"AWI: Movie and "quick play" game recommendations?" Topic

My son is in the midst of studying the American Revolution, and I'd like to bring in some stuff to boost his interest. For movies, I could only come up with The Patriot and 1776 (shudder). We watched the former, though I was careful to explain to him that it was fiction, and some parts (the church burning) were pretty much rubbish. For all its flaws, it did awaken his interest in the period, so I'm happy about that. Are there any other (better) films I can look for? I'm drawing a blank.

Also, I'd be interested in a very simple, very quick battle game for the AWI to share with him. At this stage I'm looking more for the game side than the miniatures side— I'd want something that would work with paper minis or cheap plastic "American Revolution" play sets. I'd like to capture the flavor of the tactics without getting stuck in too many details. Downloadable is great; free is ideal. Needs to be suitable for a 14 year old who doesn't like heavy instructions. (Eyes roll.)

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

"The Crossing" with Jeff Daniels(!) as Washington; made for TV.

I recall "John Paul Jones" from my mis-spent youth; I intend to get it from Netflix to see if it was as good as remembered; most are not.

Try the series "George Washington." The Disney movie for kids, Johnny Tremain" is good. Even better, but hard to find, is "April Morning." The TV movie "The Crossing" is superb. There is a very good series of videos called The American Revolution.

Be sure to avoid that other turkey "Revolution."

Black powder is pretty quick to learn and easy to play. They aren't free but they are useful for a good many periods besides the AWI and they are a lot of fun.

From what I know (which is a very little- by the standards round here- but alot for a UK pub), Revolution historically is alright/good and the battle scenes are great.

As an enjoyable film otherwise, it's pants!

Guns of Liberty is a fun set of rules and fairly easy to learn.

Patriot is basically a remake of Revolution (which had Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman – can't remember which – in the starring role). Haven't seen it, but I've also heard that the John Adams series isn't bad. As for rules, try freewargamesrules.co.uk – there's usually something interesting there.

Drums Along the Mohawk:

link

link

You might take a look at Junior General
juniorgeneral.org
where they have a bunch of games made for a school wargaming club. They have several AWI scenarios, as well as a bunch of others. They are very simple rules, but they try to capture the key points of a battle to use as history teaching tools. And they have a bunch of paper miniatures as well – so you may want to visit for that even if you don't like the games.

I'll repeat the praise for The Crossing.

There is an animated cartoon called liberty's kids. I used it teaching 6th grade. It follows some kids through the revolution. Great show and great history. I use a variation of the Lord of the rings/legends of the old west. quick fun, recognizable to the GW crowd. There is a yahoo variants group with all kinds of variants.

For teaching students with a movie. Skirmish gaming is the best. Students understand 'I am killed' but they are less able to grasp the concept of unit qaffects gaming.

many possible scenarios otehr than fighting Native American warriors. Plenty of skirmish patrol action in the Neutral ground around NEw York; between Loyalist and Patriots in the Carolinas; and raids by both sides against various forts.

An easy scenario with understandable objectives for students is to have both sides on a forage mission with objective points for cows and etc as well as surviving the action.

My favorites are "The Crossing" and "Revolution" with Al Pacino. "Revolution" is FAR superior than The Patriot.

Song of Drums and Shakos slightly modified. I believe it is only a 4 dollar download!

All the Kings Men – simple and fun rules for any horse and musket period: PDF link

I played the rules for the first time few weeks ago at the convention and 2 days ago at my club again. Grizzled veterans of Napoleonic "Column, line and square" and "Napoleon's Battles" in my club had a blast.

My son ( 12 Y.O) bought himself the John Adams series. He loves it, I havn't really seen it yet. But he loves it.

"April Morning" is one of those legendary movies that are unavialable on DVD, and horribly expensive in VHS.

April morning is THE BEST! Hands down!

Revolution is next in line if you can ignore Pacino! Captures the period VERY well. Also ignore the Yorktown "massacre" at the end.

The Crossing- Uniform wise, AWFUL! Good story though.

The Patriot- PURE GARBAGE!

Saw Johnny Tremain in 5th grade i 1975. Loved it then! Sw it many years later! Was God awful! LOL!

If somebody can make a cross between the Crossing and Revolution, you will have a masterpiece!

Bob

See if you can find the Gary Foreman series on the Legends of the Old Northwest. He had episodes on various AWI themes with enough information to flesh out a scenario and enough reenactors to make it very interesting. Also a lot more realistic in terms of tactics and uniforms that several of the movies listed above, plus no massive egos getting in the way as in The Crossing. Captain Crunch lives!

I second the "Liberty's Kids" TV shows. I bits of episodes on (I think) "THIS" TV. Follows two teenagers who are cub reporters during the period. They get opinions on how things are going from the principle people (Franklin, Jefferson, etc..) and they have friends on both sides.

Link to the companion web site --> libertyskids.com

Love both The Crossing and April Morning. Interestingly enough they are both Howard Fast novels. The Crossing has some important holes, but it's still much fun and probably better than anything else out there.

Another vote for "Revolution" – great movie, good battlescenes.

Two DVDs by PBS Home Video I recommend are:

Rebels and Redcoats Documentary by Military Historian Richard Holmes. By far the best of the two – balanced, not Brit bashing or a hagiography of the founding fathers. It is also shorter (200 mins).

The other

Liberty: The American Revolution – covers all aspects of the AWI. Very pro American, and a gushing hagiography of the founding fathers (much longer at 6hrs).

For Movies I liked Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor. But then I am British ;-)

Bro Rich

Heaven forbid, a documentary about the Revolution that's pro American!

:-)

for games I recommend the hold the line boardgame from worthington games. Its simple & easily coverted to miniatures. I think the hex movement would be easier than measuring for kids. The rules are online if you want to check them out.

link

Another game I'm looking into is Redcoats & Rebels by Ian Drury this one has a square grid. For a battle report & details about how to get the game see nugget # 196 available from the wargames developments website.

link

Revolution is a great flik, but I understand why it didn't do well. but I still like it.

The History channel's "the revolution" is just stupid, it makes it sound like the british had close air suport and napalm and the only reason americans won was that Washington happend to be the best general in history. and the americans won the war with only butter knifes and clubs, makes very little mention of French suport or the fact that britain had to fight half the world at the same time they had what they concierd a civil war.

Great suggestions and comments all around!

I had forgotten about Junior General… that's a perfect start. I downloaded Saratoga last night— got some cutting and folding to do!

The "All the King's Men" rules also look good, but a little in-depth for my son at this stage.

So Black Powder is basically a Warmaster treatment of the period? Ironically, when I was thinking about this Warmaster popped into my head as an ideal basis for a rules system. It really captures the whole "block movement" feel. BP is a little pricey for me at this stage, though.

As for the films:
The Crossing looks great. Both our local libraries have it on VHS, though I'm going to look for a DVD. (Would VHS be okay for this? Or is it worth purchasing?)
Ditto for April Morning, though nobody seems to have it around here.

Revolution is a maybe… we've done the Hollywood treatment of the war.

And dang it, our libraries don't have Drums Along the Mohawk! A John Ford movie, for crying out loud! And (different genre, same great director) in a stunner, they don't have She Wore a Yellow Ribbon either! Sacrilege!

But thanks for all the suggestions. I'll check out the documentaries as well.

TMP: The Best Place on the Web.

Revolution isn't realy very hollywood, thats probebly why it bombed.

The quality of the film(I mean the film it was filmed on) is very poor, reminds me of 60s german art film, even 60s spagetii western have better picture.

The story is also not very hollywood, it got a happyish ending, but no clear good guy or bad guy, The bad guy got his good sides to. It generaly just shows how the war was, very little hollywood about it.

Parzival:

You'll have a VERY tough time finding "April Morning" – I have a copy, and it was only released on VHS in the early 90's.

It's very good, considering it was made for TV (Hallmark Hall of Fame Special – before they had an actual network).

NBC did a 3 part mini-series George Washington in April of 1984. I was 12 at the time and so cannot speak in my gamer's guise of "button counting lace nazi," but it had lots of battles. Some of the filming was done at Mount Vernon. Battle scenes in it included:

the surrender of Fort Neccesity
Braddock's debacle in the woods (James Mason was an awesome Braddock)
Long Island
Trenton
Monmouth
Yorktown

It goes for about $300 USD if you can find a copy. Worth every penny.

I have copies of all the mentioned films, as well as Washington on VHS, April Morning is good, shame they didn't have the budget like that pile of pooh by Gibson, in defence of "Revolution" I like it! has a gritty dirty look and feel to it! uniforms well dodgey but heyho! The Redcoat&Rebels DVD done by the BBC/Prof Holmes worth a look! Lionheart films, Von Stuebans Continentals is also quite good…… Revolution filmed in the UK, Kings Lynn doubled as NY, do you think it got panned as it was produced by us Brits??

Revolution had helle of a lot better uniforms then the patriot,

Revolution had atleast hunting shirts and as the battle was in the north the 1768 warrent uniforms for the british are less iffy then the same 1768 warrent used in the patriot which tok part in the south

Revolution had helle of a lot better uniforms then the patriot,

Revolution had atleast hunting shirts and as the battle was in the north the 1768 warrent uniforms for the british are less iffy then the same 1768 warrent used in the patriot which tok part in the south
>>
Amen! Even had the early Continentals in brown coats,which was amazing! I also liked the fact that it showed not EVERY American supported or cared about the War like the history books tell us.
I also noticed the British regimental color,and the inscriptions on their packs, 95th foot! No such regiment was even in N. America at the time!
Still and all,the uniforms were damn good for when it was made. Even had the Royal Artillery in blue! Unlike in the Patriot where EVERY Brit or Loyalist was in red!

Bob C.

I recall reading that Tavington's "Green Dragoons" just had to be dressed in red (green facings) because if they weren't, it would confuse the public. Unfortunately, they are probably right.

Of course at one War of 1812 event I was informed that I "had" to be Irish because I was dressed in a green uniform. It got close to argument status, but then I remembered to never argue with an idiot. Just makes him madder and makes spectators unsure who is who.

Regarding "Revolution" I think it was panned because it was an "art film" (both cinematography and film style) WITHOUT the typical "independent film" or "Hollywood film" writing. The former being people sitting or walking around talking to each other, and that's pretty much it and the latter a pandering to the movie going masses.

So it failed to attact the two biggest segments of the US film industry and either market.

It's hard to explain but to me it's like wachting a composite film of various "embedded" cameramen from their perspective and experiences focused on a few "everyman" during the war.

I'm partial to "George Washington" the 1984 TV mini-series because I was an extra during the filming at Fort Belvoir. Never saw myself on film though.

Mollo was the official advisor on uniforms for Revolution, for some strange reason they opted for the 95th foot, I have a Military History "special" dedicated to the film, some noce stills in there, it also explains why they choose the 95th! When I get home I will take a butchers……. and let you know!! still a good film……

Now for a real turkey watch….. Chasing the Deer! We sat there waiting for the pantomine horse to appear….. its behind you!!

Now for a real turkey watch….. Chasing the Deer! We sat there waiting for the pantomine horse to appear….. its behind you!!
>>
That was God awful! I can't believe I spent money on that dreck!

Bob

Revolution has just been realeased on English dvd for the first time, called revolution revisitid.

The only other copy that was avaleble before this was a dutch version

Revolution has just been realeased on English dvd for the first time, called revolution revisitid.
>>
You mean its not out on DVD here in the US?? I still have it on VHS.

Bob

By english I mean english language, not as in the country england.

You can get it from amazon.com for $14 USD

It's a directros cut, with scenes added and taken away.
It also got a naration by Pacino to make it easier to keep track of events.

On the special feautres you have interveiw with Pacino and the director telling how hard it was to make the film and having to release it before it was finished ect.

For a movie with some excellent insight into war in general – great actors – and bad uniforms – I recommend the 1950's version of "The Devil's Disciple" – see link below

imdb.com/title/tt0052735

Lancaster, Douglas and Olivier – lots of great lines from Shaw

Major Swindon: But what about history, sir?
General John Burgoyne: History, sir, will tell lies, as usual!

One of my favoriate movies to paint by

Someone beat me to it. I was going to go with "The Devil's Disciple".