Tuesday 11 September 2012

STAR WARS AT 35: KITCHEN-SINK DRAMA


In her version of a Habitat kitchen within the Lars Homestead (designed by John Barry), Aunt Beru (played with quiet but warm dignity by the late Shelagh Fraser), gets a milky brew ready for her husband Owen and their adopted son Luke in this brief deleted scene from the original STAR WARS filmed in April 1976. The set would be re-built with almost exact authenticity for Beru's later, well...earlier, appearance in EPISODE II.


With thanks to Chris Baker for the above image.

Below is a close-up look at the Beru Kitchen set at Elstree Studios in April 1976, courtesy of Continuity Polaroids from the original film's Script Supervisor, Ann Skinner, which were showcased as part of a special exhibition at London's BFI in late 2014.



One image not seen in the exhibition, but held in the BFI's Special Collection, shows the actual dining table for the Sidi Driss location used for the Lars dining area sequence, bearing a circular food dish holding a brown pizza or casserole-like substance and several smaller dishes, plastic Tupperware, blue milk cups and a container.

Skinner's hand written costume notes for Beru reveal that she wears a wedding ring, and that her outfit is "blue sachet with pink collar". In Skinner's early 1976 character notes based from a pre-shooting script, she describes her as a "Warm, motherly woman. Luke's Aunt."

With thanks to Ann Skinner and the BFI.

No comments: