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Heights of Danger, Movie, 1953 IMDB

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dsl SX

2015-04-28 04:29

[Image: title.142.jpg]
Jolly spiffing kids film lasting 57 minutes with a ludicrous plot full of typical cliches for its genre and plot holes you could drive buses through. Daddy is a poor mechanic who owns a rundown garage
[Image: shell-bppumps.jpg]
(with both Shell and BP pumps for sixcyl) in the Buckinghamshire countryside
[Image: telegram.jpg]
... and races his treasured MG
[Image: mg01-03.jpg] .
But they're building a new bypass, which means (1) a ballet of multi-jib cranes in the background for mike962
[Image: multi-jibcranes.jpg] [Image: multi-jibcranesb.jpg]
and (2) some Nasty Bad Men want to persuade Daddy to sell them the garage before it suddenly becomes very valuable. But one of the 3 precocious kids in the family spots an advert for an international motor rally in the foreign mountains (the Alps)
[Image: rallyposter.jpg] [Image: rallypass.jpg]
.. with a £500 prize which would be enough to rescue the business. So they persuade Daddy - who is actually a very very good driver really - to enter. But he has no navigator, so eldest son (12) and daughter (10) become his navigators
[Image: mg39-40.jpg] .
Meanwhile the Nasty Bad Men realise what is going on so enter a team in the rally
[Image: 20-27saloonn.jpg]
in the Riley to sabotage their effort. However all their stupid attempts to stop the MG fail miserably, and Daddy drives the best race of his life and wins the event
[Image: mg56-09.jpg]
Hoorah! And everyone lives happily ecer after. Except the Nasty Bad Men who get really angry.

No locations on imdb or elsewhere, but filmed in Englandshire (petrol station, a hillclimb combined with a time trial, Dover ferry terminal) and in foreign lands - some rally footage of a Marseilles start (probably a genuine Alpine Rally start) and then rally footage into France, Italy, Switzerland & Austria
[Image: austriasign.jpg]
Looks like some genuine rally footage, spliced with film sequences, but they do seem to have managed to get a real rally involved (not the actual Alpine, more likely a local event) so that they can film the MG and the Riley among a proper event
[Image: rallybanner.jpg]
Look closely and there are lots of continuity goofs - the MG and Riley sometimes have proper rally plates, sometimes illegible shadow plates, and sometimes no rally plates - and some "rally" cars look fake. Plus some sequences where the MG and Riley are filmed in a studio against a rolling backcloth, and one chase between the MG and Riley which looks as if filmed on the A5 in North Wales with the Bethesda slate quarries behind. But it's a lot better than many others and is a good scenic Alpine tour.

A posh convertible with a long descending boot and a zip-in rear window
[Image: stuff05-05.jpg]
- no other view, but I wondered about Daimler

English hillclimb timing board
[Image: hillclimbtimingboard.jpg]

Cable cars
[Image: cablecar.jpg] [Image: cablecar2.jpg]

A neat looking toy
[Image: toy.jpg]
which loses its steering wheel 5 seconds later
[Image: toybnos-w.jpg]

A very small Riley
[Image: shellpumpstall.jpg]
or very tall Shell pumps in Austria.

jettalover US

2015-04-28 05:16

Yeah those pumps tower over that fellow. 10 feet high?

-- Last edit: 2015-04-28 05:17:35

dsl SX

2015-04-29 00:06

That's the main film finished. Have just realised it is almost exactly the template for the first Herbie film (plot, characters, mood, twee humour - although thankfully the MG does not have the irritating "personality" of that obnoxious Beetle, and it is not Disneyfied into such a gooey sickly mess). So while it is definitely a film for 10 year olds and under - with all the limitations that carries - it is still worth watching for the impressive array of cars and some great scenery. Try
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZpPUoqg_iU ("Reels 1 & 2") and so on for the full 7 reels in good quality, or
- http://www.britishpathe.com/video/heights-of-danger-reels-1-2 and so on in poorer quality, or
- get the DVD like wot I did (it's easy to find and cheap).

DVD has 4 extras
[Image: menu.jpg]
I'll do Safety Fast as a separate entry, and the other 3 - which are just Pathe newsreel sequences (each about 3 minutes long) as Extras for this entry. Entered in episode box as
- Extra1 = Goldie Gardner EX-135 @ Bonneville (1951)
- Extra2 = "Sterling Moss" :??: EX-181 @ Bonneville (1957)
- Extra3 = MGA Twin Cam Production (1958)


-- Last edit: 2015-05-01 00:44:17

DidierF FR

2015-04-29 01:08

DidierF wrote (What about having your terrific Heights of Danger on the complete list?)

dsl wrote ^ OK done. Glad you like it.

I would be very pecky not to. The only two Dellows in fiction movies we have are here! And of two different kinds! (I luuuv that!)

dsl SX

2015-05-01 03:23

Some pics from the Extras newsreel of MG EX-135 at Bonneville in 1951:
[Image: bvillea.jpg] [Image: bvilleb.jpg]

[Image: bvillec.jpg]

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