One of my favorite old time war movies is Kelly's Heros. I just watched it again tonight and a thought crossed my mind. I thought i heard it said on the Tank Overhaul series that there were only a few running Shermans left in the world. There were some scenes in the movie where there were quite a few, There were also several M4 High Speed Tractors and lots of armored cars. Does anybody know what became of all these old tanks? I think the film was shot in Yugoslavia so I wonder if there is/was a big collection of AFVs there somewhere. I never saw any mention of who owned them in the movie credits. Does anybody know?

At the part of the movie where they arrive in the town where the gold is, I will say the Tigers sorta looked like Tigers from the long shots like from the church tower looking into the town. They did look cheesy in the close ups, tracks too skinny, road wheels all wrong, and the body out of proportion, etc.. At least they tried a bit more to make them look authentic than other mock ups I have seen where it was obvious that the special effects people were just guessing what a tank should look like or flat out used any available tanks and gave them markings for the armies they were supposed to belong to. They looked like T-34s based on the tracks and roadwheels.

According to IMDB the Shermans belonged to the Yugoslav army
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065938/trivia

There used to be a conversion kit to turn a T-34 model into the movie's Tiger, I remember the ad in FSM

Hi Pat! Very cool site! I saved the link for future reference. I still wonder what they did with those tanks. Surely they don't still have them! I'd probably be saddened to hear they were cut up for scrap or met some similar fate. I had to laugh over the thought of Clint Eastwood singing the theme song. I bet that's a real collector's item! Interesting trivia about the theme song's real singer becoming California's govenor. I thought I recognized his name.

As to somebody releasing a conversion to make the movie's Tiger, I think it would be interesting to know why someone would want to build a badly rendered Tiger from a T-34 unless it would be more for the movie paraphernalia thing. Pretty cool that they at least TRIED to fake one even getting the unit insignia correct for the area on both the tank and the US uniforms.

I remember reading here somewhere that there were once 1/35th scale figures released of Oddball and his crew. I wouldn't mind finding a set so when I get around to building my Sherman with the Formations Oddball conversion kit I could put him by it. Positive waves and all that...

Apparently Clint Eastwood was a bit of a history buff and insisted all the details were correct like the correct units and the like. Apparently he even had a hand in forcing the film guys to mock-up the tigers rather than getting some patton tanks and painting a cross on them as seemed to be the done thing back then!
They did indeed belong to the yugoslav army which was one of the reasons the film was shot there, apparently they were still in, or not long out of service and had undergone a couple of modifications during that time like the front mud guards.
Also you'll notice the tanks in the film are not OD but a lighter green, which was the paint colour used by the yugoslav army.

Jaguar models does the Oddball set and it includes a driver with fez and the loader.

And how awesome is that film. My dad showed it me as a kid as his favourite film and it hasn't lost any of its magic since, in fact I only have more respect for it because of the accuracy previously mentioned unlike some other period warfilms that I now pity with their terrible rendition of axis armour.

The German tanks and AFV's knocked up for band of brothers are also quite interesting, again some attention to detail went into them, and they dont look bad from a distance.

James

A nod to Mr. Eastwood!

I wonder if the T-34/Tiger in Kelly's Heroes is the same one that was used in Saving Private Ryan?

Matt

Actually, Clint is a pretty good singer (Honkeytonk Man) and damn good pianist (City Heat). But, The Mike Curb Congregation was governor of California? I hadn't heard that!

I have an original 45 of 'Burning Bridges', I love the song!

Actually, the thought of Clint Esatwood singing ANYTHING is a real hoot. Oh, he tried God knows he tried - but Pavarotti he ain't

Actually Mike Curb was the Lt. Gov/acting Gov. Check out MikeCurb.com for his bio. K.H. is one of my favorite old war movies too and I love "Burning Bridges" .

RE: Burning Bridges

it's definitely a song whose lyrical poignancy is more significant to me now that I'm much older than when I first heard it. of course, i'm glad "i didn't listen to my friends" and took the journey that i did. i certainly burned my share of bridges tho....

i watched Hannibal Rising on cable the other night and could have sworn i saw that same tank in the scene where the German troops are moving down that narrow country lane. the camera shot was from road level looking upwards at the tank with most of the track and road wheels obscured by shadow. still, i swore that tank had that same stubby front end of the made up Tiger/T-34 that was in Kelly's Heros. i have Saving Private Ryan on my NetFlix list so I will check out that tank there. it would be strange if it was still the same faux Tiger clanking about all these years later! A couple nice T-34s in Hannibal Rising as well, although i'm fairly certain the collision between the Stuka and the tank would have been far uglier than the movie portrayed...

unless of course the Stuka was painted with that mysterious, indestructible, impervious to all harm German AFV paint of WWII...

i also watched a war film called uprising, about the warsaw uprising and again, the same t-34/tiger mock up is used, just wondering if this is the same tank from kelly's heroes and saving private ryan also. just my two cents as are american friends would say