Some pretty decent miniature work here supervised by Lawrence Butler, although it suffers occasionally from being able to see the tank wall. Also a common deficiency in most submarine films is too great a visibility due to unrealistically clear water. There is also a very weak periscope shot with a painted ship that looks like a cartoon. One other split screen shot showing the effect of a flash powder charge detonating on the side of the Queen Mary clearly shows the sailors heads passing through the matte line.
Thanks to a reader Pete for putting me on to this film and for the link to this
page and website
http://www.moon-city-garbage.agency which has some very interesting articles and pictures on old school visual effects.
 |
| Sailors heads passing through the matte line of the superimposed explosion along the edge of the ship. |
This film is one of the small number of not only using small models but for the German WW2 U-Boat a full scale 1:1 'waterline' sectioned version was also built.
ReplyDeleteAnother site with images of the movie and production:
http://www.moon-city-garbage.agency/assault/
As well it points out the interesting but true caption for one of the photos when the sub is trying to escape under the Queen Mary stern: "Special Effects turbulences - a technician moves the model with his hands there and back!"
And low and behold - when you look above in this blog at the image where the submarine's bow has just passed the Queen Mary's stern - the ghostly hand can been seen!
By the way looking at that sequence of photos how did the sub's conning tower make it through the ocean liner's 4 propellers intact? The same question could be asked of "Down Periscope" (1996) as well.
As a bonus this web page also includes images for the Batman (1966) film using the sub's 1:1 scale version suitably altered to the Penguin's requirements.
Finally as to the exact WW2 U-Boat Type - it seems to be a mixture of several.