‘Fantasy Island,’ ‘Pearl Harbor’ make use of Shultz’s
consultation, vintage outfits
By Terry Boyd,
Stars and Stripes
Photo
courtesy of Dave Shultz
Maj. Neal Vickery, wearing a vintage
fighter pilot’s Army Air Corps outfit, poses in front of
a P-47 Thunderbolt. |
In the past eight years, Lt. Col. David Shultz has finessed
his hobby — his passion — for collecting World War II-era
equipment into an entrée into military shows, television and
even bigbudget Hollywood movies.
So far, Shultz’s submersion in WWII and-later military
history has led to a consulting gig for the short-lived
revival of the “Fantasy Island” television show, and a job as
an extra in this year’s $120 million re-creation of the 1941
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
He shot three “Pearl Harbor” scenes in 2000 when he was
based at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.
“People ask me, ‘Where are you in the movie?’ And I tell
them, ‘I’d be lucky if I could find myself using freeze
frame.’ ”
If you want to see his screen debut, he says, “see it in
IMAX and use the Hubble Space Telescope, and you might see me,
a millisecond dot on the horizon.”
Still, he got a chance to watch 21st-century technology
conjure up the ghosts from a 50-year-old piece of history.
In one attack scene, Shultz and his fellow extras — fleeing
imaginary Japanese Zeros — portray panicky Good Samaritans
helping a guy entangled in a wrecked jeep. What made it
surreal was shooting an action scene without any real action
over and over again, he said.
“When you’re filming stuff,” he said, “it just doesn’t seem
that exciting. In the final edit, the whole thing lasted two
fast seconds, with explosions, looked totally different! When
you see it with computergenerated Zeros strafing the extras,
you’re reaction is, ‘Wow, this is fantastic.’ ”
He also helped “Pearl Harbor” researchers find rare
pre-WWII film footage in an effort to keep the film as
accurate as possible.
Shultz played a much bigger role as a consultant to
“Fantasy Island” director Les Adler. In the show, a woman,
inspired by her Marine Corps veteran uncle, wanted to
experience World War II combat. Schultz’s job was to ensure
accuracy per military regulations of the day. Although he
expected that he’d be ignored, Shultz said he was surprised to
find instead that Adler made “on-the-spot changes in at least
20 situations where I would say, ‘This isn’t right.’ ”
“Fantasy Island” was part fantasy, part horror show for
Shultz. Although the production of the show used mostly
replica pieces, it used authentic Marine uniforms that Shultz
said were too good to use for war scenes.
“The director was laughing at me because every time they’d
put bullet holes in mint-condition vintage WWII Marine
uniforms, I’d say, ‘Look, this stuff is valuable,” he said.
“Untouched by human hands… and you’re screwing it totally up!’
”
The biggest shows for which he and collaborator Maj. Neal
Vickery have outfitted themselves was the 1998 U.S. Air Forces
in Europe production “A Triumph of Spirit,” a musical about
the Berlin Airlift. The show — with a 60-uniform wardrobe from
Shultz’s and Vickery’s collections — played in Berlin, at
Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany, and at the Air Force Academy in
Colorado Springs.
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