hollywoodland seems to have quite a stock of actual european and ethnic sharp pointies of all sorts and periods in their prop rooms. they tend to use the good ones for closeups, and have cheap silver painted wood, or maybe aluminum bladed ones for the masses and long shots. occasionally rubber or plastic. don't want anyone actually getting really hurt*. they do seem to get a bit confused about what goes where tho. i in fact just last night had a laugh over an american tv show with well known supporting actor portraying a north african arab villain who threatened one of the heroines with a khuk. i gather they thought 'curved blade'=islamic. the show i gather was about a ridiculous group of young adults with an older mentor that looks after a 'library' of wierd and magical items too powerful to exist outside their control. watched a few minutes, caught the khuk scene and switched channels to something a bit better scripted and acted.
i recall 'zulu' has quite a few real zulu and english weapons in it, but you still can spot a zulu with a wobbly rubber iklwa (assegai in english) blade as he pounds his shield. some english bayonets suffered from the wobbles too. they only had a couple hundred real zulus (who had a grand time i hear - they even were allowed to film an outake ending where they won). anyhow, the full regements front lines appear in the distance on the surrounding hills were actually a half dozen cardboard cutouts tacked to boards and carried by two real zulu one at each end, made them look like 4 times their real number. if you look closely you can see the shield of each group moving just a little bit too much in sync. thankfully no khuks.
*- for the same OSHA reasons, gladiator and other roman legionary movies do not show them throwing their pilum as the lines get close, only the occasional well rehearsed throw against someone storming a fort where they can control an individual throw filming. same with 'zulu' where they would have released acloud of throwing spears as they got close. even rubber ones might hurt tho, so no throwing spears en-masse from hollywood. the original '300' (the '60s version, not the recent cartoonish version) where they actually wore armour, has a scene where an advancing persian horde has javelins thrown at them, one man stand out when he gets hit in the face with one, it bounces off and he falls screaming. must have had a black eye for days. doubt OSHA was happy about that one. they coulda poked his eye out, as granny would say.
