Dad's Army - Short Film Before Thetare show

The 1st Bit Was Not Shown To An Auduence (me in pike uniform)

This Movie started life as a filler in the "Dad's Army" Production I was recently involved in (in more ways than one!)
The scripts Mum's Army , The Godiva Affair and The Deadly Attachment were the "episodes" we performed.
Now there was a bit of a problem with the "Godiva Affair" This required the cast to have a very quick costume change. It would mean we had to get from our "Morris Dancing" gear into our "Uniforms" in the space of 20 odd seconds. now as this was impossible (the leather "leggings" take more than 30 seconds to put on alone) Myself and the Director Brian Lowe came up with an idea. we could cobble together some funny home guard footage and project it onto a screen to "cover" the costume change. all well and good. but the problem, how to get 6 odd Min's of Real 40's Home guard footage into some kind of shape to impress an audience for 6 Min's. The first hurdle was to get the films, for this I downloaded and already had some 40ish documentaries on Britain at war etc. most of these programs only had a few seconds at most of film to use. after a week of playing around with the timeline I accidentally pulled a bit of vision of gas masked dancers into a part of the song "the king was still in London" (which was used in numerous Dad's Army Episodes. the point that i had dragged the vision and inadvertently pressed play. the "cocktail piano" part had just begun and you see these dancers waltzing around in gas masks.
Well this was it. I thought it so moving and funny at the same time i worked some 50 odd edits around this song and pieced together numorus other WW2 footage that we had a sort of mini movie. Now after i had made this the director had decided that we would drop the film as most could get changed in the short scene change and has written an extra scene to cover this. So for a short time the film was shelved (about one day!) In the end we placed the film at the Start of the entire show to give the audience a feel for the era and of course the first part of the film was taken from a George Formby film showing people "joining up" to the home guard. this we felt explained what we were doing! as the scripts make no mention on why there is a home guard or why Cap Mannering is a bank clerk AND a Captain,

So there we have it.. towards the end of the "Edit" a Cast member kindly lent me a film which had more complete versions of some of the bit i already had inserted into our piece so another edit and it was done.. the next part was to make a "king Geroge" bit at the start. you know when you see an old 40's film and people "stand for the king" at the end or start of a film. well we were promised some real film of this but (as we knew at the time) the guy was all bluff and wind. and i had to "roll my own" so at the start you see a Mock "stand for the king" film which came from Pics from Google and some you tube flags!!. we had the entire audience standing for this (umm) most shows!!.
The film went down well with audiences, (I was surprised) as I had intended to make "Mock" Newsreels (like in the 1st series of Dad's Army) with our cast on location digging for victory etc and then making it look old (adobe after effects!)
The Director want to put the show on again in a year or so. and a new film will be made this time with more comedy and some "location shots' of the cast to jazz it up a bit.

Remember ALL the uniformed men you see in this film are REAL home guard men from the UK between 1940-44. that's why i needed loads of "doco's"

The first part is me advertising this blog.. this was NOT I repeat NOT shown.. Ive only added this as i intend to put this up on youtube and i wanted to plug this site.

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• Dad's
• Army
• Ade
• Gregg
• Adrian
• Home
• Guard
• King
• George
• Audio
• Restoration
• BBC
• TV
• Video
• Short
• Film

[ade425mxy]

Aha yep, Got loads of Geoge's films. Some in appalling quality though!

It made for a great start! told the story rather well

[ade425mxy]

Mate, get in contact with my via my blog. my email add is there. I still have the original DV version of this and many outtakes and alt versions. and can make a FINE dvd from the material.. much better quality than this youtube compressed version

[muse4life61]

@grandslam1998 yes it does i'm very proud.

[ryanbrownnew]

nice restoration. It might be worth uploading stuff in future at 720p instead do you think? I've found if you double the resolution - ok the quality isnt going to improve in the footage - but it survives the compression process after its submitted to youtube better because its classed as an HD video and it also looks better when enlarged to full screen.

[naly202]

@TheDiddlysquat i do not agree with your point of view. i think the series is very sympathetic towards the home guard and it wasn't their intention to mock them in any way. the situations are funny and the characters well developed and very ingenious in a clumsy/ funny way. to be honest, it's one of the most subtle patriotic films i've ever seen.

[lastswordfighter]

@DonMeaker The Finisih really took the Mosin Nagant and made work better. The put more qualtiy into their Nagants compared to the Russian models.

[DonMeaker]

@lastswordfighter my Moisin is Finnish, and yes, they are pretty good. I as one on which, as they say, the corrosion pits in the barrel were kind of aligned in a spiral pattern, shot 2 inch groups at 100 yards if you attached the bayonet.

[lastswordfighter]

@DonMeaker Nothing like the classics. There is a quality and art to World War 1 and World War 2 weapons that just isn't seen with today's weapons. I myself happen to own a Mosin Nagant rifle from World War 2. It's pretty good for commie gun.

[DonMeaker]

The P17s in .30/06 sent to England were given a red stripe to warn that they took non English standard ammunition. That doesn't always work. Some P-17s were issued to US soldiers in WWII, normally Line of communication soldiers. A very accurate rifle! My SMLE is a Mk III*, and is also very accurate. Proof marks range from G R in 1917 to E.R. 1995.

[DonMeaker]

@lastswordfighter Oddly enough the .30/06 (7.62X63) is just about a match in bullet and velocity for the 7.62x54R. The .30/06 offers higher reliability (no chance of rim over rim jam) the 7.62x54R offers lower cost for accurate headspace (higher accuracy). The US in 1892 had a similar rimmed cartridge case round in the .30-40 Krag, but its muzzle vel. was only ~2300 feet per sec, about the same as the 7.62x39 M43 bullet. ( the .30 Govt used a 220 grain bullet, a lot heavier than the M43 round.)

[DonMeaker]

@lastswordfighter Exactly. In 1917 the US went to Remington to see what it would take for them to make more Springfield '03 Rifles. Well, it would take months to make tools, and the material specifications were different. The Remington manager suggested that he could begin turning out the Enfield pattern rifle today, and the Eddystone plant too. One tool reamed the chamber, and he had them. My P-17 is a Winchester, which was in the same state of tooling

[lastswordfighter]

@DonMeaker I know that Winchester also made a lever action rifle for Russia during World War One chambered 7.62x54R. Also there isn't much difference in concept between the P17 and the P14. The only real difference is that they are chambered in different caliber.