Some gun related ones:

In westerns, shooting from the hip at 25 yards and hitting a torso shot. Same shot kills or wounds without drawing blood (or even putting a hole in the guy's shirt).

After two or three shots from an autopistol, the slide racks back, but the guy fires again immediately without either reloading or clearing the jam (as the case may be). Of course, these pistoleros always rack their slides before a fight, even though they know their guns are loaded with one up the spout.

A gets the drop on B, holds a double-action pistol (or revolver) inches away from B's heart, then cocks the hammer (to show he's really serious about killing B?).

Kill shots at 50 yards from a snub-nosed revolver, during a chase.

Is this not the case then? Do they spring open again? Is it actually difficult to close a dead person's eyes?

No it's not difficult to shut the eyes, in most cases...but, they sometimes don't stay closed all the way after you let go.

Many moons as a nurse on a cancer ward.

Along the same line, car chases must involve fruit stands and push carts, flying watermelons and smashing canteloupe.

In an Arabic country, the car chase must run through the open market with live poultry in peril.

Don't forget the sheet of plate glass.

Along the same line, car chases must involve fruit stands and push carts, flying watermelons and smashing canteloupe.

And hot dogs barking and running in all directions.

In an Arabic country, the car chase must run through the open market with live poultry in peril.

And bundles of freshly died wool flying in all directions.

Ken V.

No it's not difficult to shut the eyes, in most cases...but, they sometimes don't stay closed all the way after you let go.

I've had to hold them until they stayed closed. Guess that's why they used to put coins on the eyelids.

Ken V.

I'll have to disagree with this one. When I was young (many, many moons ago) I only dated men much older than myself. In fact, my husband was exactly 28-1/2 years older than me, but we were perfect together. Better 14 years of happiness than a lifetime in a miserable marriage.

Hazel Stone
Intrepid Girl Engineer

Yes, it sometimes reflects real life, but in movies, it seems to be nearly universal. A good example is Mathew Quigley and "Crazy" Cora in QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER.

It sometimes works the other way around as well. My wife was three and a half years older than I was. We were married for 32-1/2 years.

Ken V.

Some gun related ones:

In westerns, shooting from the hip at 25 yards and hitting a torso shot. Same shot kills or wounds without drawing blood (or even putting a hole in the guy's shirt).

After two or three shots from an autopistol, the slide racks back, but the guy fires again immediately without either reloading or clearing the jam (as the case may be). Of course, these pistoleros always rack their slides before a fight, even though they know their guns are loaded with one up the spout.

A gets the drop on B, holds a double-action pistol (or revolver) inches away from B's heart, then cocks the hammer (to show he's really serious about killing B?).

Single action too! And I'll bet you've forgotten how many times you've seen the bad guy pointing a Model 1911, 45 auto at someone, and the hammer's down.

Kill shots at 50 yards from a snub-nosed revolver, during a chase.

Using the wrong sounds for guns. In TOMBSTONE, the opening scene shows someone loading a Winchester Model 1873. After loading the magazine, he levers a round into the chamber and the sound is that of a Winchester Model 1892 or 1894. (The '73 has a heavy rising block and makes a distinctive CLANK-CLANK when the lever is operated.)

Charley Waite shooting nine shots from his six-shooter in OPEN RANGE. And later, when he's reloading, he "shakes" the empty brass out of his sixgun. (Black powder fouling being what it was, use of the ejector was MANDATORY!)

In QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER, where the baddie does a full back-flip when he's hit by a bullet from Quigley's rifle.

In the Mel Gibson movie, THE PATRIOT, where the protagonists son is hiding under the table, he cocks his flintlock and it sounds like an 1860 Colt revolver. (A flintlock with a charged pan is always on half-cock and when it's drawn to full cock, it makes one solitary click.) Same with Colonel Tavington's pistol.

Remember back in the '50's when the good guy shot the gun out of the baddies hand, and the still usable gun went spinning away, and the baddie shook his hand because it stung? Seems that today, movie makers have gone to the opposite -- and equally silly -- extreme. Although I have to give credit to some movie makers for actually using correct period guns in their films, they still to a great extent don't use them correctly.

John Wayne movies are notorious for not using period-correct firearms.

In THE COMANCHEROS, which takes place in 1843, Wayne is shooting his ubiquitous 1873 Colt SAA, his equally ubiquitous Winchester model 1892 carbine, and he's trading Winchester '92's plated -- or painted -- gold, and with the forestock removed to make them look like 1860 Henry's. "Crow," played by Lee Marvin, is carrying a remington model 1875 six gun.

Same thing in THE SEARCHERS.

In the opening scenes of THE LAST SAMURAI, the barker is touting the Winchester "Trapper Model," which has a "Big Loop" lever.

The term "Trapper Model" didn't come into use until a century later. (It was called a "Baby Carbine," and they were quite rare.) And the big loop lever wasn't offered as an option on Winchesters until about a century later, and even then, only because some fools wanted a gun like the ones they saw in the movie STAGECOACH, and on that Steve McQueen TV series, WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE.

The only thing I ever had to do with a big loop lever, was to narrow it down for a man who had HUGE hands, and couldn't fit his fingers into a standard loop lever. Turned out that the big loop was way too big even for him!

The reason the big loop was made for Wayne in STAGECOACH was because the scene called for Wayne to lever his rifle with one hand, while carrying a saddle in the other. John Ford wanted Wayne to do something spectacular with this scene, and if Wayne had tried to lever the gun by flipping it around in a circle with a regular sized lever, he would have broken his fingers. Which is what his shooting coach almost did when trying to show Wayne how to do it.

Ken V.

Accidentally picking up the wrong piece of luggage that looks EXACTLY like the hero/heroine's. Said piece of luggage invariably contains something worth killing for.

The bathroom scene in a horror/thriller when the woman opens the medicine cabinet mirror, and when she closes it the bad guy is in the reflection...

I've had to hold them until they stayed closed. Guess that's why they used to put coins on the eyelids.

Ken V.

That, and the Ferryman's fee. (Hey--da guy's gonna woik fuh nothin'?)