On this day — 26 October — in 1966, principal photography on Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen wrapped at MGM British Studios in Borehamwood.
MGM British was a huge film-making complex, with ten sound stages after expansion in 1963, and a sprawling backlot where productions could build the worlds their stories needed.
In 1951, a castle was built there for Ivanhoe. It stood for years and was so convincing that some people thought it was real. In 1958, the backlot became a huge Chinese village for The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. The set covered an astonishing 500,000 square feet. Eight years later, the backlot was transformed again, this time into the French château under siege in The Dirty Dozen.
The château was one part of a production that combined studio sets with filming across England. Much of the training sequence, for example, was filmed at Hendon Aerodrome.
Around 250 crew members spent four months building the château, which stretched 240 feet wide and stood 50 feet high. TCM’s production account says it was so solidly built that it would reportedly have taken 70 tons of explosives to bring it down. Instead, the production made a section from cork and plastic for the château’s on-screen destruction.
The crew spent 25 days filming at the château before the final assault.
Did you, or someone in your family, work on The Dirty Dozen at MGM British Studios? Or are you a fan of the film? We’d love to hear your memories in the comments.