MovieChat Forums > Yanks (1979) Discussion > I was in this film!

I was in this film!


I was 11 years old at the time and picked as an extra. I met Richard Gere and he bought me a coke in the pub where we had our hair styled [in pigtails to fit the era], alot of fun was had on set, and the all the GI's were played by real Americans, I have some fond memories of that time. Most of my time on set though was spent with the director John Schlesinger, and what a wonderful kind man he was. I was always most proud of meeting Richard Gere, but as I got older I realised what great films John Schlesinger directed: Saturday Night Sunday Morning, Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man etc., and now I am probably more proud to say I have met Mr. Schlesinger, as I said a wondeful man and he will be sadly missed.

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All the speaking roles were real American's but most of the non speaking extras were British. They went around looking for tall guys to play the marching soldiers. Some I once worked was one of them.

Extras tend to get around £50 a day nowadays -- in Elizabeth they morphed the same people over and over again.

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I was stationed at RAF Alcobury back around April/May of 1978. However, there were a lot of American Air Force men "recruited" to play extras in the movie. I was one of them. Damn it! I missed the bus on the morning of filming and in turn missed my chance for stardom. One of my great tragedies!!

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I enjoyed reading your paragraph about being in Yanks. That has always been one of my favorite films and I was so happy to buy it. I was not here yet during WW2, but my parents were, they are gone now but I am happy to say they were fans of this film too. Arlene G.

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Just the tiniest of corrections: not all of the GI's were played by Americans - in the full cast list, one of "the GI's im the cinema" is identified as Antony Sher - now SIR Anthony Sher and one of the very best of British stage actors for a couple of decades at least

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Can you tell me what those large nuclear reactor looking things were in the countryside,?Were they grain silos?I thought it was some kind of a goof,they were distracting me and set me off track.

I saw the film in 79 and wathced it again the other day.Sounds like the film was a big thrill in your life!
Mario

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No, they are power station chimneys. It isn't a goof, these chimneys did exist then. Power stations were mainly coal fired in those days.

"You made me miss!I've never missed that board before".

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Thanks for the info on the power station,Don't know what you mean by "I made you miss that board"though?

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The quote below is a line from that fine film "An American Werewolf in London" and nothing do with "Yanks". It is just my signature, which I'm sure you noticed a lot of people do here.


"You made me miss!I've never missed that board before".

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They are actually a power station which was located in a town called Elland Near Halifax,

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Can you tell me where the town is located?
Mario

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[deleted]

i would love to be an extra in this genre of films, i really enjoy films which are based diring the WW2 were it showed how lifes were effected ect i also love hope and glory and goodnight mister tom you know the sort

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With out Angel our souls would be hollow

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[deleted]

I recognised bits of Stockport (especially the market), and there were bits of Stalybridge as well (both towns in the county of Cheshire), just south of Manchester. The Cinema scene was filmed in the Davenport Cinema, Stockport. I had the weird experience of watching the film in that very cinema, which fell prey to the uber-expansion plans of Stockport Grammar School (which provided quite a few of the extras), and was demolished in 1997.

I wasn't allowed to be an extra, despite having a mean set of pigtails, because I was taking my A'levels.

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I've just watched the film again after 27 years and got far more out of it than when I was a 13 year old lusting over Richard Gere! I grew up in Stockport and so the film really resonated with me (no, I wasn't an extra, more's the pity- wasn't even aware it was being filmed!)and the social history aspects meant much more. Age must have made me cynical though. In the real world, neither of those boys would have come back, i'm afraid- particularly the Gere character. If he couldn't commit when he was with her, he's not going to when they've had a separation.
Good sequel would be them meeting up again (by chance, maybe) in their fifties- and then perhaps getting together. Both actors could reprise their parts. Anyone willing to write the screenplay?

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I was at Saddleworth School and used to have to travel back 35 years everyday to catch the bus from Dobcross back home. Sometimes we'd get stuck behind a convoy of tanks. "Sorry I'm late home, got stuck in the 1940's!!!"

The power station used was in Heyrod between Stalybridge & Mossley. The Yanks where camped on the golf course at Carrbrook......

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My dad was also in this film, he played an extra, a soldier, and had to have his long hair shaved off! He likes to boast about his 20 secs of fame!

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I was a postman in Hyde at the time they were making this. I remember extras
dressed as American MP's hanging around Hyde Town Hall. I'm sure that some
scenes were shot inside there!

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i remember standing down the road watching them film the scene with the boat sailing down the canal, whilst Gere and the other woman stood in the road. That part was filmed in a small place called 'Moore' near Warrington in Cheshire. The canal was the Manchester Ship Canal and the coal power station you see in the distance is of course the famous Fiddlers Ferry in Widnes.

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One of my dad's mates was an extra in the film, playing one of the many GIs. He was asked if he could drive when they signed him up and he lied and said that he could, so his first experience of driving was recorded on film!

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Unfortunatley I wasn't in this film!
However I was about 12 at the time and do remember going to see it been filmed at the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. There were lots of extras lining the streets in period costume, civilian and military. There were trucks with "tanks" on them in the railway sidings, and a steam engine with USA painted on the side. I remember an advertisement in the local paper asking for extras, and I also remember that the road markings in Cavendish street had been covered over with sand and The Victoria pub had had its signs replaced with some which were in keeping with the period.
I didn't see any of the stars. When I finaly did see the film the only shots I recognised was the opening one where the convoy travels up Halifax Road out of Keighley towards Haworth, and one on the station platform.
Today the sidings are now Sainsbury's and its carpark. But I'm sure the Steam Engine still runs on the K&WVR.

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I was paid to be an extra on location in Llandudno (my home town)when I was 16. I had to get my hair cut and was dreesed in 40's type clothes. I wasn't used but had the unbeleivable experience of be standing close to John Schlesinger behind the Panavision as he directed Wiliam Devane and Vanessa Redgrave. Heady stuff.

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Schlesinger didn't direct Saturday Night and Sunday Morning...

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Good story.

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