The Blockhouse

The Blockhouse (1973)

A true story of perseverance and survival.

A group of Slave workers, drafted by the Nazis to help construct their coastal defences in 1944, are trapped in an underground bunker when the Allies land at Normandy on D-Day. They find huge stores of food, but not enough candles. The slow dying of the light parallels their increasing boredom, illness, and jealousy during their entrapment. Based on the Novel 'Le Blockhaus' by Jean Paul Clebert

Date of release
1973-01-01
TMDB
6.2 / 10 (15)
Runtime
1h 33m
Genres
Drama, War
Director
Clive Rees

Casting

Interesting facts

The Blockhouse is a 1973 British survival drama film directed by Clive Rees and starring Peter Sellers, Charles Aznavour, Jeremy Kemp, Per Oscarsson, Peter Vaughan, Nicholas Jones and Leon Lissek. Based on a 1955 novel by Jean-Paul Clébert and produced by Edgar Bronfman Jr., it is about a group of forced labourers during World War II, who become trapped in an underground storehouse for years. It's noted as a rare dramatic role for Sellers.

Production

Edgar Bronfman Jnr, when only a teenager, was working on one of his father's films in London while on summer vacation. He came across a script called The Blockhouse by John Gould and Clive Rees. In the summer of 1972 Bronfman and Anthony Rufus-Isaacs combined to produce the film.

"I've fallen in love with producing" said Bronfman "and I plan to make it my life's work."

Rufus-Isaacs himself denies that Bronfman made any substantive contribution to the movie, stating: “My supposed co-producer, Edgar Bronfman Jr., was a goofy 17-year-old American high-school kid, with braces on his teeth and big round glasses. He tagged along every day in a tie-dyed denim suit, without adding any value.”

Per Rufus-Isaacs, Bronfman’s involvement in the movie was only arranged as an attempt to obtain funding from his father, “the immensely rich Edgar Bronfman Sr., who owned the Seagram Company,” though no such funding would ever be forthcoming.

The film was shot entirely on the isle of Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Filming took place in June 1972.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended