Ben Hur 1959

Posted on February 21, 2016 by number1

Among its many spectacular sequences Ben Hur showcases a colourful naval battle against the Romans and the Macedonians staged by A Arnold Gillespie and his crew in the MGM Lot 3 tank.

A. Arnold Gillespie in his waders in the MGM Lot 3 tank.

The hero foreground ships were built at 1/6th scale and had molded rubber figures with poseable wire armatures populating the decks. A few of the figures were made to mechanically “walk the decks” while others were mounted to springs to effect some movement. There were motorised mechanisms inside to move the galley oars.

Distant ships were built at a smaller scale while the most distant were photographs of the models mounted on flat board cutouts pulled on tracks outside the tank.

The camera shot at three times normal speed, 72 frames per second while the ships were made to move at around 3 feet (1m) per second. The sinking ship was pulled down into the deeper well part of the tank by two cable and pulley systems.

There are some very interesting detailed layout drawings and photographs of the tank set up in the book The wizard of MGM Memoirs of A. Arnold Gillespie.

The photo below shows one of the 1/6th scale models as it is displayed in the Baltimore Convention Center.

One other of the larger ship models was reported to be on display in a Ripleys believe it or not traveling exhibition, in this case at the San Diego Air and Space museum.

In 2012 nineteen smaller models came up for auction. According to the auction description the models were originally built for the 1925 silent version of Ben Hur and refurbished and modified for the 1959 version. They were between 5 and 9 feet long (1.5m – 2.7m) and made of wood with copper hulls. Some still had the rowing mechanisms inside in various states of disrepair. Another auction site has a single model of this series with an intact rowing mechanism and a description stating its use in 1925 but no mention of re-use at all.

Another of these 1925 models in somewhat better condition, can be seen in the National Museum of Ship Models and Sea History, Sadorus, Illinois, USA.

Mystery Photograph No:3

Posted on February 18, 2016 by number1

Here we go with another mystery photograph I have just acquired of a miniature submarine venting air bubbles sitting on the floor of a water filled tank.

Unfortunately there is no indication of what film this is from so if anybody has any suggestions please use the comment system.

Note there is a photo code shown top right and from what I can figure out the top number is designated to a specific movie title with the second number the photographic negative number in the series.

Corvette K-225 1943

Posted on January 20, 2016 by number1

There are a couple of miniature sequences in this film, concerning the Royal Canadian Navy Corvette of the title and an aircraft attack as well as the sinking of a submarine and the subsequent surface attack of another. The visual effects were supervised by John P. Fulton, legendary for the depiction of the parting of the red sea for Cecil B. DeMilles’s Ten Commandments.

The model aircraft are shot against rear projected sky plates, which to my mind is never particularly successful. I much prefer the results the Lydecker brothers achieved shooting their models outdoors in sunlight against a real sky.

This was a difficult film to track down and unfortunately the copy I have is pretty poor (found in a dvd market stall) and you can barely see anything ( the night shots don’t help) let alone the quality of the miniature effects, however there is a marginally better, less murky version viewable online at the link below and from which I have taken the screen grabs.

Corvette K-225 full movie

Ships With Wings 1941

Posted on January 19, 2016 by number1

This is really a very unconvincing film on every front, from the cornball story, the casting of the actors playing navy types and Nazis and regrettably the miniatures which are very studio bound in their action and cinematography. On many shots there appears to have been not enough light leading to depth of field problems, the tell tale sign of a miniature, with large parts of the image in soft focus. The other issue with the lack of light is that the cameras were not turning over with a high enough frame rate so many of the miniatures and particularly the pyrotechnic smoke and explosions are very fast and look the small scale that they actually were. See the post Camera Lighting and Lens for more on this topic.

Unusually, for a film made during the height of the Second World War, some live action scenes were shot on a real aircraft carrier (the ship with wings of the title), the Royal Navy’s Ark Royal, which even gets its own star billing in the opening credits.

There is a huge amount of miniature work in the film, from the aircraft carrier and its compliment of aircraft, Italian attacking aircraft, a dock facility and ships getting bombed, and a fictional Greek island which looks somewhat like Tracy Island from the Thunderbirds puppet series. There is even a dam burst sequence with miniature German tanks and vehicles being inundated by the water.

One thing to note about the miniature Island is what looks like milk in the water around parts of the Island to represent surf.