Pictures provided by: dsl
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◊ 2015-04-28 04:29 |
Jolly spiffing kids film lasting 57 minutes with a ludicrous plot full of typical cliches for its genre and plot holes you could drive buses through. Daddy is a poor mechanic who owns a rundown garage (with both Shell and BP pumps for sixcyl) in the Buckinghamshire countryside ... and races his treasured MG . But they're building a new bypass, which means (1) a ballet of multi-jib cranes in the background for mike962 and (2) some Nasty Bad Men want to persuade Daddy to sell them the garage before it suddenly becomes very valuable. But one of the 3 precocious kids in the family spots an advert for an international motor rally in the foreign mountains (the Alps) .. with a £500 prize which would be enough to rescue the business. So they persuade Daddy - who is actually a very very good driver really - to enter. But he has no navigator, so eldest son (12) and daughter (10) become his navigators . Meanwhile the Nasty Bad Men realise what is going on so enter a team in the rally in the Riley to sabotage their effort. However all their stupid attempts to stop the MG fail miserably, and Daddy drives the best race of his life and wins the event Hoorah! And everyone lives happily ecer after. Except the Nasty Bad Men who get really angry. No locations on imdb or elsewhere, but filmed in Englandshire (petrol station, a hillclimb combined with a time trial, Dover ferry terminal) and in foreign lands - some rally footage of a Marseilles start (probably a genuine Alpine Rally start) and then rally footage into France, Italy, Switzerland & Austria Looks like some genuine rally footage, spliced with film sequences, but they do seem to have managed to get a real rally involved (not the actual Alpine, more likely a local event) so that they can film the MG and the Riley among a proper event Look closely and there are lots of continuity goofs - the MG and Riley sometimes have proper rally plates, sometimes illegible shadow plates, and sometimes no rally plates - and some "rally" cars look fake. Plus some sequences where the MG and Riley are filmed in a studio against a rolling backcloth, and one chase between the MG and Riley which looks as if filmed on the A5 in North Wales with the Bethesda slate quarries behind. But it's a lot better than many others and is a good scenic Alpine tour. A posh convertible with a long descending boot and a zip-in rear window - no other view, but I wondered about Daimler English hillclimb timing board Cable cars A neat looking toy which loses its steering wheel 5 seconds later A very small Riley or very tall Shell pumps in Austria. |
◊ 2015-04-28 05:16 |
Yeah those pumps tower over that fellow. 10 feet high? -- Last edit: 2015-04-28 05:17:35 |
◊ 2015-04-29 00:06 |
That's the main film finished. Have just realised it is almost exactly the template for the first Herbie film (plot, characters, mood, twee humour - although thankfully the MG does not have the irritating "personality" of that obnoxious Beetle, and it is not Disneyfied into such a gooey sickly mess). So while it is definitely a film for 10 year olds and under - with all the limitations that carries - it is still worth watching for the impressive array of cars and some great scenery. Try - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZpPUoqg_iU ("Reels 1 & 2") and so on for the full 7 reels in good quality, or - http://www.britishpathe.com/video/heights-of-danger-reels-1-2 and so on in poorer quality, or - get the DVD like wot I did (it's easy to find and cheap). DVD has 4 extras I'll do Safety Fast as a separate entry, and the other 3 - which are just Pathe newsreel sequences (each about 3 minutes long) as Extras for this entry. Entered in episode box as - Extra1 = Goldie Gardner EX-135 @ Bonneville (1951) - Extra2 = "Sterling Moss" EX-181 @ Bonneville (1957) - Extra3 = MGA Twin Cam Production (1958) -- Last edit: 2015-05-01 00:44:17 |
◊ 2015-04-29 01:08 |
I would be very pecky not to. The only two Dellows in fiction movies we have are here! And of two different kinds! (I luuuv that!) |
◊ 2015-05-01 03:23 |
Some pics from the Extras newsreel of MG EX-135 at Bonneville in 1951: |