onlinesteamboatmuseum

Steamboats in the Movies, page 6


ElCapitanFromHallelujahIMPROVEDforNORI

The little sternwheel ferry EL CAPITAN (built St. Louis 1903) which operated at Natchez, Mississippi. Here she's doing duty as a movie boat in the 1929 MGM movie HALLELUJAH directed by King Vidor with an all African American cast. Most likely taken at the Mississippi River landing at Memphis, Tennessee, same place I boarded the DELTA QUEEN in September '93, bound upriver for the mouth of the Ohio River and thence to Cairo, Illinois, Paducah, Kentucky and concluding the journey at Cincinnati, Ohio.


LordJimEngineBoatX4ForNORI

An "Engine Boat" from LORD JIM - a 1965 feature film

4 FRAME CAPTURES FROM THE DVD OF 1965's WIDESCREEN FILM OF JOSEPH CONRAD'S NOVEL "LORD JIM" OF A PICTURESQUE STEAM-DRIVEN SAMPAN WITH STARBOARD AND PORT RUNNING LIGHTS, REFERRED TO AS "AN ENGINE BOAT" BY THE CHARACTERS AND EMPLOYED TO TRANSPORTS A SCURVY BUNCH OF RIVER PIRATES UNDER JAMES MASON AS RUTHLESS CRIMINAL "GENTLEMAN BROWN" TO WHAT HAD BEEN THE PREVIOUSLY ENSLAVED COMMUNITY OF PATSUAN IN THE MALAY JUNGLE WHICH PETER O'TOOLE AS LORD JIM HAD RESCUED WITH INGENIOUS GUERILLA WAR TACTICS FROM ELI WALLACH AT HIS MOST DESPICABLE AS SHERIF ALI.

CURT JURGENS AS VILLAINOUS TOADY CORNELIUS ESCAPES THE COUP THAT LORD JIM LED AGAINST ALI AND ENLISTS AKIM TAMIROFF AS COMIC RELIEF VILLAIN SCHOMBERG TO PROCURE THE ASSISTANCE OF VICIOUS GENTLEMAN BROWN TO RETURN TO PATSUAN IN ORDER TO STEAL THE TREASURE FROM THE VILLAGE.

CROWTHER'S NY TIMES REVIEW WAS NOT FAVORABLE BUT GIVES A RUN DOWN OF THE STORY AND CHARACTERS.

PETER O'TOOLE DESCRIBED THE 3 MONTH ORDEAL OF FILMING IN THE CAMBODIAN JUNGLE WITH PRECISE ELOQUENCE:

"The three months we spent in Cambodia were dreadful. Sheer hell. A nightmare. There we were, all of us, knee deep in lizards and all kinds of horrible insects. And everyone hating us. Awful."
wikipedia.org

BELOW IS AN ABRIDGED VERSION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW

Screen: Conrad's' 'Lord Jim' Arrives: Peter O'Toole Stars in Brooks Version

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

nytimes.com

February 26, 1965

In trying to give a comprehension of Jim, the young English ship's officer who goes through a mental and spiritual ordeal after disgracing himself by deserting his foundering, passenger-crowded ship, then redeems himself in the Malay jungle only to commit a second self-revealing fault, Mr. Brooks has focused on the hero and his ego problem to a point. Then he has let him become another factor in a whole rush of melodramatic goings-on. . . . .

Conrad's Jim is a fellow whose ego and imagination are so strong that he sees himself and the whole world through a curious romantic haze. He visions himself a flawless hero.

That's why he is stunned and confused by his sudden, spontaneous behavior in deserting his stricken ship. And that's why he's reassured and happy when his later bush-fighting efforts on behalf of the people of the jungle village of Patusan cause them to worship him as their Lord Jim. . . . .

Conrad's inferior Sherif Ali, on whom Jim leads a knockout assault, turns into a tyrant who is known as The General here. It requires a virtual siege of Iwo Jima and at least a half-hour of fire and din to knock him off. And then comes a second phase of combat involving the forces of Gentleman Brown, the invading river pirate, whose perception of Jim's weakness does the latter in. . . . .

Thus the pull of a sheer adventure drama, which is what this eventually becomes, is rendered sporadic and feeble by the indistinctness of the plot.

The performance of Mr. O'Toole is so sullen, soggy and uncertain, especially toward the end, that it is difficult to find an area of recognizable sensitivity in which one can make contact with him. One hardly knows whether to pity or feel contempt for him. He seems to know, however. He appears constantly on the verge of bursting into tears. . . . .

The rest of the characters are confusing.

Eli Wallach's The General is energetic and explosive, but it's never made clear what he is. Curt Jurgen's evil Cornelius is a ponderous, Germanic go-between whose melodramatic involvement is greater but less clear than in the book. James Mason is almost comic as a bowler-hatted, bearded Gentleman Brown, Akim Tamiroff is a clown as the noxious Schomberg and Paul Lukas is gentle as the trader, Stein.

As for Daliah Lavi as the girl with whom Jim falls in love, all you can do is look at her and wonder. It's hard to understand a word she says. This lack of communication is the ultimate basic weakness of the film. It starts out as though it has something profound and tragic to say, but it ends up saying nothing. Well maybe we should take our cue from Kipling: East of Suez, the best is like the worst.

LORD JIM

Screenplay and Direction by Richard Brooks, from the novel by Joseph Conrad; produced by Mr. Brooks and released by Columbia Pictures.

Jim . . . . . Peter O'Toole
Gentleman Brown . . . . . James Mason
Cornelius . . . . . Curt Jurgens
The General . . . . . Eli Wallach
Marlow . . . . . Jack Hawkins
Stein . . . . . Paul Lukas
Girl . . . . . Daliah Lavi
Schomberg . . . . . Akim Tamiroff
Waris . . . . . Ichiza Itami
Du-Ramin . . . . . Talsuo Sallo
Captain Brierly . . . . . Andrew Keir
Patna Engineer . . . . . Jack MacGowran
Malay . . . . . Eric Young
Captain Chester . . . . . Noel Purcell
Captain of Patna . . . . . Waller Gotell
Moslem leader . . . . . Rafik Anwar
Patusan Elder . . . . . Marne Maitland
Doctor . . . . . Newton Blick
Magistrate . . . . . A. J. Brown
French officer . . . . . Christian Marquand


1LegendOfTarzanSteamboatX2

A steamboat built for THE LEGEND OF TARZAN feature film

The Belgian sternwheel steamboat "ADELAAR" was built on the Lake Virginia Water in Windsor Great Park, Surrey, England for the 2016 Warner Bros. movie "The Legend of Tarzan" which takes place along the Congo in Africa during 1889 and 1890. The name "Adelaar" translates as "EAGLE" in the Dutch/Flemish language. The top photo is from iamag.

The bottom image from artofvfx is a digital composite made to include a distant port on shore and crocodiles swimming towards the sinking steamboat during a fight on board between Tarzan and the villain, Captain Rom near the end of the movie.


SecondImageSacramentoSteamerFLORA_RooneyHUCKFINN1939reducedforNORI

FirstImageSacramentoSteamerFLORA_RooneyHUCKFINN1939forNORI

Two 8 x 10 publicity stills. FLORA as the "River Queen" steaming away from the Sacramento River landing. Mickey Rooney as Huck Finn stood waving good bye as he stood next to Elizabeth Risdon as "the Widow Douglas." There was a lot of restoration that needed to be done to these. Sometimes you can't see the glitches until you've scanned them and look at them on the monitor.

WildRiverevacuatinghandsfromGarthIslandForNORI

A mini towboat from WILD RIVER, 1960 by Elia Kazan

A production photo from WILD RIVER, a first class 1960 movie that director Elia Kazan filmed on the Hiawassee River upriver from Charleston, Tennessee. Here a mini-gas towboat pulls a string of skiffs with laborers aboard who will clear trees from Garth Island and burn down the big house remaining on the island before the river rises to engulf all but the Garth family cemetery when the dam is opened and dam floods the rest of the island.

Standing with his right hand on the portside towing knee is Montgomery Clift as TVA operative "Chuck Glover" and beside him Lee Remick as "Carol Baldwin", two characters who had been married by a Justice of the Peace in a previous scene. WILD RIVER is well worth seeing for it's authenticity and integrity.

excerpted from wikipedia.org go to the link to read more:

Wild River is a 1960 American drama film directed by Elia Kazan, and stars Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet, Albert Salmi and Jay C. Flippen.

The film was shot on location in the Tennessee Valley, and was adapted by Paul Osborn from two novels: Borden Deal's Dunbar's Cove and William Bradford Huie's Mud on the Stars, drawing for plot from Deal's story of a battle of wills between the nascent Tennessee Valley Authority and generations-old land owners, and from Huie's study of a rural Southern matriarchal family for characters and their reaction to destruction of their land.

Exterior locations for Wild River were filmed on Coon Denton Island on the Hiwassee River, upriver from Charleston, Tennessee; in the town's old business district; and on a peninsula west of Cleveland, Tennessee, on Chickamauga Lake. A studio for interior shooting was also created in the Cleveland armory.

BadMansRiverModelBoatPilotHouseEXP

1971 Spanish film Bad Man's River

"Meet the baddest man on Bad Man's River . . a low-down ornery River Rat . . ." and so begins the theme song under the Main Titles of the 1971 "Western, " BAD MAN'S RIVER (The original Spanish title is "El hombre de Río Malo") it was made by Spanish director Eugenio Martín, credited under the name "Gene Martin." It's not clear why this seems to fall into the category of a "Spaghetti Western" (beginning probably with Italian film maker Sergio Leone's Westerns that was the start Clint Eastwood's European career). BAD MAN'S RIVER seems to have been a completely Spanish production but the "genre" may have earned the name for the style of film making and a preference for filming in Spain.

The scale model steamboat must have been fairly large because in the close ups of it there are lots of details and it doesn't look miniaturized although no scale model human figures were included. The design of the boat must have been an art director's "fantasy" of boat of the era, and while it shares some characteristics with the old time steamers it doesn't attempt to convey much authenticity. The exterior of the pilot house seen in the bottom screen capture appears to have been a partial full-sized exterior set, where the actor playing the Captain is barely visible on the right. The screen capture is from a low angle as if taken from the main deck looking up at the front of the pilot house with small windows which would have made for poor visibility had they been on an actual steamboat. Most steamboat model "kits" of the ROB'T E. LEE and NATCHEZ made the same mistake with the small windows instead of a wide open aperture without glass for maximum visibility for the pilot. The interior set of the pilot house was most likely on a soundstage and in the promotional still we see the 4 actors Lee Van Cleef as Roy on the left and Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida as Alicia on the right aiming a derringer at the uncredited actor playing the steamboat Captain.

The "sidekick" character between the Captain and Alicia was Tom Odie played by Jess Hahn.

imdb.com

Famous trio protagonist in a Paella/Spaghetti Western with loads of action and amusement":

13 March 2006 Review written by ma-cortes of Santander, Spain

The film deals with the bandit Roy King (Lee Van Cleef) and his band (Gianni Garco, Simon Andreu, Jess Hahn) that are robbing trains and banks along Mexican border. King is deceived by his recent wife (Gina Lollobrigida) and a Mexican revolutionary (Daniel Martin) and offer to collaborate in an attempt to blow up an arsenal for a reward about one million dollars , but he will be double-crossed . The gang will confront the Mexican army commanded by a nasty Mexican general (Eduardo Fajardo) and his underling (Aldo Sambrell) and are besieged in a fort governed by a nutty revolutionary colonel (Sergio Fantoni).

This is an average Western with humor and action. The film has enough gunplay, thrills , irony and tongue-in-cheek comedy to be quite entertaining. The movie's comic style and dialogue seems to have been inspired by the Western genre of "spoof" Westerns made during the 60s in the U.S. by directors Burt Kennedy and Andrew McLagen and influenced Italian Westerns for the Trinity series (with Terence Hill). Lee Van Cleef as a humorous older outlaw chief, Gina Lollobrigida is attractive and James Mason finds himself miscast. They are like a hawk , a dove and a vulture; all circling for the biggest haul in the West. There are the the usual supporting players - familiar faces such as Gianni Garko (Sartana), Eduardo Fajardo (villain in a hundred Westerns such as Djanjo), Aldo Sambrell (secondary in Leone Westerns), Daniel Martin (from A Fistful of Dollars), Ricardo Palacios, Barta Barry, Dan Van Husen and many others. The picture was shot in Almeria (Spain) where innumerable Spaghetti Westerns were filmed during the 60s and 70s. The motion picture was routinely directed by Eugenio Martín who made Terror films like Horror Express and Spaghetti Westerns including The Bounty Killer , Requiem for a Gringo and Pancho Villa.

Rating : Mediocre but amusing.

More particulars on filming locations included:

Colmenar Viejo, Madrid, Spain
Estudios Madrid Film, Madrid, Spain (studio)
La Mancha, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

steamboats in movies

From an original 8 X 10 movie still of the full size prop boat built for "Little Old New York," a 1940 20th Century Fox highly fictionalized "biopic" about Robert Fulton. The first trip of the Clermont in August, 1807 was from New York to Albany and back, and it averaged about five miles an hour. The dawn of steamboatin' USA.

The Clermont was named after Fulton's friend Robert Livingston's home on the Hudson River. Robert Livingston was a U.S. ambassador to France and one of the two men who made possible the Louisiana Purchase for the U.S. With Livingston's support, Fulton had previously built a steamboat that operated in France on the Seine in 1803. In 1808 Fulton married Livingston's niece Harriet. Awww- isn't it romantic?

steamboat movies

The GORDON C. GREEN in the 1957 Warner Bros. Civil War movie BAND OF ANGELS. Bottom photo she's getting an assist from a tug boat and small tow boat. These boats were out of sight of the motion picture camera so this was an unusual "behind the scenes" production still. Filmed on the Mississippi at Geismar, Louisiana.

steamboat movies

From Disney's 1976 movie, Treasure of Matecumbe. Here are three frames of the steamboat model and one frame of the cabin interior which the art department designed nicely with authentic arches, skylights and transoms. Joan Hackett (in white) as pretty and quirky heroine Lauriette Paxton. John Myhers as Captain Boomer (standing left in uniform) and Dick Van Patten seated right played a crooked card sharp who is beaten at his own game by Lauriette.

Treasure of Matecumbe
Walt Disney Productions
1976
directed by Vincent McEveety
based on the the novel Voyage to Matecumbe (1961) by Robert Lewis Taylor
locations in the South: Danville, Kentucky and the Kentucky River





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All captions provided by Dave Thomson, Steamboats.com primary contributor and historian.

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