Thursday, 27 March 2014

Accuracy With Real Events: Pan Am (2011/12)

Pan Am (2011/12)

TV Fact-Checker on Pan Am: http://www.wired.com/2011/09/tv-fact-checker-pan-am/

For Pan Am's historical accuracy, I looked at this interview with Nancy Hult Ganis, a former Pan Am stewardess turned Hollywood producer, to see about the historical accuracy in the TV show.

According to Ganis, most of the stories are stories mixed together but all based on truth that did happen to Pan Am stewardesses but in terms of characters, they are all made up of a bunch of different stewardesses from back then. One of the main story lines in the show is that one of the stewardesses was in fact a CIA operative, which is true as Ganis explains, 'For example, the whole spy thing was very true, and most people don’t know about that. They don’t know about Pan Am’s secret missions and their kind of extension of the State Department. The airline had people in Pan Am who were actually connected to the CIA. It was so logical at that time. I think it probably started during World War II, or just before. There were places where the United States couldn’t get involved, but certainly Pan Am was flying there.'

What is not true is the number of stewardesses onboard 707 planes, there would usually be six stewardesses, but they cut it down to four people has having six would be too much for filming. Also, Ganis points out that in real life Pan Am stewardesses wouldn't work the same flights together all the time like they do on the show, they would 'out with a crew for 14 days and then never see each other again'

No comments:

Post a Comment