Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[Macca]

Could they enjoy a little schmoke without fear of arrest?

[struth]

We Dive at Dawn, 1943..





To prepare for the film, John Mills was allowed to go on patrol in one of the submarines. He was determined to know what it felt like when a submarine crash-dived. He said the ship seemed to stand on her nose and I felt her speeding like an arrow towards the sea bed; charts and crockery went flying in all directions; I hung on to a rail near the periscope trying to look heroic and totally unconcerned; the only thing that concerned me was that I was sure that my face had turned a pale shade of pea-green

One of the submarines used for this movie, the P615, was sunk in action a few months later. She was torpedoed by the U123 near Sierra Leone on 4/18/43. All 44 crew members lost their lives.

Exterior shots of the submarines P614 and P615 were used for Sea Tiger (with the final number painted over to make "P61"). The vessels were a Turkish S-class submarine that had been part of a consignment ordered by the Turkish Navy from the British company Vickers in 1939. But with the outbreak of World War II, the four boats were requisitioned by the Royal Navy and designated the P611 class in the British Fleet. They were similar in design but slightly smaller than the British S class, although with a higher conning tower. The S-class boat HMS Safari also appears in the film.

[struth]

John Mills again in ... I Was Monty's Double, 1958.




The true story of how an impersonator was recruited to impersonate Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery to mislead the Germans about his intentions before the Normandy campaign.

The screenplay omits David Niven's part in the real operation. It was he, working for the Army's film unit as a Lieutenant Colonel, who first made contact with M.E. Clifton James. His role is taken in this movie by Major Harvey (Sir John Mills).

Having lost his right-hand middle finger during World War I, M.E. Clifton James wears a prosthetic replacement. M.E. Clifton James denied that there was a kidnap attack on him in reality, and that this strand was added for this movie.

This is a movie based on a true story, inspired by a movie. The idea of using an actor to impersonate Montgomery in a distraction operation came from seeing Miles Mander in a supporting role in the thriller Five Graves to Cairo (1943). Intelligence leaders sought out Mander, but he was too tall for the role. M.E. Clifton James was perfect for the part.

[struth]

"Dad's Army" Battle of the Giants!, 1971..

[struth]

Sea of Sand, 1958...




The use of a wide variety of uniforms and cap badges in this movie is accurate, all of the men in the unit volunteered, and all used the uniforms they brought with them from their original units.

There were no accurate maps of Libya at the beginning of World War II, so the L.R.D.G. surveyed and mapped the country while on operations.

Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold, FRS, OBE was a professional soldier, desert explorer and the principal founder of the Long Rang Desert Group. His studies and publications on the action of the wind on sand formations are still considered to be the foremost authority in their field. Later, he became an advisor to NASA on the subject during their planet exploration programs.

Initially, Australian soldiers were invited to volunteer for the group due to their rugged resourceful nature and mechanical skills, but the Australian Government refused to allow any Australian soldier to leave their units.

[struth]

The Four Feathers, 1939..



It was mostly filmed on location in the Sudan in Technicolor.

Forty soldiers of the 1st Battalion, the East Surrey Regiment, were used in period uniforms for scenes in which they withstood the Dervish advance en masse.

The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Mussolini Cup at the Venice Film Festival.

[struth]

Scarface, 1932..bluray..




First major film credit for 'George Raft' , who didn't have to go far for inspiration on how to play a gangster in this film. He grew up in a New York City slum alongside gangsters 'Bugsy Siegel' , 'Meyer Lansky (I)' , 'Joe Adonis' and 'Lucky Luciano (I)'. In an ironic twist, after the release of "Scarface", many of Raft's gangster pals would come to him for advice on how to dress, walk, talk, etc.

Screenwriter Ben Hecht was a former Chicago journalist familiar with the city's Prohibition-era gangsters, including Al Capone. During the filming, Hecht returned to his Los Angeles hotel room one night to find two Capone torpedoes waiting for him. The gangsters demanded to know if the movie was about Capone. Hecht assured them it wasn't, saying that the character Tony Camonte was based on gangsters like "Big" Jim Colosimo and Charles Dion O'Bannion. "Then why is the movie called Scarface?" one of the hoods demanded. "Everyone will think it's about Capone!" "That's the reason," said Hecht. "If you call the movie Scarface (1932), people will think it's about Capone and come to see it. It's part of the racket we call show business." The Capone hoods, who appreciated the value of a scam, left the hotel placated.

Like many of the early gangster movies, real machine gun fire is used to create the bullet damage in walls, including scenes with main characters ducking gunfire. This was the age before the extensive use of squibs to simulate gunfire. In the early days, a man with a machine gun loaded with live ammo would stand off camera and shoot the real bullets at the actors. In every case, the man wielding the guns off camera had extensive gun training (usually military) in order to ensure accuracy and safety. According to Howard Hawk's biography by Todd McCarthy, Harold Lloyd's brother Gaylord Lloyd lost an eye to a bullet fragment when visiting the set while live ammunition was being used.

[Macca]

Good film that.

Paul Muni also in 'I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang' which is another classic from around the same time.

[struth]

Good film that.

Paul Muni also in 'I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang' which is another classic from around the same time.

yes its very good too martin..

another prohibition era film but made later and as a comedy..

Some Like It Hot, 1959..




It was directed, produced and co-written by Billy Wilder. It stars Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, with George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Joe E. Brown, Joan Shawlee and Nehemiah Persoff in supporting roles.

Some Like It Hot opened to critical and commercial success and is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. The film received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, winning for Best Costume Design. In 1989, the Library of Congress selected it as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The film was produced without approval from the Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code) because it features LGBT-related themes, including cross-dressing. The code had been gradually weakening in its scope since the early 1950s, due to greater social tolerance for taboo topics in film, but it was enforced until the mid-1960s. The overwhelming success of Some Like It Hot is considered one of the reasons behind the retirement of the Hays Code.

[struth]

A year later Jack Lemmon made this Wilder film a classic again... The Apartment, 1960..