Jack Gurney

Last night I watched the wonderfully tacky Edgar Wallace-derived krimi classic DAS PHANTOM VON SOHO. Although set and filmed in London, the film is still very much a German product in every way, not least of all in its slightly bizarre and offkilter approximations of British accents, customs and attitudes- and it struck me that this isn't the first film I've seen of this kind. There have been numerous productions from other countries shot in the UK, or in some cases shot in their own country masquerading as Blighty, all with a slightly askew view of our merrie lande and people- a classic example being Michele Lupo's delightfully camp giallo THE WEEKEND MURDERS (1975) which even goes so far as to star Lance Percival and Ballard Berkeley, but can't disguise for longer than five minutes the very Italianate nature of its origins.

What other amusing films of this nature have you lot seen out there, and what are your thoughts about them? How do we perceive the perecptions of ourselves engendered by other nations? And where do you think these quaint ideas about the UK (and in particular good old "Landan Taaahn") originate form? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

ChristineCB

Good topic. Like the accents, it's interesting to see what perceptions of the English are put onto film. I've always laughed at the flighty English model types. I have no idea where they got that idea. du-uh...

I was watching STORMY MONDAY (Sting, Tommy Lee Jones, Melanie Griffith) and was wondering about the conception of that story and how it was actually assembled on-screen. The fact that this story doesn't hold my interest very long has nothing to do with it. Or maybe everything.

JamesM

Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti (1974)
aka Living dead at the Manchester Morgue


filmed in Manchester and other parts of the UK

Alba Pagana (1970)
aka May Morning in Oxford

filmed in Oxford

Appuntamento a Liverpool (1988)

filmed in Italy ... and Liverpool

Cari genitori (1973) aka Dear parents

filmed in London

It's quite easy to use the IMDb to find other examples.

JamesM

I can think of an earlier example, the first Bollywood sound film to ba made in the UK, Karma (1933).

The score was composed by Roy Douglas who, at 99, I believe is the oldest surviving crew person to have credited work in the British film industry.

christoph404

I remember Harvey Keitel and the actress who played the evil matron in One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest(sorry can't think of her name right now) coming to the bonnie city of Glasgow in Scotland to make a movie in the early eighties, Im pretty sure it was a foreign film with foreign director, not sure who directed and I can't recall the name of the film, I think it was a psychological thriller of some kind.

christoph404

Ok, just researched that a bit more, the Harvey Keitel film was called Deathwatch, it also starred Romy Scneider, Max Von Sydow and a young Robbie Coltrane in his first film role!! The film was directed by Bernard Tavernier and he chose to shoot entirley in Glasgow as it was " the ideal location to evoke a dystopian futurescape"..... im sure the people of Glasgow feel none too chuffed at that! the film received a critical and commercial mauling.

kelp

One of my favourite films, and one I saw in London in 1963 was, I always believed, an AMERICAN Production....how wrong could I have been! The film is called "INCIDENT AT OWL CREEK", and anyone who ever saw it will I think, always remember it. It was only a twenty minute film, but was very cleverly made in FRANCE. It told the story of a Confederate Soldier who was about to hang. It is a MUST SEE film.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR...YOU MAY GET IT!

DB7

I've not watched that for a few year but recall some vivid country scenery (think only the opening scenes are in Manchester) and it must be one of the few British zombie films along with Hammer's contribution and 28 Days Later.

Apparently the Critereon dvd is very good and I keep meaning to buy it.

penfold

Ah, the English cottage with roses around the doors and white picket fences, the London buses being overtaken by the sedans with white-walled tyres....golden age Hollywood really knew how to make a Brit feel right at home...in the midatlantic. Mrs Miniver is the classic example, but there are dozens more. How Green was My (Southern Californian) Valley another. So nearly right, but yet, so very wrong. Bless them.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

DB7

Ooh that's just jogged my memory; a Cadillac pulls in at a gas station...

Only it's our very own Mr Moxey at Shepperton directing City of the Dead.

sabrinafilmextra

And the numerous Bollywood films!
I worked on an American french production that was shot here in the UK too.

It is a great atmoshpere working with the twin production teams. Although the Bollywood teams work almost all the hours that god sends! I got my job with a company called Select Casting Ltd based in London

ChristineCB

And lived to regret it? ha ha "All hours that God sends". Excellent. Welcome aboard.

aphra

I treasure the memory of little Roddy McDowell staggering through the paper daffodils towards Walter Pigeon standing under all those olive trees.