Google Ads
Login | Sign Up

Forty-Ninth Parallel Overview:

Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941) was a Drama - War Film directed by Michael Powell and produced by Michael Powell and George H. Brown.

Forty-Ninth Parallel BlogHub Articles:

No article for Forty-Ninth Parallel at this time. Submit yours here.

Forty-Ninth Parallel Quotes:

Andy Brock: [to Hirth] I can grouse about the food, and the C.O. and anything I blamed please. And that's more than you with your Gestapo and your stormtroopers and your Aryan bourgeoisie. Ahhh, nuts. What's the good of talking to you. You can't even begin to understand democracy. We own the right to be fed up with anything we damn please and say so out loud when we feel like it.
[last lines]
Andy Brock: Put 'em up Nazi... No not that way.
[He raises his hands to fight]
Andy Brock: This way. Cuz I'm not askin for those pants... I'm just taking 'em.
Philip Armstrong Scott: Nazis? That explains your arrogance, stupidity, and bad manners.
Andy Brock: The government says, "We want men to fight the Nazis, join today." So I joined. I figured they were in a hurry. That was three hundred and eighty seven days ago. Four divisions and a lot of drafts have gone overseas, and what's number B987642 doing? Guarding the Chippewa Canal. Who'd want to steal it anyway?
Lieutenant Hirth: Yes, I am a Nazi. Heil Hitler!
See More Quotes from Forty-Ninth Parallel
Forty-Ninth Parallel Facts
According to the book 'The Great Adventure Films' by Tony Thomas, "The grand title '49th Parallel' - referring to the line of latitude dividing much of Canada from the United States - is misleading since the film is not about American-Canadian relations, and the only point in which Americans are involved occurs at Niagara Falls, which is not on that latitude."
All of the opening travelogue was shot by Freddie Young with a handheld camera out the windows of trains, cars and planes.
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 49th Parallel. 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.
The book 'The Film Business - A history of british cinema 1896-1972' by Ernest Betts states that this film " . . . is one of the first large-scale attempts at fictional propaganda by the British Government during World War II. It was partly financed by the Government and was given top priority and a prestige send-off by Vincent Massey, High Commissioner for Canada, where the film was made. No other project of the war was so boosted. Money, publicity and stars were unstintingly forthcoming - Laurence Olivier, Eric Portman, Leslie Howard, Raymond Massey, Anton Walbrook and Elisabeth Bergner. Of the film's budget of £130,000, £40,000 was supplied by the taxpayer. On location it soon ran into difficulties. Miss Bergner left the picture after a disagreement over the part she was playing. Efforts to persuade her to return were unsuccessful and she was replaced by Glynis Johns."
In the final scene of the film, showing the box car carrying the German sailor and Canadian soldier being returned from the U.S. to Canada, shows the train 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, the film 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.
See More Facts about Forty-Ninth Parallel >>