Dave HomewoodI spoke this afternoon with Gordon Easter again, by phone, and I broached the subject of his bale out once more. He assured me that everyone got out ok, no-one was seriously hurt but one chap landed on a roof and slid down it doing a little damage to himself.
So this cannot be related to the crash in which crewmen died. When I get a chance I’ll go see him again and have a look in his log book. I wonder why the records have seemingly missed his crash though.
He actually said he held the aircraft as long as he could to get “the gang out”, as he referred to his crew, and he spoke of the sensation of falling out of the plane into the black of night. He said he was lucky he had his hand on the ripcord, because the chute pack smacked him in the face due to the rush of air, and then something that he thinks were his knees also hit him hard in the face, and he thinks he must have blacked out. He said he came to just as he touched down, landing on the only rock in a large ploughed field. He said he telegrammed his mother and wife stating “Gordon has been wounded in action, he has a bruised bum!”
Dave HomewoodWas this taken on the set of a new Tintin movie?
Is that a lion cub, or a Piper Cub?
Dave HomewoodI might have dreamt this, but wasn’t there a similar incident involving Al Deere or Bob Stanford-Tuck at Dunkirk?
They gave cover in Spits to a Magister that picked up a downed man I believe
Dave HomewoodSteve you have to remember that film was made on a very tight budget. The UPP people may make a much better job if they have more money and time. As Daz says, technology has progressed in leaps and bounds too.
According to one of the links I put up, work has been prograssing on this since 2003 so who knows if that’s a good sign (ie intense work to get it right) or bad sign (ie money keeps running out).
Mark, I would be surprised if this was connected with Peter Jackson. Talk has been around since he made Heavenly Creatures about his WWI epic, he’s mentioned it himself often too I believe. But there has never been an official announcement of the film. They have announced his WWII Rusaaian film and we haven’t seen anything from that yet either, plus he has another film in the wings after King Kong. He also annouced on April 1st that he’s planning a sequel or two to King Kong – I don’t know whether to believe this given the date. Talk is the WWI film will be about the Anzacs, so I look forward to it very much, if it ever happens.
And, why would Peter want the cgi work done elsewhere when he owns the best cgi workshop in the world?
Dave HomewoodHe threw out, I think, his parachute (or life jacket, I’m not sure)
Daz, yes, that was his parachute and harness he threw out.
Dave HomewoodThere only seems to be four types of aviation film or TV programme –
1) War is the backdrop to a romance, usually a love triangle (blerh!!) and the war facts are usually twisted beyond recognition (ie Pearl Harbor)
2) War is the backdrop to two commanders arguing about how they should run the joint (Command Decision, 12 O’Clock High and The Flying Leathernecks all have elements of this)
3) Factual documentary style (Tora, Tora, Tora, though this did also have the top brass arguments)
4) Total gung ho bull that just makes a mockery of history (ie Black Sheep Squadron)
Very few have broken out of these moulds and concentrated on purely the men themselves, or the crew as a unit. I guess Memphis Belle came close, though it still included friction between the pilots,is a bit all American gung ho, and has an icky romantic bit.
But surely someone can find a new way forward? Or, does that mean telling a TRUE story?? God forbid.
I’d like to see a film that follows a crew of an RAF bomber making a night raid on Europe, that follows their day and night. The briefing, the flight checks, the build up and tension, the raid, and getting shot down, then following them through an escape across Europe. I would want it to be gritty, real and scary. And I would want it to tell the truth, a real story or at least a combination of a couple of real stories. The crew would be very close friends, all looking out for one another – no tension at the top, no romantic subplot, no gung ho bull that makes no sense. Just the truth. Then, I guess it would fit into the documentary genere mentioend above, but at least it’s be damned good.
Dave HomewoodWhoa!! That photo – what’s the story there Mark? Is it real?
Not quite the same thing, but an old man I chatted with in the local Returned Serviceman’s Association one ANZAC Day told me he’d been a mechanic on a Vincent/Vildebeest squadron during, or before the war. He said they’d often go on flights with the aircraft to satellite airfields for excercises, etc. He said they’d take all the tools in the cabin, and as many people as would fit, but often there wouldn’t be room for everyone so some mechanics would sit on the wings and hold on for grim life to the struts. He said it was a really auxillarating way to fly. Sadly I have never tracked him down again since I began my Air Force research project, and I suspect he’s no longer with us. A pity as I’d love to talk with him about the Vincent/Vilde days again.
Dave HomewoodThis company lists the film among its credits
http://www.kftv.com/company-15616.html
And this link (the html version of a pdf file) indicates that UPP have been working on it since 2003
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:90y6VS8jZWgJ:www.dmp.cz/content/pages/solutions/files/DMP_2004.pdf+%22The+American+Knight%22+film&hl=en
This one here tells more about the film
http://www.wcnews.com/news/showupdate.php?id=5293
It;s another ruddy romance!!!
Dave HomewoodWasn’t there a subplot in one show about Wilson either not wanting or not being allowed to wear his medals? Maybe at a Remembrance parade or something? – Nermal
Yes, in the hour long special, the Battle of the Giants, Wilson discovered an order that Mainwaring was hiding that said on an upcoming church parade everyone had to wear their medals. Mainwaring was hiding it because he didn’t have any. When they turn up for the practice with medals on, Pike is wearing his boy scout badges, and Walker has a large garish medal given to him by a shiek when he worked in a hotel, for providing him with some ladies!!
Dave HomewoodI’ve never heard of “Rear Guard”.
When was it shown on US TV and by who?
We have “Dad’s Army” on DVD and it is/was very good.
Hi John,
It first screened on ABC-TV in the USA in August 1976. There was only one episode made though the producers had plans drawn up for many more, but thankfully ABC pulled the plug.
It apparently may have screened one or two more times subsequently, and then the ABC wiped the master tapes, and for some time it was considered lost. Jimmy Perry told me one day he wished he had a copy but it no longer existed. I wanted to find out more about it and began a search for information. After a while I discovered some of the cast, one of whom was Cliff Norton. I wrote to him, and he amazingly sourced a copy for me from the director who’d kept a copy of all his work in a private archive.
This was huge news in Dad’s Army fan circles. I was able to make copies fro Jimmy and David and the Dad’s Army Appreciation Society, etc, and it later appeared in clips in a BBC documentary when two lost Dad’s Army episodes were rediscovered. As comedies go, it’s ok, but it is nothing like the original. Also in the cast were some notable character acters, Lou Jacobi, Eddie Foy Jr, Conrad Janis and several more.
I’m glad to hear you have some episodes of Dad’s Army on DVD. It started to take off in the USA in the late 1990’s with DVD and BBC America, before that it had only been seen on some small local networks and was never well known.
Dave HomewoodYup, it is indeed a 1/48th scale model by Mick Evans
http://www.hsgalleries.com/gallery04/spitfireixjjcme_1.htm
Looks pretrty good, doesn’t it?
But I think the place is real – does it look familiar? Looks British to me
Dave HomewoodThe other key factor with Dads Army was the class battle between Sgt. Wilson and Capt. Mainwaring. Wilson was “officer” class but, as Mainwarings subordinate in the bank, was forced to be his subordinate in the Home Guard. I also recall from somewhere that Wilson was an Officer in WW1 which also got up Mainwarings nose.
This friction is (in my view) a uniquly British fact of life – impossible to translate in it’s original form to another society. MASH managed it well in the American context with the Major Winchester character – but it was more of a society person trying to maintain and impose standards on others unwilling to comply in an impossible situation, rather than a pompous middle class bank manager trying to be something that his breeding wouldn’t allow, and failing. Even that doesn’t sound funny, but add Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesiurer to that and it clicked.
In my opinion anyway 🙂
JC
Yes, you have it in one, John. Exactly, the class struggle is the key, as with the other Croft and Perry Class was to the fore a lot in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum and Hi De Hi, but most especially in their underrated jewel, You Rang M’Lord, as well. This was born from Jimmy Perry’s own childhood where he never knew why he as a rich person should treat poorer people differently and badly, as was expected. He loves to point out the foibles of the class system, and makes it hilarious in doing so. If you’ve not read his autobiography, I highly recommend it – called “A Stupid Boy”, naturally.
The class struggle between Mainwearing and Wilson was genius, as in the original draft of the first script Mainwaring was to be the Sgt and Wilson the Captain. Then Jimmy remembered there had been a common as muck officer who really peed him off on the troopship when he ame home from the war in India as a Sgt, and he thought, imagine the sparks and friction between a common officer and a posh Sgt. Brilliant.
It was not revealed till the last episode of Dad’s Army that Wilson had been an officer, a sort of icing on the cake really. In episode 1, Mainwaring had asked about his WWI service and he said he’d been a Sgt in the RAC, at Gallipoli, Mons, Passhendale (sp?),, and Mainwaring had cut him short on the rest, because he’d only been in the Orkneys himself, and didn’t get to France till 1919. “Well. someone had to clean up the mess.”
Dave HomewoodOK Daz, guess which Spitfire this is, and the place
Dave HomewoodYes, I believe he did escape twice, from memory, but it’s been a while since I read the excellent book. Must get it from the library again one day. He’s a great man, still works for the RNZAF in their museum ven now apparently, well into his 90’s.
Dave HomewoodThanks Warsnoopy and John C, you have grasped my sentiments exactly.
Steve Martin as Father Ted might have been good (he is brilliant in some things, mediocre in others) but it would still not quite be te same. The chemistry between Ted and Dougal, that is TV magic that doesn’t happen often.
The remakes often fail because rather than actors being cast as characters in which the parts were specifically written for them, these new actors are selected to try and fit into an already-cast mould. They are trying to fill shoes that do not fit.
Sometimes they do take a different tact, and rather than creating exact facsimiles they cast different types in the roles, and this too ends in disaster as the show loses its essence. They did this with Dad’s Army where they cast the rotund man as the Sgt and made him the leading character, giving him many of Mainwarings lines from the original. The Captain is secondary in the US version. They dropped Frazer all together, combined Jones and Godfrey into one character, and made Walker the Spiv into a Hollywood actor. The only cast resembling the originals are Henderson, based on Pike, and the Vicar and Verger characters of the original became a similar priest and caretaker. The U-boat Captain was also pretty original but rather a cut down part. They also created a character of a pretty girl!! Typical.
The script was hacked down, to allow the US actors to talk slower and pause for the laugh machine, and it lost all the magic of the original ensemble. I don’t think I have often seen on-screen rapport between characters like in Dad’s Army, it is rare between two people but in an ensemble it almost unheard of – but a few that worked as well would be all the other Croft and Perry/Croft and Lloyd shows, and Mash. Everything works about the original Dad’s Army show. The wiriting, the casting, the acting, the humour. And the magic in the playing between Arthur Lowe and John le Mesurier was priceless.
When they did the US version, the Dad’s Army creators Jimmy Perry and David Croft were on set to watch “their” show being remade. But when they tried to make suggestions, they – two of the greatest writers ever, who have been compared by scholars with Dickens and Shakespeare – were ignored and virtually run off the set. Jimmy told me they arrived in limousines and were sent to the airport in a yellow taxi!! So, if they didn’t take advice from the masters, they deserved to fail. Other cast told me that the US makers arrived to watch a recording of one of the British shows in London, and they simply couldn’t grasp what the show was actually about. As America had not been in the same situation during the war, they had no concept of the show they’d bought.
In the credits, it reads unjustly “Written by Arthur Julian”. Hmm, he was some two-bit Hollywood hack who changed the character’s names, trimmed out half the original lines, and made up a few new ones – none funny – of his own. Jimmy and David did get a “Based on” credit at least. It was the only spinoff of Dad’s Army that failed.
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