Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 25, 2006 20:35:04 GMT 12
I rented a DVD of a 1955 war film called 'Battle Cry' and watched it today. This film was surprising for a number of reasons.
It was a little slow, and was more about the relationships the men in this US Marine Corp unit had with women than anything else, though you do see them go into a few battles, but otherwise it's all training and romance.
One nice surprise was it was in colour and for those days the colour was really very good. Also they were not afraid to cut in real footage of combat and battle scenes in full colour, which was rarely done then.
There were some really good re-enactments done of Pacific Islands landings too, one with at least 10 Buffalo amphibius vehicles, etc. And lots of Shermans in the tank battles (including on the Jap side ) Sadly no aircraft though.
But the best part of this interesting and quite watchable film is most of it is set in New Zealand!
After training in the USA, they are shipped to Wellington , to a US camp clled McKay, north of the city. There are scenes of the men visiting Wellignton, Masterton and Foxton. There are also scenes of them in the USA and the Islands.
Now, what i want to know is, did they actually film any scenes in NZ? Or was it the USA doubling for NZ? All the landscapes supposed to be NZ looked fairly close to familiar NZ landscape, and nothing like California, etc. In a scene where one Marine visits a farm in Masterton, the trees were clearly gum tree types, euchalytus of some sort, which to me means either they filmed it here or in Australia. But then I don't know, maybe they just had a very good location manager and it is actually the USA?
The actors playing Kiwis were not Kiwi as far as I could make out. All the men sounded British (which is fine for those days as Kiwis did then to a certain extent) but the ladies all had American twangs... I guess the film makers couldn't find decent Kiwi actresses?
All in all worth a watch. I'd recommend it. Oh yes, I think it was loosely (or maybe closely?) based on a true story. It was written by Leon Uris, who became a famous novelist.
It was a little slow, and was more about the relationships the men in this US Marine Corp unit had with women than anything else, though you do see them go into a few battles, but otherwise it's all training and romance.
One nice surprise was it was in colour and for those days the colour was really very good. Also they were not afraid to cut in real footage of combat and battle scenes in full colour, which was rarely done then.
There were some really good re-enactments done of Pacific Islands landings too, one with at least 10 Buffalo amphibius vehicles, etc. And lots of Shermans in the tank battles (including on the Jap side ) Sadly no aircraft though.
But the best part of this interesting and quite watchable film is most of it is set in New Zealand!
After training in the USA, they are shipped to Wellington , to a US camp clled McKay, north of the city. There are scenes of the men visiting Wellignton, Masterton and Foxton. There are also scenes of them in the USA and the Islands.
Now, what i want to know is, did they actually film any scenes in NZ? Or was it the USA doubling for NZ? All the landscapes supposed to be NZ looked fairly close to familiar NZ landscape, and nothing like California, etc. In a scene where one Marine visits a farm in Masterton, the trees were clearly gum tree types, euchalytus of some sort, which to me means either they filmed it here or in Australia. But then I don't know, maybe they just had a very good location manager and it is actually the USA?
The actors playing Kiwis were not Kiwi as far as I could make out. All the men sounded British (which is fine for those days as Kiwis did then to a certain extent) but the ladies all had American twangs... I guess the film makers couldn't find decent Kiwi actresses?
All in all worth a watch. I'd recommend it. Oh yes, I think it was loosely (or maybe closely?) based on a true story. It was written by Leon Uris, who became a famous novelist.