I read some where that Holden was extremely drunk during some filming of this movie. It also said that he fired a clip o
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Devil's Brigade
Borderviper-2 — 18 years ago(August 09, 2007 09:32 PM)
I read some where that Holden was extremely drunk during some filming of this movie. It also said that he fired a clip of blanks at some spectators when they were filming in Italy but the locations only say Utah.
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EuroNYC7 — 17 years ago(June 15, 2008 01:58 PM)
I was in the process of beginning a new topic on this issue, Borderviper-2 when I suddenly caught eye of your meessage. I'm sure glad I did! You have a good point,too!!! I was about to ask that myself.there are shots taken during the movie, once the Devil's Brigade was sent "overseas", that in no way,shape or form could have been filmed in Utah; maybe Italy or Spain, perhaps. The houses, the roads, the terrainsurely Imdb.com must have made an error in not including a Western European/Mediterranean locale. In the U.S. YOU DO NOT SEE ARCHITECTURE like that,concrete houses with terra-cota slabs for roofs, except in the deep southwest, what used to be Spanish territory at one time. And you definitely will not see a town with narrow roads and streets; in Spain, I see townships like that all the time. This part of the movie definitely had a European air about it,including the actors and extras playing the Germans; plus the country roads are also narrow and extremely curvy.come on!! THAT part of the movie H A D to be fimed in Italy. Anyone???
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duke1029 — 17 years ago(January 29, 2009 05:29 AM)
I don't think that those kinds of war ruins would exist in Italy 23 years after the war. My guess would be that it was filmed in Tito's Yugoslavia, which was then actively courting Hollywood producers to do location filming there and in the state owned studios in Zagreb.
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paulcmcdonagh — 16 years ago(May 25, 2009 01:05 PM)
Having just seen the film - again! - I have to agree that the European scenes are most likely to have shot in Yugoslavia.
Not only was that country very popular with studios at that time for economic reasons they also had a large army to hire out for combat movies e.g.Force 10 at Navarone. Of course the dead giveaway is that the tanks and artillery are all post war soviet stock, painted gray with German crosses on them!
It is odd, however, that the foreign locations were never credited -
parillamilt — 16 years ago(May 25, 2009 04:19 PM)
I thought the tanks in the village action were M-47 Pattons, based on the shape of the rear part of their turret.
I also thought that the final action seemed like it was near the Rockies based on the vast ridge of snow capped mountains that were always in the background. -
Locomotiva1 — 16 years ago(June 10, 2009 11:56 AM)
I can't get the exact place, but it was set somewhere in central Italy.
The small town you may see from the spotter plane, with all the TV antennae on roof is somewhere near Rome.
And there are many abandoned towns or riuned small villages in Appennini (the mountains along the spine of Italy).
Some places as San Pietro infante, where a big battle took place, were not rebuilt, but many villages were abandoned as paesant left going to cities.
Many people went to work into north-Italy factories, in the 60s.
And M-47s were second-line Italian army tanks (replaced with M48s and Leopards).
Almost every 60s italian war movie had some M47s used as "panzer". -
dominic-179-407744 — 14 years ago(October 06, 2011 10:50 PM)
Yes those war ruins did exist in Italy 23 years after the war, and for some time later.
I first saw this area in 1963, as a child, and have been there many times since. My family originated from a village a few miles away. In the film the town was called Sant'Elia and that is the actual name of the town. Or, correctly, Sant'elia Fiumerapido to differentiate it from another Sant' Elia further North.
Rapido is the name of the stream that the 'Brigade' waded down to access the town.
This little town is due North of the town of Cassino which lies mid way between Rome and Naples in an area that was ravaged during World War two at a time when tere were early incidents of the loss of US troops resulting from what is now called 'friendly fire'
My late father, who grew up in the area and experienced it all as a child used to tell me that there was a film shot there and I only checked this out recently.
Having bought and viewed the film and having been in Sant'Elia last year the principle cross roads is very similar today today some 43 years after the film was made and 67 years after the events depicted. If you go to Google Earth and type in 'Sant'elia Fiumerapido' you will go to the town the main crossroad is the area where the three tanks marshalled and surprised the German commander.
DN Glasgow Scotland -
todd19591994 — 16 years ago(August 16, 2009 12:05 AM)
For the non-Utah locations, I wish I knew. I grew up Draper, and remember vividly the cars driving East towards Corner Canyon where part of the movie was filmed. The stars just stared at us as they drove by, I was about 10 at the time. I just watched the cars go by and up the canyon every day, day after day.
One day I saw a helicopter flying towards Corner Canyon, land and take off and head North to Salt Lake City. Come to find out one of the actors was horsing around with a real rattlesnake and got bit by it. They had to take the actor to the University Of Utah Hospital. I heard that it was Vince Edwards who was bit, but I don't know for sure.
When I first saw the movie at the theater in Salt Lake, I vividly remember telling my Father that the D was there on the mountain. The "D" was for Draper. It was so exciting to see all the places that I knew on a big screen in front of me. You could see State Street in the pictures before I-15 was built. When they are climbing the cliffs towards the end of the movie, the camera pans around and you can see the fog of Utah County, Parts of Corner Canyon. You can see the Point of the Mountain from Camp Williams on the West side of Salt Lake County.
The road that the crew made to go up to the cliffs is still highly visible in Corner Canyon 40 years later. It was just a blast as a kid to see all that in person. -
CatalinaThePirate — 16 years ago(November 19, 2009 05:10 PM)
I always thought that at least SOME of the pic was shot in Italy. Bill Mauldin (artist, created the "Willy and Joe" comic) was in Italy and did a lot of illustrations of where he was - he never said where in his book because at the time it was still classified - but some of the terrain in the movie ("La Difensa") looked exactly like Mauldin's illustrations. He commented that the terrain was well suited to using an ink and brush technique since there was such stark contrast in the rocks and crags. He also mentioned "vertical fox holes"
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budman57 — 14 years ago(June 04, 2011 11:43 AM)
Much of it was definitely filmed in Italy. I'm not sure about the final Mount La Difensa scene, though.
In another thread I started (titled "1967 article about the making of The Devil's Brigade"), I posted a link to a 1967 article about the making of the movie that was published prior to the movie's release. There are two references to filming in Italy and one of the photo captions says "on location in Italy", so there's no question that the on-ground fighting and village scenes were shot in Italy. No mention is made of where the Mount La Difensa scenes were shot, however. -
itsjoan — 12 years ago(May 27, 2013 11:02 AM)
from this site, under locations:
Camp Williams National Guard Base, Lehi, Utah, USA
Corner Canyon, Draper, Utah, USA
Jordan River, Lehi, Utah, USA
National Guard Armory - 348 E. Main Street, Lehi, Utah, USA
Santa Elia Fiume Rapido, Italy
Wasatch Mountain State Park, Midway, Utah, USA -
marshalloftheraf — 12 years ago(October 30, 2013 02:59 PM)
The first scene is definitely filmed at RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire, UK. It shows the Air Traffic Control tower which was built using the crates that Hurricanes were shipped over from Canada in during the war. Unfortunately, the tower was taken down around 2006.