher Slaughter confirms that it was slaughter without pre-stunning which was banned, rather than shechita in its entirety under the guise of animal welfare, and notes that a similar ban was enacted in Switzerland in 1893 and remains in force. Alansplodge (talk) 17:37, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Orthodox Jews are often in situations where kosher meat is unavailable. The usual response is not to eat meat. The Jewish law Dina d'malkhuta dina tells Jews to abide by the law of the country they are in. --Dweller (talk) Old fashioned is the new thing! 10:26, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
 * "Moreover, because the Nazi government now forbade Jews from receiving foreign currency, Jews who wished to procure kosher meat had to obtain it as a present from abroad [...] November 1938, when the Nazis disbanded the Reich Central Office for Matters Concerning Kosher Butchering ( Reichszentrale ) , GermanJewish communities bickered over how best to distribute the limited kosher meat that was available." --Soman (talk) 00:03, 4 February 2022 (UTC)