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I was watching Wonderful Life earlier today, and right at the beginning where they are still on the cruise ship, noticed Hank and Bruce (John is only partly in shot) plugging in these strange guitars!

You only see them for a couple of seconds before the power supply blows up; just enough time to take a screen shot.



They look a bit VOX-ish to me.

Yes, they are Vox.

Guess. Movie props, maybe provided by the film company.
The Shadows weren't using red guitars at this time. Wonderful Life was made in the transition from white Fender to white Burns instruments. The numbers featured in the film were recorded in advance before Licorice left and certainly not on Vox guitars.

I assume the props were provided because the boys didn't want to take their white Burns guitars to the film studio just for this short scene, after all they weren't used anywhere else in the film.

The only other time you see the Shads perform is during the On The Beach sequence.



Not a single white Burns in evidence there!

The Shadows are seen "performing" (with white Fender guitars and a Gibson J200) in a restaurant scene in "Wonderful Life".

I think the song was A Matter of Moments.

They're not in-shot very much, but they are there. It may be the only colour footage that exists with the white / tortoiseshell Fenders.

Looking at them again, those red "Vox" guitars could well just be non-working props. The scale-length on each of them looks long enough to be a baritone or six-string bass. And the very compact bridge/trem unit is not a design seen on any Vox guitar on the market.

But the instrument being held by John looks like a standard Vox Symphonic Bass (JMI's cosmetic copy of a Precision Bass, albeit with completely different pickups).

Uncle Fiesta wrote:I assume the props were provided because the boys didn't want to take their white Burns guitars to the film studio just for this short scene, after all they weren't used anywhere else in the film.

They didn't have the Burns gear then. As you can see in your screenshot, John is using what had been Lic's white P-bass on On The Beach

JimN wrote:The Shadows are seen "performing" (with white Fender guitars and a Gibson J200) in a restaurant scene in "Wonderful Life".

I think the song was A Matter of Moments.

They're not in-shot very much, but they are there. It may be the only colour footage that exists with the white / tortoiseshell Fenders.

Quite right Jim, I was able to get a screenshot of that too.



I presume they bought all this gear when they got to Gran Canaria, because they certainly didn't have any of it with them in the lifeboat!

JimN wrote:Looking at them again, those red "Vox" guitars could well just be non-working props. The scale-length on each of them looks long enough to be a baritone or six-string bass. And the very compact bridge/trem unit is not a design seen on any Vox guitar on the market.

But the instrument being held by John looks like a standard Vox Symphonic Bass (JMI's cosmetic copy of a Precision Bass, albeit with completely different pickups).

I also wondered about that ...!

I actually measured the relative scale length of Bruce's guitar on the laptop screen (I really need to get out more!)...and the grey coloured item which is presumably the bridge appears to be positioned correctly relative to the 12th fret, but they look like normal scale guitars to me...and why have both guitars got those small plastic mounting plates with what looks like 3 on-off black slide switches for the pickups? The nearest likely Vox model back then that looks like the guitars was the Soundcaster, which had a Strat type blade switch and three control knobs...and the guitars in the clip only have two knobs...and those cheapo vibrato arm units whereas the Soundcaster had a similar size unit but with a cover and the arm pivoted from the middle....intriguing!

Iain Purdon wrote:

Uncle Fiesta wrote:I assume the props were provided because the boys didn't want to take their white Burns guitars to the film studio just for this short scene, after all they weren't used anywhere else in the film.

They didn't have the Burns gear then. As you can see in your screenshot, John is using what had been Lic's white P-bass on On The Beach

But what about Hank using the green Burns 12 string for the On The Beach segment?