Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[Macca]

lol, i guess they needed to see the action for cameras. yup its not the greatest film ever by a mile but its enjoyable enough.

Aye. Having said that you watch the 'Audie Murphy Story' and the whole thing seems totally unrealistic and improbable but it's actually very close to what really happened.

[struth]

Aye. Having said that you watch the 'Audie Murphy Story' and the whole thing seems totally unrealistic and improbable but it's actually very close to what really happened.

audie lost his marbles and attacked on his own basically. he never adjusted back to civilian life alas(no risks)

[walpurgis]

audie lost his marbles and attacked on his own basically

That's what I thought too. Probably happened a fair bit.

[struth]

The Britisher's time now with "The Battle Of The River Plate", 1956. Lots of stiff uppers and deadpan one-liners but a good and true story.






The Midshipmen's quarters were empty because Captain Langsdorff had promoted all of his Midshipmen to Ensigns in order to make room for his prisoners.

Attention to detail was particularly important to the producers, so all of the naval procedures depicted in this movie are completely accurate. The scene where Harwood meets with his Captains on-board the Ajax, however, was a fictitious one, created in order to explain the situation to the audience.

Ships used in this movie: H.M.S. Sheffield as H.M.S. Ajax, I.N.S. Delhi (H.M.S. Achilles 1933-1941, H.M.N.Z.S. Achilles 1941-1946) as H.M.S. Achilles, H.M.S. Cumberland as H.M.S. Cumberland, Heavy Cruiser U.S.S. Salem as the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. Light cruiser H.M.S. Jamaica played the part of heavy cruiser H.M.S. Exeter.

There was strong speculation than German Captain Hans Langsdorff committed suicide rather than face the humiliation of losing his ship. There was even more speculation that he did it because he feared what Adolf Hitler would do to him if he returned to Germany. At the time, the Graf Spee was the pride of the German Navy, and scuttling her would have been regarded as treason.

[struth]

Might add it should really be battle of river Plato (silver river) error of translation or reading, take pick.

Also the real captain of the Africa Shell was both in film as another captain(Bernard Lee played him) and also technical advisor. His name was Patrick Dove.

Also John Schlesinger, the director was an actor at this time and in this film in a small role.

Directors of this film were Powell and Pressburger.

[struth]

The Fighting Kentuckian, 1949. Although generally thought to be based on a true story, it was only very slightly.



The myth of the "Vine and Olive Colony" was born in Albert Pickett's 1851 book, History of Alabama, and Incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the Earliest Period. According to that telling, military noblemen were forced to leave France after the fall of Napolean and were offered land grants by Congress in the Alabama Territory near what is now Demopolis if they would grow grapes and olives. Soon broken by the effort in the wilderness, they and their families returned to France.

In his article on the topic in the Encyclopedia of Alabama, Rafe Blaufarb of Florida State University demonstrates most of that story to be somewhat less than accurate. None of the French settlers were noble and few were military; most were whites who had fled Haiti after the 1791 rebellion and settled in New Orleans and Philadelphia. Congress did grant some 92,000 acres and in August 1817 about 40 of the Philadelphia group left for Mobile. There were some 347 original grantees; only 150 or so ended up in Alabama. By the early 1830's most of those had left the state.


Oliver Hardy's accent was authentic and was no approximation, as he was born and raised in Georgia.

[Barry]

Read the title in a hurry and it comes out as something entirely different!

[struth]

Casablanca, 1942. Directed by Michael Curtiz.



I heard Madonna wanted to remake the film with her as Lund, but was told by every studio the film is "Untouchable"

Humphrey Bogart's then-wife, actress Mayo Methot, continually accused him of having an affair with Ingrid Bergman, often confronting him in his dressing room before a scene was to be shot. Bogart would come onto the set in a rage. In fact, despite the undeniable on-screen chemistry between Bogart and Bergman, they hardly spoke, and the only time they bonded was when the two had lunch with Geraldine Fitzgerald. According to Fitzgerald, "The whole subject at lunch was how they could get out of that movie. They thought the dialogue was ridiculous and the situations were unbelievable . .

In the 1980s this film's script was sent to readers at a number of major studios and production companies under its original title, "Everybody Comes to Rick's". Some readers recognized the script but most did not. Many complained that the script was "not good enough" to make a decent movie. Others gave such complaints as "too dated", "too much dialog" and "not enough sex".

Because the film was made during WWII the production was not allowed to film at an airport after dark for security reasons. Instead, it used a sound stage with a small cardboard cutout airplane and forced perspective. To give the illusion that the plane was full-sized, they used little people to portray the crew preparing the plane for take-off. Years later the same technique was used in Alien (1979), in the scene where the crew discovers the dead "space jockey", with director Ridley Scott's son and some of his friends in scaled-down spacesuits.

Director Michael Curtiz's Hungarian accent often caused confusion on the set. He asked a prop man for a "poodle" to appear in one scene. The prop man searched high and low for a poodle while the entire crew waited. He found one and presented it to Curtiz, who screamed, "A poodle! A poodle of water!"

[struth]

another classic. Rio Bravo, 1959.





Claude Akins recalled that during filming all the actors found themselves starting to talk like John Wayne. Wayne was not impressed by this.

Dean Martin's agent approached Howard Hawks to consider his client for the role of the drunken deputy Dude. Hawks agreed to meet with Martin at 9:30 the next morning. When Hawks learned that Martin had done a show in Las Vegas until midnight, and hired a plane to fly him to the meeting, he was so impressed that he simply sent Martin to get a costume and told him he had the part.

For most of the film Chance (John Wayne) has the front of his hat turned up to make him look a little soft and friendly. However in the tough guy scenes when Chance informs Nathan Burdette that he will have Stumpy kill his brother if there is any trouble, the front of the hat is turned down, in traditional tough guy mode.

[struth]

Forrest Gump. 1994. Directd by Robert Zemeckis. Forrest Gump won Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Hanks had won the previous year for Philadelphia), Best Director, Best Visual Effects, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing at the 67th Academy Awards.





Kurt Russell did the voice of Elvis Presley.

Magician Ricky Jay designed a special wheelchair for Gary Sinise that used an illusion to hide his legs, which were on a hidden platform underneath. The contortion required to sit in it meant that Sinise could only be in it for about ten minutes at a time. In other scenes, Gary Sinise's lower legs were wrapped in a special blue fabric that allowed them to be digitally removed later.