Something really special this week. Rob very kindly sent me photos of his newly-finished project, based on the Stanley Kramer movie released in 1957, and I'm really very excited about it, as I hope and expect that you also will be.
A lot of impressive conversion work in here - a small spoiler: Sophia Loren is carved from a Lamming WW2 figure! All will be revealed. Here is Rob's explanatory text about how he went about it.
So here’s the result of the photo-shoot, together with pictures showing the original Newline figures used for Cary & Frank and the Lamming next to Sophia, albeit I did a bit more work on her after that photo. Work on Cary was minimal, just extending his hat and thinning down his limbs, and Frank just had his limbs slimmed down and repositioned plus a fuse wire rope and solder jacket over his shoulder. Sophia was a bit of an epic. Her legs were slimmed down and her arms removed and thinned and then reinserted in the drilled out short sleeves (the original arms are too long and the hands too big); the dress and hair were built up with solder. As you will see from the final picture even the OOT Warhammer Great Cannon is decidedly under-sized for ‘The Gun’.
Terrific stuff Rob - thanks very much for sharing your photos. Inspirational!
Excellent modelling by Rob. I remember watching that as a kid one Saturday evening. I'm sure that had a lot to do with why the Peninsular War later fascinated me.
ReplyDeleteEntertaining film, but it's best to have about half a bottle of wine beforehand. Sinatra playing the part of a Mexican bandit is not great. The gun is superb throughout - it makes a real mess of the tops of the walls at Avila - Vauban would have had apoplexy.
DeleteI know what you mean; why Frank Sinatra chose to play him as Mexican is mystery to us all! ;o)
DeleteCredit to Rob clever stuff - now we just need him to do Rod Steiger as Napoleon!
ReplyDeleteRob has extended the limits of glory.
DeleteAbsolutely brilliant! I don't think it's possible to convert and paint toy soldiers better than this. I do have one small criticism, though. Frank, Cary and Sophia are clearly far too short. They should all be about 100ft tall according to the film poster.
ReplyDeleteAgree with your assessment - marvellous stuff. I think Frank was quite tall if he stood on his wallet, don't know about the others. Since you are a Lamming fan, I wondered if you were as traumatised by Bill Lamming's sculpt of a female as I was?
DeleteSome fab conversion work.
ReplyDeleteFab. Absolutely.
DeleteGreat conversions. A good book and an entertaining film.
ReplyDeleteHi Martin - if they really started shooting in April '56 for an intended December '56 release date, they didn't have much contingency margin if any of those downhill runaways went wrong. I guess they lost a few extras in the bushes along the way. The book is a classic, but has so little to do with the movie that I almost don't associate them!
DeleteSplendid stuff indeed from Rob…
ReplyDeleteAnd of course lovely shiny paint work…
All the best. Aly
Certainly is - "on the whole I prefer fantasy, because the varnish is shinier" [Kafka]
DeleteLovely figure work! That's one of my favourite "most dreadful films of all time" films. Featuring lots of howlers, of course, inlcuding - Cuirassiers in the North (found only in Eastern Spain with Suchet, in fact) and with lances too! Stil, given the dearth of films about the Peninsular War, as a boy I was glad to see it... :-)
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, lots of the French troops wear sort-of-grenadier hats, with very obvious gold cardboard fronts, straight out of a Xmas cracker. Actually, now I think about it, it's only a made-up story; it's just Pretend-Be. I suppose they can wear anything they want. [I am lying through my teeth...]
DeleteYes, there is indeed a lot of tat in the film. ;-) And it is true it is a made up story, although Hollywoodised way beyond the C S Forester original. But we nerds do demand some authenticity (i.e. as much as possible) even in our made up stories, don't we? (And talking of made up stuff, let's not even mention the new Ridley Scott Napoleon... 8-[)
DeleteIt is based on a real incident, but only loosely, and of course by the time Hollywood mangled the story it's almost unrecognisable. In reality it was only a twelve-pounder, CS Forester pimped it up to an eighteen-pounder, Hollywood seemed to have gone for twelve hundred pounder!
DeleteEven in its Hollywood version, the story is no sillier than the average instalment of Sharpe. As far as the new Ridley Scott Napoleon movie, I think I have decided not to watch it; I can forgive Scott for many things, because of my undying devotion to his "The Duellists", but I was rather shocked by his "Gettysburg" effort, so I'll call it quits at that!
DeleteI'd always understood the film/story was entirely fictional. Can you give me a reference to the source for an original tale, please, Rob? I've searched and come up with nothing.
ReplyDeleteThe Duellists is indeed a wonderful film, isn't it? As an evocation of the Napoleonic Period it is probably unique. It seems to me that it has been downhill ever since for Ridley Scott, especially when creating "historical" films... ;-)
Love that film, man. I have watched it many, many times now - though far less than I have watched the Bondarchuk "Waterloo". I can boast, however, that I only saw "The Sound of Music" once (it was Xmas, and I was drunk), and I have never seen "Les Miserables" at all. Forgive me, Father, for I am an oddball.
DeleteDavid, as far as I know CS Forester never said what his inspiration was but the similarities between his book (not the film) and Romana in 1809 are too close to be coincidence. If you have Oman's Peninsular War, then it's in Volume II, Chapter 1, Section XV, page 587+ in the electronic copy I have. Romana cuts the French lines of communication with a few troops and but one gun "a 12-pounder which he had abandoned in January when retreating ... and which he now picked up intact, with it's store of ammunition, at a mountain hermitage, where it had been safely hidden for two months." There's more, and just like in the book, French garrisons intended to cope with guerrillas prove vulnerable to even a single gun. Let me know if you can access it and what you think.
DeleteThanks, Rob. Found it in my print copy of Vol.2 of Oman. Yes, that does look exactly right as the source of the tale. Well spotted! "The Gun" came out in 1933, long after Oman Vol.2 was published; I imagine Forester probably had access to a copy.
DeleteIt was the Princesa Regiment that tipped me off, far too much of coincidence being in the real history and the book.
DeleteRob - jolly well spotted all the same! :-) And your comment has me reading more of Vol.2 of Oman, so that is a good thing too... ;-)
Delete"Love that film, man. I have watched it many, many times now - though far less than I have watched the Bondarchuk "Waterloo". I can boast, however, that I only saw "The Sound of Music" once (it was Xmas, and I was drunk), and I have never seen "Les Miserables" at all. Forgive me, Father, for I am an oddball."
DeleteWell, I think we are all oddballs by definition with our various odd wargame-related blogs... I have never seen Les Mis either and am happier for that. My family did drag me to see Sound of Music when I was a child in the 1960s, unfortunately...
"The Duellists" is that most unusual thing, a near perfect gem of a film! I'm glad the film "Waterloo" exists but it is a bit of a mess of a film, isn't it, to be honest, which doesn't really hang together? All the missing bits and lost continuity - e.g. the Scots Greys (where's the rest of the Union Brigade?) charging hell for leather into nothingness - where is D'Errlon's Corps? I still feel some sympathy with that hyper-critical teenager I was who first saw the film aged 15 in 1970 - spotting the highlander lying dead in the square with a modern wrist watch on, the French infantry with modern bolt action rifles, etc., etc.. That's nit-picking, yes, but the details matter, don't they? (I feel much the same about Battle of Britain - glad it exists and it is good in parts but somehow it doesn't add up to a great film and it lacks soul...)
There's something remarkable about the cinematography[?] in "The Duellists" - every single scene is like a watercolour painting - something you might hang on your wall. The final scene, in which the Keitel character is left staring over the beautiful valley, his entire life purpose cancelled, is astounding - one can almost feel the tears welling up, though he has been the arch-baddie throughout. Maybe it was the lighting; maybe that's a Scott trademark; maybe we forget to notice the lighting if the script is daft?
DeleteIf you haven't read it, Simon Lewis's "Waterloo - Making an Epic" (the story of filming the Bondarchuk movie) is very interesting, giving terrific insight into the movie, lots of luvvy stories about the cast and, by implication, even a little light on the battle itself.
The film 'Waterloo' was the first time I spotted that classic scene manipulation when the Prussian hussars are charging across the screen - they all seem to be left-handed and wearing the pelisse on the right shoulder! Clearly this was filmed with them going from right to left, but that didn't match the flow as seen from the Allied perspective in the preceding scenes so was reversed.
DeleteI haven't seen 'Napoleon' but pretty sure in one of the trailers that Ridley has done the same, I think it might also be at Waterloo - a homage to De Laurentis?
In full agreement over how brilliant 'The Duellists' is; I assume you know that is also based on a true story?
Finally, pure fiction and like 'The Duellists' hardly any fighting, but have you seen 'Return of the Hero'? You need the French version with subtitles unless you can stomach dubbing (I like subtitled foreign films), a fun romp set in Napoleonic times.
Simon Lewis's book gives details of lost scenes for the Bondarchik film which were either abandoned or else removed at edit. One such was the Battle of Ligny, which was suppressed, but some scenes were shot for it, including the Prussian cavalry galloping the wrong way for Waterloo (apparently) and thus photographically flipped. Waste not, want not.
DeleteYes - I read somewhere that Joseph Conrad's short story is based on an actual feud between General Dupont (of Bailen fame) and that rascal Fournier-Salovèze (not one of the more loveable of the characters in the Peninsula?). I had a go at trying to work out how this might have fitted against the narrative, considering where the individuals were at various times, and their relative seniorities - too complicated - I got a headache and gave up.
I shall investigate "Return of the Hero" - thanks for this.
One of my favourite characters from "The Duellists" is the world-weary Genl Trelliard (choose your own spelling), played by Robert Stephens, who was a real chap and has featured in my miniature armies ever since I saw the movie.
That's the guys, what I was surprised to find out was that the bizarre final duel where they enter a ruin from opposite side with two pistols was actually what happened, including the outcome.
DeleteWow - that's very pleasing. I hadn't realised that. Where I got into problems with trying to piece the historical story together a few years ago (I can hardly believe that I tried!) was the fact that Dupont was senior to the other guy for most of their careers, which officially would be a stopper for their duelling. Also Dupont was officially a non-person for some years after Baylen as far as Buonaparte was concerned, so his active service record was disrupted. I'm happy to accept that the feud was a historical fact, but it's possible that the timeline was a bit different from what I was assuming. Whatever, I'd be disappointed if it wasn't true, and am more than happy to get corroborative threads from elsewhere! Good work, Rob!
DeleteI have found an excellent article in The Conradian Vol.41 No.2 (Autumn 2016) pp.28-46 by Gene M. Moore called "History and Legend in "The Duel"" (link here if you have access to JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44861586, which does show the first page of the article even without JSTOR access). Essentially the whole story is a legend; the earliest reference is an anecdote of 1853 and there are absolutely no contemporary accounts. The historical General Dupont was incarcerated by Napoleon from 1808-1814 and Fournier was a rabid Republican mostly out of favour with Napoleon, whose life he actually threatened at one point! It seems that there is no good evidence of their lives colliding, especially in duels, at any point. I highly recommend reading the article if at all possible. Most of Conrad's tale is fictional embellishment of the 1853 short account. Scott's film also deviates quite substantially from the Conrad story, so it is a fiction based on a fiction based on an unreferenced late anecdote! It's still a great story and an excellent film, of course... ;-)
DeleteThanks for the Simon Lewis book reference; I'll chase that up.
Delete'Napoleon' would have been much improved if the battle scenes had been in the lucid style of the aerial shot in this blog for, say, 11th March - the units have enough soldiers to look indeterminately large, troop types may be discerned and the grid enables the viewer to parse tactical possibilities.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the sentiment, but I fear that one glimpse of the Infernal Hexagons would have any respectable audience running screaming from the cinema. Battle scenes have always been tricky.
DeleteBasically, any hint of realism and the punters can't take it in, or the director gets hung up on some particular unpleasantness which he has a thing about, or else he takes a cop-out, and sets some more or less understandable situation involving the personal issues of a subset of the cast against the vague context of a historic event. Any number of examples - Sharpe at Talavera is a beginner's introduction; the History Channel for Morons approach of Ridley Scott's "Gettysburg" [voiceover announces something along the lines of "since he is now stranded on his own, and everyone is shooting at him, Sergeant McBride is in terrible danger"]; focus on the personal tragedy of the widow of one of the 20,000 participants who are being killed; follow the adventures of a small number of friends who are lost somewhere in the unspeakable shambles [we can identify with that]...
...and, of course, never miss the chance to have the enemy army falling into the frozen lake.
But no hexes, please - there are limits. I believe that I can only regard my own toy battles as entertainment because they are abstracted into something picturesque and totally unrealistic - I guess we are all at it.