G'day Gary
The races were filmed at Riverside, California and apart from the
Austin-Healeys there are a number of interesting aspects about the film.
1. Fred Astaire didn't dance in the film.
2. Ava Gardner said that Melbourne was the perfect place to make a film
about the end of the world.
3. One of the only speaking roles undertaken by an Australian in the
film was by John Meillon who played the role of the seaman who jumped off
the submarine in San Francisco harbour to go and find his family. (He was
also in Crocodile Dundee so he must have survived SF!)
4. Neville Shute was a keen motor racing enthusiast who lived in
Australia for some time and while here raced an XK120.
5. Australians, no matter the situation wouldn't sit around a BBQ and
sing Waltzing Matilda.
Hoo Roo
Patrick Quinn
Sydney, Australia
-----Original Message-----
From: healeys-bounces@autox.team.net [mailto:healeys-bounces@autox.team.net]
On Behalf Of Editorgary@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, 9 February 2010 4:57 PM
To: healeys@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [Healeys] On the Beach
In a message dated 2/8/10 7:28:23 PM, healeys-request@autox.team.net
writes:
> When she is looking out over the water, you get a good view of the
> inside of the cockpit of the RHD Healey in the fore ground and the dash
> with
> the word Austin on a placard above the heater controls. Good movie made
> in
> 1959 and remember seeing it in the theaters on a first run back then but
> didn't notice or remember the Healey's at the time.
>
Good eye, Larry.
Actually the car she was driving did not have a heater; that plate replaced
the heater control plate, filling that neat little recess in the center of
the dashboard. Heaters were optional, and I guess they weren't routinely
installed on Healeys in Australia. The scene I liked was when they pulled up
to
the country inn in a torrential downpour, and when he got into the
tavern/pub, his left pants leg was completelydry. Any Healey owner knows
that
could
never happen.
The racing scenes, incidentally, were real, filmed at one of the race
tracks in southern California. I'm sure someone else on this list can tell
you
which of the now-defunct tracks they were using. They're pretty good
pictures
of how casual club racing was in the day. The wrecks were staged, but we're
assured that no functional Healeys were harmed in the filming of the movie.
As you can guess, I've got a dvd of the film, and have watched it a number
of times.
Gary
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