20 Things You Somehow Missed In Inglourious Basterds
12. Hicox Uses Pop-Culture To Fill His Knowledge Gaps
British Commando Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) poses as a Nazi officer in German-occupied northern France, yet despite his aptitude at speaking German, he's ultimately undone by his lack of familiarity with German social mores.
This is basically foreshadowed earlier in the film when we twice hear Hicox, a former film critic, using his vast pop-culture knowledge to try and paper over his blind spots.
For instance, Hicox tells General Ed Fenech (Mike Myers) that he speaks German "like a Katzenjammer Kid," but The Katzenjammer Kids was actually an American comic strip in which characters spoke in stereotypically German-accented English, which isn't much good at all.
Later, Hicox also says that he was "born in a village that rests in the shadow of the Piz Palu," which is in fact a reference to The White Hell of Pitz Palu, a 1929 German silent film directed by G. W. Pabst, the subject of Hicox's second film criticism book.
Though the Piz Palü is indeed a real mountain, Hicox is clearly leaning back on his movie knowledge and hoping it helps him pass as German.