Equipment inaccuracies
I still love this quirky, existential, quasi-theological, atmospheric World War II movie, CASTLE KEEP, which came out at the height of the Vietnam War anti-war protest time period, which probably explains its subversive underlying anti-war theme. But I'm always a stickler for inaccurate weapons, military equipment and uniforms during any war movie. Tanks are a common error. The BATTLE OF THE BULGE employed Patton M47 tanks as panthers.
CASTLE KEEP has its own share of faults.
The director undoubtedly couldn't get his hands on old WWII German tanks. He had to settle for what was available in the film location Yugoslavia. He employed Soviet-built T-54 tanks. The T-54 strongly resembles the T-34/85, which makes sense because the it was actually an improved, upgraded T-34/85. You can tell by the shape of the turret as it turns to the side revealing its silhouette. The 85mm cannon also sports a muzzle brake, something the Soviets adopted from the Americans. The T-34 did not utilize a muzzle brake. The Soviets approached military technology with an practical, eclectic attitude. They were strong innovators in their own right yet took every opportunity to adopt or copy Allied or enemy weaponry design if it was clearly superior. The Americans and the British seldomly adopted enemy weapon designs, often due to national pride. That's not to say the Americans and the British never did, it was just rare.
Lieutenant Amberjack and Private Elk go outside the bakery to search for a bazooka. They find one in an abandoned American truck next to its dead operator. But you can clearly see it is a 3.5 inch American superbazooka which was still under development at the end of the war. The superbazooka did see extensive use in the 1950 Korean War where it was first reliable antitank weapon the Americans could defend with against the North Korean-operated T-34 surplus tanks. During WWII, the American Army and Marines utilized the ineffectual 2.36 inch bazooka. You can't miss it. The 2.36 inch bazooka had a skinny tube. The 3.5 inch superbazooka tube is huge by comparison. The 2.36 inch bazooka was still effective against early WWII tanks, that is the 1940 models, enemy wheeled vehicles, bunkers and machinegun nests. But the main purpose, to defeat Axis tanks, failed miserably against the later German tanks, the Mark III and IV, the Tiger, the Panther, and the King Tiger, and other thickly armored gun vehicles. The Americans and British turned their noses up at the German's highly effective one-shot Panzerfaust. But the Soviets embraced the panzerfaust wholeheartedly, used any abandoned panzerfausts they could find, and wound up designing the effective, reloadable RPG antitank rocket launcher that is ubiquitous worldwide next to the AK-47 and AKM. The U.S. settled on the disposable LAW rocket launcher which was only effective against lightly-skinned military vehicles and bunkers.
THE SCENE WITH THE ENEMY AIRPLANE that Captain Beckman shoots down with a handly .50 caliber is a crock.
The director used a light, observation, parasol-winged airplane, that sort of resembled the German Fiesler Storch. But the Storch was not armed with any forward-firing machine guns. Also when Beckman hits the light plane, you see the smoke emitting from two, obvious smoke cannisters attached to the wheel struts of the light plane. I wish the director could have done much better than that. I would have even settled for a surplus Soviet Yak-9 which has a roughly similar silhouette to the Messerschmidt 109.
Other than all these inaccuracies, everything else was great. I was happy to get my hands on a widescreen dvd copy in addition to the full screen dvd I have. I tell everyone out there to go with the widescreen dvd, even though it doesn't fill the entire television screen. You actually see more with the widescreen.