The Last Voyage Robert Stack on the Ile De France

Of course one could watch the film and ignore the characters, but rather pay attention to details of the ship- I'm just glad we have footage of the Ile de France, even if it was in her death throes....
Hard to believe only a few years before she rescued the survivors of the Andrea Doria sinking.....
 
I'm really hoping that the dvd release will revive interest in this film, because I've got a warehouse full of these promotional dolls left over from 1960. This is quality merchandise, folks - when you pull the string at the back they say ... well, I think you can all guess what they say. And they say it over and over and over again until the string breaks. Special discount for ET members, as always. Jim, do you want to start the ball rolling by ordering a dozen? They're highly inflammable, and they don't float.

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This is quality merchandise, folks - when you pull the string at the back they say ... well, I think you can all guess what they say.
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Let me guess: "Mommy, mommy, mommy! . . ." Oh my God! Now it's stuck in my head.


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I agree with everything Jim and Bob have said about this film, but as I said earlier, I liked it for the sets, the ship, and to me, the conveyance of real fear that I didn't feel when watching the Poseidon Adventure. In fact, I thought the special affects were BETTER in TLV than in the PA.
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I think I might have actually seen this one before, although it's been a long time. I will have to see it [again] . . . but have the ear plugs ready for little miss sunshine. Perhaps I can find it on Ebay or Amazon.​
 
Good god, is that a doll of the 'Last voyage' brat? LOL!!
It seems every shipwreck film has to have one character to hate- 'The Poseidon Adventure' had Ernest Borgnine's irritaing character (thank god they cut his nude scene), Cameron's Titanic had the quasi psychotic Calendon Hockley- and 'The Last Voyage' had this pint sized shrieking she-demon......
 
Hi Mark, yes, it's on Amazon. You might also find a copy at your local library or through inter-library loan if you don't wanna shell out the bucks without seeing it first.

Bob, you seem to have the best photos!
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Not only that, but exceptionally rare ones! I think my mother had one of these dolls when she was little. It eventually ended up in the electric In-Sink-Erator newly-installed in her kitchen sink. Apparently, the head caused quite a back-up and flooded the house ~ thus ruining the family's 1920's era antiques. Stupid Tammi!

I noticed that newer reproduction versions of the doll come as TMX with a voice box that says "Drown me, you know you want to", "Hit me, I deserve it", and if you shake the life out of her for too long, the voice will laugh and say "Again, again!". Clearly an idea stolen from the Fisher-Price "Stab-Me-Elmo" dolls. A computer chip with extra phrases for her to say was available for awhile. Only seen on eBay now.
 
>The film left me to wonder if paneling or art was saved before the ship was sent to the scrapyard-I wonder if >the extensive upgrade Ile de france experienced in the 1950s resulted in the removal of any of her art deco >fittings....

>It would be a travesty if the Ile de france was sent to the scrapyard with all of her art deco oppulance >intact.....

Some furnishings were removed, but no fittings. Like Jim said, her first-class dining room chairs remained, but the tables were removed...
One exception were the stained-glass windows from the chapel, removed at the request of the grandson of the Comtesse Greffulhe, a patron of the arts of the time who presented the windows to the Ile de France. He had the windows installed in the family's village church.


>Were her staterooms fully furnished when she was scrapped, or had they been picked clean, and the contents auctioned off?

The First Class cabins were used to accommodate cast and crew.
LIFE magazine notes that on their free time, they made hunting trips throughout the ship armed with screwdrivers.

Pretty much nothing of the Ile's pre-war interiors were left after her post-war refit.
 
It's a little-known fact that Tammi Marihugh was actually older than Dorothy Malone, who played her mother. Tammi began her career as a fairground midget in the late 1930s, and graduated to mainstream cinema as a stunt double for various child actors who were deficient in lung power for a screaming scene. Those who recall the dramatic moment in Gone With the Wind in which Rhett and Scarlett's child is seen hurtling towards and then demolishing a 5-bar gate might recognise Tammi in that scene. The Last Voyage was the pinnacle of her career. Then, after 25 years of almost continuous screaming, her voice broke and she could obtain only non-speaking roles, like the sinister but silent midget in Don't Look Now (1973) and the 'chest-busting' embryo in the Aliens films. This brought her to the notice of James Cameron, who cast her as 'Cal's (silently) crying girl' in the collapsible A scene for Titanic. Tammi retired in 1998 but still occasionally takes on guest roles, and was last seen on screen as an Oompa Loompa in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
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Hey Bob, I heard a rumor that Tammi was also drafted early on into playing a Munchkin on the Wizard of Oz set. Don't know if it's true though. Wouldn't that have been difficult since Gone With the Wind was filming at about the same time?

I would have thought a shreiking flying monkey would have been a better placement for her.
 
In fact, Jason, Tammi played all the munchkins, thanks to clever split-screen filming techniques. No problem commuting between sets, as she generally got away with travelling half fare on the buses. Her roles are really too numerous to list, but she is probably best known today for her legendary performance as R2-D2.
 
Does anyone know the year the Ile De France received her 1950s refit? Were her 3 funnels removed and replaced with a duo of larger ones to make her look more modern, or to open up a boiler casing for new room expansion?
She looked MUCH better as a two stacker...

In the film, its as clear as day where the crew used a torch to cut through the forward funnel, and you can see cables from off camera pulling the funnel over...
 
All of the Normandie artwork, reinstalled aboard IdF was removed prior to scrapping. Anywhere you see those Japanese restaurant style murals was once a piece of Normandie salvage.

Bob, the Tammi Marihugh doll will be the hit of Christmas 2007. One of my favorite pieces of Tammi's acting "technique" as demonstrated in The Last Voyage can be seen in her earlier sequences. When she was given the leeway to 'give vent to her entire range' 6 hours into the running time, she was sublimely irritating but at least animated. In her earlier scenes she was very robotic- wind up doll like- with the tendency to look off to the right or left (to where you KNOW her acting coach was hovering) before registering emotion. Bob Stack says "How about another game?" Tammi looks to the left of the camera, focuses on something, then and smiles before saying "Goody."
(You KNOW that what she focused on was her coach, mouthing the word "Smile" while pointing to his or her mouth) I hope the doll comes with genuine Marihueian Delayed Reaction Emotion.
 

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