Interesting point. It’s hard for me to respond because, a) I just rewatched Overlord & realized I didn’t like it. It’s not an especially distinguished entry into the Nazi-zombie subgenre—I sighed when the action pivoted onto the wicked Nazi commander as prime antogonist. And from a story point of view, how come the German garrison in the French town wasn’t put on some kind of alert when paratroopers starting falling from the sky like an early summer rain?

You know that, “Everything Wrong With…” video series on Youtube? If they haven’t done Overlord, they really ought to. Save that the resulting video would probably be longer than the movie.

The use of Black actors didn’t bother me. Given how badly history was maimed overall, it seemed like one of the smaller infractions. Perhaps I read it wrong, thinking it belonged in the Tarantino alternate historyverse more than an attempt to whitewash latter-day segregation. Because it was released before the slime at IMDB did away with their message boards, I know a fair number of viewers also looked at it that way.

Of course, there are easy ways to cast Black actors in a film like that. Remember Jim Brown in The Dirty Dozen? That seemed natural, given the logic of the story. Even the reaction of the southern psycho to his presence. Could easily have been contrived similar in Overlord, & this way people who perhaps didn’t realize the US military was still segregated would have been granted a clue.

Another, to me more egregious, historic violation is how the Nazi garrison is portrayed as vicious, murdering swine among the French villagers. That might seem surprising, but when I read accounts or talk to people who experienced occupation by the Wehrmacht in Western Europe, most agree that the Germans usually comported themselves with decency—as long as you weren’t a Jew, Gypsy, homosexual or some other Untermensch. Of course in the East—Poland, Russia, Ukraine—it was radically different.

Anyway, too much to write about a fairly mediocre film.