Beneath Hill 60 (2010) on Netflix
In 1916, Australian miner Oliver Woodward leaves Marjorie Waddell to join the Western Front. He is commissioned to lead the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, mining beneath the German lines.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.0/109,308 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Trailer
Plot summary
Oliver Woodward mines copper in Australia for the war effort. He courts Marjorie Waddell, a woman ten years younger than he is, and her father keeps pressing him to enlist. The British Army raises the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company to support the Royal Engineers, and Woodward is given command of the unit. In May 1916 he is thirty feet under the Western Front near Armentières, where he meets Frank Tiffin, a young soldier shaken by shell shock. From there the company's war is fought underground, in tunnels driven toward the German positions and filled with explosives meant to help the British advance.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Beneath Hill 60 (2010)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Actor Hugo Weaving showed interest in participating and was offered the role of Oliver Woodward, but ultimately declined due to his claustrophobia; the role went to Brendan Cowell in a decision driven by that actor's experience and numerous accolades.
- Ross J. Thomas, a mining engineer and historian, met producer Bill Leimbach and quickly convinced him that the story of Captain Oliver Woodward and the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company was a story crying out to be told; Thomas knew Woodward's descendants in Melbourne, who agreed to have his diaries adapted into a screenplay.
- Actor Hugh Jackman gave the production team part of a set from a World War I scene in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a film Jackman had starred in and produced.
- The production did not dig real tunnels for the underground scenes: doing so would have proved logistically impossible and posed a high level of risk to the cast and crew.
