Overlord (1975 film)
Overlord | |
---|---|
James Quinn | |
Starring | Brian Stirner Davyd Harries |
Cinematography | John Alcott |
Edited by | Jonathan Gili |
Music by | Paul Glass |
Release date |
|
Running time | 84 minutes [1] |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | £89,951[2] |
Box office | £41,007[2] |
Overlord is a 1975 black-and-white British
Plot
The film opens with footage taken by the victorious German Army following the Battle of France in 1940 and aerial shots, including Adolf Hitler surveying conquered territory from an aeroplane. Cut to the interior of a landing craft on D-Day, filled with as yet unidentified characters, young soldiers. A blurry image of a soldier running, alone and falling, shot dead, dissolves to a man running down an English lane to his home. This is Tom and the film follows this everyman through his call up to the East Yorkshire Regiment, his training, his meeting a young girl, his journey to France and his death on D-Day at Sword Beach.
Cast
Data from TCM.com[5]
- Brian Stirner as Thomas Beddows
- Davyd Harries as Jack
- Nicholas Ball as Arthur
- Julie Neesam as the Girl
- John Franklyn-Robbins as Dad
- Stella Tanner as Mum
- David Warner (actor) as Voice of Authority
Production
In an 18 January 2008 article he wrote for The Guardian to coincide with the film's re-release, Stuart Cooper described at length the creation of this film. He originally intended to make a documentary about the Overlord Embroidery tapestry.[4] Cooper was told that it would take nine years to review all the footage in the collection, which included dangerous nitrate film stock. He wrote that after narrowing his selection,
I spent approximately 3,000 hours in that dark cell between 1971 and 1975...It was during the archival research that I developed the idea of a dramatised feature film about an English soldier who sees his first action on D-Day, interweaving the archive footage to expand and tell the story. More research in the museum's document section - reading letters and unpublished diaries of ordinary soldiers who saw action in the first wave of D-Day - refined the concept...The film archive controlled what historical events our soldier's story would encompass. Once that was established, [Christopher] Hudson was able to dramatise some wonderful and totally original scenes extracted from diaries and letters of real servicemen.[4]
The Imperial War Museum and the Ministry of Defence assisted the production in many ways, from help with costumes and props to training actors and a flight by the last operational Lancaster bomber over Bristol.[4]
Seventy per cent of Overlord is "live action" (newly shot footage), filmed in ten days.[4] The rest is archival footage, from British training missions to the invasion and captured German film. Cooper and his cinematographer, John Alcott, tried to create a consistent look when filming the contemporary footage. Cooper said, "After Alcott examined [the pristine nitrate negatives], we decided to film Overlord on period lenses. Alcott scoured England and found two sets of 1936 and 1938 German Goerz and Schneider lenses. Alcott then applied a lighting style in keeping with the war photography".[4]
Reception and legacy
Overlord originally failed to get US theatrical distribution and was only shown there in select screenings and on television (including a run on
Cult cinema writer David Harkin suggests that "Overlord is a remarkable film, a quasi-docufiction championed by no less than The Imperial War Museum and the Ministry of Defence...Overlord is a perfect combination of startling documentary footage and a mournful and intimate portrayal of a soldier’s life in World War Two" [10]
On
See also
- Academy Award-winning film by Stanley Kubrickthat John Alcott also worked on
- List of British films of 1975
References
- ^ MUBI
- ^ a b Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 357. Income is distributor's receipts, combined domestic and international, as at 31 Dec 1978.
- ^ "Berlinale 1975: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Archived from the original on 7 January 2017. Retrieved 11 July 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f Cooper, Stuart (18 January 2008). "A camera instead of a rifle". Guardian. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ TCM.com
- ^ "Z Channel: Overlord". YouTube. Archived from the original on 19 December 2021. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
- ^ "Film Montage from "Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession" (2004)". YouTube. Archived from the original on 19 December 2021. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
- ^ The Criterion Collection: Overlord by Stuart Cooper
- ^ Amazon listing
- ^ 10 Great British Cult Films You May Have Not Seen - Taste of Cinema
- ^ "Overlord (1975)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
- CBS Interactive. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (1 June 2006). "Overlord Movie Review & Film Summary (2006)". Retrieved 1 September 2016.
- ^ Chicago Reader
External links
- Overlord at IMDb
- Overlord at Rotten Tomatoes
- Overlord at Metacritic
- Overlord at AllMovie
- Cooper, Stuart (18 January 2008). "A Camera Instead of a Rifle". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 February 2008.
- A synopsis of the film from the Brattle Theaterblog
- SFGate article on the rediscovery of the film
- Review of The Criterion Collection's 2014 Restoration of Overlord on Blu-ray Archived 3 September 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- Overlord: A Soldier for All Seasons an essay by Criterion Collection
- The Imperial War Museums official site