Clint Eastwood & Telly Savalas in “Kelly’s Heroes” (MGM 1970)

“TIGERS?!!! Where the Hell did the Tigers Come From?!!!”

Just yesterday our CFO – Ruby Emerald Diamond (yes – that’s her real name – a true gem of a lady!) – created five corporations for all QuarterDeck projects on the production slate: THE MARSCHER LORDS: Brotherhood or Death, SCORCHED EARTH: The Other Side of World War II, THE FORTY DAYS, ALL THE IRON MEN, & ORDER OF THE VALIANT. This is important for one principal reason: investors now know they’re dealing with professionals and that their investments will be protected & utilized per their desires. Unfortunately there’s so much flim-flammery in the film biz. Didn’t Hollywood write the book on “creative accounting”? But when you have an industry who’s margins have shrunk considerably in the last twenty years (i.e. fallout of the dvd market) and they have these huge companies or studios to run, invariably that stuff seems to happen. Increasing Federal regulations on small business doesn’t help either, simply costs more $$ and takes the directors away from what they’re intending to do (create new projects & get ’em in the can) and puts them behind a desk and into “compliance” mode. Don’t know any actor or director who likes being behind a desk. That’s why they went into these fields in the first place;  to be out & about – FREEDOM!!!!

Hunting down Russian T-34 tanks for the trailer of Scorched Earth, and have found – so far – three. One in the Pacific NorthWest & two in the Midwest.  In a perfect world they would be T-34/76 (i.e. a T-34 with the original 76mm main gun) but all the ones that exist are stationary. The ones that operate are all T-34/85 (later war upgrade to the 85mm main gun). Sadly, there’s a lot less of them than there used to be & if you have any sense of history or value it the answer will make you cringe: owners have been “turning” T-34/85’s  into Tiger MkI’s!!! Ever see Saving Private Ryan or Kelly’s Heroes (where Big Joe’s classic “Tigers?!!! Where the hell did the Tigers come from?!!!” came from). German tanks are referred to in the body of the films as “Tiger” tanks, but they’re nothing of the sort. They are in fact remodeled Soviet T-34/85’s: note how far the turret sits forward on the deck (this was a unique feature of the T-34) and the main drive sprocket & wheels are those of a T-34). Moreover, the Tiger Mk I vastly outweighed the T-34 – it was a 60 ton (sometimes listed at 56 tons) monster!!! By comparison, the T-34 weighed in at 26 tons – less than half!!! The pity of this is, the owner in effect destroys what is a valuable piece of irreplaceable history and creates something totally false.  Schade.

And MEGA thanks go out to Stephen Fredrick @  www.WW2militaryvehiclerentals.com for clueing us in on the skinny!!! A great guy and a veritable wealth of knowledge!!!

“Tigers?!!! Where the Hell did the Tigers Come From?”

One of the “Tigers” from “Kelly’s Heroes”

Re-tooling the pitch for THE MARSCHER LORDS:Brotherhood or Death for Indiegogo.com. Will be going active shortly so stay tuned. Good things are happening, good things are coming for all concerned. Make sure you check us out on Facebook.