PLASTIC ARMOUR

atlantic

Alpini ww2

All the rest are Hasegawa

talon

In the 1650s, Montreal still had only a few dozen settlers and a severely underpopulated New France almost fell completely to hostile Iroquois forces. In 1660, settler Adam Dollard des Ormeaux led a Canadian and Huron militia against a much larger Iroquois force; none of the Canadians survived, but they succeeded in turning back the Iroquois invasion. In 1663, New France finally became more secure when Louis XIV made it a royal province. In 1665, he sent a French garrison, the Carignan-Salières Regiment, to Quebec. The government of the colony was reformed along the lines of the government of France, with the Governor General and Intendant subordinate to the Minister of the Marine in France. In 1665, Jean Talon was sent by Minister of the Marine Jean-Baptiste Colbert to New France as the first Intendant. These reforms limited the power of the Bishop of Quebec, who had held the greatest amount of power after the death of Champlain

joseph frobisher

Frobisher, Joseph (1740-1810), fur-trader, was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, England, on April 15, 1740. He appears to have followed his brother Benjamin to Canada, and to have first gone to the West in 1768. It is known that he made an attempt to pass beyond Grand Portage in 1769, but was turned back by the Indians. The statement is made in the McDonell diary, under date of September 4, 1793, that he wintered on the Red river in 1770-1; but this statement is open to doubt. Certainly he reached the Saskatchewan in 1773, with his brother Thomas; and spent the winter near the site of what afterwards became Fort Cumberland. In 1774-5 he wintered on the Athabaska river, in the hope of cutting off the fur-rade from Fort Churchill, and nearly perished of starvation. He was an original member of the North West Company in 1779; and he became one of its great figures. On the death of his brother Benjamin in 1787, he joined forces with Simon McTavish, to form McTavish, Frobisher and Co., which was for many years the virtual directorate of the North West Company. He retired from business in 1798, and lived at his place, Beaver Hall, in Montreal. He represented the East Ward of Montreal in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada from 1792 to 1796; and he died in Montreal on September 12, 1810. In 1779 he married Charlotte Joubert, of Montreal. His letter-book and his "Diary of my dinners" are preserved in the Library of McGill University.

Etienne Brule

gibson bond figures

60's

marx famous canadians

Sir Guy Carleton

CARLETON, Sir Guy, LOAD DORCHESTER, British soldier, born in Strabane, Ireland, 3 September, 1724; died in Maidenhead, 10 November, 1808. He greatly distinguished himself at the sieges of Louisburg, Quebec, and Belle Isle, and was wounded at the siege of Havana in 1762. In 1772 he became governor of Quebec, which he defended against the American army in December, 1775. He commanded the army that invaded New York in 1776, and fought a battle against Arnold on Lake Champlain. In 1777, on the nomination of Burgoyne to the command, he threw up his commission, but was appointed the same year lieutenant-general, and in 1781 appointed commander-in-chief in place of Sir Henry Clinton. When peace was concluded in 1783 he returned to England and was raised to the peerage.--His brother, Thomas, British soldier, born in 1736; died in Ramsgate, England, 2 February, 1817. He was appointed an ensign in Wolfe's regiment in 1755, became a captain in 1759, was brevetted major in 1773. appointed quartermaster-general of the army in Canada in November, 1775, lieutenant colonel of the 19th regiment in 1776, and colonel of the 29th on 20 November, 1782.
He was wounded in the naval conflict with Arnold on Lake Champlain in 1776.
When New Brunswick, previously a county of Nova Scotia, was organized as a separate province in 1784, he was appointed lieutenant governor of the new colony, and at the same time governor and commander-in-chief of Nova Scotia and Canada, taking the oath of office on 16 August, 1784. In 1786 he was superseded as governor-general of British North America, but retained the office of lieutenant governor of New Brunswick until his death. He resided in the colony continuously for nineteen years, and then went to England with the intention of returning at the end of two years, but remained there, the government being carried on for fourteen years by eight administrators. He was advanced to the rank of major general in the army in 1793, lieutenant-general in 1798, and genera.1 in 1803.

STARLUX AND FILM the battle for algiers

Few fictional films look more like documentary than Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers, and very few indeed which have this kind of socio-political structure and recount old, half-forgotten conflicts have achieved such lasting fame. Pontecorvo never managed to repeat the trick, though Queimada!, for which he hired Marlon Brando to play a British agent sent to the Caribbean to stir up rebellion against the Portuguese, was at least a partial success three years later. (writes Derek Malcom)

chota sahib

The Battle of Algiers, however, remains the basis of Pontecorvo's fame - a model of how, without prejudice or compromise, a film-maker can illuminate history and tell us how we repeat the same mistakes. In fact, this study of the Algerian guerrilla struggle against the French colonialists in the 50s ought to be looked at not just as pure cinema but as a warning to those who seek by force to crush independence movements.

chota sahib

We know, of course, that Algeria was eventually liberated from the French, but Pontecorvo relegates that to an epilogue. He concentrates instead on the years between 1954 and 1957 when the freedom fighters regrouped and expanded into the casbah, only to face a systematic attempt by French paratroopers to wipe them out. His highly dramatic film is about the organisation of a guerrilla movement and the methods used to decimate it by the colonial power.

chota sahib

Its stance is as fair as any such film could be, despite the fact that Pontecorvo was a member of the Italian communist party at the time and thus was implicitly on the side of the independence movement. There is, though, no caricature and no glamorisation of either side - just a feeling of palpable horror evoked by urgent images and Ennio Morricone's dramatic but never melodramatic score. Pontecorvo sees the colonialists as victims of their own system, and the rebels as taking on some of the excesses used against them.

starlux

In one scene, a group of ordinary people, French and Algerian, are enjoying coffee and conversation near the casbah when a rebel bomb explodes among them. The shock of this sequence is even worse than the scenes of the French using torture.

starlux

The film is preceded by a message from the film-maker stating that "not one foot" of newsreel footage was used, but Marcello Gatti's grainy, black-and-white camera work in the actual locations of the struggle, and the pioneering use of a hand-held camera for the crowd scenes, makes it seem as if events are being recorded as they occur. The mixture of amateurs and professionals in the cast works admirably too.




In a way this is all cheating, and Pontecorvo once received as much criticism as praise. The left wanted more commitment to the rebel cause; the right complained that there was too much objectivity. Now, however, The Battle of Algiers is regarded as the precursor of films such as Francesco Rosi's Salvatore Giuliano and Costa-Gavras's Z - a film that allows its viewers to re-examine their own attitudes towards their times while making it clear that no one can prevent the march of history.

The film, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Festival, was banned in France for some time and the torture scenes were cut from versions distributed in Britain and America. It can now be seen whole and is often shown as a model to those who wish to make either fiction or docudrama.

Credits



Writer-director Gillo Pontecorvo



Starring Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi



Original music Ennio Morricone

NEW PLASTIC

New pieces from Canè

The Turk Menace and canè

these briliant turks by canè are back on the market after being off of it for years but theres only limited sets available

new soldiers in resin by italian jopickelaube are also on the market

Italian ww2

Not really plastic but made from Paste . This is a Nardi ww2 Italian in Africa before the real business got going.Below is a uniform that was on show at Novegro the Italian toy soldier happening

Nardi

I have no idea who did these Bersaglieri but they look pretty good

The union soldiers are Nardi

MILESTONES

If Toy soldier collecting ever becomes intellectualised then that will come about from certain milestone production that goes beyond some middle aged drips playing with  Fisher Price pirate boats in the bath. The Atlantic company of Italy produced maybe the most visionistic set of soldiers maybe ever done.

These communists of Mao were very unusual and if we think of the amount of times a really adventurous subject has been done then we are left with the Atlantic company and hardly anyone else.

The other company that has done something like this is KING AND COUNTRY with their Gestapo set but that didn't go down well with the TOY SOLDIER Magazine , the same magazine that accepts ads saying "Napalm , I love the smell of Napalm in the morning". How many young children were burnt by Napalm in Nam. That was really offensive but the Gestapo thing was just a straight retelling of the real events of World War Two. The Toy Soldier Magazine offered no return of opinion when I called their bluff on this crap. Their critique of King and Country was totally Hip hop as in IP-O-Crit-Ti-KALL dude.

But there you go, I've never known would be moralists who were truly moral.

The Nazi, Mao. The Russian revolution. another great moment by Atlantic

UNKNOWN ITALIAN

cheap pieces to rework into something good

These pieces are crap agreed but think what you can do with some Green stuff.

ATLANTIC

if you are a true collector instead of a 54mm plastic wargamer then the Atlantic eygptian set is a must . It was one of those sets that created a milestone in the plastics fraternity of model soldiers. The whole set boxed now costs at least 100 pounds even in Italy but seperate pieces are cheap.

xiloplasto

this was a 1961 production by xiloplasto to celebrate the 100 years of garibaldi

Marines

The Atlantic Marines were one of their best efforts

EUROPEAN PLASTICS

new ottomans

new italian plastics from jopilaube

dulcop

dulcop lives on its still alive and well in bologna italy.it produced some very good but a lot of rubbish plastic. this was not one of their best

john o'brien plastic conversion