When two enemy pilots shoot each other down over Ireland they are both captured as prisoners of war. During World War II neutral Ireland interned all soldiers, sailors and airmen, regardless of their nationality, captured on Irish soil. What they failed to mention was that they would put them all in the same camp.
Our pilots, Miles (Bill Campbell) and Rudi (Angus McFadyen) are astonished to come face to face with each other at the entrance to the internment camp. Further surprises are in store as they discover that Commandant O'Brien (Gabriel Byrne) allows the prisoners out on day passes. They can enjoy a drink at the pub or a day at the races as long as they sign out agreeing not to escape.
Tensions are already rife in this extraordinary camp but when a stunning girl catches the eye of both men nothing can contain their mutual distrust and hatred - but Mattie (Jean Butler of Riverdance) has a profound effect on these arch rivals and forces them to confront their perceptions of what an enemy really is.
Based on real-life events, The Brylcreem Boys brings an unusual chapter in Irish History into the present with a highly enjoyable mix of romance, humour and adventure.

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Film Clip Available

Sketch view of the main camp.

The camp was built on a disused and virtually empty barracks on the Isle of Man where we were able to make use of a few existing structures in the background. Everything looking in towards the camp was shot here, but the views looking out of the camp were not possible because of some modern structures at this location. We built a matching set of entrance gates out in the countryside, selected for its beauty and representation of rural Ireland,( see next picture) which both got around the problem view of modern buildings looking out from the main camp, and gave the story the sense of place in Ireland.

While greatly helping the visual quality of the film, particularly as this set was literally pivotal between the inside and the outside of the camp, it necessitated scheduling shooting parts of the same scenes on completely different days at each of the two locations.
I believe it is hard to tell when watching the film that these sequences are inter cut with material that was both miles apart at shot at very different times.

All of the fencing is real barbed wire, except for the sections where actors had to climb it.

The German side was supposed to look much neater than the British side.

As you can see from the photo on the right, not all of the huts were built completely, this was for budgetery reasons, knowing that we would never be shooting from this end of the camp ( from the angle of the photograph) so why waste the money building them?

You can also see from the plan view above that the partial "L" shaped huts got progressively smaller the further they were from the main camera positions in the parade areas. As the line-of-sight from the parade area gets more accute the further away you look, the less you need of those objects in the distance.