Atlantic Crossing Blues

I’ve been watching the mini-series “Atlantic Crossing” and it’s been causing me to have some real, feelings deep in my heart. I think it’s called “heart burn.” When I’m not fuming over some historical anachronism, I’m wondering if the Norwegian is as “modern” as the American English or if they, at least, got that right.

I mean, sure, the basic facts are hunky-dory. Hitler’s Hordes attacked Norway and Norway folded up like an old suit, and ever since then we have had to listen to how the heroic Norwegians fought the Nazi’s and kept them from developing the atomic bomb and got killed fighting alongside that guy from West Side Story while 633 Squadron Mosquitos heroically blasted The Death Star.

Have I got that right?

Close enough.

Anyway, the historical goofiness in this film has nothing to do with the facts of the case. For all I know, the Crown Princess of Norway was very special friends with FDR and the rest is history. For sure.

But what bugs me are all the LITTLE things. The tiny, seemingly insignificant things they got WRONG. Every time it’s like fingernails on blackboard.

I’m sorry. I mean, um…. whiteboard??? It’s like the Chewbacca Defense. It DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

Why does this avalanche of weird time anomalies bother me so damn much? Why do I cringe when a newsboy on the street sounds like a little boy? Weren’t they little boys? Should they have been at home with their strong, virile mommies saying things like “ahm scay-rood” when Hitler was on the TV?

Well, a news butch sounds, well, BUTCH. Everybody knows what a kid shouting headlines sounds like. Loud. Angry. Full of MOXIE and PEP.

But the one in Atlantic Crossing sounds like a widdo boy.

Flashbulbs in Atlantic Crossing don’t flash right. Cops don’t talk right. TV’s exist and have shows. Calling London on the telephone using a radio link sounds an awful lot like doing it on a cell phone in 2021. “Hiya!” “Zup.”

I remember when a TV show called “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” came on and the people just talked in ordinary, present-day American. No attempt was made to make the show “historical.” It was Hercules. You know. Big strong guy and all that. Don’t worry about the details, Poindexter.

But I could see the handwriting on the wall. Along came “Xena: Warrior Princess” and what was that all about, anyway? Two chicks. Yup.

Once that dam broke it was Katie, bar the door. It used to be that producers really tried to make “historical” shows seem, well, HISTORICAL. But now that’s all gone under the bridge with the schoolhouse after the flood waters swept through.

In that dreadful movie “Dunkirk” they didn’t identify the “enemy” as Germans. (No sense starting the war up again!) At least in this, they mentioned them– and had a particularly evil-looking German shoot a DOG!

I mean, by God– those were the baddies!