| Roy |
| (.300 member) |
| 13/01/17 07:11 AM |
Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Hello Chaps,
I'm sure a similar question may have been asked before but thought I would go ahead regardless.
As a fan of classic movies, I can't help but be interested in what firearms are being featured and trying to identify them. So has anyone spotted the Lee-Speed on the big screen?
Aside of course from Ghost in the Darkness which is the obvious one.
Cheerio,
Roy
Collecting/wanted ABW insignia if anyone has some spares?
My website: www.wilkinsonfscollection.com
| Levallois |
| (.300 member) |
| 13/01/17 07:57 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Roy,
Didn't the second Mummy movie with Brendon Fraser have at least one Lee Speed it wielded by either the wife or the brother in law in the jungle scene. There were also some Pygmy mummies if memory serves.
John
| Roy |
| (.300 member) |
| 13/01/17 08:20 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Hi John,
Thanks for that, I will have to check it out and have a closer look.
Although my wife always gives me a hard time when I watch anything with Rachel Weisz in....!
Cheerio,
Roy
Collecting/wanted ABW insignia if anyone has some spares?
My website: www.wilkinsonfscollection.com
| Claydog |
| (.375 member) |
| 13/01/17 08:32 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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While not a movie there was a British series recently named the Living and the Dead. Show about ghosts on a farm in old England. The rich neighbour came over to help find a guy who had lost his marbles and he turned up with what looked to be a nice Lee Speed.
| Huvius |
| (.416 member) |
| 13/01/17 09:10 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Not truly big screen, but there was a stag hunting scene in Downton Abbey with the Tom Branson guy shooting a Lee Speed.
| Roy |
| (.300 member) |
| 13/01/17 09:14 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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I can see I will have to watch Downton Abbey again, I'm sure my wife will be on board with that.
Any idea what season that's in Huvius?
Thanks Claydog, one I will have to try and look for.
I did watch the classic 'King Solomon's Mines' (circa 1950) the other day, a great movie but no Speeds to be seen. One rifle I was not familiar with and the others were Mauser's I think.
Cheerio,
Roy
| Claydog |
| (.375 member) |
| 13/01/17 09:17 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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I think I read that in the 1950 King Solomons mines there was a Rigby Mauser, a Mannlicher and a Manton Double?
| Huvius |
| (.416 member) |
| 13/01/17 10:23 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Think it is season three, episode nine.
NitroX
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| (.700 member) |
| 13/01/17 07:25 PM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Quote:
Think it is season three, episode nine.
You should have made him watch the entire series from beginning to end ...
... groan! My wife like that series, OK first season, soon after, just a soap opera. I called it "Dumbtown Alley".
BTW do any lords live in "Abbeys"?
| coll416 |
| (.275 member) |
| 14/01/17 06:27 PM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Was a speedon recent New Zealand pic 'Hunt for the Wilderpeople' starring Sam Neill
| kuduae |
| (.400 member) |
| 14/01/17 11:25 PM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Quote:
BTW do any lords live in "Abbeys"?
Yes, many do. When King Henry VIII abolished all roman catholic monasteries in his realm, 1536 – 1541, the dissolution of the monasteries, the abbeys and their lands were granted to Henry's followers or sold. Many were converted into stately country houses. But often the name with "Abbey, Priory or Grange" was retained. A well known example is Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, owned by Lord Montagu, Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, home of the National Motor Museum.
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NitroX
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| (.700 member) |
| 15/01/17 10:01 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Dankeshoern Herr Kudae. I was aware of the dissolution. By which the crown obtained one third of the lands of England from the Catholic Church.
But none of the stately houses I visited or heard of were ever Abbeys. Many ruins though. Danke.
| Clark |
| (.275 member) |
| 16/01/17 08:21 PM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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In King Solomon's Mines from 2004, a Lee Speed is prominently used:
Horrible movie though.
/C
| kuduae |
| (.400 member) |
| 16/01/17 11:59 PM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Some more examples of "Abbeys" converted or rebuilt as stately homes, some of them homes of "Lords", at least formerly:
Woburn Abbey: Dukes of Bedford
Welbeck Abbey: Dukes of Portland
Waverley Abbey House
Waltham abbey: Earl of Norwich
Vale Royal Abbey: Lords Delamere
Cleeve Abbey: Earl of Sussex (formerly)
Forde Abbey
Launde Abbey
Newstead Abbey: Lord Byron
Rufford Abbey: Earls of Shrewsbury, later Scarbrough
| Roy |
| (.300 member) |
| 17/01/17 02:21 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Hi Clark,
I only have the 1950's version of King Solomon's Mines (a great movie) so have not seen the 2004 version as I have heard it is awful.
I guess I will have to brave it at some point...yikes!
Re the Abbey question (not to get too far off track). As a country boy who grew up on a traditional rural estate run by the gentry (Apley Estate in Shropshire) I can confirm that almost every type of property has be used and re-used over the years and their names kept or altered as needed. Not just Abbeys but chapels, gate houses, manors, school houses, granges etc, etc.
Gosh brings back memories; I recall from my farm bedroom I could see our church, the house were the lord lived and another were a lord and lady lived. On more than one occasion I would roar in on my motorbike only to find mom had got the best china out and was serving tea to a lord such and such.
Despite some critique of the 'upper class' these days, I can honestly say my own experience is that they were true gents and always really cared about all of their employes. Something my (American) wife was surprised to hear when we watched Downton Abbey.
But I digress.
Okay gents, keep your eyes open for Lee Speeds on some classic moves, there must be more out there.
Cheerio,
Roy
| jc5 |
| (.300 member) |
| 27/01/17 08:19 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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"Rhodes" mini-series.
| Marrakai |
| (.416 member) |
| 16/09/17 02:36 PM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Just watched the tail-end of a vintage TV show called 'The Baron' starring Steve Forrest, maybe from early sixties.
Only saw the last 10 minutes, but the bad-guy who turned out to be a good guy, but then got shot (!) turned up with a No.3 Pattern Lee Speed rifle. It got plenty of action!: waved around a bit, chucked out a window, retrieved with a rake, waved around a bit more, shot another bad guy...
The real villain though had a Mauser with an 'exaggerated' scope for the sniper assassination shot, but the tables were turned at the last second! Who would have guessed...
Episode might have been called 'The Maze'.
Its just so refreshing to see rifles with walnut stocks and blued steel on the TV screen nowadays, nary a blow-moulded black-plastic clad stainless steel infinity-magazined POS in sight!
| Waidmannsheil |
| (.400 member) |
| 17/09/17 08:54 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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I have just been watching "Professionals" on TV with the kids. I used to love that show when I was younger and it is still bloody good, no mobile phones and minimal computer shit, heaps of fast car action and plenty of shooting. I bought the complete series (53 episodes)from a company in England which comes with several books as well. The show has plenty of Mauser and Mannlicher rifles in it as well as the odd Lee-Enfield which are mainly used by the bad guys as sniper rifles. I have seen the same Mannlicher used several times.
Waidmannsheil.
| jc5 |
| (.300 member) |
| 05/10/17 05:40 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Roy, you always start good threads!
Regarding King Solomon's Mines from 2004 shown above, I don't know this movie, but in the picture you can see the cutout in the fore-end where the charger bridge was supposed to go, which makes me think it's a converted military rifle rather than a commercial sporter. On the other hand, the bolt looks like a lee Speed bolt. So...who was the prop master for this film and how do we contact him?
A Lee Speed film appearance that is generally overlooked is the famous and excellent film "Breaker Morant." There was a thread on this a few years ago (http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?413830-Adhere-to-Breaker-s-Rule-303&p=3493636#post3493636), in which I commented:
In the film, when Morant says “We caught them and we shot them under Rule 303!” notice that there is a cutaway shot close up of the rifle, specifically the butt socket…and in an inevitable (and unfortunately necessary) concession to those in the audience who don’t spend a lot of time with Lee Enfields… the butt socket is marked “.303” just so audiences will get the reference! They must have actually added that to the prop rifle, because we all know that the caliber is not marked in that location. Also, just FYI, the particular prop rifle is a LEE-SPEED (service pattern version rather than sporter). I never realized this until I wondered about the “.303” marking and actually freeze-framed the thing. There are no government markings in that location.
As for Morant's declaration: “We caught them and we shot them under Rule 303!” I quite naturally assumed this was the contribution of a witty script writer, because it sounds too contrived to be true, but I was wrong. Morant actually said this in the trial, at least according to George Witton (who, although he is naturally a biased witness, is still an eyewitness). See Witton’s book “Scapegoats of the Empire “ (1907; Angus & Robertson reprint 1982), page 84.
Regarding Downton Abbey, I recall watching the first episode and thinking "Ah, this is like Brideshead Revisited....but dumber." I only lasted a few more episodes after it became clear this was just "Dallas" with English accents. Pretty scenery though, have to give it that.
| Levallois |
| (.300 member) |
| 20/01/18 07:35 AM |
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Re: Lee-Speeds On The Big Screen
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Quote:
I did watch the classic 'King Solomon's Mines' (circa 1950) the other day, a great movie but no Speeds to be seen. One rifle I was not familiar with and the others were Mauser's I think.
Had an 1895 Winchester in it too. Don’t see those very often either.
John