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Hank had obtained the Burns 12-string some time before the Burns Marvins and Shadows (Marvin) bass were ready. Incidentally - that screenshot of them playing the white Fenders looks great! I don't remember that in the film.

I thought that John owned a white Precision bass anyway, as it is well documented that he preferred playing it whenever he could, as he was never keen on the Burns bass. My thoughts are that two Vox made 'mock ups' were probably used because at some point in the movie they were to explode. They look like props to me too.

I've never heard of John Rostill personally owning a Precision Bass of any colour.

It is well known that he had a Fiesta Red Jazz Bass before he joined the Shadows. There is also a shot of him in the EMI studio (circa 1966) with a sunburst Jazz Bass (that photograph is distinguished by the sight of Hank playing his 1960 Gretsch 6122).

Later on, one of those two Jazz Basses was re-finished in white (a more brilliant hue than Fender's own Olympic White) and John used that bass on the Cliff / Shadows' 1969 tours of the UK and Japan. He was also seen with it on the well-known New Year's Eve 1969 Anglo-German version of TOTP, when Hank, Bruce, Tony Meehan and John mimed to Apache.

Moderne wrote: ... that screenshot of them playing the white Fenders looks great! I don't remember that in the film.

It appears in the nightclub scene, where Johnny is going through the lines with Jenny while his two cohorts are secretly filming them. The Shads are only seen for a couple of seconds so would be easy to miss - I'd give you the timing but I don't have the DVD at present as I lent it to someone yesterday!

Thanks Steve!

Have now located the clip!

(Shads only visible for the first few seconds.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL3bAc5 ... e=youtu.be

Raises the question, who was providing the singing voice for Susan Hampshire? I'm tempted to suggest it may have been Grazina Frame, who performed the same duty for Carole Gray and Laurie Peters, in The Young Ones and Summer Holiday respectively.

I think it's Susan Hampshire singing. There's footage of her singing elsewhere on TV and the voice sounds the same. Also, a year later in 1965, Susan Hampshire released a solo single called When Love Is True.

I too am sure that it is Susan Hampshire singing - miming to her own performance - in that clip.

She was quite a seasoned recording artiste by 1963.

Hear this (from 14 seconds in):

I've only just noticed - more than fifty-two years after the event - that Hank's greenburst Double Six, used in "Wonderful Life", was not the standard article: no scratchplate fitted to the bass-side upper bout.

Another elusive Burns prototype, eh?!