Dunkirk
Short description
Dunkirk is a 1958 British war drama set in 1940, as German forces close in on the French port of Dunkirk and Allied troops face capture. After their officer is killed, a British corporal takes charge of his men and must find a way to lead them back to Britain. Across the Channel, ordinary civilians are drawn into the evacuation effort known as Operation Dynamo, which aimed to bring British and French soldiers home from the beaches. Some volunteer readily, while others are more reluctant, and the film follows both the soldiers trying to reach safety and the people working to rescue them.
Leslie Norman directed the film, which was produced by Michael Balcon for Ealing Studios with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and made on a budget of about one million dollars. It runs 134 minutes and stars John Mills as Corporal Tubby Binns, with Richard Attenborough as John Holden and Bernard Lee as Charles Foreman among a credited cast of 44. The screenplay was written by W.P. Lipscomb and David Divine. Norman had directed the Ealing comedy The Shiralee the previous year, and Dunkirk followed in 1958 as a large-scale production for the studio.
On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7.1 from around 3,900 votes, while on TMDB it has a rating of 6.8 from a much smaller base of 76 votes.
What's left behind the scenes
- Vice Admiral Ramsay uses the very same bunker as his command post that served the same purpose during the war. The bunker is part of an extensive underground complex located beneath Dover Castle, which is now open to tourists.
- The film's director, Leslie Norman, participated in World War II. In 1942, he was commissioned into the British Army with the rank of major. In August 1945, he fought against the Japanese in Burma.
- Some episodes were filmed on the Strand promenade in Rye, East Sussex. One shot features the spire of the parish church of St. Mary, while another briefly shows the famous Mermaid Street.
- Richard Attenborough (1923-2014), the protagonist, puts a gas mask on a child. This is one of 38 million gas masks issued to the population by the British government during the war.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
