At 05:58 AM 10/14/00 -0700, Enterprise B&B/Cayman Islands, BWI wrote:
>The "Damnation Alley" tri-wheeler (I think that is it) has been at a lot
>right off the Hollywood Freeway since the movie and I have seen it maybe 3
>times a week since then. Only 2 days ago did I notice it was being moved.
>Would have been a hoot to drive on the street on a DMV one-trip permit.
Hm. That's interesting. A number of people have told me about it over
the years, and many have looked into it. Hopefully it's going somewhere
other than a boneyard.
>Another thing I know from having a slight "in" with the movie/TV industry
>is they will not only have fully running vehicles, but shells which have to
>be towed into place for static scenes and sometimes plywood and fiberglass
>"vehicles" for distance shots. Often even the interior of "casual" MVs are
>either missing or totally trashed. Only that which is seen in the film is
>considered worth doing anything with.
Yeah. We have a favourite M35 that's been 'blown up' twice now. Basically,
it's a total rustbucket without a single panel worth saving for so much as
an O.D. paperweight, but when it's on camera it looks physically complete
(each time we have to reconstruct it), but with no instrument cluster,
worthless tires, rotted soft-top, minimal drive-train (still has to be towable
on set) and doors sans glass typically held in place with bungee cords until
the explosive event itself, whereupon they typically wind up in the
next province.
We just did a pretty convincing-looking M38A1 for the series "Seven Days",
and tricked it up to look like our M38A1CDN2 which we *didn't* want
to get back in several pieces. The resulting vehicle looked better than
most I've seen on the road (despite the plywood dash with junked
M135 instrument panel doubling for the original!), and it came back
looking like a ball of cigarette foil sprayed
a sort of burnt 24087. In spots.
When I was a kid watching all of those old cheesy WWII movies, I'd always
wondered where they obtained all the nifty vehicles, and thought it was
such a shame they blew them up so casually. As a collector involved in
this stuff, there's no way anything worth preserving will wind up
so ill-treated on my watch - and even this M38A1CDN1 was so
completely stripped and rotted out that no tears were shed upon
its demise. In fact, supplying this P.O.S. for demolition likely
saved a runner from a Viking Funeral.
When they have to make a vehicle not easily or cost-effectively
obtainable, they will generally find something close, and have
the construction folks work their plywood and grey paint
magic, thereby creating something either close from a
"20/20" perspective, or so bizarre as to fool 99% of the
beer-and-Cheetos crowd as to its WWII lineage.
For "Harsh Realm", we supplied a bunch of stuff for an
episode called "Kein Ausgang" (FOX FX for you folks
in the states - Space channel for those of us North of
49), but couldn't come up with anything resembling a
German Halftrack in time. They responded by taking
an M16 halftrack cab-and-chassis rented out by one
of our local collectors, and basically constructed an
ersatz plywood body, painted it a sort of
Wehrmacht Feldgrau, and decorated it with what I'll
kindly call "Hollywood markings". Didn't look
too bad - provided the beer and Cheetos were close
at hand, of course.
Word-of-warning to those tempted to rent their vehicles
to the Motion Picture Industry. Make sure, absolutely
sure, that you're present on set when the vehicle is
used. The vast majority of transport coordinators and
wranglers won't let anything happen to your prized vehicle,
but better safe than sorry. The average Teamster pool driver
won't be very adept at pushing all the right buttons or
pulling the right levers in your M113, Saracen or what-have-you,
and it is sometimes quite difficult to make film transport
folks understand that collectors and mil-veh drivers in
general aren't just drivers - but are "in tune" with their
vehicles and understand all their little quirks and
bad habits. And, whenever the point needs underscoring,
I give 'em a baptism of fire....
I send them something British!
Andy Hill
MVPA #9211
Vancouver, B.C.
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