Touring Valletta as a film-set

No less than 150 films were shot in Malta and it is now possible to know more about at least 20 of them in a two-hour walking tour of Valletta, explains Noel Grima:

..the Malta Union of Tourist Guides celebrated World Tourist Guides’ Day by launching a new theme tour entitled “Movie Moments”. The tour was created by Pat Flores Martin and offers participants the opportunity to see the streets of Valletta through the eyes of the “Dream Merchants”. This is only one of four tours that have recently been created and which are proving quite successful both with conference organisers and tour operators. The others are “Sex and the City”, all about Valletta’s seamier side and past, the “Gardens of Floriana” and “Underneath Vittoriosa”.

The tour starts off at City Gate, near the Phoenicia Hotel where The Malta Story was shot. City Gate and Valletta in general stood in for Montevideo in Battle on the River Plate. Up to the Upper Barrakka and down in the ditch one can see where scenes of Midnight Express were filmed, apart from Fort St Elmo. The Maltese extras in that film spoke ordinary Maltese but this was thought to be Turkish by audiences. Oliver Stone later had to apologise to the Turkish nation.

Across the sea on the Vittoriosa waterfront, scenes were shot of Cutthroat Island and The Count of Monte Cristo. Cutthroat Island can be called the pre-sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean but it was a big financial flop: it cost $100 million and only grossed $10. Apart from the Vittoriosa waterfront, the Count of Monte Cristo was also shot in Mdina’s main square, at enormous cost since the square had to be returned to the Middle Ages and residents were paid Lm50 to remove their television aerials for just one day.

The Mdina main square was also the venue for Roman Polanski’s Pirates with Walter Matthau in 1972. It took two whole days to shoot a scene of the square as a slave market but only two seconds were shown in the film. Down to the Victoria Gate, up whose steps ran the children in 1963’s Treasure in Malta. Actually, the whole of Malta was one film set then, as the treasure was found in the end at the Calypso Cave in Gozo. One unknown boy actor in that film, Mark Lester, attained international stardom the next year in Oliver, with Oliver Reed, about whom later.

Just round the corner from the Victoria Gate is the British Hotel, which stood in for a Greek hotel in Munich. Inside the building Mossad agents met with Palestinian ones without pre-knowledge on either side. The next morning the Palestinians were butchered by KGB agents. Across the sea once again in Dockyard Creek, another key scene was shot in Munich (apart from the Sliema promenade) when frogmen invaded a girl’s party and shot at anybody in sight. Ironically, film crews always say they come to work in Malta because it is safe here!..

..The first version of Casino Royale was shot in Malta in 1960 with Cilla Black; the music later used for Born Free was originally written for this film. Peter Sellers, Woody Allen and David Niven took part in this film. David Niven had lived in Malta when he was in the army and worked at Montgomery House in Floriana. He was later to write that the period he spent in Malta in the British Army was the only time he did anything for humanity.

Sometimes it can be somewhat disconcerting for a Maltese to watch a film shot in Malta because different parts of Malta come up as if they match when in fact they are distant from each other. A case in point is in the Count of Monte Cristo when the actors dive into the sea near the Siege Bell and come up smooching at the Azure Window. Up St Ursola Street one remembers that residents were not allowed to leave their houses for days at a stretch while Munich was being shot, and at last the tour ends at Ollie’s last pub. Oliver Reed had first come to Malta when he was shooting Cutthroat Island...

New historical tour