Has anybody ever seen this film? I'm sure I've never seen it shown in the UK, but maybe some of our European friends have seen it?
It's about the "Shetland Bus", the clandestine route (which operated out of the Shetland Isles) in and out of Nazi-occupied Norway for Allied agents, which utilised escaped Norwegian fishing boats and their crews, who risked (and lost in many cases) their lives to continue the fight against Hitler.
Memorial to those killed on the Shetland Bus.I was watching the excellent BBC programme "Coast" the other night. It is a show that takes a journey around the entire coast of Britain, describing the geography, wildlife, history, etc. of each place visited along the seashore. It was about Orkney and Shetland this time, and they covered the Shetland Bus, and showed some clips from this 1950s Norwegian film, in which a boat was defending itself from German air attack (with Lewis Guns and other cool toys like that). It looked pretty good, actually. Maybe even good enough to form some gaming ideas from...
Unfortunately, the film doesn't seem to be available to buy in any format, and the chances of it ever being shown over here are about nil. While we occasionally get famous French and German stuff (
Jean de Florette,
Delicatessen,
Heimat,
Das Boot, etc.) the only Scandinavian cinema I have ever seen on TV is a very rare showing of some Ingmar Bergman thing with Max von Sydow, shown in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep.
This is a shame, and I would like to see this film, as it covers an almost forgotten part of World War Two, the participants in which sacrificed just as much as those whose activities were more Hollywood-friendly.
For more on the Shetland Bus:
http://shetlopedia.com/The_Shetland_Bushttp://shetlopedia.com/The_Shetland_Bus_BoatsIMDB "Shetlandsgjengen" page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049808/