Dam Busters Filmed at Skegness

Dam Busters film shoot on location in Skegness

Some scenes from the famous World War 2 film, The Dam Busters, were shot on location at Gibraltar Point Skegness in 1954.
The film which was an adaptation of Paul Brickhill’s best selling book, The Dam Busters, was directed by Michael Anderson and starred Richard Todd and Michael Redgrave. It was a story of the epic RAF raid , led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC on the Moehne and Eder Dams.
Richard Todd was cast as Gibson and Michael Redgrave as the scientist who designed the bomb which breached the dams in Germany in 1943.

FILMING ” THE DAM BUSTERS’ ON LOCATION IN LINCOLNSHIRE FOR EPIC OF THE R.A.F.
AT first glance there would not appear to be any connection between the mechanical glamour of the film studios and the wild desolation that is Gibraltar Point on the Lincolnshire coastline. A second glance is not very revealing either. But should you have probed deeper into the Point reserves last week you would have come across the strangest of paradoxes; a film studio on the marshes !

Picture: Arc lights blaze in the mid-day sun on Skegness beach. Michael Redgrave (left), Richard Todd (centre).

There, amid any number of electrical and photographic devices were to be seen such stars as Richard Todd and Michael Redgrave working under the expert eye of ace director Michael Anderson. They and some seventy others were all busy making a film version of Paul Brickhill’s bestselling book, ” The Dam Busters ” —the story of the epic R.A.F. raid, led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson, V.C., on the Moehne and Eder dams.
An air of urgent expectancy hung over the marsh-land (writes a ” Standard ” reporter who visited the scene on Wednesday). Filming had started only a few hours earlier and before the unit left the district at the end of the week, many important scenes had to be “shot” at Gibraltar Point. There was no time to be lost !
Secrecy surrounded the arrival of the film people in Skegness on Tuesday, but despite all precautionary measures, a large crowd of eager spectators had gathered to watch the day’s happenings.
SPECTATOR PROBLEM
It was one man’s work almost to keep the onlookers out of camera range. Three huge arc lamps, standing on immense tripods looked over the scene, blazing down brightly to add to the sun’s bright rays. Only disturbing note was the cold wind blowing over from across the North Sea.
Gibraltar Point does not feature in Brickhill’s story and the scenes now being shot there took place in actual fact on the Thames estuary. But the estuary these days is a very busy place; there is a continuous flow of aircraft overhead and so it was decided to film the scenes in quieter Lincolnshire.
Richard Todd, who shot to fame in ” The Hasty Heart,” and who has since consolidated his top ranking position in British films in several of Walt Disney’s historical subjects, is playing the part of Gibson.
Another sterling British actor (just as much at home on the stage as he is on the screen), Michael Redgrave has a co-starring role as the scientist who designed the bomb (dropped by Gibson) which breached the Moehne and Eder dams in Germany in 1943.
Scenes being shot on Wednesday featured Redgrave and Todd chatting together after the dropping of a test bomb (which had failed).
In the final film, this will take less than ninety seconds to screen –but it kept the cast occupied for almost an hour on Wednesday.
The scene, after final rehearsal was shot time after time (eleven , altogether stated a watchful “extra”). First the sun refused to I shine then the wind created a disturbance: then an actor fluffed his lines. Even the bystanders were word perfect bythe time it was finally ” in the can”!

SHEER HUMOUR
Watch out for it when the film is generally released. Redgrave says to Todd: ” You must think me something of a fraud. It’s always like this when you are trying something new.
He then bids farewell to Todd and sets off to search for pieces of wreckage in the mud, taking off his shoes and socks in the process. Arid although the scene was shot many times, he did not appear to find the unshodding  at all tedious.
When finally the director gave the scene his O.K., Redgrave set everyone laughing when, in a moment of sheer humour, began to peel off his raincoat, his jacket and his slip-over also !
Richard Todd was quickly surrounded by autograph hunters at the conclusion of his sequences. When offered a pipe-full of tobacco, he thanked the donor, adding that he had a ” quarter of a pound ” of his “own for the day.”
Three Lancaster bombers specially converted for the film by Lincoln men are standing by at Hems-well for these sequences, which show the training exercises before the film of the ” raid.”

Skegness News Report

WHEN THE TEST BOMB, proptotype of those to be used in the epic raid on the Moehne and Eder dams in 1943, broke its casing on impact with the water, it fell to an R.A.F. Group Captain to tell the bomb’s ‘designer, Dr. Wallis, that it was “a bad business” and to, ask tersely ” What are you going to do about it?”
This scene from Associated British Picture Corporation’s production of ” The Dam Busters,” based on Paul Brickhill’s best selling production book of the achievement of 617 Squadron, led by the late Wing Commander Guy Gibson, V.C., was shot on the shore at Gibraltar Point, near Skegness, on Thursday afternoon, and the picture above shows it actually taken with the sound ” on,” though not from the angle of the ultimate viewer of the film.
Michael Redgrave, who plays Dr. Barnes Wallis, wearing raincoat and looking out to sea, is on the extreme right of the picture with Anthony Shaw as the Group Captain. Director Michael Anderson, duffle-coated and wearing cap, stands immediately before one of the big filler-lights, and almost directly beneath the roving arm of the microphone is the continuity girl, Miss Thelma Orr.

STAND-INS FOR STARS
The actual camera is temporaily hidden by two spectators in the foreground. Behind it is a group of executives and technicians, including the director of photography, and in the group on the left are several Skegness amateur actors who had a seven days’ assignment as extras.

The local extras received several briefings from the director prior to going before the camera, and one of these is shown in the right-hand picture. Richard Simpson, who prolonged flying visit from London to act as stand-in for Richard Todd (starred as Guy Gibson) is on the extreme left, with W. E. Clayworth, stand-in. for Michael Redgrave, in foreground. Messrs. E. Taylor and A. L. Manger, as high-ranking R.A.F. officers observing the trials, are on either side of the director, others in the picture being Mr. G. D. Hill as an R.N. Captain, Mr. C. O. Shepherd as an observer from the War Office, and Messrs. G. M. Wright and A. A. Lickorish as representative4 of the Ministry of Supply.

Source: Skegness Standard and Skegness News 1954
Top photograph by  G F Addy

Skegness News Reporter’s Account

We are pleased to announce that the newpaper reporter who covered this story for the Skegness News, way back in 1954, has contacted us.
He is Peter Hopper who now lives in Ipswich. Here’s Peter’s memories of interviewing Richard Todd on location in Skegness:

I was there!
Todd
News that Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is to remake the classic Second World War movie,  The Dambusters,  provides me with a graphic reminder of one of my proudest moments as a cub reporter on the one-time weekly newspaper, the Skegness News.
Part of the original film in the mid-1950s  – the scenes where Barnes Wallis’s awesome bouncing bomb burst on impact when it hit the water, because it was being dropped from too great a height – was shot on a lonely part of the Lincolnshire coastline, at Gibraltar Point.
I was 17 years old at the time I was sent out on my bicycle to interview the star of the film, Richard Todd, who played the raid’s leader, Guy Gibson.
I waited on the edge of the set until filming ended for the day before I approached the actor for my big moment.“Yes,” he said to my request, “But you’ll have to jump in my car,  we can talk on the way back to Skegness.” I did as he said, but the interview did not go as I intended, because Richard Todd was also a farmer, and all he really wanted to talk about was farming.
There was a pile of Farmers Weekly magazines in the back of the car, as if to emphasize that he was a real man of the soil.
I managed to get a few bit and pieces out of him about his film career, but I wasn’t really interested in the farming side of his life at that time, though I would have been later as I was to spend more than 30 years of my own career as an agricultural journalist in Lincolnshire and Suffolk.
I dare not tell one of my greatest film heroes that I would have to walk the whole two miles back to the film set to retrieve my bike, but I set off on the return journey on foot with a glad heart, feeling mighty pleased with my eporting coup.
It is only three years ago since I discovered the Lincolnshire home address of the now veteran actor Richard Todd, so  I wrote to him about our encounter. He graciously replied, and said he could well believe that he tended to harp on about farming rather than filming.
Before wishing me success on my forthcoming book on farming, the actor commented: “Sadly in many ways, I gave up actively farming years ago and now live in semi-retirement contemplating the rotting crops of other less fortunate country-folk.”
A telling sign of the times, I fear.
Peter Hopper, Ipswich

Many thanks, Peter, for taking the time to share your memories with us!

Mike Slattery has been kind enough to email us about the Dam Busters film shoot. Mike says:-

“I remember the filming of the dambusters at Gibraltar point, myself and a friend were in the sea cadets at that time and were  down Gibraltar Point boating on one of the days they were filming, after watching this for a while we saw Richard Todd walking back to his car with another person, they put the car radio on and were listening to the cricket match, so we went over to the car to ask them for the score Richard Todd opened the door and let us listen  for a while, we then summed up courage to ask for a autograph which Richard Todd gave us, the other gentleman ask if we wanted his autograph to which we replied no thank you, and went on our merry way.
The other gentleman was Sir Michael Redgrave!”