Hamlet 1948

Along with some moody matte paintings there are a couple of model ship shots in The Lawrence Olivier Hamlet film from 1948.
One of the characters reads a letter from Hamlet where he describes being captured by pirates and the action in the letter is depicted in a blurry framed vignette.

There is a credit for three special effects men but according to IMDB the uncredited visual effects personnel included George Blackwell and Bill Warrington both well known for their miniature work along with James Snow who was well known for miniature pyrotechnics.

The models were shot in a tank at Denham Studios.

Mystery film set

The grand daughter of Jimmy Snow, who kindly provided the behind the scenes photos from Battle for the River Plate in the last post, is trying to discover the titles of all the films her grandfather worked on and has a series of photographs from the set from an unknown film. A reader of this blog may recognise the set and be able to place the film title to which it belongs.

The set is of the deck of a ship and the ships name is visible on a board in one of the photos, namely HMS Dreadnought which was a famous British ship from the world war one era. Also the sailors on the deck appear to be in naval uniforms that correlate with the world war one era and there is one character wearing a Pith helmet.

If anybody has any clues as to the title of the movie and its year of release please use the comment system. Remember you can click on an image and view it at a larger size.


UPDATE May 2019:

Long time reader McTodd has solved the Movie Title of the mystery set photographs. The Movie Is The Midshipmaid made by British Gaumont in 1932. See his comment in the comments section below.

The film can be viewed and downloaded from the Internet archive here.
He found a reference to the set including some photographs of its construction in
Home Movies & Home Talkies 1932 pp.162-163 also available on the internet archive.
https://i.imgur.com/E5mZ7NU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/AoiscYU.jpg

   

Battle of the River Plate 1956

AKA Pursuit of the Graf Spee ( American title)

One of the all time classic films depicting Naval Warfare and with a level of accuracy unmatched. The miniature effects were supervised by Bill Warrington and James Snow.

I was contacted by Brigitte the granddaughter of James (Jimmy) Snow, who very kindly provided some incredible behind the scenes photographs of the miniature Graf Spee and its ultimate destruction in a tank at Pinewood. Jimmy snow was a pyrotechnics expert and he provided the terrific miniature explosions and fireballs seen in the sequence. In the photograph below Jimmy Snow is bending over the rear turret.

What is interesting from the photographs is the model appears to have been built "British" style with an open bottom. You can see that there is no full hull shape below the water line. It appears to sit on a pipe rig for support in the tank. It is possible that it never moves through the water and any movement is simulated by a camera move and the movement of the wake and waves in the tank. It is mostly stationary in the story.

The two photographs above seem to show the ship when the water level in the tank is not quite full. There will be a couple of nozzles aimed up at the bow for the bow wave effect as well as some at the stern to produce the wake.

   

The main reason for the model is to depict the destruction and it has to weather a great deal of flame in the process. Usually the model is strongly made of non flammable materials able to carry on take after take with no real damage. Bits of damage that fly off will be specially prepared mortar charges set into a metal funnel shaped device, designed to throw miniature debris into the air.

 

 

While the pyrotechnic effects are brilliantly staged and executed, my one criticism is of the lack of sufficient surface detail on the model. There would be all manner of pipes, cables, ducting and electrical boxes on the superstructure which is not evident on the model. The close up sections with the catapult aircraft launcher and the guns are particularly lacking in this regard.

Save

Save

Save