I agree with you to a point, Mike: yes, historical movies do encourage some who see them to do some research, not only into their own families history, but history in general. I make a lot of references to historical movies in my history class because my students can relate to them; I even did an assignment last semester where my students had to do a critical analysis of one of the films about Wyatt Earp and examine if the film followed the documented story, if it used any of the many legends & myths, etc.

The problem lies in the fact that so many people take these movies at face value and do not "follow up", and accept them as Gospel (no pun intended towards Mr. Gibson!) Those of us in the history business, be it teachers, park rangers, museum folks, usually are the ones that have to "clean up" the mess that Hollywood makes of history.

Ft. Smith National Historic Site in Arkansas, btw, has a great exhibit in their Visitor Center which deals with several of the movies made about Ft. Smith and Judge Parker, the "Hanging Judge" -- "True Grit", "Hang 'em High", etc. Rangers at Ft. Smith deal with these movies on an almost daily basis -- and the park service, to their credit, uses these movies as an interpretive "tool" to "reel" people in after they've seen Hollywood's version to get the other side of the story, so to speak.

Cheers,

Todd