The King and I 1956

As with this story's earlier incarnation in "Anna and the King of Siam" ( 1946) there is a paddle steamer miniature in the opening shots, along with a painted Bangkok, this time in full colour and featured in two shots of its own uncovered by credits or cast.

It could well be the same miniature that appears in another 4 features, as previously discussed in "Anna and the King of Siam".

The Special Photographic Effects supervisor was Ray Kellog who headed the department at 20th century fox at the time. For more information on the 20th Century Fox's "scenic art department" as the special effects department was known, I direct you to this entry in NZ Pete's excellent Matt Shot blog.

Anna and the King of Siam 1946

A miniature paddle steamer and painted Bangkok harbor can be seen behind the credits and as a rear projection process screen behind the cast in a few of the opening shots of the movie, supervised by the very capable Fred Sersen.

Wayne, a reader of this site, informs me that this model was originally built for "Reap the Wild Wind" in 1942 and subsequently appeared as the nitrate ship in "20 000 leagues under the sea" in 1954. This could also possibly be the same model re-used for the musical version of the very same story in "The King and I" in 1956 and the same re-painted model used in " In Search of the Castaways" in 1962 .

Cutthroat Island 1995

While most of the movie uses full size ships shot in the tank at Malta, there are a few shots of a quarter scale, 35 foot long (10.67m) miniature shot in the tank at pinewood. The miniature was about the largest that could float in the paddock tank and was supervised by Martin Gutteridge.

The miniature ship was re-dressed to represent a second vessel.

There was also a long boat miniature with articulated puppet rowers built. The miniature ship was blown up using pressurised gas and petrol to get shots of initial rolling fireballs and then really destroyed for a second and final take to match the full size set explosion shot in Malta.

The cameras were floated in glass fronted boxes, like big aquariums, to get the lenses as low as possible.

The shots are pretty good but very few in number and considering the size of the miniature and the effort that must have gone into it's building and photographing, disappointingly distant and small in frame. Plus its mostly shown in a night sequence so you barely see it.