New Zealand TV reporter Kate Rodger caught up with Stephen Fry at the launch in London of The Lovely Bones, and received a 30 second update on progress on the Dambusters remake. (If you want to see the video you’ll need the latest version of Adobe Flash player, BTW.) Fry confirmed that the project is still very much going ahead, although the financing etc needs a little ‘finessing’. So, no sign of back burnering, at the moment, it would seem.
[Hat tip Dave Homewood, Historic Aviation Forum.]
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Dambusters remake · Peter Jackson · Stephen Fry
The British Film Institute is a treasure trove of material for anyone interested in the history of cinema, and much of it is now online. Check out, for instance, its page on Michael Anderson’s classic film, and you will find links to stills, other stuff about the cast and crew, and a wonderful, slightly sniffy, contemporary review from the BFI’s own Monthly Film Bulletin, which ends:
The film is over-long (the flying sequences include some repetition) and the music score is, regrettably, very blatant; but despite these drawbacks, a mood of sober respect is maintained.
Little did the reviewer know how popular the ‘blatant’ musical score would become.
My favourite piece of Dam Busters trivia derives from the scene shown above, showing on the left the great Robert Shaw, later to star in no less a movie than Jaws, where he ends up meeting a spectacularly gory end. Here he plays flight engineer Sergeant John Pulford, which means he gets to sit alongside Richard Todd, paying Guy Gibson, for a large section of the film, but has very few words to say. This is thought to be a pretty accurate reflection of the real life relationship between Pulford and Gibson.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Dam Busters 1955 film · John Pulford · Richard Todd · Robert Shaw
This could be bad news, folks. In a throwaway remark in an interview with the well-respected Hollywood Reporter, Peter Jackson and his Wingnut Films colleagues apparently let it be known that the Dambusters remake is now on the back burner, ‘fearing it might be “too English.” The (British) Independent’s LA correspondent, Guy Adams, has picked up on this serious news today and elicited a further comment from a Jackson spokesman:
Peter Jackson’s spokesman just returned my call. The film remains “in development,” but does not have a date to begin shooting. Mr Jackson denies saying that the Dambusters story was “too English” in his Hollywood Reporter interview. Instead he claims to have described it as “very English.”
Too English? Very English? Nearly a third of the aircrew who took part in the Dams raid were not British citizens, and Jackson himself is supposed to be consulting the last of the pilots left alive, his fellow Kiwi Les Munro.
This could be serious – or it could just be a way of pushing things back in the schedule a year or two.
(Hat tip George!)
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Poem by Ann Stevenson in The Guardian, Saturday 7 November, 2009. I can’t find it in the online version, so I am reproducing it in full here.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Remembrance day
I was shocked and saddened by the news of the death of Professor John Ramsden, from cancer at the comparatively young age of 62. (Another obituary here.) Just the evening before I had read a chapter of his excellent book about the relationship between Britain and Germany, Don’t mention the war. This is essential reading for anyone who thinks that many Brits need to develop a more mature relationship between ourselves and our German partners and colleagues. Ramsden lists many ways in which the histories of our two countries are intertwined (many pubs called the King’s Head, for instance, are named after Frederick the Great of Prussia) and provides a counterblast to the puerile nonsense frequently peddled by the redtop press and the likes of Jeremy Clarkson.
But it is as the author of the wonderful book on The Dam Busters in the British Film Guide series that Ramsden should be respected and mourned by anyone interested in the subject of this blog. It’s a short book, but an invaluable guide to the film itself, to the times when it was made and to the reaction to it over the half-century since.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Dam Busters 1955 film · Obituaries
My second skipper S/Ldr. Johnny Meagher became an instructor pilot attached to 106 squadron Metheringham for his 6 months rest period after his first tour with 61 squadron. AJ-G was parked there as tour expired in its dambuster configuration. Johnny used it regularly for pilot training, familiarisation flights & as a general hack for shuttling the CO & others around & picking up off base crews etc.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Avro Lancaster · Operation Chastise · Operation Guzzle · Uncategorized
The only surviving Dams Raid pilot Les Munro has reportedly come out of retirement to visit the studio in Wellington NZ where the Dambusters remake will be made and is chuffed that it is being produced by a New Zealander.
Long piece about Les, with some interesting background on his distinguished RAF career. And a laughing no comment when asked whether Tom Cruise might be the right person to play Gibson. Quite right too!
(Hat tip Type 683 at Lancaster Archive.)
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Dambusters remake · Les Munro · Peter Jackson · Uncategorized
This blog’s official football team is of course The Mighty Imps, whose fans have now taken the sensible decision to keep The Dam Busters March as their theme tune, played when the teams run out onto the pitch.
Lincoln City has also given a first managerial position to none other than one half of the famous SAS partnership, feared and respected in Blackburn Rovers long-ago reign as Premiership champions. And, what do you know, the team won its first match under his leadership. Mid-table mediocrity beckons?
One fan reckoned that the Imps could benefit from being more like the chaps from 617 Squadron, telling the Echo:
Lincoln City Football team could learn from the Dambuster’s experience of how the aircrew came together and did what they were instructed to do.
W/C Guy Gibson was their key man and leader.
Why cannot the manager of Lincoln City’s football club show what football is all about as with what Guy Gibson did with 617 Squadron?
The football team needs to bond together, know their positions, play football for what they are paid for, and start scoring goals which is their mission.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Mighty Imps · Uncategorized
Great account and brilliant photos by Damien Burke of a trip to all three dams involved in Operation Chastise, as well as the Rheinberg and Reichwald War Cemeteries.
These war cemeteries are an incredible sight, with long rows of identical headstones, each one beautifully carved with a name, a rank and a number – a testament to the individual buried below. As Damien says they really bring home the real sacrifices which are often forgotten when the huge numbers of people killed are mentioned.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Dams Raid crews · Memorials
Pic: Grantham Journal
I might be wrong, but I think this is the only original part of a Dambuster Lancaster on public display anywhere in the world. Eleven Lancasters got back from the original Operation Chastise but those that survived the rest of the war were all scrapped in the late 1940s. This bit of rusty twisted metal is the gunner’s mount and hatch from the rear of Lancaster ED825, which was flown by Joe McCarthy on the Dams Raid. Almost seven months later it was being piloted by Flt Lt George Weeden on an operation to send ammunition and supplies to the French resistance when it was shot down near Doulens in France.
The story of its excavation, by a team which included Dams Raid expert Alex Bateman, was told in the Channel Five documentary, misleadingly titled The Last of the Dambusters, shown on British screens last year. Sqn Ldr George (Johnny) Johnson, bomb-aimer in McCarthy’s crew, accompanied the team on their journey.
The hatch will join the other Dambuster exhibits – many of them from the collection of 617 Squadron adjutant Harry Humphries – on display at the Grantham Museum. Well worth a visit!
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Avro Lancaster · Grantham Museum · Modern documentaries
