Ship profiles

[William Gardner]

my post was about great looking funells the ones the smoke came out off no more than that cheers m

[John Callon]

#70. No idea at all on that Marian. Seems pretty incongruous to me. Maybe its a Lancashire thing.
Regards
John

[Peter F Chard]

For me it is no contest -- the Michaelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci are the ones. I cannot remember the name of the third ship of that class. From memory the owners were Lloyd Triestino. Cheers Peter in NZ.

[happy daze john in oz]

#66, Ok William You've lost me The only 'pipe' I liked was the one my Grandpa smoked

This sounds as if Monica is raising her head again.

[Bob McGahey]

Peter.Sister ship to the MIchelangelo was the Raffaello. Both had a sad demise as accomodation ships in Iran 1977 to1991

I agree . Nice looking ships. regards Bob McGahey Qld.

[alf corbyn]

a question about blue funnel. in lawrence of arabia there is a shot of the suez canal with a blue flue ship. whats its name?. just curious, this is not a quiz.

[robpage]

lawrence9.jpg


This is the one , I believe it is Melampus , but knowing that some old Blue Flue guys are here I will stand to be corrected , in case I am wrong Blue Funnel Line's MELAMPUS, launched at Newcastle on 15.12.59, was one of the ships trapped in the Suez Canal in the 1960s ,

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[Ivan Cloherty]

Must have been the first ship ever to have radar, wasn't Lawrence of Arabia set in late 1930's, but only us seadogs would notice, landlubbers including film directors wouldn't

[robpage]

There were a couple of Errors as well as the Blue Flue Tardis

When the Arabs bomb the first Turkish train, the entire train derails, with every car toppling over sideways. But in the subsequent scenes, the cars are all upright and on the track.


The shadows in the scene with Lawrence sleeping on his camel are short because it's the middle of the day. In the next shot you see long shadows on the sand. When Ali wakes up Lawrence they are short again.


In the foreground of the Akaba raid scene, Turks are using a Browning M1919 machine gun, which wasn't yet designed and certainly would not be available to the Turkish Army.

Near the beginning, after the corporal has burned his finger and tells the other corporal that Lawrence is balmy, O'Toole begins to run up the stairs to meet with a general. After O'Toole is out of view of the camera, you can tell he has stopped running up the stairs by his shadow on the wall not moving, because he knows that the director is about to shout "cut".

During the assault on Aqaba, the Turkish defenders are using Lee-Enfield rifles (the same rifles the Arabs have). Ottoman troops were issued Mauser pattern rifles during the First World War.

There are a number of mistakes with the Vickers guns used by the Arab forces in the film. Quite a few of them are smooth jacketed guns, not introduced until October 1918. Secondly, the one on Colonel Brighton's armoured car not only has the smooth jacket but has a blank fire adaptor very prominently at the front.

When we first see General Allenby, he wears Overseas Service Chevrons on his lower right sleeve. These were only introduced in very late 1917, several months after the period being depicted.

The idea that Lawrence's Arab army almost entirely deserted him as he moved further north, as shown over the second half of the film, is entirely inaccurate. According to records, only one or two Arabs actually deserted.

En route westwards to Cairo, Lawrence is pictured arriving supposedly at the east bank of the Suez Canal but the direction of sunlight from the right with the Canal in the background can only mean that Lawrence has already crossed the Canal and is standing on the west bank (or on that day alone, the sun in the northern hemisphere shone from north to south???....NAH!)

On his way to Cairo, history records that after crossing the Sinai Desert, Lawrence arrived at the sea at Akaba (which is at the northern end of the Red Sea). In the film he turns left along the beach when he should have turned right (towards the Suez Canal). The scene was shot on a Mediterranean beach in Spain (from where Cairo WOULD be on his left!)

: Lawrence & his Arab revolt are supposedly travelling up the right flank of the Army (briefing scene with blackboard) where Harry is told to get with the arab cavalry, but it's the guns that matter, which are supposed to pound the turkish centre. In the later scene where the Arab revolt is pursuing their journey up the right flank into the night, they see gun flashes in the distance and Lawrence says god help them.... he is looking over his right shoulder as he is riding, to look at the barrage. It should be his left shoulder as they are travelling with the turkish centre to their left.

It's settled that Lawrence takes 50 of Prince Faisal's men with him to fight the Turks in Akaba (as long as they get there through the burning desert). But to my calculations there's only 32 men riding with him, plus those young servant wannabe's who (without permission) follow the party.

I should not watch films , my late wife reckons I ruined a film by spending twenty minutes explaining that the steam recip engines were going astern , the valve gear was in , and the ship steamed ahead

[Ivan Cloherty]

I rest my case Rob, YOU are a mine of information. Have the same trouble with my wife, as I'm always looking (not that you have to) for glaring mistakes, but now she's joined our 'glaringly obvious mistake club' often remarking 'they must be joking' or 'did you see that' some of the mistakes are better than the film itself