Parer's War

[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 (RIP)]

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