In 1981, "Cassandra Bridge" translated by Shanghai Translation Factory was first released in China, and after 40 years, it is still an unforgettable film, and with the outbreak and spread of the current global epidemic, people can't help but sigh for the forward-looking nature of this film.
"Cassandra Bridge" was filmed in 1976, when disaster movies were popular, "Burning Skyscrapers", "International Airport" and so on have achieved box office success in the world, the famous Italian producer Carlo Ponti decided to hitch a ride, so he persuaded European media tycoon and the head of the British United Television Network Lou Glade to jointly create this all-star disaster movie.
Cosmatus (right) at the guide filming
The idea for the film came from director George W. Bush. P. Cosmatus, a Greek-born Greek who experienced the Great Cholera Outbreak in Egypt in 1947. "To me, infectious diseases seem to be more devastating than earthquakes, fires, or even bombs, and artificially creating infectious diseases is the most despicable crime." We are our own most vicious enemies, because we use so-called technological progress to maim ourselves. ”
Cosmatus enlisted his old partner Robert Katz to write the screenplay, and their last film, Massacre Order, was based on the real events of the 1944 Massacre in Rome, because the pope acquiesced to the German retaliation against Italian civilians, which caused an uproar after its release. This time, they touched on a sensitive topic: the scandal of the United States secretly developing biological and chemical weapons.
In 1966, the United States broke the news that the military released Bacillus into the New York subway tunnel to conduct a "study on the vulnerability of passengers to secret attacks on biological agents", which shocked the whole society, although the United Nations Biological Weapons Convention came into force 6 years later, explicitly prohibiting the development, production and storage of biological toxin weapons, but there was no competent authority to implement relevant measures. So Robert Katz made a bold assumption that he not only regarded the Secret Research on Biological and Chemical Weapons by the U.S. Army as the source of the film's disaster, but also in a laboratory at the headquarters of the United Nations World Health Organization.
The story tells that two terrorists who want to blow up the World Health Organization's experimental center are infected by the failure of the operation, overturning the bottle of the laboratory's pneumonic plague malignant infectious disease bacteria, one is killed and festers on the spot, and the other escapes with germs on the train to Sweden, causing the crowd on the train to be infected.
In order not to let the scandal of the United States secretly developing biological and chemical weapons leak out and ensure that the germs did not spread, the International Police Department ordered the train to be sealed and diverted to the Cassandra Bridge, which had fallen into disrepair, to cover up the truth.
In order to save themselves, the passengers on the bus and the military launched a life-and-death struggle, they eliminated religious antagonisms, cultural barriers, differences between rich and poor, and finally faced a common enemy together, and finally won the end of most people escaping.
"Cassandra Bridge" is also a birthday gift from producer Carlo Ponty to star wife Sophia Roland to commemorate the 10th wedding anniversary, the original arrangement was Sophia Roland as the female writer Jennifer (voiced by Ding Jianhua), and British star Peter O'Toole as her husband, neurosurgeon Chamberlain (voiced by Bik).
Peter O'Toole
Carlo Ponty has this to say: "As far as the male protagonist is concerned, Sophia's problem is that she often shows a strong personality on the screen, so it is not easy to match her, she can easily swallow the Hollywood male protagonist with half a glass of water." 」 There are only a few male actors who can match Sophia on screen and, if necessary, dominate. Gary Grant is one, along with Mastroiani, Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, Marlon Brando, Clark Gable and Gregory Pike. ”
Richard Harris was on set
However, Peter O'Toole did not accept this sentiment and refused the offer. Chamberlain was eventually played by Irish actor Richard Harris, who had just gotten married and was married to a supermodel Ann Tucker, who was 16 years younger than him. Richard Harris took over the role on the condition that Ann Tukkel play a role in the film.
Ann Tucker's strength was that she had received professional singing training, and as a result, she not only played a female singer in a band, but also sang a country-style interlude for the film, "I'm Still on the Way" – "The sun rises, the sun falls, today can't see tomorrow's scenery..."
Martin Sim and Ava Gardner
To save money, Carlo Ponty organized a line-up of quasi-all-stars for the film, including the already deflated Ava Gardner (arms dealer's wife, voiced by Su Xiu), Bert Lancaster (voiced by U.S. Army Intelligence Colonel Mackenzie, voiced by Fu Runsheng), martin Sheen (voiced by drug smuggler Navarro, voiced by Yang Chengchun), and the tepid John Philip Law (aide-de-camp to the U.S. Military Major, voiced by Tong Zirong), Ingrid Turing (voiced by Dr. Scudner, voiced by Li Zi), Lionel L. Stand (conductor, voiced by Yu Ding) in addition to rugby star OJ Simpson (black priest Inspector, voiced by Weng Zhenxin) and de Niro, Pacino and other stars of the acting teacher, "Actor Studio" artistic director Lee Strasberg (Jewish watchmaker Kaplan, Shang Hua voice).
In the era of no computer high-tech, shooting such a difficult film requires the desperate efforts of the stunt double and the director's whimsical ideas, and the following are some of the pictures in the film shooting process -
Shoot a jumping car shot in front of a blue screen
The picture after the combination with the real scene
Stunt stunt stunts perform real jumping cars
It is not the actor himself who can clearly see the jumping car in the finished film
Cosmatus is a well-known "model master" in the industry, and he is good at using models to create extremely realistic effects
The model was shot using a locomotive produced by Italian toy dealer LIMA
The live-action was replaced by a locomotive provided by the Swiss Railways, which is a flaw in the film
A model of the Cassandra Bridge on a small ditch, modeled after the French Galabi Railway Viaduct, was completed in 1884 and is an early masterpiece by Güstave Eiffel, the designer of the French Eiffel Tower
Live-action photography at the Garabi Railway Viaduct
The train took the actual shot and pulled up the bridge
The train photographed in the model fell over the bridge, but the carriage that fell into the river was noticeably smaller
The scene after the train fell over the bridge
The film renders a lot of the tragic situation of the bridge destroyed and killed, and because it is too realistic, it has a bloody and terrifying effect. This was nothing for Italian audiences accustomed to horror films, but in the United States it was classified as a restricted film. In this way, "Cassandra Bridge" can be regarded as the first R-rated film introduced and released in China, more than 10 years before Jackie Chan's "Red Fan District".
When it was released in the United States, the film was snubbed, and American film critics picked out a bunch of problems for it, involving the script, production, actors and other aspects. In fact, of all the criticisms, only the New York Times has told the truth, and this article, published on February 10, 1977, said at the beginning that -
"This is a complete paranoia, and for some obscure and ulterior motive, The Cassandra Bridge is essentially an anti-American propaganda that gives a stupid assumption and will eventually pay a terrible price for it."
However, "Cassandra Bridge" has been popular in countries around the world except the United States, and it has paid for itself with the box office revenue in Japan alone, and it is still ranked among the top ten man-made disaster films in the history of cinema.