Friday 1 February 2013

Good movie chess, bad movie chess

I've noticed a few chess scenes in a couple of movies I've watched recently. Funnily enough they were both Westerns, although the 'serious' Western seemed to have 'bad chess' while the non-serious one, seemed to get it right.
The non-serious Western was Blazing Saddles. There is a scene where Sheriff Bart plays the Waco Kid  in chess, and while there is some debate about whether the final position is really checkmate, it looks as though they got most things right.
The other Western was No Name on the Bullet, starring Audie Murphy. Early in the movie his character, a hired gun, plays chess against the town doctor. However I am pretty sure that the board was set up the wrong way, as it seemed that Murphy (as black) had his Bishop on g8, and his Knight on f8. This probable error was highlighted when he played Ng6. Having decided that such an error was going to bug me for the rest of the film, I of course found something else to watch.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The most famous movie would have to be casablanca ! Bogey was a huge chess fan, and apparently pretty good...

Anonymous said...

There's a lot more to watch in the history of cinema than Audie Murphy movies. ;)
AO