harrytheheid
A Fixture
Disclaimer
The following cinema classic screenplay and series of movie still’s is not for the faint-hearted. Any resemblance to actual people, living or otherwise, is entirely intentional and historical inaccuracies like skirts too short are cos Weinstein insisted on them. Dubious shoulder patches and the wrong 1943 US flag are the result of poor research by the wardrobe dept. Unfortunately, there were no M48 Patton tanks available to use as German Panzers and American Ronson’s during the filming of this epic.
Special guest appearance of Marilyn Monroe is by kind permission of JFK.
The overture theme is “Copperhead Road” composed and performed by Steve Earle, and the full music score from the movie is available on CD;
https://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Collection-Steve-Earle/dp/B001O3MLU4
ROAD to MESSINA
Nope – it’s not an old B&W Bing & Bob comedy/adventure “Road Movie”.
It’s borderline lunatic, Lieutenant-General George Smith Patton Jnr and his 7th US Army’s race with the similarly flawed General Bernard Law Montgomery and his battle-worn Desert Veterans, to deliver Sicily from Benito’s evil Fascist régime, July - August 1943.
However, with Patton’s forces still 3 miles short of closing off the German escape route at the port of Messina, today’s busy PR schedule, (which includes a morale-boosting visit to wounded GI’s at a nearby field hospital), has been screwed because “Old Blood & Guts” and his MP escort have stumbled over a member of his command engaged in a spot of private enterprise.
Hapless Pte Oswald Harvey Oldman latterly of Dallas, Texas, who’s been caught with his pants around his ankles while moving samples of the goods, initially tries a hastily cooked-up story that the crates are filled with Molotov Cocktails. This isn’t necessarily an outright lie, seeing as that moonshine is probably as flammable as gasoline. It’s too bad for Oswald that he’s not fooling George S, or anyone else for that matter.
Tough MP, Sgt R. Lee Hartman barks, “Are you eye-balling me son?”
“Sir, no Sir,” screams Oswald.
“Don’t try an’ lie to me boy. Git down there an’ gimme twenty.”
Hartman then spots two light-fingered characters from the Big Red One encroaching on the crime scene hoping for the chance to grab a few free bottles of hooch, and he warns them off in no uncertain terms.
Very no-uncertain-terms.
His even tougher partner, ex-San Francisco PD officer, Sgt Larry “Grubby” Callaghan, snarls at the now-breathless Oswald,
“I know what you're thinking maggot. You're thinking, that’s an M1 semi-automatic Garand rifle Sgt Callaghan’s waving around, an’ the clip holds eight rounds -- but has he fired eight warning shots, or only seven?”
“Now to tell the truth, I've forgotten myself in all this excitement. But seeing as the 0.30-06 caliber Garand is the best squad weapon in the world and will blow your head clean off, you got to ask yourself a question.”
“Do I feel lucky?"
“Well? Do ya feel lucky, punk?”
The unhappy Oswald, with the muzzle of Grubby Larry’s M1 almost inside his left nostril, decides that his day has been all out of luck so far and avoids that Italian Carcano carbine fixed to the jeep windshield like it’s got the bubonic plague.
Patton’s driver, Tech 3rd Grade, Patrick “Red” O’Halloran from the Lower East Side, Chicago, and his sidekick, Pte Jethro “Jed” Clampett of Birmingham, Alabama, are fixin’ to have a good snigger while they enjoy the MP’s ripping Oswald a new one from that truly awesome can of whoop-ass they've opened up on him.
There's also two obviously rear-echelon officers trying to brainstorm their way through electro-mechanical mysteries. All just too funny.
The onlookers include two strays from 82nd Airborne. A couple of identical cousins, Marion “Gritty” Chisum and John “Gabby” Dutton, residents of the bunkhouse on a run-down ranch in Sidewinder County, around fifty miles from the nearest one-horse town of Fractured Jaw, New Mexico.
This pair of saddle tramps disembarked from the troopship at some miserable place in England called Greenock; where the saloons didn’t provide spittoons or proper ice-cold beer, and the cantankerous clientele insisted on growling at them in some guttural dialect of what might have been Swedish. Maybe it was Dutch, but them folks shore wuzzn’t speakin’ American.
Our two heroes were then shipped off to some searing wasteland called Tunisia to prepare for the invasion of Southern Europe -- and the jump into Sicily that didn’t quite go to plan due to high winds and pilot error.
Having never previously been across the county line, exhausted and completely disorientated, by this time they think they might have been dropped into Denver.
They’ve stopped off at “The Pizzeria Napoletana” to sink a few cold ones of Coors Lite, along with Lt Simon Lacroix Legree, lately a cotton industry entrepreneur in Louisiana, who’s been admiring French waitress Yvette Carte-Blanche’s incredible legs…and she’s still waiting for them to settle up for all that flat beer left on their table.
Now desperate for the company of their own kind, they ask Legree,
“Say Lootenant, if’n y’all can see Colonel Jim a-comin’ woopin’ an’ a-hollorin’ on down the pike with the rest of the good ol’ boys from the 82nd.”
Perhaps they’re hoping Colonel Jim will pick up the tab.
The young officer has a quick scan through his bino’s and says nope, no sign of the soon-to-be-promoted to General rank, James Gavin and his boys, but he can see that shady Pte Clint Kelly guy hightailing out of town on the back of what must be a new type of Sherman, cos it’s real fast, sports a huge turret gun…and what looks like a pretty cool music system.
Pseudo-Scot, Major Sir Alasdair Lancelot Wigan-Pier, of that ilk, from a crumbling sandstone castle near Wick that was built by the estate factor around the turn of the century; and who’s Monty’s spy…err…the British Liaison Officer, gleefully updates his prickly Boss, who still reckons his Desert Rats will beat “THAT PRIMA DONNA” into Messina.
And with typical Limey duplicity, this guy has the blatant cheek to file his scandalous report using the latest US Army wireless gear being tirelessly lugged around by Patton’s baby-faced radio operator; the Hershey-bar munching Hank “Kid” Williams Jr of Boot-Heel City, Missouri.
Meanwhile, Cpl Mickey Cornetto from Manhattan, Noo Yoik, has run into some dame trying to claim her,
“Knees have gone all wobbly at the sudden influx of so many quiet-spoken and clean-cut American boys who all look like film stars.”
While Signorina Carla Ponti can certainly be economical with the truth, especially when sizing up Neanderthal’s with poor personal hygiene who might as well have $-signs tattooed on the ridge of bone across their foreheads; she’s also pretty quick off the mark to recognize lucrative black-market opportunities for all those Nylons and Cartons of Lucky’s the bellowing and disheveled GI’s are handing out with generous abandon.
Observing the festivities with eyes colder than glacial ice, Patton resolves to set these goofballs straight once he’s finished dealing with Oswald.
Naturally, Mickey and the entire 2nd platoon get invited to a private celebration party round at Carla’s BFF Sofie Scicolone’s place at the back of the pizza restaurant she runs on Syracuse Boulevard. That’s Sofie and her poisonous little sister Lucrezia along with Yvette, in front of their establishment next to The Statue of The Fallen Madonna, discussing the wonders of ancient Sicilian culture with The Forces of Democracy.
Winning hearts and minds are…(photo is from the auditions)...
…Pte Kirby “Swamp Thing” Boudreaux from the bayou’s around Baton Rouge; PFC Elijah “Rooster” McAllister out of Mountainburg, Arkansas; Pte Nathan “Reb” Forrest from Bedford, Georgia; Pte John Lee Pettimore of Copperhead County, Kentucky and Top-Sgt Benjamin “Benny the Ball” Lebowski of New Jersey.
The boys are all eager to attend the liberation bash, but the only stuff likely to be liberated round at Sofie’s place is the contents of GI’s wallets.
It’s strongly suspected that “The Pizzeria Napoletana” is where the bootleg white lightening is being manufactured, no doubt utilizing a rusty cast-iron cauldron and an innovative selection of unspeakable ingredients.
US Army Intelligence have been casing the joint for days and checking out the ID’s of all four young ladies.
Carla is definitely mainland Italian and may be a double-agent on the payroll of Admiral Wilhelm’s Abwehr. Yvette is a French Resistance leader from Marseille who’s hiding out from the Boche, but the Scicolone sisters are a complete mystery.
In an amazing plot twist, despite the fact they look nothing like each other, stunning blonde Lt Mary Ure and the equally attractive Lt Ingrid Pitt are deadly British SOE agents, who’ve been secretly inserted into the local crime organization…as sisters..!!??
Moving on…
…Captain Harold Norbert Huckabee III of Santa Rosa, California, had demonstrated a level of hitherto unsuspected initiative and purloined a beat-up dispatches motorcycle; then hit the road to Messina hoping to sniff out delivery of his promised merchandise. Having never previously been further from HQ than a trip to the latrines, he inevitably got lost within the first couple of miles and now, even worse, his 2-wheeled transport has seized up, leaving him stranded in what is essentially a combat zone. With mounting apprehension, he kicks the tires a few times, only to discover that doesn’t make the piece of junk work.
Fellow West Point Graduate, Major Troy Whitmore Drake, a scion of old money from Providence, Rhode Island, now decides to offer his two cents, although what he understands about motorcycles is pretty much what a donkey understands about Boolean Algebra.
Consulting the smudged Harley Operators Manual, he hopefully suggests the problem might be fouled spark plugs, the battery could be flat, the condenser across the points is maybe blown, or something?
Perhaps getting that bit closer to the prize cigar, he finally reckons the breakdown can actually be attributed to the locally-sourced oil that dumbass HQ mechanic, Jake “Torquey” Cutter, used at the last service interval way back in Vichy French-Morocco.
“Torquey” would’ve done better to go see Rick at the Café Americaine for the oil. Rick can get his hands on anything and get anything, or anyone, fixed up as well, if he’s a mind to.
So, will Oswald Harvey Oldman end up being the patsy for the samples of “1943 Vintage Chateau Rotgut” he’s been caught trying to deliver to various end-users, while Pte Kelly the real villain of the piece flees the scene with the main consignment of illicit goods?
Will George S have to apologize to Oswald for being nasty to him?
Will those two bozo’s ever realize they’re reading the diagrams in that smudged Harley Operators Manual…upside down?
Will Lt’s Ure and Pitt be betrayed into foul Tedeschi hands by Carla the suspected Abwehr double-agent? Probably not, as they’re both signed up for the follow-up movie – as is Pte Kelly funnily enough.
Will Yvette fall for Major Wigan-Pier? Stranger things have happened in this movie.
Or is this entire farce yet another Slimy Limey sting operation set up by shadowy SOE Colonel Colin Firth back in London to get Monty into Messina first?
Next movie in the franchise is being filmed even as this one goes on general release.
Working title will be either; “Patton Charms the Ladies of Piccadilly”, or “Piccadilly: Where Only Eagles Dare”.
1:35 Scale Models & Figures
The Dodge Staff Car is from Italeri.
The Harley is from Miniart.
The Jeep is from Tamiya.
Figures are both plastic and resin from various manufacturers including Tamiya, Dragon, Verlinden, MJ Miniatures, etcetera, etcetera.
Models & figures are painted with acrylics from Lifecolor, Vallejo and Scale75.
The street section, palm tree kit, Madonna statue and scatter material are all from Reality in Scale. The restaurant façade is scratch-built. Movie poster and pin-up fliers are by Verlinden.
Uniform and Armament References
Pictures on front & back of the figure boxes.
Historical References
The Allied Invasion of Sicily - from internet;
https://theww2site.com/battle-briefings/allied-invasion-of-sicily-1943/
Countless WW2 films but mainly “Patton (1970)”, which must surely rank as quite the most rabid anti-British propaganda ever churned out by Hollywood.
Great movie though.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066206/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
People References
Biography: George Patton – from internet;
https://www.biography.com/military-figure/george-patton
Biography: Bernard Montgomery – from internet;
https://www.thoughtco.com/field-marshal-bernard-montgomery-2360162
Biography: James Gavin – from internet;
https://www.historynet.com/jim-gavin-the-general-who-jumped-first/
Biography: Sofia Loren – from internet;
https://short-biography.com/sophia-loren.htm
Pop-Culture References
So many that I lost track. Will be interesting if anyone can spot them all.
Cheers
H
The following cinema classic screenplay and series of movie still’s is not for the faint-hearted. Any resemblance to actual people, living or otherwise, is entirely intentional and historical inaccuracies like skirts too short are cos Weinstein insisted on them. Dubious shoulder patches and the wrong 1943 US flag are the result of poor research by the wardrobe dept. Unfortunately, there were no M48 Patton tanks available to use as German Panzers and American Ronson’s during the filming of this epic.
Special guest appearance of Marilyn Monroe is by kind permission of JFK.
The overture theme is “Copperhead Road” composed and performed by Steve Earle, and the full music score from the movie is available on CD;
https://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Collection-Steve-Earle/dp/B001O3MLU4
ROAD to MESSINA
Nope – it’s not an old B&W Bing & Bob comedy/adventure “Road Movie”.
It’s borderline lunatic, Lieutenant-General George Smith Patton Jnr and his 7th US Army’s race with the similarly flawed General Bernard Law Montgomery and his battle-worn Desert Veterans, to deliver Sicily from Benito’s evil Fascist régime, July - August 1943.
However, with Patton’s forces still 3 miles short of closing off the German escape route at the port of Messina, today’s busy PR schedule, (which includes a morale-boosting visit to wounded GI’s at a nearby field hospital), has been screwed because “Old Blood & Guts” and his MP escort have stumbled over a member of his command engaged in a spot of private enterprise.
Hapless Pte Oswald Harvey Oldman latterly of Dallas, Texas, who’s been caught with his pants around his ankles while moving samples of the goods, initially tries a hastily cooked-up story that the crates are filled with Molotov Cocktails. This isn’t necessarily an outright lie, seeing as that moonshine is probably as flammable as gasoline. It’s too bad for Oswald that he’s not fooling George S, or anyone else for that matter.
Tough MP, Sgt R. Lee Hartman barks, “Are you eye-balling me son?”
“Sir, no Sir,” screams Oswald.
“Don’t try an’ lie to me boy. Git down there an’ gimme twenty.”
Hartman then spots two light-fingered characters from the Big Red One encroaching on the crime scene hoping for the chance to grab a few free bottles of hooch, and he warns them off in no uncertain terms.
Very no-uncertain-terms.
His even tougher partner, ex-San Francisco PD officer, Sgt Larry “Grubby” Callaghan, snarls at the now-breathless Oswald,
“I know what you're thinking maggot. You're thinking, that’s an M1 semi-automatic Garand rifle Sgt Callaghan’s waving around, an’ the clip holds eight rounds -- but has he fired eight warning shots, or only seven?”
“Now to tell the truth, I've forgotten myself in all this excitement. But seeing as the 0.30-06 caliber Garand is the best squad weapon in the world and will blow your head clean off, you got to ask yourself a question.”
“Do I feel lucky?"
“Well? Do ya feel lucky, punk?”
The unhappy Oswald, with the muzzle of Grubby Larry’s M1 almost inside his left nostril, decides that his day has been all out of luck so far and avoids that Italian Carcano carbine fixed to the jeep windshield like it’s got the bubonic plague.
Patton’s driver, Tech 3rd Grade, Patrick “Red” O’Halloran from the Lower East Side, Chicago, and his sidekick, Pte Jethro “Jed” Clampett of Birmingham, Alabama, are fixin’ to have a good snigger while they enjoy the MP’s ripping Oswald a new one from that truly awesome can of whoop-ass they've opened up on him.
There's also two obviously rear-echelon officers trying to brainstorm their way through electro-mechanical mysteries. All just too funny.
The onlookers include two strays from 82nd Airborne. A couple of identical cousins, Marion “Gritty” Chisum and John “Gabby” Dutton, residents of the bunkhouse on a run-down ranch in Sidewinder County, around fifty miles from the nearest one-horse town of Fractured Jaw, New Mexico.
This pair of saddle tramps disembarked from the troopship at some miserable place in England called Greenock; where the saloons didn’t provide spittoons or proper ice-cold beer, and the cantankerous clientele insisted on growling at them in some guttural dialect of what might have been Swedish. Maybe it was Dutch, but them folks shore wuzzn’t speakin’ American.
Our two heroes were then shipped off to some searing wasteland called Tunisia to prepare for the invasion of Southern Europe -- and the jump into Sicily that didn’t quite go to plan due to high winds and pilot error.
Having never previously been across the county line, exhausted and completely disorientated, by this time they think they might have been dropped into Denver.
They’ve stopped off at “The Pizzeria Napoletana” to sink a few cold ones of Coors Lite, along with Lt Simon Lacroix Legree, lately a cotton industry entrepreneur in Louisiana, who’s been admiring French waitress Yvette Carte-Blanche’s incredible legs…and she’s still waiting for them to settle up for all that flat beer left on their table.
Now desperate for the company of their own kind, they ask Legree,
“Say Lootenant, if’n y’all can see Colonel Jim a-comin’ woopin’ an’ a-hollorin’ on down the pike with the rest of the good ol’ boys from the 82nd.”
Perhaps they’re hoping Colonel Jim will pick up the tab.
The young officer has a quick scan through his bino’s and says nope, no sign of the soon-to-be-promoted to General rank, James Gavin and his boys, but he can see that shady Pte Clint Kelly guy hightailing out of town on the back of what must be a new type of Sherman, cos it’s real fast, sports a huge turret gun…and what looks like a pretty cool music system.
Pseudo-Scot, Major Sir Alasdair Lancelot Wigan-Pier, of that ilk, from a crumbling sandstone castle near Wick that was built by the estate factor around the turn of the century; and who’s Monty’s spy…err…the British Liaison Officer, gleefully updates his prickly Boss, who still reckons his Desert Rats will beat “THAT PRIMA DONNA” into Messina.
And with typical Limey duplicity, this guy has the blatant cheek to file his scandalous report using the latest US Army wireless gear being tirelessly lugged around by Patton’s baby-faced radio operator; the Hershey-bar munching Hank “Kid” Williams Jr of Boot-Heel City, Missouri.
Meanwhile, Cpl Mickey Cornetto from Manhattan, Noo Yoik, has run into some dame trying to claim her,
“Knees have gone all wobbly at the sudden influx of so many quiet-spoken and clean-cut American boys who all look like film stars.”
While Signorina Carla Ponti can certainly be economical with the truth, especially when sizing up Neanderthal’s with poor personal hygiene who might as well have $-signs tattooed on the ridge of bone across their foreheads; she’s also pretty quick off the mark to recognize lucrative black-market opportunities for all those Nylons and Cartons of Lucky’s the bellowing and disheveled GI’s are handing out with generous abandon.
Observing the festivities with eyes colder than glacial ice, Patton resolves to set these goofballs straight once he’s finished dealing with Oswald.
Naturally, Mickey and the entire 2nd platoon get invited to a private celebration party round at Carla’s BFF Sofie Scicolone’s place at the back of the pizza restaurant she runs on Syracuse Boulevard. That’s Sofie and her poisonous little sister Lucrezia along with Yvette, in front of their establishment next to The Statue of The Fallen Madonna, discussing the wonders of ancient Sicilian culture with The Forces of Democracy.
Winning hearts and minds are…(photo is from the auditions)...
…Pte Kirby “Swamp Thing” Boudreaux from the bayou’s around Baton Rouge; PFC Elijah “Rooster” McAllister out of Mountainburg, Arkansas; Pte Nathan “Reb” Forrest from Bedford, Georgia; Pte John Lee Pettimore of Copperhead County, Kentucky and Top-Sgt Benjamin “Benny the Ball” Lebowski of New Jersey.
The boys are all eager to attend the liberation bash, but the only stuff likely to be liberated round at Sofie’s place is the contents of GI’s wallets.
It’s strongly suspected that “The Pizzeria Napoletana” is where the bootleg white lightening is being manufactured, no doubt utilizing a rusty cast-iron cauldron and an innovative selection of unspeakable ingredients.
US Army Intelligence have been casing the joint for days and checking out the ID’s of all four young ladies.
Carla is definitely mainland Italian and may be a double-agent on the payroll of Admiral Wilhelm’s Abwehr. Yvette is a French Resistance leader from Marseille who’s hiding out from the Boche, but the Scicolone sisters are a complete mystery.
In an amazing plot twist, despite the fact they look nothing like each other, stunning blonde Lt Mary Ure and the equally attractive Lt Ingrid Pitt are deadly British SOE agents, who’ve been secretly inserted into the local crime organization…as sisters..!!??
Moving on…
…Captain Harold Norbert Huckabee III of Santa Rosa, California, had demonstrated a level of hitherto unsuspected initiative and purloined a beat-up dispatches motorcycle; then hit the road to Messina hoping to sniff out delivery of his promised merchandise. Having never previously been further from HQ than a trip to the latrines, he inevitably got lost within the first couple of miles and now, even worse, his 2-wheeled transport has seized up, leaving him stranded in what is essentially a combat zone. With mounting apprehension, he kicks the tires a few times, only to discover that doesn’t make the piece of junk work.
Fellow West Point Graduate, Major Troy Whitmore Drake, a scion of old money from Providence, Rhode Island, now decides to offer his two cents, although what he understands about motorcycles is pretty much what a donkey understands about Boolean Algebra.
Consulting the smudged Harley Operators Manual, he hopefully suggests the problem might be fouled spark plugs, the battery could be flat, the condenser across the points is maybe blown, or something?
Perhaps getting that bit closer to the prize cigar, he finally reckons the breakdown can actually be attributed to the locally-sourced oil that dumbass HQ mechanic, Jake “Torquey” Cutter, used at the last service interval way back in Vichy French-Morocco.
“Torquey” would’ve done better to go see Rick at the Café Americaine for the oil. Rick can get his hands on anything and get anything, or anyone, fixed up as well, if he’s a mind to.
So, will Oswald Harvey Oldman end up being the patsy for the samples of “1943 Vintage Chateau Rotgut” he’s been caught trying to deliver to various end-users, while Pte Kelly the real villain of the piece flees the scene with the main consignment of illicit goods?
Will George S have to apologize to Oswald for being nasty to him?
Will those two bozo’s ever realize they’re reading the diagrams in that smudged Harley Operators Manual…upside down?
Will Lt’s Ure and Pitt be betrayed into foul Tedeschi hands by Carla the suspected Abwehr double-agent? Probably not, as they’re both signed up for the follow-up movie – as is Pte Kelly funnily enough.
Will Yvette fall for Major Wigan-Pier? Stranger things have happened in this movie.
Or is this entire farce yet another Slimy Limey sting operation set up by shadowy SOE Colonel Colin Firth back in London to get Monty into Messina first?
Next movie in the franchise is being filmed even as this one goes on general release.
Working title will be either; “Patton Charms the Ladies of Piccadilly”, or “Piccadilly: Where Only Eagles Dare”.
1:35 Scale Models & Figures
The Dodge Staff Car is from Italeri.
The Harley is from Miniart.
The Jeep is from Tamiya.
Figures are both plastic and resin from various manufacturers including Tamiya, Dragon, Verlinden, MJ Miniatures, etcetera, etcetera.
Models & figures are painted with acrylics from Lifecolor, Vallejo and Scale75.
The street section, palm tree kit, Madonna statue and scatter material are all from Reality in Scale. The restaurant façade is scratch-built. Movie poster and pin-up fliers are by Verlinden.
Uniform and Armament References
Pictures on front & back of the figure boxes.
Historical References
The Allied Invasion of Sicily - from internet;
https://theww2site.com/battle-briefings/allied-invasion-of-sicily-1943/
Countless WW2 films but mainly “Patton (1970)”, which must surely rank as quite the most rabid anti-British propaganda ever churned out by Hollywood.
Great movie though.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066206/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
People References
Biography: George Patton – from internet;
https://www.biography.com/military-figure/george-patton
Biography: Bernard Montgomery – from internet;
https://www.thoughtco.com/field-marshal-bernard-montgomery-2360162
Biography: James Gavin – from internet;
https://www.historynet.com/jim-gavin-the-general-who-jumped-first/
Biography: Sofia Loren – from internet;
https://short-biography.com/sophia-loren.htm
Pop-Culture References
So many that I lost track. Will be interesting if anyone can spot them all.
Cheers
H
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