49th Parallel - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of 49th Parallel or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to 49th Parallel

[cassandra]

Although he is first billed, Leslie Howard (Philip Armstrong Scott) does not appear until 1 hour and 28 minutes into the film. Similarly, although he is third billed, Raymond Massey (Andy Brock) does not appear until 1 hour and 49 minutes into the film and has only eleven minutes of screentime.

[kristen]

Elisabeth Bergner was originally cast in the role of Anna, the Hutterite woman. Initially, the Hutterites were only too happy to assist with the filming until one day Bergner was spotted by a Hutterite woman smoking and painting her nails, which so incensed the woman, that she slapped Bergner full in the face. Filming was halted until Producer and Director Michael Powell pled with the community to let them continue. Bergner was eventually replaced by the much younger Glynis Johns (although Bergner can be seen in some long shots). It also transpired that the main reason Bergner had joined the movie was to get to America, as a German Jew living in England, she felt that the Nazis were a little too close for comfort, and so safely emigrated to the U.S.

[lynn]

Raymond Massey, Leslie Howard, and Sir Laurence Olivier agreed to work for half of their usual fee for the war effort.

[riley]

Approximately eighteen minutes, mostly of a travelogue nature, were eliminated from this movie before its U.S. release, but have since been restored to what constitutes the original version, now bearing the Janus Films logo, as seen on Turner Classic Movies.

[alyssa]

The 49th Parallel of the title is the circle of latitude 49th parallel north or 49 degrees north. As this movie mentioned, it represents the border between the U.S. and Canada (which is where most of the movie takes place). The 49th Parallel also crosses Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean.

[duane]

Tony Thomas in his book "The Great Adventure Films" states that this movie "was begun in April of 1940 and took eighteen months to complete. More than two-thirds of it was shot in Canada, and required a great deal of travel. The Canadian government assisted the (film) company by giving facilities and loaning servicemen and policemen whenever necessary, but the Royal Canadian Navy declined to allow the use of a submarine in the role of the U-37, since the few they had were actively engaged in real warfare. The (film) company solved their problem by commissioning a shipyard in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to build them a replica of a German U-Boat."

[manuel]

Commissioned by the Ministry of Information to raise worldwide awareness (the U.S. in particular) of the Nazi threat. However, it was intended for Canadian consumption also, as many French Canadians did not want to be at war with Germany, and did not want to fight. Vichy France was an ally of Nazi Germany, and many French Canadians in Québec were pro-German. One of the reasons Sir Laurence Olivier, the biggest star in this movie, played a French Canadian trapper named Johnny, who tells the Nazi officer he is a "Canadian" in this movie, and not "French", was that it was intended also as propaganda to promote pro-British feeling in Québec. When Canada resorted to conscription to swell the ranks of its Army, there were draft riots throughout Québec against the U.K., which had subjugated New France less than two hundred years before. Anti-war sentiment was so rife throughout Canada, that Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King declared that only volunteers would be shipped off to Europe.

[chris]

Peter Cushing had gone to Hollywood before the war, but things hadn't worked out too well, and he ended up doing a variety of odd jobs, which is how he came to be making props (not acting) on this movie. One day he had the job of making flags for model boats to be pushed around a map, and he made a lot of swastikas and laid them out in his digs. They were found by his landlady, who promptly called the police.

[ray]

The prologue was narrated by Raymond Massey's elder brother Vincent Massey, the Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1935 to 1946. The elder Massey served as the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada from 1952 to 1959.

[russell]

On a trip home to Wales, Niall MacGinnis was stopped and searched by police. He was arrested as a German spy when the police found a photo in his wallet of MacGinnis dressed in a German sailor's uniform, standing next to what appeared to be a U-boat. In fact, it was a publicity photo from MacGinnis' role in this movie. MacGinnis spent several days in jail before documents were sent from London verifying that he had been in the movie.

[tamara]

This is the only film in which Canadian actor Raymond Massey (Andy Brock) played a Canadian character.

[stephanie]

In the final scene, showing the boxcar carrying the German sailor and Canadian soldier being returned from the U.S. to Canada, the train is shown moving backwards right to left over the Niagara River, which is flowing towards the screen. This is a geographic impossibility. The Niagara River flows south to north, with the U.S. shore always west of the Canadian shore. As a result, this scene actually shows the train moving from Canada to the U.S. A correct shot would have shown either the train moving left to right, or the river flowing away from the screen.

[carl]

Anton Walbrook donated half of his fee to the International Red Cross.

[violet]

Although this movie was nominated for three Academy awards, the title "49th Parallel" is nowhere to be found in Academy records. That's because it was released in the U.S. as "The Invaders", which is how the Academy has it listed.

[michele]

Esmond Knight was the first choice to play Lieutenant Hirth, but he had enlisted in the Royal Navy at the outbreak of war.

[richard]

While some may think that this movie was inspired by Franz von Werra's escape from a Canadian POW camp (as portrayed in The One That Got Away (1957)), von Werra wasn't sent to Canada until January 1941, and his escape wasn't reported until he got back to Germany in April 1941. This movie was written as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger went to Canada in late 1940, and production was underway by January 1941. Powell and Pressburger wouldn't have heard about von Werra until this movie was almost completed.

[frances]

Screenwriter Emeric Pressburger said, "Goebbels (Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister) considered himself a master of propaganda, but I thought I'd show him a thing or two." Ironically, Pressburger's status in Britain, at the time, was as an enemy alien. He was born and raised in Hungary, which had allied itself with Nazi Germany. So when he returned from filming in Canada, he found himself imprisoned and threatened with deportation. Thanks to the intervention of Producer and Director Michael Powell and the Ministry of Information, this did not happen.

[carla]

Raymond Lovell nearly drowned in the scene where the seaplane crashes in the lake, as he couldn't swim, and the plane sunk a lot quicker than anticipated.

[scarlett]

According to Best of British (1987) season one, episode six, "The War Game", this movie's "main message was to pluck the conscience of the neutral USA to come to the aid of Britain (in World War II)."