Oddball’s division is the “Super Sixth”, the 6th Armored Division. Eastwood, who had already signed a contract to do the film, couldn’t pull out. However, Siegel ran into post-production problems while finishing up Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and had to withdraw from the project. Kelly, Big Joe and the other recon soldiers wear the shoulder patch of the 35th Infantry Division, which was fighting in the area of Nancy, France, in late summer 1944.Ĭlint Eastwood signed to do the film mainly because his friend and favorite director, Don Siegel, was set to direct it. The American fighter-plane that attacks Kellys group, is actually an Yugoslav “Ikarus Type 522” trainer, that flew for the first time in 1955. Then again (still with me, folks?), 14,000 bars, at only 12 to a box, would require over 1,100 boxes-seemingly a lot more than is in the pile. But even assuming the weight is correct, 14,000 bars would weigh almost 16 tons (not counting boxes, men and equipment)–well beyond the capacity of the truck they were using. At the long-standing price of $35/troy ounce, the bars would have had to weigh only 32.6 oz (almost 36 oz avoirdupois) each–probably a gross understatement, even though the bars are clearly much smaller than the standard “Fort Knox” size. The ‘key’ symbol on the Tiger tanks denotes that they are attached to the 1st SS Panzer Division “Leibstandarte (Body guard unit) Adolf Hitler.”ġ4,000 gold bars, valued at $16M, equals about $1,143 per bar. He also appears as an extra (he was one of the three nuns). John Landis was a production assistant on this film. Mulligan is repeatedly berated for his inaccuracy. In golf, a “mulligan” is a “do-over” a chance to repeat a bad shot. It’s a National Guard Division, comprised of Guardsmen from Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas.Īrtillery sergeant Mulligan has a humorous name. The blue “crosshair” shoulder patch indicates Kelly and his men are from the 35th Infantry Division. It was released as a 45-rpm disc on Certron Records, catalog #C-10010, produced by Dickey Lee and Allen Reynolds (with the B-side of “When I Loved Her” also sung by Eastwood, and written by Kris Kristofferson). Reportedly, they were released after a couple of hours.Ī record was made of Clint Eastwood singing “Burning Bridges”, the theme song from the film. Croatian authorities thought they were foreign spies and arrested them. As they pursued accuracy they even traveled to Vizinada and in fact hired a pilot and plane to get aerial photos of the town. In the nineties, a group of Swedish war game enthusiasts started to build a 1/72 scale model of the town, where the robbery takes place. Christian Diestl in The Young Lions (1958). The German Tiger tank commander (played by Karl-Otto Alberty) appears to be a parody – both in appearance and manner of speaking – of Marlon Brando’s portrayal of German Lt. This is apparent when you look at the suspension of the tanks (T-34s used a modified Christie suspension, whereas the Tigers’ wheels were much more elaborate.) The “Tiger” tanks used in the film were actually Russian T-34 tanks which had been specially modified to look like Tiger tanks. The movie was mainly filmed in Yugoslavia because the Yugoslavian army still had a large quantity of Sherman tanks in 1970. Sutherland and Douglas, who are the parents of Kiefer and twin sister Rachel Sutherland, later divorced in 1970. Eastwood then put his arm around Sutherland and walked him down the hill that overlooked the Yugoslav countryside, assuring his friend with complete support of his predicament. Sutherland recounts this story often, mentioning that when Eastwood got to the part about the personal cheque, he laughed so hard, he fell to his knees, and Sutherland had to help him up. It was during shooting in Yugoslavia 1969, that Donald Sutherland received word, via co-star Clint Eastwood, that his then-wife Shirley Douglas was arrested for trying to buy hand-grenades for the Black Panthers with a personal cheque from an undercover FBI agent. The noise made by electric motors of the Tigers’ turrets was later used for the movements of the power lifters in Aliens (1986). His wife received a telegram telling her to come immediately but warning her that he would probably be dead before she arrived. Douglas Botting (Author), Ian Sayer (Author)ĭonald Sutherland became seriously ill during filming on location in Yugoslavia. Also revealed is the authors’ discovery of some of the missing treasure in the Bank of England. Their brilliant reporting, matching eyewitness testimony with declassified Top Secret documents from the US Archives, lays bare this monumental crime in a narrative which throngs with SS desperadoes, a red-headed queen of crime and American military governors living like Kings. The authors’ quest led them to a murky, dangerous post-war world of racketeering, corruption and gang warfare.
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