M37 on TV

[David H]

Just finished watching "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" on AMC.
One of the vehicles used by the group seeking the treasure was a M37 converted to a wrecker and painted white. It looked to be in pretty decent shape and had one interesting modification. It had a one piece windshield that looked to be a well done conversion. It still had the vacuum wipers and everything else looked stock. It did appear to have better than usual acceleration and highway speed so it may have been re-engined.

David H

[Nickathome]

Mad Mad World..

I think that truck had a one piece windshiled solely because of the third passanger sitting in the middle. Not very conducive to good cinematography with a line running down the middle of the actress's face.

BTW - anyone ever see the horrible war movie "Battle of the Bulge". Charles Bronson is riding in an M37. I love how they used non-period correct vehicles in that movie. M37's in WWII? Nahh. M38 Jeeps, Nahh. M48 tanks being used by the Germans? Nope. American Halftracks complete with Swatikas and krauts? Don't think so. Bad Bad Bad war movie.

[Warren Watt]

Mad,mad,mad movie

My favorite movie bar none. Who knew in 196? watching in the theater that I'd be owning one of these trucks.... Watching that white M37 flying backwards down the hill now just reinforces how tough they really are..

[ragnar]

Just found a M37 in another movie.
"To End All Wars" (2001)
The movie is about a pow camp during WWII in Asia. The japs come riding up in a M37.

[RickL]

Mad, mad, mad world

I always thought they sped up the footage as the M37 was moving way to fast.

Don't know the name of the file but saw a M37 once being driven by some kids from a camp. Found it while flipping channels.

Rick

[Nollie Neill Jr]

Myrtle Beach SC History Show

Wasn't a movie, but the other night on NC Public TV. Their was a show on the history of Myrtle Beach SC. In photos they showed during Hurricane Hazel's aftermath (1950s), you could see several M37's being used by Army or National Guard. All shown had full canvas.

Nollie
NC

[Renegade05]

Battle of the Bulge

Nick, before you get too critical of BotB, realize that it was made in the '60s with substantial assistance from the U.S. Army. There's just no way it could have been made using period-correct vehicles, or without the Army's help. They are using the standard vehicles and tanks of the Army at the time it was filmed: M48 Patton and M24 Chaffee tanks subbed for German Tigers and U.S. M4 Shermans. Did you also notice that the frozen Ardennes looks a LOT like American desert during the big tank battle?

I think the first time I saw M37s on TV was in an old movie that I can't even remember who starred in, about a trek across the Sahara. They worked for an oil company, and were being chased by bandits. They drove two tan M37s...

[ragnar]

I found that the tanks in Battle of Bulge were distracting. The Tiger is so distinctive that not using it really lessened the impact of the movie. (at least to those who know some history). Kelly's Heroes seemed to find a Tiger. I know there aren't any around but couldn't they have fabricated something around the turret to give it a more period correct look?
Now they it would be all CGI.

[RickL]

M37 movies

The Tiger in Kelly's Heroes is a mockup based on a T34.

Pretty much any movie made during the service life of the M37 is liable to have a Power Wagon in it.

Anyone happen to see the yellow Power Wagon sitting in the Background during a bad Matt Helm (Dean martin) movie?

Rick

[Renegade05]

Pattons & Tigers & Bulges, oh my!

Originally posted by ragnar
I found that the tanks in Battle of Bulge were distracting. The Tiger is so distinctive that not using it really lessened the impact of the movie. (at least to those who know some history). Kelly's Heroes seemed to find a Tiger. I know there aren't any around but couldn't they have fabricated something around the turret to give it a more period correct look?
Now they it would be all CGI.

In Kelly's Heroes, they could afford to make the realistic mockups because there were only a few German tanks, not the huge army of them in BotB, and the views were generally more close-up. Also in their favor, Clint Eastwood is known to be a stickler for historical accuracy. And last, I doubt that the Army would have allowed any modification of their tanks beyond paint and insignia. Ironic that nowadays, it fields OppFor, which uses captured and cosmetically altered equipment to simulate Soviet-bloc armies.

Another movie with US equipment (including some M37s) posing as German is "Tobruk" with Cary Grant? and George Peppard. Just about any war movie in the '50s and '60s is likely to feature such "anomalies"...

[Nickathome]

Tobruk;

Tobruk isn't that bad a movie, although last time I saw it I wasn't into M37's so if one was shown, I didn't notice it. BTW - it starred Rock (limp wrists) Hudson, not Carey Grant.


I'm sorry but there is nothing that you can say that will make me sympathize with the way BoTB turned out. It was just a bad bad movie. If Kelly's Heroes could pull off a realistic looking Tiger, then I think the producers of BoTB should have. If for no other reason, than to not insult the intelligence of the audience. Lets face it, 40 years ago there were alot more WWII vehicles still around and useable, so it simply a fact that those who made that movie wanted to take the cheap way out and didn't care that some people watching would recognize that the Germans were using M48 tanks. Sure there are many who watch movies purely for theentertainment value, but with any period movie, care should be maintained in presenting the most accurate portrayal possible so that one historian can walk away impressed. That would be my attitude if I were a director . You can't tell me they didn't have the budget for this movie. If that were the case, then we'd have been watching nothing but unknown actors. I guess all their bucks went to paying the bigtime actors for that piece of drivel of a movie.

Still, my alltime favorite war movie is Battleground starring Van Johnson. Excellent movie for something that appeared in 1949. Much better than many later movies that had larger budgets. Its all in the producers.

[ragnar]

I just rented Battleground. It's a good movie but it concentrates more on the characters and dialogue than it does on battle scenes. I good story with good characters will beat a bad action movie any day. I don't remember seeing any shots of German tanks in Battleground.
Their budget was obviously very small.

As for BoTB, I can understand not having goobs of Tigers (because they just don't exist), but why couldn't they use a few with sheetmetal mods to make them look like Panthers or Tigers. Maybe use one in the close-ups. And they didn't use German camo schemes or colors. They seemed to just leave them in the US colors. Even a color change might have been enough to give them some more realism.

As for Kelly Heroes, Clint was neither producer or director and his company was not producing the film, so I doubt he had much input on historical accuracy. I think others just cared about it. Maybe they were veterans.

[David H]

Many of these types of movies used equipment and personnel from active duty or reserve units under agreements with DoD.

The amount of modifications permitted are few and must be completely reversable. There are few mods that can be done without drilling holes of welding, and that won't do.

A lot of older military equipment is now in the hands of firms that rent it out to movie companies. They may be more lenient as to the amount of changes that can be made. Other equipment comes from private rentals and the owners won't agree to changing anything. Would you rent out your M37 to a company that wanted to drill holes in the fender to mount a camera or that wanted to run it off the road into a ditch, even if they agreed to repair any damage?

Finally, in some instances the companues buy the equipment on the surplus market or from private owners. They may get the right item but they don't mind blowing it up or burning it, thus destroying it for all time. I'd rather see a bad mockup destroyed than the real thing.

Movie companies do what they can with what they can get. Most people don't know the difference. Those of us who do are relatively small in number when counted against the total audience.

[Hemiman]

I'd have to agree that, it's just plain lazyness & cheapness that causes such crap as the B-B movie. Why would a comedy like Kelly's Hero's be more accurate than a "Historical Movie" like B-B? Even as a young teen, it used to bug me.

As far as most Hollywood folks are concerned, a tank is a tank is a tank. If it has a gun, turret and tracks, it's a tank. Just change the white star to a black cross and it's a Tiger!.

Some movies stand out in thier effort to get it right. Kelly's Hero's, T-34/Tigers, Private Ryan's T-55/Tigers, Red Dawn's ?/T-72, (could never figure out what they made that from). Of course now, real Soviet stuff is avilable to use.

As for the B-B movie, Shermans were still around in large numbers at that time & could have been used for US tanks.

The German armor would have been tougher but not impossible. Since german tanks were mostly welded slab armor, (not rounded castings) sheet steel or even wood mock-ups are easy.

The British Centurian could be made into a convincing Tiger II,

The British Comet could be made into a good Tiger I if they couldn't get their hands on t-34's/ T-55'.

The US. M-10/ M-36 can fill in for a Panther.

All three would need little sheet metal work to the hull and turret. The suspension could be hidden with skirts as the Germans did equip thier tanks with them.

I could go on and on

[RickL]

its all about the budget

This topic keeps coming up and I keep pointing out its all about the budget. The director may call for a entire fleet of accurate vehicles for a period movie but guess what happens when it comes time to cut the budget? That WW2 fleet becomes the M38 and M37 off of the back lot or the local film vehicle rental guy.

Talk to someone involved with the industry like TacticalTruck, he gets calls for equipment all the time and it gets paired down or dropped by the time film starts to roll.

Rick