Battleground - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Battleground or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Battleground

[morris]

RKO had already invested approximately one hundred thousand dollars in the film before it was shelved.

[edgar]

This movie's dedication states that it is "dedicated to the battered bastards of Bastogne".

[gerald]

Dore Schary quit his position as head of production at RKO because Howard Hughes, who had just taken control of the studio, refused to make Battleground. Schary was quickly offered a position at MGM and bought the script from RKO, but Louis B. Mayer was no more enthusiastic about the prospects for a combat film than Hughes was. However, he let Schary go ahead and make it, thinking it would teach him a lesson. Instead, Battleground became a major hit.

[michele]

The first major studio combat film to be made since the end of World War II. Its success effectively relaunched the combat film as a viable Hollywood genre.

[tamara]

According to the book "The MGM Story" by John Douglas Eames, this movie was a remarkable case of MGM history repeating itself. When Irving Thalberg planned to make The Big Parade (1925), Louis B. Mayer said no one wanted a war drama in 1925. Now Dore Schary, the "new Thalberg", had brought a pet project over from RKO, where Howard Hughes had vetoed it, and Mayer said no one wanted a war drama in 1949."

[camila]

This is the first film in which Herbert Anderson was billed as "Guy Anderson". After several years, Anderson returned to using the name "Herbert".

[marc]

Robert Pirosh consulted with Gen. Anthony McAuliffe during the writing of the screenplay. McAuliffe was an enthusiastic supporter of Pirosh's intention to show World War II strictly from the grunt's eye view, saying "Who cares about generals, except other generals and their families?" McAuliffe went so far as to cut mentions of his own name out of lines of dialog during script conferences with Pirosh.

[cameron]

As mentioned on the DVD sleeve notes, after the battle depicted in this movie the division's soldiers became known as "the battered bastards of Bastogne".

[jeffrey]

The film came in almost one hundred thousand dollars under budget.

[norma]

The American small units, companies and platoons, depicted did not exist. The glider infantry regiment assigned to the 101st Airborne Division was the 327th. When these glider infantry regiments were constituted in the early part of World War II, they had only two battalions. There was no third battalion in the regiment at the time of the battle of Bastogne. Instead, the first battalion of the 401st Glider Infantry Regiment was detailed to the command of the 327th. This meant that the glider infantry component of the 101st Airborne Division at this time had no "Item", "King", "Love", or "Mike" companies, the companies mentioned in this movie. This was done cleverly to avoid having any veterans of the 101st come forward to say something like: "I was in Item Company at Bastogne, and no such thing ever happened to us."