Shenandoah

During much of the farm sequences, you can see the distinct shadow of the camera.

When Boy and other confederate troops are being attacked by union troops, Boy is firing a Trapdoor Springfield rifle, which was not invented until after the civil war.

There are power lines crossing the river, in the opening shot When Pa Anderson first emerges from the front door of the farmhouse, he casts a shadow in two different directions on the wall behind him.

The Andersons carry repeating rifles, which were available in the 1860s, but quite expensive, and also quite rare.

However, the rifles carried in the movie are of a type (with a loading gate) not invented until 1866.

During the boy's battle the morning after his escape from prison, you can see the bayonet of a confederate soldier wobble revealing that it is made of rubber.

In the scene in which Charlie Anderson talks to Colonel Fairchild about his mistakenly abducted son in the Union camp, there is clearly a white automobile being driven (from right to left) in the background.

When Boy and Gabriel are found by the creek there is a young African-American soldier with the Union band.

Then later Gabriel, a young African-American boy, is seen fighting along side Union troops.

Free Blacks and former slaves did not integrate into Union regiments, but instead, served in all-Negro regiments.

The locomotive on the train that gets burned is equipped with air brakes, which were not invented until 1872.

Although the locomotive is mostly filmed at such an angle that the air brake equipment is not visible, a connecting air hose can be seen on the front when the train is stopping for the fire on the track, and whenever the train is stopped, hissing noises from the air compressor can be heard.

Witherspoon tells Charlie Anderson that one of his boys fell at Gettysburg at Little Round Top.

No Virginia regiments fought on Little Round Top.

In the battle where Boy is wounded, the manner in which the Confederate soldier loads his weapon is wrong.

He would have used paper cartridges, not separate powder and ball.

Unless carrying a personally owned weapon (which he is obviously not), a soldier would not even have a powder flask.

The bare hills and arid-climate flora in this film obviously indicate that it was shot in Southern California, not the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, which has a wetter and more temperate climate.

The Confederate lieutenant who is calling on Mr.

Anderson for his boys is wearing gold & black hat cords and similar acorn ends.

This is incorrect; a lieutenant's hat cords were silver.

Just as the fight is ending, and Mr.

Carroll is about to shoot Pa Anderson with his gun, you see the Boy in the water trough about to make an attempt to grab him.

However, the actor pulls back at the last minute, obviously aware that his attempt to grab Carroll is mis-timed when Jenny shoots the gun out of his hand.

This is a very lovely movie, quite unusual for the Civil War genre as it is of course about war, but mostly about the Virginina family, the Andersons, who try to sit out the war in their beautiful farm, but the war is here, and all its cruelty and atrocities bring up misery and losses, deaths, and tears, suffering and toil. This is very stellar role James Stewart who is a force here, and his character is great - old, cantankerous, wild, rough, proud, loud, cynical man of great dignity, whose life is torn by deaths of his nearest and dearest.

I don't know why but Shenandoah never clicked for me. People I'm supposed to care about died but a minute later the other characters on to the next thing.

There is no lack of excitement in this Champion war day's picture. It is a bit more speedy than the usual war picture by this company and in Champion pictures, where things happen they are apt to happen fast.

Shenandoah was a war drama told from the perspective of a family who tried to stay neutral during the American Civil War. As a story about a family from a civilian point-of-view and how they were forced into the war despite their best efforts.

3 Observations on this laboriously long 1965 American Civil War drama. First, family patriarch Charlie Anderson's (James Stewart) "we won't join the war, it doesn't concern us...

To me, this movie is about Jimmy Stewart. It is one of his best performances.

Shenandoah is directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and written by James Lee Barrett.

Starts out grim and just spirals downward. Entails the best characteristics of ALL wars; insanity, stupidity, senseless waste and cruelty.

All of the reviews of this wonderful movie have missed the way it parallels the bible story of Job. Note how in the beginning he thanks God for his various bounties, but implies he got them by his own hand and only offers thanks because his dead wife would have.