Model A's in Movies

[wensum]

I've just seen the very good movie "Hyde Park on Hudson" which is about FDR (Franklin D Roosevelt) and his three mistresses.
The lead actress drives a Model A Tudor which besides being in concours condition, is spoilt by having two tail lights.
However the continuity is spoilt by the fact that in the interior shots it appears to have a bench front seat,
Then later the second mistress surprises the first mistress by hiding in the back seat.
She then jumps out and enters by the front door. Apparently a Fordor was used for the interior shots
Lots of Model A footage, but why didn't they use the Fordor all the time?
Or is my memory confused?
Keith

[lookin-backtexas]

Keith - you sound like me; I can't go to a movie that has Model A's in it without commenting to my wife all the things I see wrong with the car (ha). Two taillights is one of the most common things wrong if it's supposed to be an era movie when the cars were nearly new. They also frequently show a Model A in a night scene with sealed beam headlights brighter than day.

I've had my Model A's in several movies and have always required that they hire me as an extra to drive them; talk about a lot of "hurry up and wait" and reshooting the same scene five different times and then you see the final movie and you either ended up on the cutting room floor or they edited the scene so severely that all you see is your elbow sticking out the window in a quick drive-by scene. Of course you have bragged to all your buddies and their wives about being "in a movie" so they come to the premiere with you - you get to shout "Hey, that's my elbow that just went by."

To be honest, most production/property managers who are in charge of the old cars think of Model A's as merely "props" in the movie and they don't care if the car gets banged up or whatever. That's why I have always had a personal policy that if my car is used in the movie, no one but me drives it - most actors don't know the first thing about starting one or what double clutching is.

One of my Model AA trucks has been in three movies and a couple of TV commercials and I have turned down several other requests to use him because they wanted to do such things as load him on a flatbed lowboy trailer and haul him 300 miles away to use it in an oilfield scene and planned to load his bed with oilfield pipe - I can imagine them using a forklift and just dropping the heavy pipe onto his bed. He is a low mileage unrestored original Stakebed and they couldn't pay me enough to use it without my being there to watch what they do to it.

I was in a Hallmark Hall of Fame made for TV movie called "An American Story" filmed in the Dallas area and the plot was that all the good guys in this small town had gone off to fight in WWII and while they were gone the evil corrupt Boss Hogg-type politicians took over their town. My main scene was to carry about 30 well-armed guys in the bed of my truck and rush up to the town hall/jail to overthrow the current regime of politicians. Unfortunately the scene was shot in the middle of the night around 3:00 am in December when it was about 25 degrees outside and the actors (extras) in the bed of my truck kept stamping their feet to stay warm and broke out several of the original strips of bed wood. Everything went as planned and I watched while they reshot the scene from another angle with the guys getting out of the bed of my truck while a special effects guy from behind the camera used a slingshot to shoot little fireworks explosives (like kids throw on the ground and pop) at my truck. They were exploding as they hit the front bumper and fenders and the spark made them look like bullets ricocheting off the truck. They then applied decal bulletholes all over the truck. Not a really big deal until the director walks over and casually asked, "Is this your old truck?" I replied proudly, "yes, it is." He then said, "Would you mind if we actually shot out one of your headlights?" I immediately answered, "Would you mind if I F_ _ _ ed your wife?" He dropped his jaw and I said, "This old truck probably means about as much to me as your wife does to you; no you can't shoot out the headlight. This is an original unrestored 80 year old truck with the original headlights - I can't just go down to Western Auto or Pep Boys and buy another headlight." He walked away with no comment.

The truck was in another movie and they decided his fenders and hood were too shiny and wanted to "age" the vehicle. They used a pump up sprayer like you apply garden weedkiller and sprayed water in a fine mist all over the truck, then came back and shoveled fireplace ashes all over it to dull the finish for the camera. Took forever to clean it up after that episode.

The truck was also used in a CBS made-for-TV movie called "Dallas, The Early Years" which was back when the Dallas TV show was so popular - it was to be a flashback showing how the Ewings got all their oil money back in the 30's. They really wanted to use my truck because it was not restored and not too shiny so I negotiated a pretty handsome fee for its use plus being paid as an extra to drive it. They built a replica of an old oil field with lots of wood derricks and then ran 1/4 inch copper lines with small holes in the line about every 12 inches. The copper line was intertwined and wound around the wooden derricks and their plan was to pump gasoline through the line and at a predetermined time set off an explosion with a huge fireball. They reheased the scene over and over all day long and were set to blow everything around midnight. They had several firetrucks on location, ambulances standing by, even a medivac helicopter waiting if needed, etc. and cameras set up to capture the scene from several different vantage points - remember they only had ONE TAKE to do it since they were blowing everything up. Well, you can rehearse with actors all day long who know what to expect but they didn't tell the MULES that were there pulling the wagons what was coming. I parked my modern car about a hundred yards down the dirt road to watch the fireworks and it kept being delayed and delayed, etc. until around 2:00 am there was this gigantic fireball mushrooming into the air and (as you probably can guess) silhouetted against the fire I saw a team of runaway mules pulling their wagon without a driver, nostrils flared, panicked and stampeding down the road toward me at a full gallop followed by that heavy old wagon. What to do? I thought well, this is how my life is going to end being run over by a team of runaway mules and a heavy wagon in 1986; I could just see them coming up and over the hood of my new Mercedes and through the windshield into my lap. Then at the last minute thought to flip on my headlights and flash them on bright and at the last second the mules veered to my left and ran into the rear of a new Chevy Blazer parked beside me. Their heads went through the rear window and the tailgate was severely crushed by the impact of their chests hitting it and the truck was moved about 20 feet from where it was parked but the mules survived and then staggered around for a few minutes probably thinking, "What the hell was that?"

If you ever get offered the opportunity to have your Model A used in a movie, yes, it's kind of cool to think you'll be a part of Hollywood but I'm pretty sure if you do it once, that will be plenty. Just make sure that they pay you for the use of your car and then pay you as an extra to drive it - don't let it go to your head that maybe Tom Cruise or the like will be driving your car unless you want to replace a couple of gears in your transmission (ha). They'll have you get to the set at 6:00 am and sit around while they rehearse all day and might shoot a 5 minute scene at 4:00 pm. Yes you get to eat with the actors and director, gaffer, sound guy, cameraman, entire crew, etc. but the catering is not always that good on location.

One more comment since it appears that I'm telling my life story - did you ever see the movie "Places in the Heart" with Sally Field and Danny Glover? That was filmed in Waxahachie, Texas, just south of Dallas. It's a depression era movie and Wikipedia describes the movie: "Places in the Heart is a 1984 drama film that tells the story of a Texas widow who tries to keep her farm together with the help of a blind white man and a black man during the Great Depression.

Places in the Heart opens in Waxahachie, Texas in 1935 to scenes of the town and the sounds of a church choir singing "Blessed Assurance". Edna Spalding (Sally Field), places the final dish at the table. As the dinner begins there are reactions to gunshots in the distance. Sheriff Royce Spalding has a chance to eat a few bites before deputies come calling. At the railway yards a young black boy is staggering around obviously drunk, firing off a revolver. The Sheriff approaches cautiously and calls him by name, "Wylie". The boy tosses up his bottle and tries to shoot it, then fires off two more rounds before the gun misfires. Impulsively the boy points the gun at the Sheriff and pulls the trigger. Spalding, shot in the stomach, falls to the tracks. He is taken back to his home and his lifeless body is laid on the kitchen table. The scenes change to Wylie being dragged down the streets coming to rest at the Spalding home in view of Edna and her two small children Frank and Possum."

The producers contacted me about using my Model AA truck in the movie scene where the black kid was dragged down a white rock caliche road behind an old truck. Fortunately for me at the time I had removed my gas tank to have it boiled out and told them I couldn't do it right then; they asked if I knew anyone else in the Dallas area who might have an old early 30's truck they could use and I gave them the name of a friend of mine who owned a 1929 International stakebed. His truck drug the kid's body down the white rock road until the black kid was "white" covered with dust. That scene involved the Ku-Klux-Klan and I'm definitely glad that my truck doesn't have that particular claim to fame.

It's a great movie otherwise, I recommend you renting it if you haven't seen it.









Fred

[Mike V. Florida]

My brother had his A and T in the movie Mildred Pierce. Both cars are on screen for about a second and he drove the T. He made $4000.00 for the work.

Want to see other movies;

Movie car database

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

Gotta' get my car goin', "THEY" might call me!$$$$$$$$$$$
Bill W.

[wensum]

Hyde Park on Hudson
2012 Film



Hyde Park on Hudson is a 2012 British biographical historical comedy drama directed by Roger Michell. The film stars Bill Murray and Laura Linney as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Margaret "Daisy" Suckley, respectively. Wikipedia




Initial release: December 7, 2012 (USA)

Director: Roger Michell

Running time: 95 minutes

Initial DVD release: April 9, 2013 (USA)

Awards: British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actress




Cast

Bill Murray President Franklin Delano Roosevelt



Laura Linney Daisy



Samuel West King George VI



Olivia Williams Eleanor Roosevelt



Olivia Colman Queen Elizabeth

[wensum]

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Hyde Park on Hudson looks at the relationship between Franklin D. Roosevelt (Bill Murray, right), had with Daisy Suckley (Laura Linney, centre), despite being married to Eleanor (Olivia Williams). Photo / Supplied

In 1991, Margaret "Daisy" Suckley died aged 100. What makes Daisy interesting is that she was the fifth cousin of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and found under her bed after she died was a small suitcase with diaries and intimate letters that chronicled her unorthodox love affair with him.
The discovery of these letters is the inspiration for this politely mannered, nostalgic drama written by Richard Nelson.
In her diaries Daisy wrote of the preparations for the first-ever visit by a reigning British monarch to the United States in 1939, with the royals staying at Hyde Park in upstate New York, where Roosevelt lived with his mother, occasionally his wife, and often his mistresses. The film brings together two stories: the blossoming relationship between FDR and Daisy, and a meeting of huge importance to Britain, with the nervous royals preparing to ask the US for support in the impending war with Germany.
It's a sweet, amusing film, aimed at those who enjoyed The King's Speech, with director Roger Michell (Notting Hill) playing up the cultural differences between the nations for the sake of entertainment, rather than conveying the gravity of this historical moment.

[dr.j]

Several cars from our club "Canada's Capital A's" appeared in a production last summer. Met some great people and was asked to say a few lines outside the Gladstone. "what kind of car is that?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-19H9ULaBIg

[Smurkey]

If there are more pics out there from others, like Fred, who've had their As in movies/commercial, I know I'd like to see 'em! Cool write-up and pics Fred!

Steve

[wensum]

By the way, there's also considerable footage of FDR flogging around in a '35 Phaeton, if they still called them that?
Supposedly with hand controls although its hard to pick them in the movie and in fact they may not exist?
Keith