Bad Film Dip
October 5, 2007
Tom Cruise really tried to get it right: After all the criticism surrounding his plan to film crucial scenes of his new movie at original locations -- some feared that the movie shoot would dishonor a German war memorial, others simply objected because of Cruise's Scientology membership -- the US actor had finally received permission to film from the German government, put on his uniform and was ready to die as Colonel Claus Graf von Stauffenberg, who had been executed by the Nazis for the failed attempt on Hitler's life.
"Shortly before we started filming…Tom Cruise made brief remarks and then asked for a minute of silence -- out of respect for the place and out of respect for the life achievement of these people who were executed there," German actor Christian Berkel, who plays one of Stauffenberg's co-conspirators, told German tabloid Bild am Sonntag at the time.
Unlike a previous shoot at Germany's Nazi-era finance ministry -- where several extras got injured after falling off a truck -- things seemed to go just fine. Stauffenberg's execution was in the can and the crew moved on to less controversial locations.
A case of sabotage?
It might have been smart to check the film material before dismantling the set. On Friday, Oct. 5, production officials confirmed reports that most of the celluloid had been damaged and that scenes would thus have to be re-shot as a result. The only scene to survive the mysterious mess-up was apparently the actual execution.
"It's a material defect and that can happen," a production spokeswoman said, according to German news service DPA.
Berlin's Der Tagesspiegel newspaper meanwhile reported that the rolls of film had been dipped into the wrong kind of developing agent. The daily suggested the possibility of sabotage and quoted an unnamed expert who said that it was highly unlikely that several rolls of film would be "put into the wrong kind of soup."
It's also highly unlikely that opponents of the $80-million (56.5 million euros) project would have done such a thing, as Cruise and Co. will now have to return to the so-called Bendlerblock memorial in the German defense ministry for a second time.