Marky B

Just watched The Password Is Courage and for a while I was convincing myself the town scenes were shot in Britain,unitl I looked in my Halliwell's Film Guide and discovered the film was made by the Americans Andrew and Virginia Stone.
They made the Robert Stack film,The Last Voyage,in which an old ship bound for the scrap yard was bought and used for the sinking scenes. Their taste for authenticity made a Hollywood wag to quip "If they made On The Beach,no one would be alive to watch it".
So on that,I must say the shooting of TPIC was pretty authentic.
Two questions:
Was it based on a true story?
Did I see Colin Blakely as a German guard?
Ta Ta
Marky B

I am special. The heavens always open for me.

DB7

Yes, Charles Coward, and if I recall don't the credits involve Midlands Railways?

DB7

This is from Wikipedia

Steve Crook

See earlier threads for various queries as to how authentic it was.

Steve

Jim

Watched this film the other day - I couldn't stand much more than 30 minutes of it. If it was supposed to be factual, then I wonder that the Germans ever made it as far as France!! It depicted the German guards in the prison camps as buffoons and the civil railway guards as even worse!!

I can usually sit through anything with old Bogarde in it, but this was very suspect!!!

Did anyone else see this film and shoud I have persevered with it?

Good morning boys.

mysteriesofedgarwallace

I didn't watch it this time round, but have done many times before.

Give it a chance, Jim. Its mean't to be funny!

Jim

Oh! OK mysteries, I'll give it another go, but I really thought it was a serious film - ah well! when it said 'a true story' I thought 'serious'.

Good morning boys.

Steve Crook

It should say "very loosely based on what might or might not be a true story"

Steve

Harbottle

This film is usually described as a comedy drama, Reginald Beckwith as a Nazi officer is a bit of a give away [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif[/img] I rather like it and finally captured it to DVD the other day.

Marky B

I think the Nazi officer you are thinking was Richard Marner,ie Coloonel Kurt Von Strohm in Allo Allo and Doring in The Boys From Brazil.
Ta Ta
Marky B

I am special. The heavens always open for me.

Harbottle

Nope I was thinking of Reginald Beckwith in The Password is Courage

Steve Crook

Richard Marner had a good role in the operetta Oh... Rosalinda!! where he was the junior Soviet officer and was seen poring over the atlas painting various countries red. He hovers his brush meaningfully over the US of A...

Steve

Marky B

I sit by my computer corrected on that one. A thousand apologies to dispute your wisdom on that one,Harbottle
Ta Ta
Marky B

I am special. The heavens always open for me.

Marky B

I watched Andrew and Virginia Stone's The Last Voyage yesterday. Forty five years old,it still is a very good film. Although at times,the officers running up to the captain (George Sanders) briefing him on events surrounding the sinking and then running away again,reminded me of another Robert Stack movie Airplane. However,on the whole it was still a suspenseful film as Stack tried to get help to save his wife,Dorothy Malone and the final moments as himself,Edmund O Brien,Woody Strode and Malone finally fled the fated ship was quite gripping. Dare I say it, I actually thought it was better than Titanic.
I looked on the IMDB about the English actor who played Third Officer Osborne and I found out that George Furness and Andrew Hughes (the radio operator) were both sent out to Japan in 1946 to defend some of the Japanese war criminals. They later worked on a lot of Japanese films.
Ta Ta
Marky B

I am special. The heavens always open for me.

Bob M.

The railway scenes were shot at what is now The Gateway Services on the London end of the M1. Formerly called Scratchwood, and before that it was the site of the Midland Railways ash tip. Some old drivers will tell you the engine and train were left in situ and just buried under tons of ash from the steam engines of the day. Before it became the ash tip, it was a dump for household rubbish and had its own shanty town of people who scratched a living by searching through the festering rubbish.
So next time you are on a train going to St. Pancras, or motoring up the M1, have a look at the modern buildings of The Gateway services, and wonder just what is buried undsr them!!

"How about dat, a? How about dat?