The review which describes a good movie with some small errors is correct and I'd like to add one more: the Boston doctor who goes with Charlie to the docks to see the wounded asks one of the men if he had been given "sulfa". I believe that the first sulfonamide was trade named prontosil. The first experiments with prontosil began in 1932 by the German chemist Gerhard Domagk, and the results were published in 1935. So soldiers in WWI didn't get sulfas.
share I found more substantial errors.
First and foremost, while the emphasis was on human error in the movie, the fact is war is a very fertile breeding ground for accidents on top of the deliberate carnage. World War One featured incomprehensively vast usage of artillery shells, and artillery shells need TNT and other explosives. A lot of this had to be imported from the U.S., and by ships. Ships had to be gathered in ports. Captain Le Medec probably wasn't the greatest or bravest mariner of all time. But how many ship captains who have seniority or pull are going to agree to captain a massive floating bomb at the height of the U-boat menace?
Second, did anyone notice that the movie exonorates harborpilot Mackie while making Le Medec and the Belgian captain look like total dolts at the helm; and has Mackie trying to avert disaster while the Frenchman funks off with his crew? Considering it is a Canadian and not a French production, gee what a surprise.
Then there is the almost defeatist speech Capt. Collins gives to the war rally in the church. Excuse me, an *officer* in HM forces blurting out like that? It simply wouldn't have happened at the time. Contrary to what he later tells Barbara, Germans weren't close to suing for peace at the time, and the war wasn't kept going only because the Allies wanted another year of war profits. Indeed, with the Western Front stalemated and Russia close to surrender, Ludendorff et al were convinced victory for Germany was just around the corner. And a lot of people on the Allied side feared the same thing.
On the plus side, I was impressed by what the production did with a limited CBC budget.
"Quit whining. I evaded your vital organs." --Motoko Aoyama
I watched this movie the other day thanks to the re-broadcast by CBC, I missed it the first time around. I did notice a small error when the Canadian Mounties came across the group of men in the woods. The mountie asked Mackie who won the hockey game, Toronto or Montreal? His reply was wrong (can't remember which he said, TO I think), the mountie pulled his gun & said it was Detroit. The Detroit franchise didn't exist until 1926 when the Western Canada Hockey League folded after the 1925-26 WHL season, a new NHL expansion franchise in Detroit bought the rights to the players of one of the most successful of the teams in that league, the 1925 Stanley Cup champion Victoria Cougars. However, the NHL does not consider the Red Wings to be a continuation of the Victoria team.
wikipedia documents where the film deviates from the actual events.
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