André Rieu in concert. Australia.

Andre Rieu-Live In Australia 

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Walzing Mathilde



Amazing Grace



The concert:



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Return from the river Kwai

(Full movie: click here )

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And exclusive photo album..scroll down.!

"Return from the river Kwai"

The Japs kept us POW, and me and my fellow prisoners had to built bridges and railroads across the river Kwai to Birma.

This film starts about where "The Bridge on the river Kwai" ended. Destroyed bridges, air attacks by the Americans to prevent the build of the railroad.

Our camp commander was George Takei ( aka dr. Sulu from the Star trek-movies with mr. Spock, the Ears). And he was a tough commander, order and discipline, hard work and cruel punishments.

The main characters were cast on dialect, like Edward Fox, a purebred Cockney gentleman on the British side and Nick Tate with a Crocodile Dundee Aussie accent on the other side. Most prisoners were from other origin and nationalities but that didn't matter cos most of us had no lines. So there was a British wagon and an Australian one. I joined the antipodeans and became 'mates' with Nick Tate and his guys, singing 'Walzing Mathilde' while marching to the camp. . But I was also playing 'Rule Brittania' on the harmonica.....

There wasn't only the 'prisoner-commander' relation between George and Brad Altman...They married in september 2008, after 20 years of ' dating' asa Californian laws allowed them to do such..

George was ( and still is..!) a likeable guy with a penetrating voice which he used to use in the lower vocal cords. The character he played in this movie was in a total contradiction with his real personality.

The contrast was very noticeable to us, as he played an asshole, death threatening commander but when he joined us during a 'take 5 men' pause he was such a cool gentleman, passing us the salt...

Then Chris Penn, Sean's brother, literal fell from the sky when his plane was shot down by the Japanese and added a total different turn to the story. To me it was a dialect paradise, the Eden of languages. His American slang, Edward's Cockney, Nick's Aussie, the locals in Tagalog of course and Taglish, and some other guys I could speak German with....

Anyway, Chris' appearance became a reason for the Jap guards to even treat us worse than before which resulted in several executions and other reprisals. At the camp side we were exposed to the hot sun for hours, no drinks... Then, just in time to prevent another execution, a higher commander arrived an told us in his unintelligible English we were to be evacuated. To Japan....! First by train on the rails we constructed, a journey through the jungles of Burma, Thailand , Cambodia all the way to Saigon, Vietnam, a French colony at that moment. The Brazil Maru was our target, the boat to JAPAN.

But we weren't there yet..! Hell no. Camera's were aimed at our wagons,('cattle coupé de luxe') and the Japanese head quarters in a more furnished environment. Shots were taken inside and outside the vehicles. It was a long trip, hot again and there was no water for the prisoners.

It was the 2nd day on the train I found out about another guy doing non regular healings, I wasn't the only one to cure peeps..! He was an American who fought ailments with needles, an Acupuncturist. So first thing next stop I found my way to the other wagon where I met with Bob from St. Paul's-Minneapolis. Surname: Kelley..! R. Kelley to say, hehehe but this Bob didn't sing. ( smoked pot though..) We became close friends and I learned a lot about Acu..

Edward Fox found out about our successes and all of a sudden remembered a forgotten painful spot somewhere. He asked me if I : "..could do anything about it.."
He suffered from a small cramp which was easily found and neutralized. He was a very pleasant person to be with, extremely polite, a gentleman full of attention and always with a big smile on his face. Proud to have met him.

And so it happened that Bob and I both had our practice on board the 'Deathtrain". Oh, there were a lot of guys who came by for a treatment. Can say our 'load' of prisoners made it to the place of destination in a much better health than the guys who made this trip for real and very often didn't survive till the end...

A real happening when we marched the streets of Saigon, from the railroad station up to the harbour....with pride in the heart and a straight back we were defying the Japs and sang all the way. But our straight backs bend when we approach the harbor, yes, there she was, the Brasil Maru, but we had to work, the cargo had to be stowed....no rest.

I just had thrown my bundle in the ship's hold and was on my way back to the gangway when I noticed turmoil at the quay, people running around and screaming. And they moved in a weird way. An earthquake was going on and that wasn't in the script.

It took a second before I realized what was going on, the ship was rolling a little as it did all day and I didn't feel the quake at all. The peeps on the quay did...! It was funny to see those moves from a 'solid' position. I wanted to feel that so I hurried to the gangway and walked down to only feel the last and milder tremors halfway the plank. It was over when I disembarked....

Back to work and so were the camera's. Sweating and stumbling we did our coercion labour and again thirst was our main grieve but the Japs wouldn't let us drink and some more prisoners were about to perish when we were packed and stored inside the sweltering hot hold.

Edward Fox' protests weren't heard and he pointed a couple of men with enough physical power left to resist the enemy with mutiny..I got a wink from Ed and an ear to ear smile when he selected me to be one of the mutineers. Bentford's men..!

It seemed to be a piece a cake to take over the ship, most of the guards were eliminated but not yet the officers. I was down below in the machine room when disaster came over us. An allied submarine scored a bulls eye-torpedo-hit and the Brasil Maru went down and sank in the Chinese Sea.

Me, I'm guzzled by the deep waters..and some with me. We gave our lives...... But others survived by holding floating fragments and were rescued by the same sub.

Book-cover

Edward Fox an English gentleman.

Edward Fox and Timothy Bottom

Bombing the bridge we built. The prisoners were blaimed for the attack by the Americans who distroyed our bridge. 4 of us were to be executed as reprisal.

Edward Fox

George Takei

Ronnie Lazaro.

Tatsuya didn't speak a word of English and surprised us all by his phonetic performance. We didn't understand a word of it but that didn't matter, we got the message though...

Inside the Submarine, Alex Blaise and  ?. These guys fired a torpedo at our ship.

Jim Mckenzie

The commander in an old classic car (1929 Chrysler). This was at the POW camp. We are on transport by train from Thailand to the harbor of Saigon. Australian prisoners in one wagon( Nick Tate) and British in an other one (Edward Fox). The dialogues between those two are a pleasure for the ear.

In the steets of "Saigon", with a classic 1932 Plymouth.

Watch the classic Ford super de luxe sedan 1947 and a Willys MB jeep.

The march from the railroad to the ship.
We are singing: Waltzing Matilda:

Once a jolly swagman

Camped by a billabong,
Under the shade
Of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched
And waited 'til his billy boiled
"You'll come a-waltzing,
Matilda, with me"

Waltzing Matilda,
Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-waltzing,
Matilda, with me
And he sang as he watched
And waited 'til his billy boiled,
"You'll come a-waltzing,
Matilda, with me"

Down came a jumbuck
To drink at the billabong,
Up jumped the swagman
And grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he stowed
That jumbuck in his tucker bag,
"You'll come a-waltzing,
Matilda, with me"

Waltzing Matilda,
Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-waltzing,
Matilda, with me
And he sang as he watched
And waited 'til his billy boiled,
"You'll come a-waltzing,
Matilda, with me."

Down rode the squatter,
Mounted on his thoroughbred,
Up came the troopers,
One, two, three,
"Where's that jolly jumbuck
You've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a-waltzing,
Matilda, with me"

Waltzing Matilda,
Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-waltzing,
Matilda, with me
And he sang as he watched
And waited 'til his billy boiled,
"You'll come a-waltzing,
Matilda, with me."

Up jumped the swagman,
Sprang into the billabong,
"You'll never catch me
Alive," said he,
And his ghost may be heard
As you pass by the billabong,
You'll come a-waltzing,
Matilda, with me.

Waltzing Matilda,
Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-waltzing,
Matilda, with me
And he sang as he watched
And waited 'til his billy boiled,
"You'll come a-waltzing,
Matilda, with me."

For the music lovers, here's André Rieu's version of:
Waltzing Matilda in Sydney Australia.

The Brazil Maru is waiting for us at ..pier 5, Manila harbour.

George Takei, a nice guy

when he's not a Japanese camp commander...

Denholm Elliot

 

Call sheet, march 1988. I'm one of Benford's commandos, takin' over

the ship. . we beat the Japanese guards

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...but then we got torpedo'ed by a submarine.

SEE MORE PIX IN GOOGLE ALBUMS:

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Indio

Francesco Quinn as Indio

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Brian Dennehey

Chuck Hicks and Marvin Hagler

Chuck Hicks

Sleeping

Indio cast.

Indio, I took this photo so I'm not in it...With David Light and Chuck Hicks, Larry Barry.

Francesco Quinn fights to save the Indians and their forrest. He beats Brian Dennehey, Marvin Hagler, Chuck Hichs and us, the special soft-ball team.

Full movie: click here..

See the other clips
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Born on the 4th of July, the shooting in 1989.

This was a nice one. , meeting with the Hollywooders, great action days.

Me..

   Most of the action was shot at the beach all the way up north in Laoag-City, hometown of former pres. Ferdinand Marcos and capital of the province Ilocos Norte, a restless province with violence at a regular time . Besides the wardrobe and props, there was a large input from the Philippine Army, so were the APC´s, the Armoured Personnel Carriers. It was december 1988 and I was told that the tanks we were running next to on the set, had just been used to fight rebels or members of the NPA, the New Peoples Army, recently. One could say the barrels were still hot...

Me and ?( don't remember the names of the other guys.)

Oliver Stone, our director, had planned a sunset shoot. We were positioned at the beach and marched next to the huge tanks. Can´t say it was like walking your dog, no. We had to go on the double through the sand, me carrying a heavy M60 machine gun on my shoulder, the other guys were on top of the APC (they had the best part.... ). The caterpillar-links grind the sand and crunched at a high pitch. Very dusty and noisy and pretty damn dangerous when you were close next to them, cos they didn't move smoothly but sort of danced . The first time wasn't too bad, but the direct wanted another shot with a lower sun. We had to hurry back to nr.1 and take positions again. We did this for 3 or 4 times, and the sand became a heavy walk, both my shoulders were nearly bruised and getting painful, the M 60 seemed to get heavier every step I made, more stumbling than walking I reached the meet, and I never was more glad to hear 'cut'.

Once in awhile explosives add their effect to the scene..villagers are running around to save some of their belongings a few chickens, a goat or other precious things..it looked pretty real ..cos it WAS for real... most people saw their own houses burn to ashes.!!!

"The next scene we run from dune to dune while shot at, we aim our fire, shooting the enemy. The beach is on fire, all Nipa huts made of flammable materials are burning.."

It's a small barrio they're burning down, people were payed for, but still... It was calculated to be much cheaper to buy out the complete community than to build a 'look alike' village.
Besides the compensations they got to rebuild their homes, the inhabitants were cast to be part of the scene. I'm sure they had a christmas they'll never forget.....

Tom Cruise.

I had never heard of Tom Cruise before, I heard he just made it with 'Topgun', a film I didn't see yet.. He wasn't easy to become friends with, he didn't merge with the lower cast and the times I talked with him were more like formal than friendly. He preferred to stay at his room most of the time. There was a period he didn't feel well and had a fever, as a helot I offered my service but he insisted to be seen by a doctor. OK.

The international productions used to bring their own stunt people and doubles so I was pretty surprised when Ken Metcalfe asked me to be a stand-in for Willem Dafoe...so I got the chance to get to know him a little better.. A stand-in, well, it sounds more interesting than it is. A stand-in is a person who replaces an actor when the settings are being prepared for the next take. The camera is 'blocking' you while lights, reflectors and sounds are positioned and marks are made where the actors need to stand. When all is set, the 'money' comes to do the take....

A double, or body-double as they call it, is a person who takes over when the situation needs an expert to perform a stunt or otherwise. The 'star' steps aside and his double will do the action.

Even Chuck Norris used several doubles in case the stunts were too risky to have it done by himself. Now we're NOT talking fighting scenes, I mean no one else can do that better than him right.?? No, think about jumping down an airplane or other dangerous stuff that's not covered by the insurance....But to perform a stunt that's too dangerous to be done by Chuck Norris ???

In MIA-3, I was stand-by as 3rd double to Chuck Norris, just in case... But double #1 did a good job, so even # 2 had easy days...

Can't win 'm all..............

Oliver Stone

 http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/oliver-stone/147030/oliver-stone-an-independent-american-director

Born on the 4th of july. The action scenes were taken in Laoag during the holidays 1988-'89. Direct Oliver Stone had brought his family to join him on the shooting. His wife seemed to like his work behind the camera and she spent hours on the set. We had a nice New Year barbecue at the beach and I even celebrated my birthday, january 12, on the set. I think we stayed on this location for at least 3 weeks and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Full Movie, click here... 

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