Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[Macca]

more ww2, this time ... DUNKIRK, 1958....




When the troop ship taking the platoon home is bombed and sunk in Dunkirk harbor, the scene of the ship sinking is taken from The Cruel Sea (1953), which depicts the sinking of H.M.S. "Compass Rose".

The command center used by Vice Admiral Ramsey (Nicholas Hannen) was the actual bunker used during the operation. It's part of a large underground complex beneath Dover Castle. It's open to the public. The balcony in the cliffs is visible from the ferry terminal below.

Sir John Mills was fifty-years-old at the time of filming. The British Expeditionary Force in France in 1940 were a professional army, not conscripts (conscription (the draft) only began after Dunkirk to recoup numbers) therefore, Sir John Mills would be beyond the retirement age for a soldier, and would have been considered too old even for conscription, the maximum age being forty-five. The only soldiers aged fifty or above would have been senior officers, not frontline soldiers, and certainly not Corporals.

Think I must have seen that film ten times or more, never occurred to me that Mills is too old. He's supposed to be the experienced one so it sort of makes sense.

It's a much better film than the 2017 Dunkirk in every respect - despite that the 2017 version cost $125 million and the 1958 $1.7 million (which would be $15 million in 2017 dollars).

Just shows how the art of making good films is being lost - even when they've got bucket-loads of money to spend.

[struth]

Think I must have seen that film ten times or more, never occurred to me that Mills is too old. He's supposed to be the experienced one so it sort of makes sense.

It's a much better film than the 2017 Dunkirk in every respect - despite that the 2017 version cost $125 million and the 1958 $1.7 million (which would be $15 million in 2017 dollars).

Just shows how the art of making good films is being lost - even when they've got bucket-loads of money to spend.

in reality tho he signed up in 39, and was in the royal engineers where he became an officer and was release on health grounds in 42. so he was right age for it, just not in 58...lol

[Macca]

Tom Cruise is 60 and still playing characters half his age.

The you've got Sally Thomset age 20 playing an 11 year old in 'The Railway Children.'

Does it really matter? I don't think so. Won't ruin a good film or make a bad one better.

[Barry]

Agreed.

[struth]

Band of Outsiders, 1964..criterion bluray...




Quentin Tarantino named his production company, A Band Apart, after this film.

Godard described it as "Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka"

Film critic Pauline Kael described Bande à part as "a reverie of a gangster movie" and "perhaps Godard's most delicately charming film"

[Barry]

Band of Outsiders, 1964..criterion bluray...




Quentin Tarantino named his production company, A Band Apart, after this film.

Godard described it as "Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka"

Film critic Pauline Kael described Bande à part as "a reverie of a gangster movie" and "perhaps Godard's most delicately charming film"

It's not a film I have seen, but I'm not sure if I could describe anything by Godard as "delicately charming ".

[struth]

It's not a film I have seen, but I'm not sure if I could describe anything by Godard as "delicately charming ".

its possibly as charming as he gets... good film tho

[struth]

Barry Lyndon, 1975.. criterion bluray.. reg a again...




Contrary to legend, this movie did use artificial lighting in some scenes (for example, when Bryan (David Morley) learns he's getting a horse). However, it is true that no electronic lighting was used for the candle-lit scenes. A lens built by the Carl Zeiss Company for N.A.S.A., a 50mm Zeiss lens modified with the Kollmorgen adaptor used in still cameras, was used to shoot scenes lit only by candle. This lens had the largest aperture of any ever built for movie use (f/0.7).

Stanley Kubrick used to play the soundtrack's classical music during takes to get the actors and actresses in a better mood. He was reportedly influenced by Sergio Leone's method in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

[walpurgis]

Barry Lyndon, 1975...

Superb film!

[struth]

Superb film!

yes it was likened to a visit to a museum...everything exact as it should be. They stared filming in Ireland but had to leave due to the IRA