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Gibraltar in popular culture

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Gibraltar in popular culture

Below are examples of Gibraltar in popular culture.

Contents

Film

  • In the film The Captain's Paradise, Alec Guinness plays the captain of a ship that travels between Gibraltar and Morocco.
  • The film The Silent Enemy was filmed on location in Gibraltar in 1958. It is a dramatisation of the period during the Second World War when Lionel "Buster" Crabb served as a mine and disposal officer in Gibraltar while frogmen of the Italian Navy's Tenth Light Flotilla were sinking vital shipping.
  • The 1982 film Tangiers is partly set in Gibraltar.
  • The opening scene of the film The Living Daylights (from the James Bond film series) takes place in Gibraltar.
  • In the German-language film Das Boot, a German U-boat struggles in its attempt to get past the British navy in Gibraltar to relocate to a base in the Mediterranean sea.
  • In the 1981 animated feature film Heavy Metal, in the section entitled Den, the character of Katherine Wells states that she is a native of Gibraltar.
  • The popular BBC 1990s TV show The Detectives, has an episode set in Gibraltar and features a ride in the cable car.
  • In the 2011 movie The Muppets a shot of The Rock of Gibraltar appears during the Travel by Map scene.
  • In the animated shorts of Popeye the Rock of Gibraltar appears in both Popeye's throat and biceps after eating spinach.

    • Literature

  • Stieg Larsson's novel The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest has several chapters set in Gibraltar.
  • Anthony Burgess's novel A Vision of Battlements (1965), chronicling the troubled love-life of the British soldier Richard Ennis, is set in Gibraltar.
  • The satirical novel Gil Braltar by Jules Verne (1887) describes an almost successful attack of the monkeys on the fortress.
  • "The Day of an American Journalist in 2889", an 1889 Jules Verne short story, also mentions Gibraltar as the last territory of a British Empire, with even Great Britain having been annexed by the United States.
  • Mark Twain describes a stop at Gibraltar and comments on it in "The Innocents Abroad", an account of his pilgrimage to the holy land.
  • Raffles' Crime in Gibraltar by Barry Perowne, a Sexton Blake story set in Gibraltar in 1937 (U.S. title: They Hang Them in Gibraltar).
  • Scruffy by Paul Gallico is set on Gibraltar during World War II. It follows the steady decline in the size of the macaque colony and the possible fulfilment of the superstition that Gibraltar will fall if it disappears.
  • As Molly Bloom is a native Gibraltarian, references to Gibraltar appear throughout James Joyce's Ulysses (1922). A sculpture of Molly Bloom as imagined by local artist Jon Searle is on display in the Alameda Gardens.
  • Arthur C. Clarke's novel The Fountains of Paradise mentions the 'Gibraltar Bridge', a novel infrastructure connecting Europe and Africa.
  • John Masters' book The Rock is a collection of short stories set in Gibraltar: ranging from a story set in prehistoric times to one suggesting a possible future for the Rock.
  • In Maud Hart Lovelace's book Betsy and the Great World, the heroine goes on a cruise to Europe and makes a stop at Gibraltar, where she learns about its history and legends, and goes shopping.
  • Raymond Benson's James Bond novel Doubleshot deals with a fictional plot to forcibly return Gibraltar to Spain. The climax takes place in Gibraltar.
  • Vicente Blasco Ibáñez's Luna Benamor tells the story of an impossible love story between a Spanish diplomat and a Gibraltarian woman of Jewish descent, Luna Benamor.
  • In James Barrington's novel Overkill, a Russian ship containing a nuclear device is left in the Port of Gibraltar by a Russian politician as a 'demonstration'. The device is dismantled by SAS forces.
  • In Anthony Horowitz's novel, Scorpio Rising, an identical copy of Alex Rider, the protagonist, is being held in a secret prison on Gibraltar.

    • Music

  • In 1782 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed a fragment for voice and piano to celebrate the Great Siege of Gibraltar titled Bardengesang auf Gibraltar: O Calpe! Dir donnert's am Fusse.
  • The Beatles' song "The Ballad of John & Yoko" identifies Gibraltar as the place where John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married.
  • "In time Gibraltar may tumble" is found in the lyrics of the song, "Our Love is Here to Stay", written by George and Ira Gershwin in 1938 for the movie The Goldwyn Follies.
  • Amos Lee sings "I'm like the rock of Gibraltar" in his song "Sweet Pea".
  • Jason Mraz sings "Why don't you tell me about the sunsets in Sweden and the laws of Eden / And how you were the rock of Gibraltar" in the song "Zero Percent" from his 2001 album "Live & Acoustic".
  • English rapper Example references Gibraltar in his song "Something in the Water".
  • Edwin McCain's song titled "The Rhythm of Life" contains the lyrics "Fragile as ships as we pass through Gibraltar / The sirens have all given way".
  • Celine Dion's song "Miles to go (before I sleep)" contains the lyric "I would carry the rock of Gibraltar just for you".
  • The song 'On the Run from Mi5' by Arctic Monkeys contains the lyric "And I'll say if you catch me that I really wish that I had stayed (in Gibraltar)".
  • the Swedish indie rock band the radio dept has a song named Gibraltar
  • Elvis Presley's song "I Believe in the Man in the Sky" includes the lyrics, "My footsteps may falter / My eyes may grow dim / But He's my Gibralter / I'm trusting in Him."

    • References

    Gibraltar in popular culture Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA