Buffalo Soldiers

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1. #001

   Buffalo Soldiers was completed in early 2001 but could not secure a wide release until 2003. Its depiction of drug use and corruption in the US military was always going to be a hard sell, so the protagonist, a heroin addict in the novel, was changed to a drug dealer for the film alone. Even then the film struggled greatly to find an American distributor. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on 9 September 2001, and distribution rights were finally sold to Miramax's Harvey Weinstein on 10 September 2001, who considered pairing it with Black Hawk Down (2001). The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, however, effectively destroyed the film's box-office chances, so it was pulled indefinitely and British distributor Film Four later withdrew as well. When the film was finally scheduled for a US release in the second quarter of 2003, director Gregor Jordan asked for it to be pushed back to July 2003, since the Iraq War had just begun in March 2003 and would again kill most moviegoers' interest in the film's subject.

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2. #002

   In the scene where a tank advances through a German town, a female stunt performer was instructed to get out of the way of the tank coming toward her. She failed to do so and had to dive off the road at the last moment (footage of the incident appears in the final cut). Co-writer and director Gregor Jordan called the moment terrifying, as he was convinced the woman had actually been crushed to death.

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3. #003

   Ed Harris was initially sent a copy of the script with the idea of him playing Sergeant Lee, but he found himself more interested in the role of Colonel Berman and was subsequently cast in that part.

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4. #004

   At the film's screening at the Sundance Film Festival on 21 January 2003, a woman in the audience verbally attacked the film during the Q&A that followed the presentation. The woman was reported to have accused the filmmakers of being anti-American and to have thrown a plastic water bottle at Anna Paquin, which struck an elderly man in the crowd on the head. The woman claimed the bottle was intended to hit the screen. The man was not seriously injured.

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5. #005

   Although the Siegelsbach nuclear missile facility was not actually a launch site, it is a closed US military depot where nuclear weapons (and other munitions) were stored. (In the film it is referred to as a nuclear facility or nuclear base.)

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6. #006

   The American tanks featured in the film are actually modified German Leopard 1s.

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7. #007

   It is adapted from Robert O'Connor's 1993 novel.

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8. #008

   The scene in which the gas station explodes looks as though it was shot inside a forest. In reality there were only the tops of two or three fir trees mounted on a hill, because there was no forest at all.

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9. #009

   During the exercise defending the nuclear weapons storage facility, everyone wears harnesses and helmet bands fitted with MILES (Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System) receivers. When the "fighting" begins, all weapons appear to fire normally (sound, brass ejection) but shoot no bullets. Instead, a box on the muzzle of the rifle fires a laser that is then detected by the vest/helmet system. The black circles are laser detectors, and the unit's battery and brain is the large box on the back of the harness. Think very high-tech, long-range Laser Tag. The beeping that sounds when all defenders are killed is the indicator (emitted by the green circle protruding from the shoulder of the belt), and for this 1980s generation of the system you pull a key from the weapon to silence the very loud beep (which prevents it from firing) and place it in a small box on the front of the shoulder strap. Several large groups, including the Colonel's, instead surrendered to soldiers with red armbands. These are the O/Cs (Observer/Controllers), who carry "God Guns" that can activate the vests but also generally indicate verbally or by hand signals that you have been killed; these troops all stood in the open and did not defend themselves during the battle, so the O/Cs simply declared them all killed, all of which was typical behavior for O/Cs of that era.

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10. #010

    Master Sergeant Lee wears the 173rd Airborne Brigade shoulder patch on his right shoulder, showing service in the Vietnam War. He also has Airborne and Ranger tabs. He and the other soldiers wear a unit patch resembling the 32nd Infantry Division patch for the 317th Supply Battalion, which may have been created for the film. The 317th's actual patch has four lightning bolts in a water bucket.

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11. #011

    The film is a British co-production, and British actors Tom Ellis and Sir Idris Elba have very small roles as US soldiers. (Ellis is one of Elwood's crew who does not know whether he is in West Berlin or East Berlin, and Elba leads the team that raids the drug laboratory.)

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12. #012

    The parking-lot scene in which Elwood assigns Knoll the task of bringing food for the big meal was shot in the parking lot of the US Army Karlsruhe Shopping Center, part of the Smiley Barracks and Paul Revere Village housing complex that had recently been handed over to the Germans during filming. The "Minute Man Theater" main cinema can be seen directly behind them, and while the shot moves around to reveal them entering a building marked "Commissary," this was actually the base Post Exchange, as the Commissary was then located in a more enclosed area.

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13. #013

    So much time passed between the film's completion and its public release that star Joaquin Phoenix finished and released Signs (2002) and began work on It's All About Love (2003) in the meantime. His co-star Ed Harris appeared in at least 5 films during that period (A Beautiful Mind (2001), Just a Dream (2002), The Hours (2002), Masked and Anonymous (2003) and The Human Stain (2003)), and even Gregor Jordan had directed and released his next film, Ned Kelly (2003), before Buffalo Soldiers reached most audiences.

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14. #014

    The film reunites Scott Glenn and Ed Harris, who had played Alan Shepard and John Glenn, respectively, together in The Right Stuff (1983) 18 years earlier.

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