Parer's War

[Mike K]

The first thing you have to realize is, the movie / TV industry in general, are concerned with entertaining their audience , the truth nearly always comes last .

I was mixed up in the making of the Dunera Boys , a TV telemovie series depicting the Jewish refugees shipped out to Australia from the UK during 1940. These people ended up in a internee camp.

The props lady on the set ( Point Cook I think it was ) didn't have a clue re: the correct vehicles for that period . I politely pointed out what would be correct , but she said " there is a Jeep in the script , so we want a Jeep "

[Keith Webb]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

The first thing you have to realize is, the movie / TV industry in general, are concerned with entertaining their audience , the truth nearly always comes last .

I was mixed up in the making of the Dunera Boys , a TV telemovie series depicting the Jewish refugees shipped out to Australia from the UK during 1940. These people ended up in a internee camp.

The props lady on the set ( Point Cook I think it was ) didn't have a clue re: the correct vehicles for that period . I politely pointed out what would be correct , but she said " there is a Jeep in the script , so we want a Jeep "

If they have the money, give 'em a Jeep... by the sound of that props lady you could have even painted a Wrangler OD with stars and got away with it.

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Keith Webb

If they have the money, give 'em a Jeep... by the sound of that props lady you could have even painted a Wrangler OD with stars and got away with it.

Not wrong Keith . On the set , there were people like Bob Hoskins ( who just died ) Warren Mitchell ( Alf Garnett ) and John Mellion ( always looked red faced and pissed ) walking around . The nicest was Maurie Fields , the old vaudeville comedian . They waited ages for the correct light and just as they started shooting a scene , the truck I was driving ran out of petrol .. the director went nuts and he could have shot me BTW they built a complete POW camp with guard towers , but most of the buildings were just empty shells . In the end , the Jeep didn't appear in any scenes at all . It was quite an experience seeing the other side of the industry .

[motto]

I was also in 'The Duneera Boys' with my Dodge WC 52. The internment camp they built down there at Point Cook in a bare paddock was very impressive. That is until the wind lifted the 'corrugated iron' on the roof of a couple of the huts that was in fact just rolls of corrugated fibre glass layed out and held on with a few screws. It didn't look too good when long lengths of it started flapping wildly in the wind.
One day on the set I was sitting in the vehicle chatting with some extras in the back when one of them asked what the film company was paying for the truck. I told him $200 a day and he exclaimed 'geez, we're only getting $60 a day!' I explained to him that you can get a load of extras anywhere but WW2 trucks are rare. He couldn't argue with that.

Dave

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

I politely pointed out what would be correct

Mike, you should know better than to correct a woman!

[Ian Fawbert]

Hi all,

I was impressed to see that the vehicles seemed period correct. For once (a first?) the jeep had a correct ARN (didn't check if it was a real one for a jeep but hey, it was a great start!). There were some CMP's in it also, but I was still abit in a daze from the jeep with ARN!

Vehicles also had Aussie unit markings (I don't know enough of the specific history of units involved or markings to say if they were correct or not, but looked decent to me). Better than another bloody US star on an Aussie vehicle!

Overall I was glad I watched it and wasn't ready for the sad ending- I'm only 31, so didn't know much of Damien Parer, but was impressed with what I saw despite a few inaccuracies already pointed out.

Cheers,
Ian.