Uddrag af Interview med filminstruktør Ken Annakin om "Panserslaget ved Ardennerne" i Ultra Panavision 70

Ken Annakin inspicerer 70mm kopi af "Panserslaget ved Ardennerne" ved spolebordet i Pictureville biografen i Bradford (UK) marts 2000. Foto: Thomas Hauerslev

Thomas Hauerslev: Tell me about the circumstances for choosing Ultra Panavision 70 for "Battle of the Bulge".

Ken Annakin: On "Battle of the Bulge" I did not have the choice of the system, but one of the things that helped me decide me to make this movie was the chance to show tanks looking like monsters, coming out of the ground and towering over the puny, small "human insects". Then, of course, I had to show how the human beings actually win the battle. That was my concept and I could only achieve it on a system like Ultra Panavision 70.

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THa: You were saying "God was with you on "Battle of the Bulge""? What did you mean by that?

Ken Annakin: The first day of shooting, when the whole armada of Shaw's tanks came out from under the trees, we had prepared the ground to look snow covered, with marble dust. And we had four big wind machines behind my camera ready to blow snow all over the foreground. I gave the signal to start and Alex Weldon, my special effects guy started up his snow machines. As the tanks rolled out, the snow looked great, so I gave him the "thumbs up" sign, meaning "Great!" He looked at me - we couldn't hear each other because of the noise, and shook his head. Then he pointed upward, his lips mouthing "Not me - HIM". He meant that God was making the snow, and it continued to snow for 6 solid weeks.

We often had to walk two miles to the locations, and the tanks spun round and threw up mud in the snow. Believe it or not, I had 80 regular tanks from the Spanish army under my command. They passed perfectly for the German tanks used in the battle at this time...and I turned them into monsters!

After the six weeks, the producer Philip Yordan showed me a cable he had just received from Jack Warner in Hollywood. It said:

"Congratulations! This is some of the best war material I have ever seen".

This obviously gave me and my crew a great shot in the arm.
 

Ken Annakin med 70mm film fan i Pictureville biografen i Bradford (UK) marts 2000. Foto: Francois Carrin

THa: Can you remember why Cinerama was brought into "Battle of the Bulge"?

Ken Annakin: Around this time the Producers began to realize that they weren't going to have enough money to finish the film on the scale we were shooting. Suddenly a Guardian Angel appeared in the form of William R. Forman, who owned Cinerama. I think he had been shown my tank footage by Jack Warner, and he said,

"This is perfect for my new process Cinerama!".

He came over to Segovia with a special Cinerama Cameraman, George Willoughby. After discussions, we made arrangements for him to cover quite a few shots of tank movement from the air, plus downhill car shots, which almost had a 3D effect. For our part we carried on shooting with our Panavision cameras, and eventually printed everything in Cinerama process and format. Obviously it all worked!! I remember we premiered in the Cinerama theatre [Hollywood, ed]. And Forman's girl friend led 500 troops down the boulevard before the show started.


THa: How did his girl friend come into the picture?

Ken Annakin: One of Bill Forman's conditions for him to put his money up, was that we had to use a girl called Barbara Verle, in the movie. I remember Robert Shaw strongly objected to shooting three new scenes, which had been written for her. He said,

 "She's not a trained actress and she'll let down the picture".

Shaw was adamant. Eventually, Forman said,

"Look, I invested in this picture and I made Barbara a promise. I'll tell you how it came about. I was in jail for tax evasion for 16 months. She came and visited me every day. Every single day! And I made her a promise that when I got the chance I would help the poor kid become a movie star. That's why she's has to be in this picture".

I eventually said to Shaw

"This a very understandable and human reason. If she's no good I'll shoot the scenes in such a way that we can only just show her, and cut away to you or something else".

Most reluctantly, Shaw agreed and we overcame the crisis. Barbara didn't become a great movie star, but Forman was able to keep his promise.