Following on from an earlier article about Torquay-based movies, here’s a few more:
Brandy for the Parson (1952) sees a young couple experiencing a series of mishaps and accidents, and getting unintentionally involved in a racket smuggling brandy from France. The ‘French port scenes’ were filmed in Torquay.
Filming continues to take place around The Bay for a series of films based on the stories of bestselling author Rosamunde Pilcher. Starting in 1993 more than 60 Pilcher films have been made across Devon and Cornwall by the German television station ZDF and sold to 28 countries. Over the next few years they will continue to produce about three or four films per year based on unpublished Pilcher short stories, some to be filmed in the Bay.
Here’s some impeccably-dressed, Italian-speaking Brixham folk:
Blackball (2003) starred Paul Kaye, Vince Vaughn, James Cromwell, Bernard Cribbins and Johnny Vegas.
Cliff Starkey (played by Paul Kaye) is a rebellious young bowls player whose dream is to play for his country. However his behaviour gets him banned from the bowls club for 15 years. Picked up by a sports agent (Vince Vaughn), Starkey is re-branded as the ‘bad boy of bowls’, turning the normally sedate sport into a glitzy competition.
Although the plot is fictional, the central character is based on real-life local bowls player Griff Sanders.
Blackball was filmed in Torquay and the Isle of Man during October and November 2002.
To appeal to an American audience, the movie was known as National Lampoon’s Blackball in the States. Here’s the American trailer:
San-Antonio (2004) is a French movie based on a novel about the detective San-Antonio. It was never released in the UK.
San-Antonio and his partner have to escort the French ambassador to a British hotel. However, the ambassador is abducted by an attractive Italian woman and the detective is dismissed. Then the president of the Republic mysteriously disappears and San-Antonio is the only one who can save the day. He has 48 hours and a secret squad to find the president.
Torquay features in some of the film’s locations, including Torquay Harbour and Meadfoot Beach:
Churchill: The Hollywood Years (2004) stars Christian Slater, Neve Campbell, and a host of British comedy talent, including Bob Mortimer, Vic Reeves, Rik Mayall, Harry Enfield and Leslie Phillips.
The movie is a satire on the way Hollywood has written Britain out of the Second World War, in films such as U571 (which had the capture of an Enigma machine being by the Americans rather than the British) and Pearl Harbour (where Americans appear to have won the Battle of Britain). The film’s other targets are the upper-class pro-Germans who sought a compromise with Hitler.
It has Winston Churchill (Christian Slater) as a US Marine closely resembling Bruce Willis. After singlehandedly repelling a Nazi invasion in 1940, he dies in the Battle of Britain, leaving Princess Elizabeth (Neve Campbell) pregnant. He is then replaced by a British actor resembling the familiar wartime leader.
While mainly filmed at Plymouth’s Royal William Yard, the movie’s opening shot features Brixham Harbour as Plymouth Docks. We also see Oldway Mansion doubling as Buckingham Palace, along with Powderham Castle, and Cockington as Frothington-on-the-Waddle. Churchill the Hollywood Years was directed by South Devon’s own Peter Richardson, who rose to prominence through the Comic Strip presents movies
Finally, there is the Torquay-set Snappers, starring Joss Stone. As far as I’m aware (?), it hasn’t been released though it’s been around for a few years. Here’s the trailer:
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