Drama in Movies

Doctor Zhivago (1965)

The incident with Lili Muráti and the train wasn’t the only tense moment during the filming of Doctor Zhivago.

Much of the film was shot in Spain, with the streets of Madrid redressed to become Moscow. So when the crowds of Spanish extras march through the streets singing the communist Internationale, they had good reason: they were living under the dictator Francisco Franco.

The secret police took a dim view of all this revolutionary singing and kept a close eye on the extras, while apparently some local residents also misunderstood the singing, and toasted the revolution.

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

Michael Powell’s two cocker spaniels made canine cameo appearances in four of the Powell & Pressburger films. They turn up in Contraband, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and I Know Where I’m Going! Their last appearance is in Dr Reeves’ camera obscura in 1946′s A Matter of Life and Death.

The following letter regarding the dogs’ acting careers appeared in David McGillivray’s ‘Now You Know’ column in the magazine Films and Filming (June 1983), as a response to a reader enquiry:

My thanks to Michael Powell for passing on to me the following communication.

“Our names are Erik and Spangle and your letter has been dropped in on our celestial kennel by a passing astronaut. Our dear owner on earth was Mr Michael Powell, who had something to do with films – we never found exactly what. Erik is named for Erik the Red and Spangle’s name comes from a film in which Wallace Beery says to Jean Harlow ‘I don’t like all those spangles on your dress’, a remark which prompts Robert Benchley’s ‘I had a spangle once, a cocker spangle’. Mr Pressburger wrote us into the scripts of the films you mention, but the camera obscura scene was our own idea.

P.S. If you see Colonel Blimp again, watch when we arrive in the house in London Square. Erik was so excited that he cocked his leg on a piece of Chippendale.

(The film referred to is probably China Seas, which featured all three actors and was released in 1935, so about the right time to have inspired the name of a thespian dog working in the early forties.)

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

The great celestial escalator leading up to heaven in A Matter of Life and Death is one of the film’s most enduring images, referenced in everything from architecture to pop videos (‘Go West’ by Pet Shop Boys and Pulp’s ‘Help the Aged’ both feature clear references to it). Radio adaptations of the story even took the title ‘Stairway to Heaven’.

The escalator itself was made by Rowson and Clydesdale for the production, at a cost of £3,000 (in 1946 money). It featured 106 steps, each 20 feet wide, and was powered by a 12hp motor. The engineers who built it nicknamed it ‘Ethel’.

La Dolce Vita (1960)

There aren’t many scenes in cinema that have reached a level as iconic as Anita Ekberg’s dip in the Trevi Fountain in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. Countless tourists flock to the fountain every year, and if they don’t jump in themselves, there are probably two good reasons for this. One is that the local council now puts bleach in the water, and the other is that the scene wasn’t really filmed at the real fountain.

Instead, the Trevi Fountain scene was shot at a recreation of the fountain on a lot at Rome’s Cinecitta studios, a few miles south of the real thing.

If this made the filming more convenient, it didn’t make it any more pleasant for the two stars: the scene was shot in winter, and Marcello Mastroianni needed both a wetsuit under his tuxedo and a bottle of vodka to prepare himself for the icy waters of the fountain, while Ekberg was wearing thigh-length waders under her dress.

Doctor Zhivago (1965)

When Zhivago returns home from not-quite meeting Lara on a tram in Lean’s epic, as he opens the door of his house, a slightly ghostly reflection appears in the glass window of the vestibule.

The reflection is often thought to be David Lean himself. A blown-up, lightened image (right) suggests that the figure may have a beard, though that could just be a result of the image processing.

It does look a little like David Lean, but it’s by no means definitely him; it could be anybody. The position also looks a little posed, raising the possibility that it’s the reflection of a portrait hanging on the wall as set dressing.