Arnold the American

[AndyC]

Caught part of Collateral Damage on TV recently, and remembered what makes the movie unique for me. It seems to be the only movie I can recall that acknowledges the fact that Arnie is not American by birth.

He presents himself to John Leguizamo as "Heinrich Beckmann," and we get a series of jokes about a "German sausage" and "don't be such a sour kraut."

It just reminded me that in Arnie's other pictures, no one ever feels the need to explain why America's top soldier, secret agent or whatever appears to have a thick Austrian accent. He's just a regular American Joe, going by names like Ben Richards and Doug Quaid. I think the most Germanic he ever got was to use the names Hauser and Brubaker in Total Recall.

Can anybody think of other examples of this sort of thing?

[Bernie]

Didn't they have a couple of throwaway lines early in Kindergarten Cop about his Austrian origins?  (It stood out because this point always bugged me too and I was glad to see it acknowledged in any way.)