Sunday 15 March 2015

Assault on a Queen 1966

Some pretty decent miniature work here supervised by Lawrence Butler, although it suffers occasionally from being able to see the tank wall. Also a common deficiency in most submarine films is too great a visibility due to unrealistically clear water. There is also a very weak periscope shot with a painted ship that looks like a cartoon. One other split screen shot showing the effect of a flash powder charge detonating on the side of the Queen Mary clearly shows the sailors heads passing through the matte line.

Thanks to a reader Pete for putting me on to this film and for the link to this page and website http://www.moon-city-garbage.agency which has some very interesting articles and pictures on old school visual effects.



















Sailors heads passing through the matte line of the superimposed explosion along the edge of the ship.



















        

1 comment:

  1. This film is one of the small number of not only using small models but for the German WW2 U-Boat a full scale 1:1 'waterline' sectioned version was also built.

    Another site with images of the movie and production:

    http://www.moon-city-garbage.agency/assault/

    As well it points out the interesting but true caption for one of the photos when the sub is trying to escape under the Queen Mary stern: "Special Effects turbulences - a technician moves the model with his hands there and back!"

    And low and behold - when you look above in this blog at the image where the submarine's bow has just passed the Queen Mary's stern - the ghostly hand can been seen!

    By the way looking at that sequence of photos how did the sub's conning tower make it through the ocean liner's 4 propellers intact? The same question could be asked of "Down Periscope" (1996) as well.

    As a bonus this web page also includes images for the Batman (1966) film using the sub's 1:1 scale version suitably altered to the Penguin's requirements.

    Finally as to the exact WW2 U-Boat Type - it seems to be a mixture of several.

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